Welcome to Day 2 of the January Open Write. If you have written with us before, welcome back. If you are joining us for the first time, you are in the kind, capable hands of today’s host, so just read the prompt below and then, when you are ready, write in the comment section below. We do ask that if you write, in the spirit of reciprocity, you respond to three or more writers. To learn more about the Open Write, click here.
Note: Please be gentle with yourself considering today’s topic.
Our Host
Glenda retired from full-time teaching in 2019 after a 38 year career and is now substitute teaching in her district where she’s learning common core math from second graders and how to measure waves in sixth grade science with middle schoolers. In addition to being a dog and cat mom, Glenda is a doting grandmother to baby Ezra, who, like those precocious second graders, is fascinated with her silver hair. Glenda recently moved and renamed her blog Swirl & Swing. You can find her at www.glendafunk.wordpress.com
Inspiration
After the Uvalde shooting, I was obsessed about the massacre. I felt more connected to the victims than I expected, and I felt incapable of doing anything to effect change. I channeled my anxiety into writing and wrote a series of poems in response to the killings. During our NCTE poetry session I shared an idea to invite teachers and students to make poetry responding to the ongoing epidemic of school shootings and the trauma school communities across the country experience during active shooter drills and during active shooter incidents, as well as in the aftermath of these uniquely American tragedies. I invite you to join me in this project. Read more about it here.
Amanda Gorman responded to the Uvalde shooting on Twitter with the following poem:
Schools scared to death:
The truth is, one education under
Desks,
Stooped low from bullets;
That plunge when we ask
Where our children
Shall live
& how
& if
Process
Compose a poem honoring the victims of Uvalde or another mass casualty involving guns. Write for your students and their experiences. Choose a form suitable for your poem. I’ve written from the point of view of objects present at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, a sonnet, a found poem based on gun-free school zones, in response to news items. We as a nation have chose the “thoughts and prayers” paradigm for responding to our epidemic of gun violence, as well as self-justification for ongoing inaction, so find inspiration in the direction the muse leads you.
Glenda’s Poems
Door
“The status of the door is particularly notable, since it addresses how the gunman made it inside the school…” Buzzfeed
You blame me for baring my
steel chest & sliding
open with push & pull
instead of blaming the
assault weapon ripping
holes through young bodies,
terrorizing teachers & babes.
you blame unlocked
entrances as rapists
castigate their victims:
if only she’d dressed modestly…
if only i’d engaged my lock
none of this would have happened
May 27, 2022
August 23, 2022
Your Turn
Now, scroll to the comment section below to write your own poem. (This is a public space, so you may choose to use only your first name or initials depending on your privacy preferences.) Not ready? That’s okay. Read the poems already posted for more inspiration. Ponder your own throughout the day. Return later. And, if the prompt does not work for you, that is fine. All writing is welcome. Just write something. Also, please be sure to respond to at least three writers. Oh, and a note about drafting: Since we are writing in short bursts, we all understand (and even welcome) the typos and partial poems that remind us we are human and that writing is always becoming. If you’d like to invite other teachers to write with us, tell them to subscribe.
Glenda, thank you so much for this. Between reading all these poems today and listening to Fred Guttenberg, as the fifth anniversary of the Stoneman Douglas H.S. shooting approaches, I have spent most of this day thinking of the horrific topic of school shootings and gun violence. Thank you for being here. I am sorry I missed it last month. Here are my thoughts today.
Her Voice
Every day as she got up,
Jamie called down the stairs
to her early-rising father.
Five years ago, on February 14, 2018,
she stopped,
stopped by a gunman
at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
She was just a freshman.
Today she could have been
in her second year as a Florida Gator,
but she forfeited her future
because of political cowardice.
Jamie’s voice,
frozen in time
no new memories
to make with her family.
How many more voices will be lost
before we take action?
Glenda, thank you for the safe space to write about this. The excellent employment of personification in your poem made me think about everyday objects in my classroom. I am sure I’m not alone when I say that I am paranoid by loud noises–even if they are to be expected in a school full of kids. That’s where my poem stems from. I listed all the sounds my class might hear during our 15 minutes of “silent” reading.
Silent Reading in Classroom 244
Cacophony: students greet one another.
Ding!: time to begin.
Pages turning, bodies shifting: silent reading.
Whirrrrrr: the projector sings a song.
“Pass it over here!” PE class is on the field today.
ACHOOO!: Allergy season.
Clank Clank: likely, the radiator.
SLAM!: McLean’s door down the hall?
Thud: probably the art room below?
Tik tik: timer counts down.
Caw! Caw!: crows warn.
Waaaaaaahhhhhh: Sirens whoosh by. Eyes begin to check surroundings.
AHHHH!: a cry (for help?) from the lobby.
FUMP: wind pushes the window closed.
CRASH CLINK CLINK: Logically, an accident in the culinary room.
thump thuMP THUMP THump…: a hallway runner?
CLANK CLANK CLANK: maybe it’s not the radiator?
Whispers and shifting: we are unsettled
Click: clandestine door lock check
BANG
Gasp
“Sorry, a book fell off my desk.” Apology accepted.
Hisssssss: steam rises from the radiator.
BEEP BEEP: 15 minutes are up.
Rachelle,
You have narrated the inner voice of so many teachers (and students) everywhere. Every sound that is unexplained is questioned, every unexpected silence. The anxiety that comes with becoming so hyperaware of our surroundings is anything but sustainable or healthy. That said, I really enjoyed your profusion of onomatopoeia!
