American International School Lagos, Nigeria

So far so good!

Upon our arrival in Lagos Saturday evening we sailed through immigration in record  time (this is of course relative – I’ll talk  a bit more about the travel here in my next post) according to our gracious and savvy host, school librarian Kay Riley and things just kept running at a quick an invigorating pace.

Sunday night  Kay hosted us for a pizza party at her place with the elementary school teachers. We chatted and got got insights into the teachers classes which helped us pick lessons and presentations for our work with their students.

The gate to school.

Sara had a quick intro to the elementary and then she joined me for an hour assembly with the middle and high schoolers. Then we divided and conquered. Sara bravely facing off with the first graders and I wrangling the eighth grade. We continued on, Sara with elementary and me with the rest of the middle school, but our schedule was adroitly drawn up so that we were able to step in and make a little cameo appearance in most of the other’s sessions. This allowed us to take some questions from the middle school kids as a team before I led them through performance and writing clinics and for me to perform my hit primary poem “I Sit On My Bottom” with the carpet dwellers.

In the evening we dined and laughed with the middle school teachers and made plans to take a trip to Lekke  Market (I need to check the spelling on that) with a couple of them after school the next day.

So, Tuesday Sara continued on with the little guys and I worked on extended metaphor and memoir with the high school. We crammed a whole bunch of students onto the sessions in order to see everyone in the short time we had and I was more than impressed with hard work by the students and the enthusiasm of the teachers who attended the workshops.

A quick trip to the market to buy some beads and masks, a lovely dinner with the high school folks a 5am wake up and BAM – here we are at the airport getting ready for or next Africa adventure.

On to Abuja!

Up Down all around the town – it is a magical day.

Back when Sara and I first started this international poetry thing we found ourselves in a hotel mini van bouncing across desert roads in Bahrain chasing a herd of camels with a crew of fellow speakers from a literacy conference. One of these colleagues was a Doctor Seif – a specialist in Arabic grammar. While we bounded across the sands laughing and gaining on the humped denizens of the desert Dr. Seif exclaimed, “It is a magical day!”

This has become a catch phrase for me and Sara when something incredible is happening during one of our excursions. Today was a magical day.

I stopped in our little hotel’s restaurant to grab a quick cup of coffee before heading to a pizza reception hosted by our librarian poet wrangler Kay. I poured the packet of instant coffee over three sugar cubes covered that with a layer of condensed milk then drowned this whole oleo with boiling water from a small tin spouted pot. Nigerian coffee.

A big guy sitting  at the counter asked me, “Why is it that Americans drink coffee and Brits tea?”

I replied that I had no idea then I complimented him on his Up Down. Earlier in the day I learned that the traditional Nigerian dress of matching top and slacks that the men wore was colloquially know as an Up Down. I said that I might have to get one for myself.

“Wait here.” my new friend replied.

He disappeared for bit then came back and handed me an Up Down. “A gift” he said.

I learned that my benefactor was a retired general, Major General Bashiru Jinadu to be exact. And now I have an Up Down – of course it is going to need a bit of taking in – but it is certainly one of the biggest gifts I have ever received – literally. I humbly reciprocated by giving him a copy of my new book and promised to take him out for dinner if he ever found himself in the Cleveland area.

Thanks general, it is a magical day. How did you know orange is my color?

Zimbabwean afternoon

Well the only regret Sara and I have from our trip to Zimbabwe is how short it was. We’re on a working streak across the continent – left – done – up right – left and then home. But in the short time we’ve been here we know we definitely want to come back.

After school on Friday our genial host Hob Boazman took us for a little trek around Domboshava where hiked up a giant rock and viewed some cave paintings with ages estimated between four and thirteen thousand years. I guess once you’re past four thousand years old who really counts anymore right?

By giant rock I am talking a thousand foot climb up what looked to be one solid piece of stone. Swooping and undulating like sand dunes encased in concrete. The surface of which provided steady lichen covered footing for the ascent to the overhanging cave where the cave paintings were. The fact that we were already four thousand feet above sea level when we began the march was made readily apparent to our sea level conditioned lungs – but the journey was well worth summit breath catching.

So, here are a dozen or so pics from or too short stay in Zimbabwe.

The trail was marked right on the stone so even a couple yahoos from Ohio couldn’t get lost.

Hats off to my fellow hikers.

