I snitched this from Dewey, who got it from Elaina:
To the Woman (We Think You’re a Teacher) with the Books on the 2 TrainI like it, I like it! Thanks, Dewey!
By some anonymous students
On the platform for the 2 train
you stand with a book in your hand
the pages open
Which is how you enter the train
Reading
Sometimes you smile, or frown
Once you even cried
on the train
when you were reading Night
and a man sitting across the aisle
said he cried too, when he read that book
and we thought,
we want to read that book
so we did
And then you were reading all those
basketball books
by Walter Dean Myers
so we read those too
speeding along on the 2 train
one time you saw us reading Slam
and you said
I love that book
and do you think Slam is going to make it in high
school?
We do, we think he’s going to make it
Then you were reading some really hard stuff
Epistemology of the Closet, Postmodern Narrative
Theory
and we tried those, but we think you have to have read
the books those authors have read, if you want to read
their books
Our favorite is when you are reading poetry
Picnic, Lightning
and you lean back against the seat
and smile
and keep reading the same page
again and again
we do that now and it’s really nice
Last week you were reading The Life of Pi
and we rushed out to buy it
So we could be in the lifeboat
adrift in the blue, blue sea
with the boy, the Bengal Tiger, and you
If we don’t see you next year
on the train
Maybe sometime we’ll bump into each other on the
platform
You’ll know us because
we’ll have books in our hands
Oh this is wonderful! I love it. I remember, as a student who caught the train to college, I always liked to people watch, see what they were up to and, most importantly, what they were reading.
ReplyDeleteVery impressive!
ReplyDeleteI like this one too, Bonnie! I see your NANO totals are ahead of schedule, way to go girl!
ReplyDeleteFantastic poem! I'm going to print it out and use it in my classroom. Each day I make copies of a poem, pass them out to my students, and read it out loud while they follow along. I think they'll love it!
ReplyDeleteBonnie, are you okay? There seems to have been no blogging activity for a long while - or are you just very busy with NaNo? Do so hope all is well.
ReplyDeletexxx
Absolute Vanilla wrote this comment on my previous post:
ReplyDelete"Bonnie, are you okay? There seems to have been no blogging activity for a long while - or are you just very busy with NaNo? Do so hope all is well."
Then she signed off with this: "xxx"
Isn't she sweet? Here's my response:
Never fear, dear Vanilla, all is well. Actually, I have been blogging like mad, here, on my NaNo blog for this year...
http://nanowrimo-2008.blogspot.com/
...and monitoring and writing on the forum for the Chattanooga Region of Nano, which already has 17 threads, here:
http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/1032857
According to the statistics that accompany my user name wherever it goes on the NaNoWriMo site, I have written 71 posts, so far.
Though these two writing projects amount to many, many words, the real BIGGIE is, of course, the NaNoWriMo project itself. Today is the exact middle of the month of November (NaNo month) and before the end of the day I expect to have completed 25,000 words of the 50,000 word goal for all Wrimos. Yay, me!
Do you suppose I've done enough writing in two weeks to exempt me from posting here as well? Ah, but my friends need to know I'm doing well ... it's just that I'm not doing it here.
Sorry. I still love you all. Oh, one more thing ... two of my grandchildren got married in October and the one whose wedding was out of town had a reception here in Chattanooga a week ago. I went. (Until I wrote this for Vanilla, I hadn't realized how busy I've been!)
Love to all,
~~~ Bonnie