Rachelle,
Theres an eerie building of tension as this sound-filled poem progresses. The book dropping makes me jump every time. I wish I’d thought yo write about the sounds of silence in a classroom. I’m both unnerved and mesmerized by your poem. I wander what sounds the Uvalde students heard that day.
Rachelle, what a powerful take on this prompt. Your title, including “silent” reading is perfect. There is nothing silent about what we are doing to our children’s and teachers’ psyches. “we are unsettled” is an understatement, and to think this has become part of our school culture is horrendous.
Glenda,
Thank you for the subject and your inspired poem. This is such a difficult and yet necessary prompt. My youngest son runs out of the room when there’s news of a mass shooting. It’s all too much. I dunno if what I wrote is a poem, but it’s what came out.
Only here.
Not Australia or Austria.
Belgium or Britain.
Not Canada or Denmark or Eritrea or France or…
It’s not car crashes or drug overdoses,
childhood obesity or food insecurity. Malaria or dysentery or leukemia or drowning, or or or COVID or
Vaccines. It’s not any of that. None of it.
Its only one thing that is killing our kids more than anything else. And it’s only here. And it’s not even close.
In our homes.
In our streets.
Where we worship.
Where we eat.
And gather and play and learn and love and hate and do all the things that people do. Our schools and clubs and markets and playgrounds and bedrooms. Everywhere.
It’s always guns. And it’s only here.
David, thank you for sharing your poem today. Your parallel structure and rhyme in these lines: “in our homes / in our streets. / Where we worship / Where we eat” are particularly poignant. I feel the same frustration, so thank you for reminding me that I am not alone.
David,
Yes, so much yes! The fervent stubbornness to make a compromise in the name of safety and life escapes me. You beautifully express the frustration. Thank you.
Dave,
This is a brilliant poem and full of truths. Have you seen The Onion story that circulates every time there’s a mass shooting. It’s along the same theme as your poem. One of the poems I wrote after Uvalde echos some of your ideas, but the added contrast of specific countries strengths the poem. This is an excellent poem. Hug your son. He should know such anxiety in his life.
David,
You capture it. The “only here” and the many places “only here.”
It’s definitely a poem!
And a powerful one at that.
David, thank you for writing this. I hope you will submit it for publication in some editorial page. So much truth, and the obvious ludicrousness of the situation comes through so powerfully. Your ellipsis here speaks volumes–A to Z–“Not Canada or Denmark or Eritrea or France or…”
Hello to all! Yesterday I was too busy to respond and tonight I am hearing the sad news of more shootings, this one in Monterrey Park. I’ve been writing Haiku’s every day and today’s was pretty icky in message (not form.) I hesitated to share it but then I added a bit to the first stanza.
A child with a gun
shattering, spilling blood
on a teacher’s desk.
Can I look away?
How to stop this violence?
Heart outpouring love.
Love must heal the wounds.
I beg for regulation,
sensibility.
Strength for those hurting
by hate and broken-down minds.
Courage for our teachers.
Susan,
Channeling ourselves, our reaction, into a poem or a series of poems is exactly why we need poetry. The first haiku is heart wrenching. We used to worry about spilled coffee. Now we worry about spilled blood. It’s so very sad.
Susan, thank you for sharing your powerful poem(s) with us. Your third stanza really spoke to me. “beg” is the appropriate word there. I hope we see “sensibility” one day.
Susan, Amen to this! Thank you for daring to share it. I’m glad I came back and read your haikus.
Yes, please.
Glenda, I totally understand how this topic is so obsessive, how you pour your anxiety into writing about this. What a powerful purpose for a poetry collection; thank you for illuminating how our writing is advocacy, and I hope your inbox is overflowing with submissions. Your poem was riveting, with its focus on the door – I remember how much emphasis was put on the door, which is so appalling. I like the personification you used, seeing through the ‘eyes’ of a door – “baring my/steel chest.”
I wrote a ‘Blitz poem‘ – the fast pace of this poem format seemed to echo the horror of these assault weapons…
bear us all
good guys with guns
good right to bear
bear arms
bear down
down on the floor
down on the ground
ground is bloody
ground is spinning
spinning with extremes
spinning with fear
fear rules our country
fear rules now
now we suffer
now we cry
cry for victims
cry for children
children breaking windows
children finding no escape
no escape from weapons of war
no escape from terror
terror in the classroom
terror in their bones
bones offer DNA
bones ache
ache for all
ache for sanity
sanity and reason
sanity and hope
hope for life
hope for moral imagining
imagining a softer world
imagining possibility
possibility of growing up
possibility of another turn
turn down the volume
turn down the hate
hate that insists on fear
hate that pervades
pervades our freedom
pervades our future
future needs faith
future needs trust
trust interdependence
trust this nation’s promise
promise of life, liberty
promise of justice for all
all of us deserve life
all of us deserve safe
safe
life
Maureen,
Tbis is a perfect poem, a perfect form that replicates both the experience of gun violence and the anxiety inherent in living g w/ the threat. The title is a total WOW!
Maureen, I had never heard of a blitz poem before, but you nailed it today with this prompt. The pace, rhythm, and repetition emphasize the urgency of our current situation and society. Thank you for sharing.
Maureen,
You definitely picked the ideal form for a poem about this. Has that sense of panic that is so apt.
Maureen, wow, the Blitz definitely was a perfect choice for this subject. Your masterful movement from “good guys” to “bear arms” to “down on the floor” to the “ground is bloody” speaks volumes in so few words. I’m so tired of the gaslighting from the anti-gun-legislation crowd. I believe this poem (and others written here) should definitely be part of Glenda’s proposed collection to help sway our nation to sanity in this area.
