Another Wonderful Colort of @CWPFairfield @writingproject Teacher Leaders Have Jumped Into Leadership

It's bitter sweet, last days. Yesterday, was the last day for the Invitational Leadership Institute, my 7th one at Fairfield (I didn't do a traditional institute last year so I could work on my dossier. As always, I finished the project with a final goodbye - an acrostic of the summer teacher writers. 

Cicadidae

For Summer Teacher Writers ‘18

                        intro.

I am here again. There…somewhere

n earer to that place I’m supposed to be

v irtus tentamine gaudet

i n exhaustion, i am challenged…

t he strength rejoices in the choices i make

a nd every summer breath i  

t ake brings me closer to the truth 

i seek. A last week, weak as an idiot

o n the stage…out, out brief candle…

n yncompoop, no sage to be heard no more,

a nd all the rage & frustration of

l eaving the company of friends.

L aughter, cinnamon rolls, coffee - 

e magination brats, puberty, 

a nd theubiquitous need for 

d eodorant - 

e very moment evolving at the

r ight time,

s imply trying to enjoy the journey - 

h ow morning prompts & pair-shares

i nvite us closer to being human – to be the

p oem. We are its lines.

I am here again. Somewhere

n ear where I’m supposed to be with this poetry

s inging a song of language, bringing 

t he questions, not many answers,

I magining there must be a better way for 

t eachers. Phew. What can I say, but

u buntu. i am, because we are…humbled

t ogether in this mess of 

e ach and every day.

                        i.

V irginia Wolfe, Jane Austen, Maya Angelou, Margaret Atwood, 

e mily Brontë, J.K. Rowling, Alice Walker, Sylvia Plath, Willa Cather,

n ic stone, Maxine Hong Kingston, Anne Frank, Flannery O’Conner

e mily Dickinson, Dorothy Parker, Angie Thomas, Judy Bloom, 

s imon de Beauvoir, Ursulla Leguin, Harper Lee, Zora Neal Hurston,

s ylvia Plath, Sharon Flake, Jaqueline Woodson, Adrienne Rich,

a nita Desai, Octavia Butler, Sarah Dessen, Nikki Giovanni,

E dith Wharton, Sondra Cisneras, Beryl Gilroy, Joy Harjo,

I zumi Shikibu, Louise Erdich, Virgina Wolfe, Mary Wollstonecraft,

s uzanne Collins, Beatrix Potter, Lois Lowry, Laurie Halse Anderson,

e lizabeth George, Sue Grafton, Mary Higgins Clark, Sappho,

n ora Larson, Shonda Rimes, Agatha Christie, Suzan-Lori Parks

m ary Shelley, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Meg Cabot,

a my Tan,Pam Muñoz Ryan, Kathy Acker, and

n ow you…who else, but you, Venessa ElsenmanElsenwoman!

                        ii.

T he thing about tautological, tediferous temulence

o r maenadic, macrocephalous mahouts is the 

m alacophonous magnality of mamzers. 

F acundity? Fadoodle? Farctate Febricity?

o h, yes, but of course. For 

r eal! Raniform, rantipole rannygazoo causes

d acryops! Dapocaginous Diabology & Diplopia.

e ventually, we all need a little Webster.

                        iii.

E laborating history (the mystery & simple complexity) is 

l amination on a road map of who we want to be….

I ntellectual? Playful? Isolated? a little silly? Weaving

s tories, hardships and glories, 

a rtifacts, trinkets, & capsules of individual time,

b ravery, letters, photographs while living our prime,

e ntertaining the narrative told deep within our mind

t hat this chapter evolved from that one &, for a little while, we

h ad a notebook to write our way – to have our say.

M emories, flashbacks, books & curiosity,

u nravelling ourselves in complex simplicity,

l earning global truths through sometimes local lies,

l etting the cave shadows disappear before our 

e yes (while exiting the studio door). What is any of it

r eally for, but to leave our imprint where we can.

                        iv.

A bu was in ESL when I first met him, a Liberian 

b oy with bald eagles 

i n his eyes who 

g rabbed new words like fish for his talons.

a nd they wonder why we teach?

i don’t know, maybe because we reach a

l evel too few will ever know. We help them grow.

P eople are people because of other people

a ll commonalities far surpass what makes us strange -

p ersonalites, universals, global pastiche – a wide range of 

i ndividuality creating plurality…the

n ewness reminds us of everything old…

c hildren learning language – they must be bold - and

h e was, Abu, that kid with a red, white

a nd blue heart. All he and his family ever wanted was

k indness, refuge…it’s simple, a new start.

                        v.

L ossine, his brother, was almost left behind,

a ggravated & crying, his mother had to find an

u nusual place to hide him from the soldiers

r eaching for guns…fleeing often, too often, when

e veryone runs, she runs. Her children, like her,

n eeded shelter.

