MARJORY STONEMAN DOUGLAS ~an activist wow!

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Howdy, Campers and happy Poetry Friday!

The link to PF and my rough draft poems are below, along with a Poetry Challenge to you. I really want to read what you've written!

We TeachingAuthors are doing a round robin, of course, but first: Bobbi Miller has written a timely post about the power of students which you should not miss (it goes without saying, of course, that you shouldn't miss any of our delicious posts!)

Now it's time to leap into our Women's History Month extravaganza. First is Carmela's Women's History Month Sonnet (the first she's ever written!), then Esther offers an explosion of resources on women's history as well as a top ten books list about powerful, creative women.

What woman in history could I write a poem about? My subject was hiding in plain sight.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas was an environmentalist, author, journalist, feminist, civil rights defender for whom the now-famous Parkland, Florida high school was named.

(Note: all quotes are from this Wikipedia article, which is particularly well written.)

Born in 1890, Marjory changed the state of Florida. Her book "The Everglades: River of Grass was published in 1947 and sold out of its first printing in a month. The book's first line, 'There are no other Everglades in the world', has been called the 'most famous passage ever written about the Everglades'...It "galvanized people...[and] has been compared to Rachel Carson's 1962 exposé of the harmful effects of DDT, Silent Spring; both books are 'groundbreaking calls to action that made citizens and politicians take notice' [and]'remains the definitive reference on the plight of the Florida Everglades.'"

"Mrs. Douglas was half the size of her fellow speakers [5'2”, 100 lbs] and she wore huge dark glasses, which along with the huge floppy hat made her look like Scarlett O'Hara as played by Igor Stravinsky"

"At the age of 79...Douglas founded Friends of the Everglades to protest the construction of a jetport in the Big Cypress portion of the Everglades. She justified her involvement saying, 'It is a woman's business to be interested in the environment. It's an extended form of housekeeping.'"

What a tireless, funny, cunning, strong-willed woman!  Of course there should be a high school named after her! 

Here are rough drafts of two poems about her. The first I wrote before I had read very much about her. The second was written after I had read more and was zinging with excitement. But I was also overwhelmed; there was too much wrap my arms around!

I have new respect for those of you who unwrap layers of  history to make it concise, exciting, lyrical and accessible. How do you non-fiction writers DO it?!?! 

I don't have much distance from either poem...which works best for you?

MARJORY STONEMAN DOUGLAS
by April Halprin Wayland

This building

this hallway

we crouched there

in darkness

we fled it

in terror

this woman

before us

was gutsy

courageous

our candles

are lit by

her insight,

her fire.

MARJORY STONEMAN DOUGLAS ~ In Defense Of The Everglades

a found poem
by April Halprin Wayland

5 feet 2

huge dark glasses

huge floppy hat

quirky

independent

with a tongue like a switchblade 

she was not impressed

Can't you boo any louder?

everybody stopped slapping mosquitoes...

nobody can stop me

And

nobody did.

.............................................................................................
poems © 2018 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved

Marjory Stoneman Douglas

Don't you just know Marjory would be proud of the students who are stepping up and speaking out?

Here's my challenge to you, dear Readers: read the Wikipedia article (and/or other sources) and write your own poem about her...then share it in our comments. I really want to read what you come up with!

PS: Consider joining KidLit Marches for Kids on March 24th. Here's the Publishers Weekly article about this organization.

And thank you for hosting PF on TeacherDance, Linda!

Be Brave, Be Loud, Be Better

Photo by Cynthia Cotten

It is light, the world is awake
And the great night flees the dawn
That came
Scarlet,
A wild light
Casting a somber radiance on the world.
The red is the anger, blood and shame
In the eyes of awakened nations.

--Sandor Petofi, 1848.


Carmela started our discussion with Two Things I Love About Teaching Writing. Esther continued with the many ways she connects with her students and the resources she connects her students to, and April followed with how she likes to perform for her students. http://www.teachingauthors.com/2018/02/the-1-best-thing-about-teaching.html stating, “And that's what I like about teaching: the intangible, gloriously wonderful, unpredictableness of it all.”