This one took me right back to the beginning of my career.
School Shootings and Lockdowns
In May of 1998
I was in my second year of teaching.
There weren’t
lockdown drills,
panic attacks,
feelings of fear,
about shootings
in high schools–
or even general awareness.
Wikipedia has a list of school shootings–
and though they date back to the 1800s,
they weren’t very often and usually
few people were hurt or killed.
But in 1998, just over an hour from my school,
Kip Kinkle killed both of his parents,
then went to school and killed two more,
wounding twenty-five others.
He received 111 years in prison.
We went into lockdown that day.
The first of my career.
I remember the fear in the kids faces–
and in my heart.
But it was just the tip of the iceberg.
Less than a year later,
the Columbine High School massacre occurred.
Fifteen killed, twenty-one injured.
Both assailants killed themselves.
For many, this was the turning point.
But for me, it was Thurston High School,
in Springfield, Oregon in May of 1998.
Now students have panic attacks
during lockdown drills.
When a random drill is scheduled in a week,
kids stay home until it is past.
The fear that pervades these times
doesn’t seem to be enough for the
powers-that-be to take action.
What would be enough?
When will it be enough?
Oh Cara,
My soul hurts for you.
I remember when I was still a sub at an elementary school, the day of the Sandy Hook shooting clear across the country. I just wanted to walk into a classroom and hug all those precious little souls, even the boy who told me all teachers are mean.
Cara,
As I read your poem I tried to remember when I noticed the change. I remember thinking Columbine was a fluke, a denying on which surviving depends. I love the way you’ve woven wikipedia into the poem. I think often about poetry as history and argument, which, I suppose, is part of my objective w/ the prompt.
Cara, what a tragic experience, so beautifully and artfully explored here in your poem. The space between these lines/stanzas … it echoes the gulf between our “thoughts and prayers” and our inaction
Cara, thank you for sharing your story with us today. There’s almost too much to go into when looking at your poem. It stirs up so many memories and aches as a student and as a teacher. I feel less alone while reading your poem, so thank you for that.
Cara, thank you for the history lesson. I had only a passing memory of the Oregon shooting in ’98. Like most people, I guess, Columbine was the one that I remember first, both where I was and what I was doing when I heard about it.
Powerful!
Glenda, thank you for posting today. This is one of those prompts that need to be addressed, yet I feel like I can’t. It does seem like too much emphasis was placed on the door, an inanimate object when it was a tragic error. Too much tragedy, yet my heart feels for the families of those who lost their lives. I briefly mentioned the only mass school shooting that occurred in Arkansas. I was too young to remember much, but when I found an article and it mentioned their ages, I realized how close they were to my own age at that time. After just writing down thoughts, this is what I came up with.
“if only i’d engaged my lock
none of this would have happened”
This stanza speaks for itself. If only…
Unanswered Question
March 24, 1998.
I was almost 12, in between Mitchell and Andrew.
Jonesboro wasn’t familiar.
But Arkansas was home.
Can’t remember the outcome
or how I felt
nor what was done.
Only reading about it later.
But it was years later at a work “retreat” some guy
in a Polo and slick hair talked about active shooter drills.
Am I supposed to feel comfortable now?
What about safe?
Now I’m in another district
in another county
in another building.
no one unfamiliar knows
it’s a former college
turned into a children’s home
with an old dormitory
turned into a “public” school.
Do I still feel safe?
Yes.
But what about my children?
Key fob entry
Safe rooms
SRO nearby.
So, yes.
But what happens at 3:15?
Jessica,
Im thinking about what feeling safe means for both children and adults. Paradoxically, as much as I obsess about Uvalde, I do feel safe when I walk into schools to sub. I don’t think about hiding places and the possibility of being shot. Maybe I just feel safer w/ kids. Anyway, you ask important questions and remind us we all share this phenomenon of thinking about our safety at school. I particularly like the emphasis on transformations:
“turned into a children’s home
with an old dormitory
turned into a “public” school.”
Im mulling these lines in my mind. I think they’re calling me to write.
Write on Glenda, write on!
What a powerful ask – “But what about my children?” [do they feel safe]… what do we really need for safe communities?
Maureen, that’s a very good question that we don’t have the answer to…at least in the United States.
Jessica, that idea about safety has two dimensions, which you describe so well. The physical “key fob entry,” etc. versus the psychological safety that we all think about during unexpected times. I wonder how many children worry more about safety outside of school now that they are surrounded by such tangible “safety” features during the day.
UVALDI
Amid the carnage of 50 school shootings
in the U.S. in 2022,
the 46 murdered,
the 91 injured,
it is
Uvaldi
that stands apart
and most ghastly;
elementary school –
little kids who are still
years away from
abstract thinking,
who still believe
in Santa Claus –
Uvaldi
buried 22
and doctored 18 more,
but every child,
every parent and sister,
every grandpa
in Uvaldi
rubs at the scars
that never go away;
while legislators
massage their impotence;
instead, they clamor
and make noise
to distract.
Will they next
labor over laws
to insist that our history books
make no mention of
school murders in the U.S.
because it might make
Texans (and Missourians…
and all the other bastards)
feel bad about themselves
because they
sat on their hands
while little kids
bled on the cold tile
of the school floor?
by Susie Morice, January 22, 2023 ©
Oh, Susie, the way you close this poem is heart-wrenching. I feel your frustration and anger for the lack of action our supposed “leaders” are making. The horror of school shootings is truly maddening, heartbreaking, and inexcusable. “make noise/to distract” is exactly what’s going on rather than concerned action. Imagine if these legislators all had a child who died in such a horrific way. I love your final stanza’s provocative question. Incredible poem!
