Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Survival

�All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. 
All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, 
to tell the whole story; to vomit the anguish up.� 
? James Baldwin

film trailer:  http://www.poetryofresilience.com/

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�. . . and when we speak we are afraid

our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid
So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive� 
? Audre Lorde, 
The Black Unicorn: Poems

Midweek Motif ~ Survival

Today is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

Breaking the cycle of violence 

against women and girls.  Stopping violence altogether.

Today, I am thinking of the ones who 

don't survive.  Of the ones who do.

 Of surviving  huge violence and 

violence others might perceive 

as small.   I want to write,  but how 

to take one event and emotion

 from among so many that 

stuff up our mouths?  

Your challenge: Speak about survival so that others may listen.  Write a new poem because that is what we do. 

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Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others 

in the spirit of the community.

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(Next week, Susan's Midweek Motif will be Energy, as in Vitality)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Teacher, One Who Teaches

�Eragon looked back at him, confused. "I don't understand."
"Of course you don't," said Brom impatiently. "That's why

 I'm teaching you and not the other way around.� 

? Christopher Paolini, Eragon

�Let us pick up our books and our pens,� I said. �They are 

our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher,

 one book and one pen can change the world.� 

source

? Malala Yousafzai, I Am Malala

�It was my teacher's genius, her quick sympathy, her loving tact which made the first years of my education so beautiful.

? Helen Keller, The Story of My Life

Midweek Motif ~ Teacher 

One Who Teaches

World Teachers' Day, held annually on October 5 since 1994, commemorates teachers� organizations worldwide. Its aim is to mobilize support for teachers and to ensure that the needs of future generations will continue to be met by teachers. We're a couple of days late, but still ...

Your challenge:  Bring a great teacher memory to life in a new poem. Or, if you don't have one, use learning as your motif.

An Old Man�s Thought of School

Written by Walt Whitman

AN old man's thought of school,
An old man gathering youthful memories and blooms that youth itself cannot.

Now only do I know you,
O fair auroral skies - O morning dew upon the grass!

And these I see, these sparkling eyes,
These stores of mystic meaning, these young lives,
Building, equipping like a fleet of ships, immortal ships,
Soon to sail out over the measureless seas,
On the soul's voyage.

Only a lot of boys and girls?
Only the tiresome spelling, writing, ciphering classes?
Only a public school?
Ah more, infinitely more;
(As George Fox rais'd his warning cry, "Is it this pile of brick and
mortar, these dead floors, windows, rails, you call the church?
Why this is not the church at all-the church is living, ever living souls.")

And you America,
Cast you the real reckoning for your present?
The lights and shadows of your future, good or evil?
To girlhood, boyhood look, the teacher and the school.

Learning to Read

BY FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS HARPER

Very soon the Yankee teachers

   Came down and set up school;

But, oh! how the Rebs did hate it,�

   It was agin� their rule.

Our masters always tried to hide

   Book learning from our eyes;

Knowledge did�nt agree with slavery�

   �Twould make us all too wise.

But some of us would try to steal

   A little from the book.

And put the words together,

   And learn by hook or crook.

I remember Uncle Caldwell,

   Who took pot liquor fat

And greased the pages of his book,

   And hid it in his hat.

. . . . 

                                           (Read the rest HERE at the Poetry Foundation)

Lecciones de lengua

BY BRENDA C?RDENAS

She is proud of her pap?

because he comes

to their little grey school,

converted from army barracks,

to teach espa?ol

to Mrs. Brenda�s fifth grade.

And that means they don�t

have to listen to that awful

Se?ora Beister on TV

with her screech owl version

of �Las ma?anitas� and her annoying

forefinger to the ear . . . . 

               Escuchen

and then to the lips,

               y repitan.

He teaches them to order

Coca-Cola en el restaur?n�

               Se?or, quisiera una Coca, por favor�

. . . . 

          (Read the rest HERE at the Poetry Foundation .)

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Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below 
and visit others in the spirit of the community.

(Next week Sumana Roy's prompt will be FIRE. )