Imagery that has stood the test of time – and then some.

Photographs never do inclines justice, I’m sure Sara and Hob would agree with me on this.

One of the park’s permanent residents.

A rock that we hope doesn’t roll.

While it looks like a green field this whole surface is hard rock – the color from lichens clinging to its face.

We’re certainly hoping the arrows of destiny point us back in the direction of Zimbabwe someday.

Flailing hamsters

Here's a podcast from Catherine Russell that mentions a recent workshop I presented at the Western Reseve Wrters conference in Kirtland, Ohio.

http://ec.libsyn.com/p/1/6/3/1634eff71ed95b73/2013-10-06Podcast67.mp3?d13a76d516d9dec20c3d276ce028ed5089ab1ce3dae902ea1d01c08637d5ce597368&c_id=6228256

Harare International School, Zimbabwe

Sara and I are the luckiest two crackpot poets on earth. I write this sitting in the lovely home of Elementary school principal Kari Boazman and her husband Hob who is currently frying bacon for our breakfast here in Harare, Zimbabwe.

We have just finished a three day visit to Harare international School where we worked with students grades K thru 9. Our visit was directed and produced by librarian extraordinaire Mellissa Chifokoyo.

Three days was just not enough time to spend with these stellar students – but it was enough time to know we’d love to come back and work with this fine staff and  kids again. We started with a couple assemblies – one for elementary and one for the upper school and then Sara and I split up and lead writing workshops with the kids.

Peacocks and guinea hens roamed the campus squawking like upset cats as we worked on lessons in figurative language, narrative structure and public speaking skills.  I don’t know what the bird’s problems were – we were having a great time – perhaps they knew they were missing out on all the fun. Bird brains, go figure.

HIS is an IB school and they practice the PYP and MYP brand of elementary and middle school pedagogy. To those outside of the education world acronym crowd – suffice it to say they teach kids right. Inquiry based learning encouraging the students curiosity and critical thinking skills as opposed to prep for some bubble test. our style of writing instruction just meshes with this teaching strategy. of course an enthusiastic teaching staff and administrators doesn’t hurt either.

HIS was a great way for us to tip our toes in sub Saharan Africa – you won’t have to ask twice to get us back!

A Bear in the Kitchen

New collection of some old and some new stuff out with Red Giant Books.

Just in time for me to leave the country for a month - but upon my return in November I will certianly be more than eager to book some readings.

If you're interested in hosting this crackpot poet hit me up salinger@ameritech.net

Here's the title piece:

a borrowed cabin

You don't want a bear in the kitchen

they make a terrible mess

so said the neighbor on the phone

a tiny electronic voice of caution

whose ring we almost didn't answer

because we were so sure it couldn't be for us

this not being our home

it's not their fault, you see

they are so hungry

this time of year

having drowsed through most of the winter and all

and this one's pretty aggressive

busted right into the house

across the creek from you

be careful

What does one do?

when ones place in the food chain

has been threatened

by 328 pounds of groggy

louse infested Ursus Americanus

claws capable of raking through

a refrigerator's skin

as easily as if it were the cake's frosting

the beast smells hidden behind

magnetic weather-stripped doors

canines the size of of a human forefinger

implanted in jaws endowed

with twelve hundred pound per square inch

bite force

tiny squares of glistening safety glass

from an exploded patio door

diamond dusted into matted fur

sparkling like snowflakes

in the silent moonlight

do you go onto the deck?

beat pans and pots together

turn off the lights

hide in the closet amongst the snowshoes

do you pray?

and to whom

what does one do?

when reason

and logic

and your master’s degree

in 16^th century literature

are rendered useless

by a confused and frightened carnivore

scratching at

the kitchen door?           

The Poetry Friday Anthology

Bird Feeder Denizen

Oh Hi. Looks to be a juvenile goldfinch to me.

What comes around goes around…

 

Okay –

I’m no big believer in Karma – I don’t buy the notion that some blue multi armed statistician is blasting out equations in a cloud of chalk dust weighing our good deeds versus our missteps in some grand calculation deciding whether we come back as an opera singer or a sea slug.

Nonetheless – I can appreciate a good deed.

I’ve got a ring that I picked up in Bali. I wear it instead of a wedding band. A little silver mediation ring with fish skeletons carved into it. The middle spins – I’d say it’s one of a kind, except it isn’t because I have bought two of them from the same place over a couple years.

