On the Writing of 500 Poems On April 1, 2013, I wrote the first poem I would everpublish as a blog post. Today, eleven years and fourteen days later, I write my 500th poemon the occasionof having written 500poems in eleven years. This doesn’t seem like nothing, but I know somepoets who have written aContinue reading “#500: On the Writing of 500 Poems”
Tag Archives: William Stafford
#497: Does a potato grow in coastal clime?
Some explanation is in order. Today’s prompt on the glorious NaPoWriMo website is to play with sound, particularly with rhyme. Additionally, the prompt comes with further instructions to find ten specific types of words to begin with, and then to create a bank of rhyming words for those initial ten. I want to create myContinue reading “#497: Does a potato grow in coastal clime?”
A Journal of the Plague Year: #3
Number of cases of coronavirus in Oregon: 75. Number of Oregon deaths from the virus: 3. Number of student contact days lost thus far: 3. Number of student contact days expected to be lost, as of this moment: 27. Number of educational hours potentially lost: approximately 175. Number of plans in place (or announced) for remote schooling: 0. NumberContinue reading “A Journal of the Plague Year: #3”
#347: A Prose Poem Meditation on the Penultimate Day of National Poetry Month by the American English Teacher in His Potentially Penultimate Professional Year, Ending in a Rhyming Couplet
The natives are restless, the 9th graders are rowdy, won’t stop talking, interrupt almost every teacher phrase with chatter, and because my intern has the class, I am completely unruffled. It’s the penultimate day of National Poetry Month and this is my penultimate poem in prose in the April of my potentially penultimate school yearContinue reading “#347: A Prose Poem Meditation on the Penultimate Day of National Poetry Month by the American English Teacher in His Potentially Penultimate Professional Year, Ending in a Rhyming Couplet”
#289: A Poem Composed On the Fly Using Voice-to-Text a Few Miles Above the Old Church in Wilsonville Before a Gig
I am no Wordsworth, but I’m on the way to a gig playing drums with Brian and I was thinking about that poem, you know the one, the one he writes about how lovely everything is around Tintern Abbey while he’s walking and thinking about his sister. It’s a beautiful poem. One of my favorites.Continue reading “#289: A Poem Composed On the Fly Using Voice-to-Text a Few Miles Above the Old Church in Wilsonville Before a Gig”
#223: A Course in Silence
My sophomores and I are studying the poetry of William Stafford and, as is inevitable in a study of poetry, at least from my perspective, we are also writing poems. An exercise slightly more open-ended than the corruption assignment, is to simply take inspiration from our man Stafford, either by attempting, as he did forContinue reading “#223: A Course in Silence”
#222: Why I Am Happy
Poet and teacher of mine from a long way back, Peter Sears, taught me about a thing called poetry by corruption, whereby you, the writer, take a poem that you like and just simply and with impunity steal things from it, or, steal it wholesale except for some words or phrases you’ve blanked out from theContinue reading “#222: Why I Am Happy”
The Audio Book Experience: Musings on Being Read To and Reading Out Loud
I have never been much of an audiobook kind of guy. I like reading. I’ve always felt a kind of snobbery about the audiobook, as if somehow the actual reading of text on a page and making all of the voices and inflections and imagery happen in one’s head is a more rigorous endeavor, thatContinue reading “The Audio Book Experience: Musings on Being Read To and Reading Out Loud”
#73: Unstuck In Time (Don’t Know Much About History)
The student reading a William Stafford poem mistakes the 1930’s for The Civil War in America—when, you know, there were electric elevators. The first impulse, if only inside of a thought bubble, is to make fun, but the second, more reflective response is a deep sadness. The kid is unstuck in time and unstuck inContinue reading “#73: Unstuck In Time (Don’t Know Much About History)”
michael jarmer 