Sara Holbrook author/poet/educator
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
April 20, 2007
This was such a sad week — I was in a hotel all last week where the story of the killings at Virginia Tech dominated my room in a constant moan, continuing after I had turned off the news. Even the walls were weeping. So tragic, words fail. And the bloodiest week in Iraq. Too
March 15, 2007
I remember when my daughter Kelly was getting married, her husband to be, Brian, wasn’t all that thrilled about going with her to pick out china patterns and such. But he was emphatic about her not going alone because he was afraid he would wake up the day after the honeymoon sleeping on ruffled
March 7, 2007
First of all — I LOVE when teachers have kids think of questions for the author in advance. Of course we NEVER stick to the questions on the index cards, but it gets kids to thinking beyond what kind of car do I drive and did it hurt to get my ears pierced. Pre-thinking makes
March 2, 2007
Ever go looking for one image and find another? I’ve had that happen countless times with poetry — I start out writing about one subject and it twists and turns and backflips into something totally different. Photography is supposed to be more straight forward. Point and shoot. Right?
Not when there’s a joker in
February 28, 2007
Writing is a team sport. I know we don’t mostly think of it that way, but what is a piece of writing without an audience? This realization came back to me as I read at Fremd this week. Tony Romano, one of the English teachers at the school and a very soon (April) to be
February 27, 2007
He says he was a geek in school — not athletic or a band member. He thought he would become a poet to make himself stand out, carrying heavy books under his arm to enhance his biceps. He wore costumes. Finally after posing as a poet for some time, he decided he would actually try