THIS BLOG IS NO LONGER OPERATIONAL. PLEASE ENJOY WHAT IS HERE, AND DO LEAVE A COMMENT IF YOU WISH. NORTH CAROLINA'S NEW POET LAUREATE IS CATHY SMITH BOWERS. SHE WILL SOON HAVE HER OWN WEBSITE THROUGH THE NORTH CAROLINA ARTS COUNCIL SITE. I WILL BE SHIFTING MY ATTENTION TO HERE, WHERE I AM, (SEE SIDEBAR)USING IT TO DRAW ATTENTION TO WRITERS WHOSE WORK DESERVES ATTENTION. I INVITE YOU TO VISIT ME THERE.

For a video of the installation ceremony, please go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xAk6fOzaNE.

HERE, WHERE I AM HAS BEEN NAMED ONE OF THE 30 BEST POETRY BLOGS.

How a Poem Happens: http://www.howapoemhappens.blogspot.com/

Go to http://www.yourdailypoem.com/, managed with finesse by Jayne Jaudon Ferrer, who says, "Our intent is to make visitors to Your Daily Poem aware of the joy and diversity of poetry."

Monday, March 2, 2009

Cowboy Boots at NCCAT!



(Just look at that toe on these red boots? I want a pair, and who cares about blisters! )

As part of my "spiel" for last week's seminar at the NC Center for the Advancement of Teaching was a suggestion for using the renga, a collaborative poetry form, in the classroom. Why not try it now, I enthused, even though we didn't have much time left. Each of us began with 3 lines, passed our paper to the left, so that the person next to us could add 2 lines based on ours, and so forth--3-2-3-2. Of course we didn't have enough time to finish. Here is how the renga I began ended up when we had to break for lunch. (I'd just been telling them about wearing cowboy boots to a gathering of k-4 students at Iron Station Elementary a few years back.) You may go my posts on the renga and how to use it in the classroom--just scroll down the list of posts till you find them.

Cowboy Boots

Cowboy boots
rubbed blisters ripe as plums
on my feet

and by damn did I walk funny
for days afterward

dog caught me weak
dragged me down
where the neighbor took a peek

no, not peeking just looking
making medicine from weeds
healing the heels

why won't new boots come broken in
or come with a blister discount coupon of 20 % off

why don't cowboy boots
open up the wild west where we can roam
free as our imaginations let us?
***********************


I won't identify the teachers or writers who added their lines to this brilliant poem; the beginning and end are mine,
for which I take full responsibility!

2 comments:

karenh said...

love the renga! How fun. And just this week I wore new shoes for a time that was too short to warrant the blisters I got on BOTH heels. They weren't stylish like the cowboy boots. They were sort of those athletic/cute flats. Now the question: do I give them away or try to break them in by wearing bandaids on my heels?

Kathryn Stripling Byer said...

Karen, do I have blister stories. But I won't go there! I finally realized that I need to use moleskin for the first days of wearing new shoes, especially ones that I knew I'd be walking in a lot. Those red boots are so cool; mine are black with turquoise designs up the sides. They were given to me by my friend, poet doris davenport. So, I think of them as my poet's boots.
I wouldn't give the shoes away. Let the blisters heal and then use moleskin till you've broken in the shoes.