I lost the first iteration of this ring in the jungles of Batam – an Indonesian island off the coast of Singapore while on a mountain biking trip with the teachers from Singapore American School. I was careening through the jungle and came in contact with an immovable object in the form of a giant cluster of tree roots in the middle of the single track path. I jettisoned over my handlebars and soared through the air like an ancient Vimana. It wasn’t until I was taking the ferry ride back to civilization that I realized I had lost the ring.

Fortunately we were headed to Bali a couple months later and I was able to replace the lost ring with what I was told was the only other one in existence. (I’m thinking that it most probably was the only other one in existence until I left the store and one may have magically appeared as Sara and I zoomed off on our motorbike – but who’s to say.)

Later on this trip we went snorkeling at White Sandy Beach near Candidasa. Thanks to prior experience I had a healthy respect for the miniscule jellyfish that swarmed in clouds over the coral reefs – well if not a respect for the jellyfish themselves I had developed a reverence for their teeny tiny stinging tentacles. So when I encountered a bloom of these little demons in twenty feet of crystal clear water I thrashed my way out of the vicinity as quickly as I could. One can only wonder what kind of life they had lived to be reincarnated as nearly invisible phylum Cnidaria members.

Once clear of the little bastards I realized I had lost my ring.

I floated back to where I encountered the jellyfish – who had since moved on – and swam around peering through my mask hoping that I might see the ring amidst the coral. Unbelievably, I saw it glistening on the sea bottom some twenty or so feet down. I took a deep breath and started pushing down. I was astounded at the pressure and my head began to pound. I thought one would have to be much deeper to experience this. The mask pressed tighter and tighter against my face and my ears felt like they were being filled with that aerosol expanding foam insulation stuff. Another five feet deeper and I don’t think I could have made it – but luckily I was able to grab the ring and bob back up to the surface.

So – imagine my chagrin when, several months later, I left the thing in a restroom on the Pennsylvania turnpike. Fortuitously I had the Starbucks receipt from the Oakmont Service plaza in my pocket when I finally realized I had lost the ring again when I arrived at my Virginia destination. I e-mailed the PA Turnpike powers that be and informed them that I had left the ring in the restroom and figured that would be that and I would be trying to replace the thing the next time I was in Bali.

Well, the next day I received an e-mail reply. I expected it to be an automatic message saying that the PA Turnpike had received my note along with some non-committal promise of action. But, what I got was a real reply with the direct number to the plaza. I called them and someone had indeed turned my lost ring in!

Subsequently five days later we got off at the Oakmont exit – past home of Pudgie Wudgie, whose story I do not have time to go into, but you would do well to research on your own – and I got my ring back.

It took me a while to track down the manager so I have to assume it took just as long for the individual to turn the ring in to lost and found. I appreciate their effort. Hat’s off to you returner of rings found on toll road rest room sinks - may you be rewarded for your honesty and good deeds. And if I am wrong, and karma does exist – I think we can rest assured your next incarnation will not be that of a stinging jellyfish.

back in the saddle

This summer has been a great time – lots of cycling – lots of relaxing – lots of fun.

But, it’s time to get back to work and to dust off this blog. I promise to try and keep more up to date and not let Facebook keep me away from here.

Sara and I are so looking forward to getting back into the classroom – we’ve already done some work with teachers in San Antonio –  and now we are planning our return to classroom.

I will have a new collection of poems under my wing – A Bear in the Kitchen – takes some of my previously published stuff and mixes in some new will be out in conjunction with Red Giant Books.

I’ve also got some new kids stuff that came out in the Poetry Friday anthologies  edited by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell with more forthcoming in Silvia and Janet's Poetry Friday STEM collection.

We also have a new teacher resource coming out from the fine folks at Corwin Press. High Impact Writing Clinics – is a collection of twenty lessons aimed at the teacher looking to improve literacy and writing while still nodding to the CCSS. We even have a Facebook page – swing by and give us a thumbs up if you are so inclined.

But most exciting of all – is we are going to Africa!

Sara and I will be visiting schools in Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Ghana and also presenting at the AISA conference (African International School Association). We couldn’t be looking more forward to this.

We take off at the end of the month and spend just about four weeks on the continent – so stay tuned for more poetic adventures.