Susie,
This poem has my heart, expresses my thoughts, things I have not been able to put into words but obsess over almost every day. These lines and the contrast in them shout to me w/ their harsh truths:
“but every child,
every parent and sister,
every grandpa
in Uvaldi
rubs at the scars
that never go away;
while legislators
massage their impotence;”
Of course, we cannot speak in school about these atrocities. We protect feelings of man babies but not infants and children.
Susie, some lines that spoke to me were “years away from abstract thinking,” and “rubs at the scars that never go away.” Those foolish politicians are so easy to conjure up in my mind. But your last lines? Holy cow do they pack a punch.
What a frightening thought, that the future may involve folks rewriting the history of our school murders…frightening because it feels so possible.
I am riveted by these beautiful/sad words – yes, these are scars that will never go away
Susie, you nailed it. I’m still sitting in sadness with this:
Susie, those numbers are so horrific! And the prophetic truth of your last stanza is chilling as well! Your final image is so heartbreaking….
Oh, Susie, my God, that is powerful. Such amazing insight into legislators right there:
And the question asked in that last stanza. OMG, this definitely needs to be published. Opinion page, the 21+ Lives Lost: Poems Honoring Victims of School Shootings anthology that Glenda is editing, somewhere!
A Modern-Day Haiku
by Mo Daley 1/22/23
How many code red
drills can make innocent kids
safe in the classroom?
Mo-a rhetorical haiku for the ages. sad.
Your poem caused in me a visceral reaction expressed in haiku.
Your question is caught
in my throat, behind my eyes,
weighing on my heart.
What a perfect response, Allison! Susie
Your response haiku is so beautiful and sad!
Indeed, Mo. You’ve said it all. Hugs, Susie
Mo, I’m not sure it’s ever going to end. The brevity of the haiku works perfectly – we’ve talked this topic endlessly. What more can be said?
Mo, your poem asks the perfect question! Kudos!
Mo,
A simple question says so much. Answer: infinity.
The power of these seventeen syllables! Thank you, Mo.
Mo, the power and pain in 3 lines and 17 syllables!
I just read an email from my superintendent expressing condolences for the mass shootings in Monterey Park, CA and the suspect was found dead in his vehicle just 30 minutes away from my house. Insanity!
Mo, I love this “Modern-Day Haiku.” So succinct and powerful! (But I also hate the truth of it. And I’m not sure I know the answer….)
Mo, I’m so sad for the children. Your question hopefully will someday lead to action.
Glenda, in the aftermath of Uvalde I had no words for the magnitude of the horror and loss. I recall needing to write and only managing a small anagram poem. It came back to me today, reading your words about the door (as if it were to blame). We are changed by Uvalde; we need to be. I have been reading about what drives mass shootings and the people who commit them. This part of your process spoke to me: “We as a nation have chosen the “thoughts and prayers” paradigm for responding to our epidemic of gun violence, as well as self-justification for ongoing inaction…” Today I return to rework my original anagrams in a different format. Thank you for your creativity, your courage, and the call to action.
Remembering Uvalde
(A Pantoum with a Key)
When our custodian propped open the door last week
moving furniture,
I remembered Uvalde,
school turned slaughterhouse:
Moving furniture
bullet-riddled, blood-spattered
school turned slaughterhouse
because of another broken hater on this broken Earth
Bullet-riddled, blood-spattered
valued children
because of another broken hater on this broken Earth
—and I pulled out the doorstopper
Valued Children,
I remembered Uvalde
and I pulled out the doorstopper
when our custodian propped open the door last week
Key:
Valued is an anagram of Uvalde; when will we learn the lessons?
Broken hater and broken Earth are anagrams of heartbroken; how much more?
The doorstopper is a metaphor, i.e., pulling out all the stops (beginning with overcoming our dopes torpor)
Fran,
Thank you for this poem, for the pantoum’s rhythm and repetition in its unrelenting yet resonating calls to remember. I am struck by the “because” and the “broken” considering the layers of meaning in “broken” humans. I think about the “door” and all the meaning doors can have at school — a place that at once must open doors to possibilities but lock doors to protect from … and all that must stop and begin.
Sarah
Fran, another heart-wrenching poem (handled with care, as you always do). I admire your use of anagrams (we play with these in 7th grade and effective mixes are a challenge). The placement of repeated lines, and how they emphasize and change our focus, is powerful. School turned slaughterhouse is a traumatizing visual, and yet we continue to see it reoccur. I’m not sure when this country will decide enough.
Fran,
I hardly know where to begin commenting on this expertly crafted poem. I’d quote every line if I were to pay tribute to all that is so smart in your words, but it is this image of “slaughterhouse” that wrenches my heart and soul most. Such a place is one of death and sacrifice for the feeding of others; such a place is unsafe and rendered so for the profit of others. Such a place is dangerous and given note only when it interferes w/ the desires of others. We coral our children and direct them through the slaughterhouse shoot and call it a school. These are the thoughts your poem evokes in my mind. I wish I could put them into the minds of those who are okay w/ this reality our children endure.
Fran-so many wonderful things going on here, about such a tragic topic. The last stanza is perhaps the saddest. It is because of the horror of the rest…
Oh, Fran, your poem is powerful, and the key sent me reeling. Broken hater, broken earth, heartbroken.
