Sara Holbrook author/poet/educator
March 15, 2006
Jammers from Puxi perform a poem for four voices. Missing in the student poetry are poems about street crime (as so many are in the USA). Maybe because there is virtually no street crime in Shanghai beyond a pick pocket here and there and even that is rare compared to other large cities.
March 15, 2006
You wouldn’t believe this campus. It is like a luxury community college state side. The staff and kids are all very dedicated to learning, you get that feeling just walking through the halls. A big highlight from my four day visit there was the poetry jam hosted by the middle school where
March 15, 2006
Poetry Jammers from the International School at Tianjin. After they finished performing my poetry, I asked them if they knew what the next step was. “Why, you need to write and perform your own poems.” And I know they will.
March 14, 2006
A normal school day. Or so it would seem. Up at 6AM, shower, eat breakfast as fast as possible and catch the bus. Looking out the window however (at everything except the traffic, see previous post) not much seems normal to me. First of all, it’s cold, Fahrenheit or Celsius, however
March 14, 2006
Imagine a city with the population of the State of Ohio. Forget it. You can’t imagine it. Even when you see it, you can’t imagine it. Now that I am home, I have trouble believing all that I saw. But you know what came through amazingly clear? The people
March 14, 2006
A construction wall appropriate since all of Shanghai seems to be under construction!
March 14, 2006
“Evil travels in a straight line” Ancient Chinese saying — which is why the bridges are arched and the path leading to this ancient home is zig zagged. Love that phrase, evil travels in a straight line. Boy, does it.
March 14, 2006
Dedicated teachers from Afghanistan.
March 14, 2006
The TARA conference sponsored two teachers from Afghanistan to attend. The challenges they described were overwhelming. Lack of electricity, working facilities and low funding all caused by continuing wars in the region. The limited number of trained teachers are working to instruct “trainers” who in turn instruct “mentors” who are the ones
March 14, 2006
Chasing camels in the desert in a hotel minivan hardly qualifies as adventure in the National Geographic sense. However, when it leads to actually petting one and exchanging smiles with his handler, that’s pretty adventurous for a poet from Cleveland.
A visit to the Oil museum shows that this barren area was