R unning from family, from tradition, from language

a post-colonial reality, when she heard his

c rying & yelling she needed serenity, but bullets heard, too - 

a ll she could do was take cover and pray – 

n ot sure what she should do to save another day, that

o nly a mother’s love could know.

                        

vi.

L aughter comes when they hear No Child Left Behind

i n their English class (they only knew the uncommon core) & a

z illion jokes begin to fly. Lossine, you hear that? That

z any President named a reform act after you.

y ou were that child almost left behind in Africa.

S he saved him, though….could have killed him, but loved him…

e ventually they’d tell me this story, like the night 

m y Explorer swerved to miss a rabbit. They said, “the 1^stdead

p erson we ever saw was on a beach in the Ivory Coast. Just

l eft there, missing most of who they once were in the ocean.”

e very child at risk. every one talented and gifted.

                        vii.

E go is a strange thing. Hubris that is…a

s cholarship of trying to know accuracy,

t he quantitative and qualitative tales we weave…

h ow we take what we know & treat others. I was 

e ventually hooded, a new title to my name, but the

r eal pomp & circumstance was for them.

T he vuvuzelas they brought bellowed, and there I was…

h e was…that man who recorded their lives and 

e verything they had to say – carrying their stories

o n a hard-drive, their existence, their 

d ays as English learners and refugee survivors,

o n a hard-drive home that day, I had to 

r eflect. Ego. Hubris.A Responsibility to Speak Out. 

e very child we teach is so much more than a test score.

                        viii.

C an’t help but wonder here, who? Maybe, what? 

a nd most definitely why? We know where -

s urely, right here & when, the last four weeks, 

e xistentially, for this reason, this stanza surely speaks, but only if

y ou are here and you are there and they are here, 

T his sort of thinking freaks me 

o ut. Panoptica. Sauron’s Eye watching me 

r ead my word, as I’m trying to read the world: schools serve the

same social functions as prisons and mental hospitals (Foucault)

to define, classify, control and regulate people.

e veryone together – this is the church and this is its steeple – 

n ow are any of us ever Friere from such oppression?

s o, i have a confession. I haven’t a frickin’ clue,

o nly know that I do as I do (a doobie doo doo)

n estled in a Hall, Canisius, with beautiful others.

                        ix.

K razee, this langwidge thang, the madge-chick wee hope it brangs,

a ccomo date ting the waze we reed…finding 

t rooth in what evry chiled breengs,

j ugling nure ons w/ abstracked brane wayves,

a sineing graydz 2 how we thank thay reed, c.

P oynt iz, wee r awl skware pegz 4 rownd Hose

i no, bee cause Hive all waze tride 2 com pree henned awl

t hat migh t-chers wure triying 2 tell mee,

a z iff, werdz writ ton on the payje whir ab salute!

H oarse Shhhhh it. 

e vry chiled iz a Mirror cull. S-cools r un kool with how they

r an-dumbly lay bull kids this weigh or that.

n ow ledge is mutch more complikayted

a s payrents, wee must due awl wee kan 2 ad-vo-kate 4 the

n ee-oh-fights inn r kare. THIS IS LOVE. THIS IS THE ANSWER.

d onut let anywon tawl u otterwise.

e ve ree chiled iz byoo-tiffle & cape-ah-bull of wreetching the

z ee-nuth of purse-on-null xullants.

H ow due eye no this?

i c it. eye tch it. i fill it. i no it.

l anggwidge iz an ahrt forum. It iz

l yke AhLizbeftheeyan Shachespaireon vurse…

g o ahud, reed it. at furst it mayks know scents. 

r eallee, the hole langqwide thang is Abstracked,

u nbahleaveahbull how it werks (eyed lyke 2

b ye a vowl, Patt. Kan eye hav an

e h?). Whut kan eye say?

r eeding iz knot easy e.

                        x.

J uly left us. It’s August, and here I am again with this word,

u nbelievable, this feeling that you, me, them and us have 

l ived this before. What is this? This us? This

i nvitational leadership institute we’re so sure to trust

e ach & every year?

R andom thought. I don’t think it is us (elephant shoe)

o r any of these teachers (they’re frickin’ great but, 

n o, it’s not them…not that). It’s this…the 

e verything that the National Writing Project brings,

s ongs of ourselves, what it sings with discoveries,

o f who we are. phew. 4 weeks, we’ve come so far. 

n ow is the time… cue Cicadidae. 

                        xi.

I am here again, back where i started & somewhere

n ear where i wish i might have gone…a 

c randall song stuck in the 

r iver of rhyme that is trying to find extra time to

e mpty the ocean with a fork (frog, you’re such a 

d ork), but that is the law of teaching.

I am here again, poetically preaching,

b to the r to the y, looking for a way to 

l ive the life of learning, seeking, 

e ach and every story that comes my way. For these I say hooray.