Sara Holbrook author/poet/educator
June 26, 2007
Everyday I read the Huffington Post the way my Dad used to read the Free Press in Detroit. Today I read that some high school scholars took Bush to task for his stance on torture, that politicians take money from big tobacco (like this is news?) and that Murdock is close to firming up his
June 25, 2007
Our family flows toward the Atlantic each summer with our rafts, sunscreen and spawn. We go there to study our familial three R’s, to relax, reconnect and recollect. Memories of past trips to the beach are filed in my head going back to when I used to hide True Story magazines under
June 9, 2007
Everything in NYC is bigger, faster, brighter. After a day’s work in Brooklyn, Louisa, Kelly and I supped at a little Italian (yummy) place and went to see Spring Awakening, which would later sweep the Tony Awards. Here’s the truth — I didn’t love it. I liked it. But I wanted to LOVE it.
June 2, 2007
Just back from a Janet Allen Institute in Florida. The skies were blanketed heavily with what looked to be rain clouds but turned out to be clouds of smoke. Florida is on fire, and you can smell it everywhere, even in the hotel room. Made me add a line to a poem
May 19, 2007
Once a year reading teachers from all over gather at the International Reading Association meeting — this year in an attempt to fulfill its name, the conference was moved across the border to Toronto — a town with great theater, efficient public transportation and terrific restaurants that just happens to be in Canada. I wish
May 10, 2007
Arise then…women of this day!Arise, all women who have hearts!Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!Say firmly:“We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,For caresses and applause.Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearnAll that we have been able to teach
May 9, 2007
It’s that time of year when every kid, teacher, custodian and fraying folder starts crying RECESS. Summer break is breathing hot and heavy on the other side of June 1st and everyone wants to answer the call. Assemblies are restless, teachers are checking their watches and writing workshops slip (skip?)into silliness without even mentioning underwear.
May 2, 2007
Yesterday at an elementary school came this question from a fifth grader, “have you ever written a poem about the idiot president?”
Excuse me?
He smiled impishly. A few around him proclaimed the Bush to be the greatest president of all time (all time to a nine-year-old is a somewhat limited perspective.)
May 1, 2007
The eighth graders were restless this afternoon. Every poem inspired a volley of verbal fire with the cannons to the right of them, cannons to the left. Not at all sure that I was connecting with any of the 250 of them crowded onto the library floor. Questions and answers went better
April 22, 2007
Yesterday, I read an article in the Washington Post that said that the Justice Department is conducting a probe of a $6 billion reading initiative at the center of NCLB on allegations of financial conflicts — meaning people on the committee chose their own programs despite weak or non existant research on the capabilities of