Fran — the master of your wordsmithing here is just so on target. Very apt, very gut wrenching. Brava! Susie
Oh, my, Fran, what power. The valued children in Uvalde has me weeping. These lines…
Ouch, so much, so painful.
I needed to say something about the trainings to “prepare” for school shootings.
Something in his voice
was giddy with warning:
Packed tight in his kevlar vest
strapped tight with what I only know as a gun
his eyes sparkled as he
painted scenes of havoc
with teachers as the heroes
throwing staplers (surprise!)
upending desks (booya!)
to thwart evil’s determined mission.
“I have a bat!”
Glee quavared beneath the science teacher’s
declaration of weapon,
preparing for the unthinkable
like munching popcorn
at a horror flick.
Is it inevitable that we should always descend in to surreality and absurdism-? Is it just part of our psychological makeup, or maybe (much more hopefully) a coping mechanism for the unthinkable that we know is all too real? I recall sitting at my son’s college orientation years ago during such a training…fortunately it wasn’t giddy or gleeful when it came to the last resort to fight…I just mourned that such trainings must exist now. It is hard now to recall a time before “lockdown drill” was a thing. Oh, your poem makes me shiver, with its juxtaposed images, down to the chilling comparison of munching popcorn at a horror flick (!!) So well-done, Allison.
Ugh, Allison. The spectacle of it in its fiction, it is reality, in it being at once the same depending on the psychology of the subject. I am in awe of your craft here while at once being disgusted by the images. “Glee” and “munching” and “flick” alongside “weapon” and “horror” — again such contrasts and now altogether impossible given the world we live in — and these trainings. Ugh, again.
Peace,
Sarah
Allison,
Putting “prepare” in quotation marks is itself an argument making the point there is no way to prepare for the horror of a school shooting, and the “trainers” just don’t get this. They, as your poem shows, think they’re coaching a spectator sport, “like munching popcorn / at a horror flick.” That is a gif punch.
Allison. wow. The juxtaposition of enthusiasm and horror in this poem. Popcorn at a horror flick, indeed…
OMGosh, Allison…this is so disturbing and so excellent… the freak show nature of the event just rips me. Whoof! May you never ever have to experience any of this horror in the days forward. Susie
Allison, I so appreciate your description of the training. There is something so unsettling about the trainings and responses. Loved the actions you describe “throwing staplers (surprise!)/unpending desks (booya!)/to thwart evil’s determined mission.” Powerful and effective sounds to help show the presenter’s actions and tone. When I was hiding, I ended up having an uncontrollable fit of silent laughter. When I’m super uncomfortable, I tend to get the giggles which are often so inappropriate at the time. Thankfully, no one could hear or see me. Powerful poem! A “horror flick” indeed!
Allison, your poem brings to mind all the actions we might/must take in order to protect ourselves. I can’t help but think of ‘you brought a stapler to a…” as I read this. And the glee and popcorn munching. We are at the point the horror of our reality is entertainment, like a movie or a video game. Well done.
Allison, I don’t know if this is distaste, but this is comedic! I get tired of people who aren’t educators trying to arm teachers. My first instinct is to flight with my students! I’m not a fighter at heart, so I’m not going to begin that career now. The (surprise!) and (booya!) remind me of the old Batman comics (thwap!) Just as corny. Thank you for sharing.
This looks one resonates as so true. I’ve been to that ridiculous “professional development”. You paint it in the strokes of absurdity that those exercises deserve.
This brings me back to that library and all the “options” for making our doors lock more quickly (which the teachers were solely responsible for doing). The recommendation that “English teachers should throw books” (take that!) stuck with me all these years! I don’t have the same training at my new school, but the way you describe this is just spot on.
Allison, wow, as Fran suggested, I see the coping mechanisms coming through this “preparation” training. Horrid, really. I can just see the “glee” and “quavering” of the science teacher holding the bat. Really, how can we prepare for the unthinkable? Powerful.
Hello, Glenda! Thank you for the prompt and your poem today. I feel outraged every time I revisit the insanity of Uvalde’s shootings. Your perspective makes it crystal clear, blame the doors. Whew!
This week, my students will be learning more about Dr. King’s granddaughter, Yolanda King. She’s a child activist who has a passion to fight against gun violence. I’m using her manifesto from 2020 to write my Found Poem. Here’s a link if you’d like to read her manifesto.
the hope-filled child
Gun Violence
mass shootings
happen everywhere
Kids have nightmares
instead of
hope
We all want
and can practice
non-violence
I am hopeful
to make this world safer
especially for kids
© Stacey L. Joy, January 22, 2023
Yes, we can.
Kids today live with such despair. We can break the cycle…working together. That is the picture of hope <3
I am struck by the short lines, the voice that is at once child-like and wise, complex and simple. You capture the rhythm of wish of “we all want” in delicate trios “especially for kids.”
Hugs,
Sarah
Stacey,
Yolanda’s words are both beautiful and inspiring. I see why you chose them as the source for your poem. I’d like to think “we all want / and can practice / non-violence,” but I’m not so sure this is true. Seems to me lots of folks are blood-thirsty voyeurs content sitting on the sidelines while the streets, and halls, and aisles flow red.
Thank you for the hope, Stacey. It’s hard to come by at times when we examine this culture around us. It gouges like broken glass … just want this to stop. Abrazos, Susie
Oh, Stacey, your line “Kids have nightmares/instead of/hope” resonates such sadness when considering gun violence. Powerful message here. Yes, please, let’s make this world safer for kids!
