Sara Holbrook author/poet/educator
September 6, 2013
I was so excited that Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell chose my poem to illustrate a brochure about their fabulous resource, The Poetry Friday Anthology. In case you haven’t heard about it, it contains 36 poems for each elementary grade level so teachers can introduce a new poem every Friday all year
September 4, 2013
WHAT’S REAL?
Pictured between reruns
and what commercials want to
sell,
explodes another war
in some far place
that I can’t spell.
To me,
war appears as broken bodies
burning buildings
and smoking gas,
interrupted by
September 1, 2013
It was a winter day in the late seventies. I had been struggling with the joyless parts of stay at home mothering and not particularly well. I wasn’t fitting in with my new neighbors, the junior women’s club, or
the corporate wives’ club. I didn’t play
bridge that well and I never could manage
July 10, 2013
Poetry is a way to express feelings.
Poetry rhymes, it’s for girls, it’s boring.
It’s too hard!
Writing poetry is not part of the new standards, no can do.
I like reading poetry, but I’m no poet.
Poetry is something we do after the testing, so can you
March 24, 2013
Is artistic talent inborn or can we cultivate it? I have always of an artist as one who
envisions what wasn’t there before and, through knowledge and experience, makes
it happen. In an article I wrote years
ago, The Poet as Patriot (Journal of Children’s Literature, v23 n2 p42-46 Fall
1997),
February 9, 2013
I first met Principal Seamus Marriott and his wife
Theresa in Wisconsin at a Walloon Institute and later traveled to work at his school
in Shanghai, then in Cairo, and most recently in Balikpapan. Not only did he
invite us to great locations, he helped us plan side trips, introduced into
other schools,
February 6, 2013
Ever look out at the sliders, swingers and tag players on a
lively playground and think, what a bunch
of monkeys?
At the International School of Rumbai, playground monkeys
are not just metaphorical. The school’s
campus, carved from the jungle by an oil company (now
February 3, 2013
Coming around again to something brand new is traveling to a
foreign port and being met by familiar faces.
Didn’t we meet before in Seoul?
Didn’t we have dinner in Kota Kinabalu? I remember you from Cairo!
Michael and I
January 6, 2013
When Michael Salinger and I were teaching in Morocco, we were introduced to a new fashion trend. Teen girls were wearing the shortest of short shorts over tights and patterned stockings. They obviously had studied the student handbook, which probably said “no bare legs up to your bum” or some such language, and
January 1, 2013
I recently wrote on a friend’s Facebook wall, joking about emotional displays in public, that I had thrown up while watching Bonnie and Clyde. True story, no flu symptoms.
I have no trouble suspending disbelief in a movie. If someone sets a table for tea, I