What I like about teaching are the students. Their hope and courage to face the future. Because students change the world. And this week reflects that certainty of that more than ever. Once again, students march to change the world.



Sandor Petofi was a Hungarian poet and student, whose poem “Nemzeti dal (National Song) inspired the Hungarian war for independence from the Hapsburg Empire in 1848. Over a hundred years later, in 1956,  at the height of the Cold War, his poetry inspired the students of Budapest to demonstrate Soviet-led policies. The students led the way to the collapse of the Soviet-indoctrinated Hungarian People’s Republic .





 Set against the backdrop of economic and social changes sweeping post-Mao China, students led a march in 1989 against Chinese political corruption in a fight for democratic reforms, the freedom of the press and freedom of speech. A million people gathered in Tiananmen Square, facing down military tanks. This iconic David and Goliath-esque photograph reflects the pivotal moment as one student's extraordinary courage ultimately stopped the onslought.



In our own history, more than 4000 school children marched in 1963 through Birmingham, Alabama,  known as the most segregated city in America at the time. The Children’s Crusade became a defiant and defining moment in the Civil Rights Movement. Even as soldiers and police pounced upon the students, jailing as many as 1000 the first day, the students still came out in droves, chanting “Freedom.” The world was watching, and judging, as images of young children march up to snarling police dogs, police club women and use high pressure hoses to sweep the children aside. For more information, see Teaching a People’s History/ Zinn Education Project. 





Once again, students are changing the world. Poets and students inspire their teachers. They teach us to be brave, and be loud, and be better than we thought we could be. To be better than what we are.

 

Never Again

(for Emma Gonzalez)


Be brave, be loud,
stand tall, stand proud,
and make your voices heard.
Enough’s enough—
stay strong, stay tough,
and keep on, undeterred.


Ignore those who
discredit you,
who doubt you’ll see success.
To them we say,
“You’ve had your day,
and now we call ‘BS!’”


So, carry on
until you’ve won.
Reform is overdue.
Shrug off those hacks—
we’ve got your backs.

We stand, we march with you.


--©Cynthia Cotten  2018. All rights reserved. 

Bobbi Miller

Listen My Children...

I’ve visited the home of only one author, poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, but it wasn’t on purpose.

I didn’t go there on a pilgrimage for Longfellow.  I went there to do research on George and Martha Washington.  The National Park Service operates the Longfellow House Washington’s Headquarters, a magnificent house in Cambridge, MA that has been home to both families.

Just down the block from Harvard University, General George Washington used the house as his headquarters during the siege of Boston in the early days of the American Revolution.  He arrived there not long after the “midnight ride of Paul Revere” and skirmishes in Lexington and Concord. 

Many years later, Longfellow, moved into the historic house that had once been Washington’s war headquarters and home.  About 85 years after the first shots echoed in Massachusetts that began the Revolution, Longfellow wrote the poem “Paul Revere’s Ride” with the familiar opening line, “Listen my children and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere” and the equally famous line later “one if by land, two if by sea.”

The beautiful historic Longfellow House Washington's Headquarters in Cambridge, MA. 

These tiles surround the fireplace in the master bedroom of the house.  George and Martha Washington would have warmed themselves here.   

I can imagine General Washington climbing up these stairs after a long day of war plans.

Longfellow singlehandedly made Paul Revere famous to every school child in America.  But there are many historical inaccuracies in Longfellow’s poem.  Probably the biggest one is that the poem gives Revere alone all the credit for the warning ride.  But in fact, he was one of three riders that night.  Longfellow ignores the equally historic rides of William Dawes and Samuel Prescott.  Revere did not make it all the way to Concord because the British stopped him for interrogation.  Prescott made it all the way to Concord-but didn’t make the cut in Longfellow’s poem.

This poem is a good example of the power of the written word.  Longfellow was less concerned with historic accuracy than he was with creating an American hero on the eve of the Civil War.  The problem is that the general public believes Longfellow’s version is an accurate retelling of history.  It isn’t. 

Link to the Longfellow House Washington's Headquarters

Paul Revere's Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

To learn more about the myths of Longfellow's poem

Carla Killough McClafferty

Carla's website