Stacey Joy! Thank you for your presence today. Even in this chaotic world, you still find the joy and hope we all need. Your stanza,
“Kids have nightmares
instead of
hope”
is something we must change.
But competing against all media and the idea that “all kids are bad” and the “school to prison pipeline” is against us. But, there is hope. All it takes is one voice.
A hope-filled poem. Thank you, Joy and Yolanda. Beautiful. We will have relief in the future, thanks to the young activists who will be successful.
a wk ago:
pd for ALICE training
our liaison officer
firing a Nerf Elite 2.0
Eaglepoint RD-8 Blaster
into the crowd
walking down the hallway
to the assembly
we – the students – disassembled
quickly frantically
my colleague my friend
hit in the foot as we bolted
out a side door
3 dys ago:
on my couch
watching horrified
the news report of a
toddler brandishing
a handgun in some
apartment complex
the officers and bystanders
assembled in the hallway
a few floors bellow
trying to ascertain where
the handgun went
last night:
before drifting off to sleep
heather tells me about a u.s.
patent of a mouse trap using
a loaded gun
the good news
i guess
is the patent was almost 150
yrs ago
the bad news
it was granted
today:
sitting at my desk
firing up my chromebook
navigating the internet
to this very prompt
abt —
& realizing that
i
just
cant
Scott,
And i’m that “i just can’t” you did. And as I read your poem and the seemingly innocuous drill w/ a nerf gun, I’m listening to news about the Monterey Park shooting and its uniquely American normalcy, followed by a segue into the Biden document story. Point is, this is what we do: We walk w/ the gun in our hands every day, whether we like it or not.
Thinking about the absences –vowels and apostrophe– across the lines and the way these may have been swallowed in the crafting of this poem or stuck in the throat of your colleague hit in the foot. Thinking about the “firing up” of the chromebook and this poem as another sort of ammunition and training. I wish ALICE would have been an acrostic poem about a wonderland beyond/before school shootings.
Peace,
Sarah
…and yet, you did. And we do. Every day.
We recently had some training that asked us to disregard everything we had previously been taught to do during Code Reds. That was my first thought to write about today, but I just couldn’t. I’m glad you did today, Scott.
Scott, I feel you on this. This is why I prefer fiction over the news! How I long to live in a fairy tale land, but here I am navigating life and having little people in my care. Too much insanity in such little time. What is this world coming to? Thank you for sharing.
This one. The countdown of days and the reference to the mousetrap(!) puts the immediacy and the history of our gun disease in direct correlation. So maddening and despairing.
Scott – Each stanza hammered me. The very idea of the nerf training just made me crumble… omg! The mousetrap… ay-yi-yi! The calamity of a handgun and a child … weapons… more weapons than toys. I certainly feel the “I / just / can’t” and know that there is no end mark (masterful end). May we be wrong. I want a dose of Stacey’s hope. Susie
Wow, the history of your week. I can see that “i / just / cant” makes sense. But I’m so glad you took time to write it.
It is so insane that we do this. Yours and Allison’s poems help to show the damage that happens to our psyches through these drills.
Element-al/ary
steel heavy
tensile strength in its stretch
withstanding intense compression
powerful yet easy to mold
aluminum light
user accuracy in function
wears under stress of repeated use
best for a single event
plastic weightless
less sturdy, weak but cheap
protects from elemental decay
corrosion-resistant
forged as one
steel barrel
aluminum cage
plastic coat
compact, efficient assembly
for any particular purpose.
__________________________
Lakeshore Guns: “Firearms manufacturers conduct a lot of research to find the right combination of materials and production practices to make the best firearms for any particular
purpose.”
Michigan has 26 documented cases of shootings at or near schools & college campuses Michigan School Shootings, A Sad History |
Sarah,
The words that pierce my heart are “for any particular purpose.” Those words say the quiet part out loud. The description of materials strip the firearm and its user and its manufacturer of humanity. This loss of human feeling, this detachment, weighs heavily on my mind these days. I guess it’s all “Element-al/ary.”
Compact, efficient assembly. For any particular purpose. Horrific.
Sarah, Thank you for sharing the closing notes. Imagine 26 shootings near schools and campuses. Your poem is provocative thinking about how a weapon is developed. Imagine if protecting schools was given as much effort rather than trying to push through vouchers. Thanks for sharing your amazing craft with us today!
Sarah, I’ve come back to your poem several times today. Thank you for that. The two lines that continue to undo me on each rereading: “best for a single event” and “for any particular purpose.”
Sarah… these frikkin proud advertisers of their deadly weapons are bone chilling. You capture the tone in this litany of horror. What a poem! The title and the almost toy-like plastic juxtaposed with the purpose, the reality of the weaponry and the outcome of slaughtered children is just godawful. Whoof! “Lakeshore Guns” … how do we sleep? Brilliant poem. Susie
Sarah, this poem of capitalism at all costs hurts. Thank you for sharing your creative and effective approach. “compact, efficient assembly” – yes, anything at all for a profit.
Glenda,
A very tough topic today that has my mind whirring. Both Amanda’s poem and yours speak such truth. I plan to dig deeper into the things you share.
The Key
1988
I forgot the set of papers
I need to grade tonight
I park outside entry 4
yank the door open
and dart up the stairs,
throw back my classroom door,
grab the papers,
run back down the stairs,
and go back home.
2000
I forgot the set of papers
I need to grade tonight
I fumble in my purse.
to find my keys.
