Tag Archives: poetry

9 Ideas for Challenge classes during National Poetry Month

My students in the Challenge III program of Classical Conversations study five Shakespeare plays, and work on poetry through the year. But because they are so busy, poetry gets put aside, and we sip a thin broth on poetry sharing … Continue reading

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The Daily Poet

On a blog named “Letters from Heart’s Content”, surely the reader expects to read something new from time to time. Fresh out of the oven, slathered with butter, here it is. Gotham Writers Workshop offers some dynamite writing courses online. My … Continue reading

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And now for something completely different…

I am coming out of the closet. I here confess a great weakness: I don’t like to stay focused on one new interest very long. I reach a point where I feel I have learned the steps and I move … Continue reading

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A Practicum in Grace

Dear Reader, I am sitting at a table before a soot-stained fireplace at a wee wood-shingled library in coastal Rhode Island. Just coming off my final practicum for Classical Conversations, I am resting with friends in their tiny cottage two … Continue reading

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The Invitation of the Bench in the Garden

The luxury of two benches in my garden gives me a seat to contemplate the other, nestled between astilbe and hosta, empty in the shade-dappled sun. It faces the jade-green birdbath tall among geraniums, sun glinting on the rippling water, … Continue reading

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Billy Collins’ “The Trouble with Poetry”; Bluebook exam

As a Challenge III tutor with Classical Conversations last year, I had the pleasure of studying poetry with my students. Besides our readings in The Roar on the Other Side, we discussed a poem a week. Since in our study … Continue reading

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#TBT Black and White

Back when Robbo and I were new parents, I used to host poetry parties.  I believed life was more than work, food, and sleep, and that our souls needed to be fed on poetry in the company of good friends. … Continue reading

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Mary’s Birth

Mary’s laughter echoes like a cry of final tight farewells to empty walls. Memories break the surface with a sigh; remembrance pangs in heavy hollow tolls. For seventy years, like magnets bound by force of opposite attraction, sisters always knew … Continue reading

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Anyone can write poetry

I want to write. When I write well and that magic thing happens, that long silky ribbon of of words that surprises even me, my soul sighs, profoundly content. It is like the winter yearning of my friend Aula to get … Continue reading

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Planting Poetry

I choose a poem each week to read to my Challenge B students. My choices range in style but each must do something beautiful with words and have content that connects to my teens.  About half have been Robert Frost, … Continue reading

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