I still can’t used
to making sure
I have them with me.
One key to enter the building
a different one to get in my room
a third for the coach’s office.
Carrying them
weighs me down.
2018
No parking allowed
near the building
on the bright side
more steps toward
my daily 10000
I fob in and
walk through the scanners
There is an entry 20 steps
from my room
but all must enter
at the same door.
A uniformed police officer
stands sentry
then strolls the halls
the rest of the day,
Classroom door locked
glass panel covered with
a makeshift shield
with instructions for what to do
in case of an intruder
(they get tweaked and changed
after we learn from each new tragedy).
From hunkering down silently
out of sight of the windows and doors
to grabbing objects to throw at him
to running to the nearby neighborhood
if you can.
Today
Any time the PA clicks on
every time the PA clicks on
my heart stops and
my breath draws in
my eyes widen.
“Let it be that Johnny
needs to report to the office.”
I think and then begin praying.
The moment between the beep
and the voice seems eternal.
You can’t think about it
every second.
You can’t remain vigilant
and process every kid navigating
adolescence on the outskirts
as a threat.
You would never come to work
if you really thought about it.
But when you quit thinking about it
when you let your guard down
when you quit encouraging kindness
and inclusion
when you stop noticing who might need
some extra TLC
that’s when the culture
erodes into a cesspool of hate
the nurtures the desperate
instead of the loving.
If the funds that went into
securing the building
would have gone into
securing homes and hearts
and minds and lives
then maybe
the boy dressed in black
and lives inside a screen
who dissolves into blackness
wouldn’t want to kill
others who have
what he doesn’t.
No more fumbling,
we have to find the key.
~Susan Ahlbrand
22 January 2023
Oh, Susan, wow, I am completely mesmerized by your poem. I have witnessed these same changes your poem describes. I love the focus on keys, how these have even changed to a fob we scan, etc. Your end is electrifying connecting the whole concept of keys “No more fumbling;/ we have to find the key” Amen! Your poem speaks the truth so well!
Susan,
I have taken this same journey so many times. You are right: “We have to find the key.” I’m sure many today will read your words and in their minds return to those innocent days of teaching. Drop and cover drills seem so quaint given the way we have turned schools into bunkers.
Amen. sister. I like how the poem winds back to finding the key…to the door? the quiz? the problem. All of it.
Susan–you provide the history of our lives as teachers and the sorrow that we live with now. How things have changed. Keys and doors. Keys and doors.
Susan – The sequence here is a riveting journey. It’s one that I marvel any teacher can make every single day. The shift in culture is a gut punch. So well crafted! The part that hit me really hard was the indelible image of the teenager at the screen… oh my word , just so real and so awful. The keys… you truly mastered this construct. So well done. Now, if I could just sleep tonight… alas. Susie
Thank you, Susan, for this powerful history lesson. It reminds me of Gayle’s poem about the difference in how doors are used now that we’ve gone mad. Such a powerful question you pose in this stanza…
Yes, indeed, what if…
Thank you for the prompt, Glenda! I was going to follow it, but I’ve only been able to think about my military friend so I decided I should write to that person instead. I am leaving the name blank for their privacy.
(Name)—
I wait anxious for word
That you’re alive and alright.
Are you broken and bloodied?
Do they mess with your mind?
To hug you again
Would give me such delight.
Your body will heal.
I’m not sure of your mind.
I told you I’d pray,
But it’s hard to let go.
I keep telling God to let me have control.
Our world needs you,
I know it,
But still, I may cry
To think that one day you may
Lay down your life.
Are we worthy?
Should you do it?
But I think then of God
As He died on a cross
So that we could live on.
And if becoming like God is the best we can do,
Then sacrificing your life is noble and true.
So, I’ll trust for this moment
That you’re held in His hand,
I’ll pray for your safety
Like it’s my one command.
And when you get home
As you turn out the light,
Please send me a text
So I know you’re alright.
Rachel, your poem flows so well and is packed-full of heavy emotions. Worrying about a soldier’s mental health and safety are pantamount to also wondering if their self-sacrifice is appreciated. Powerful poem! I hope all goes well for your friend and you.
Rachel,
Even though your poem is about military service, it feels relevant to the way we’ve turned schools into battalions and students into troops soldiering through the minefield of school shootings. This epistle you’ve so beautifully written could be the words a mother speaks and prays to her children as they board the bus to school each day.
Rachel, how difficult to love someone in military service. Thank you for sharing, and peace to you and all those in the service.
Glenda, I absolutely love Amanda Gorman’s Twitter poem and your poem. The way blame is cast after a tragedy is absolutely frightening and in the Uvdale incident it was particularly evident. I also appreciate your invitation to your project! Thank you for sharing your brilliant prompt and poetry project. Today, I decided to write a poem about a shooting drill I experienced and I chose to write a Nonet. There’s so much more I want to say so I’m going to try to keep working this in other formats.
I Hide
It’s a great day to die, the cop shouts.
Hiding behind student projects,
we fear the bullets flying.
Although it’s just a drill,
terrorized we feel.
After, I find
a dark face
mask, I
hide.
Barb Edler
22 January 2023
Barb, The sparseness of the Nonet is particularly apropos for this topic given its dwindling form. I’m also thinking about the poem “We Wear the Mask” as an allusion in your poem. The image of the school projects as a barrier, a protector is both ironic and poignant.
Powerful how this poem dwindles down to “hide.”
The shrinking of the focus from the shout to “hide” is so real, so potent.
Barb — the form may well be the right way to address something so profoundly horrible. The very idea of training to handle the proliferation of school murders is something that is deeply emotional…deeply disturbing …words can not do justice to how horrific this is. Excellent choice. Susie
Oh, Barb, I do want to hear more about this senseless drill that sparked terror in the hearts of teachers and students alike. The nonet disappears as the person hiding.
My God, Glenda. Isn’t that the truth. The if only’s… This is gut-wrenching. Your words. Amanda’s words. And having to experience this day after day after… (another shooting for the Lunar New Year just occurred).
Modern Day Sisyphus
The weight of
I pledge allegiance
carrying bullets
To the words
up the mountain
Of the united states amendment
of bodies
And to the NRA
for all of eternity
For which it twists
is too great
One rifle
a weight to bear
In whose hands
and yet
Indivisible
the gods
Our liberty
have commanded it
No longer just
for all
For all
Whoa! Jennifer, I love what you’ve done here, weaving truths in an intertwined braid of thought, the words of the pledge a reminder of just how divisible we have become. No liberty for the lack of safety. You are a genius, my friend, in your creative way of proving points through poems that pack punches. Just wow.
Jennifer, I echo Kim’s words. This poem is genius. You are an amazing poet who leverages verse in service to justice. I’m in awe. The first two lines set the tone:
“The weight of
I pledge allegiance”
State law here requires each classroom say the pledge. I’ll never stand for it again w/out your poem accompanying my thoughts. Brilliant poem.
Jennifer, “No longer just” says it all! Fantastic crafting here. The repetition at the end is haunting and I love how it resonates! Powerful!
Jennifer, this is so creative! I found myself skipping every other line to read the italicized lines first because they were so captivating. The simultaneous unity and discord is stunning.
Wow, Jennifer . . . so cleverly done. The italics really helps the reader see what you are doing with interweaving adapted lines from the pledge. Genius.
Jennifer,
So creative here to thread the italicized interrogations between the nonitalicized– its own own poem, a commentary-reminder “carrying bullets/up the mountain/ of bodies”. And then at word “just” carries such weight in its multiple meanings of justice and exactness and immediacy.
Thank you,
Sarah
Jennifer, this is beautiful…that echo throughout of the Pledge of Allegiance is powerful and damning.
Jennifer – I’ve read this three ways: Straight through, italicized, unitalicized. It’s a masterpiece, so skillfully woven. How magnificently you put the title to work. I feel the laborious, labyrinthine machinery of bureaucracy, a burden akin to rolling the stone (and it rolling repeatedly back down) that mountain of bodies (heaven help us all). Your use of bullets weighs heavier than Sisyphus’ stone. He may have been relegated to this onerous task forever…must we? Can we not change our reality vs. being the stuff of myths? I am in awe of this poem!
I read the poem in all its power before I read the title. And then read the poem twice more. The alternating voices, the “for all”–my god.
Jennifer – Holy Moses, the cadence of the pledge is haunting. This piece should be on the front page of every newspaper in this country. Sisyphus on the the mountain indeed! This is brilliant. Thank you! Susie
Oh, Jennifer. This carrying of the bullets up the mountain of bodies, in Sisyphus-style is the most powerful thing I’ve read on the subject. Then the intertwined pledge of allegiance to the second amendment is amazing. You knocked it out of the park. Please do submit this to Glenda’s project.
Glenda, thank you for hosting us today. This prompt inspires not only writing, but also action and demand for change. It’s sobering when we consider that the vulnerability of our friendly skies are far more protected with bans than the vulnerability of our children in schools, learning to be good citizens and carry on the work of our world. I remember your trip when you took our letters to the memorial in Uvalde, and I was so grateful that you made that trip. You always inspire us to think deeply, from the heart. I wrote a three-chained Haiku blended with an acrostic today and incorporated also one of Barb’s ideas from her poem yesterday.
In Despair
In airports, guns banned!
Not in schools – no one searches.
Dear students: we failed!
Empty nests: hearts grieve
Searching clouds for loved ones’ signs,
Parents pray for peace
As children take flight
Igniting grief eternal ~
Ripped souls in despair
Kim, as w/ Linda’s poem, there’s something gratifying about form in poetry to say what must be said and draw the chaos and absurdity of our world into stark relief. Your chain haiku focuses on cause/effect, and the diction tears at my heart: “eternal grief” and “igniting” and “ripped.” You are such a gifted poet.
The sheer number of school shootings in comparison to plane tragedies (also a horrifying loss) and how we handle security between the two is jaw dropping. Your intentional/unintentional? use of “children take flight” is powerful. This line, “Empty nests: hearts grieve” weighs heavily. I don’t understand our nation any more. We are in disrepair and despair.
Kim, wow, I love so many things about your poem. I love how your crafted the entire poem and how you open your poem by comparing how guns are banned in airports but not in schools. Imagining myself being armed as an instructor is terrifying, and that’s a suggested solution to this issue! “Dear students: we failed!” is the truth! Your ending is heart-wrenching! “igniting grief eternal/Ripped souls in despair”. Heavy truth here! Incredibly powerful poem! Thank you!
Kim.
Indeed, In Despair! Each line drew my eyes to linger on the letter and then move my gaze to the left like watching a bullet in slow motion as the weight of each fact fell upon me. The exclamation, the wavy hyphen (not sure if it is a tilde if not over a letter) at the end leading into “Ripped souls in despair” feels like a prayer somehow. And I just can’t with the image of “children take flight.” Despair and infuriating and really beautiful, Kim.
Sarah
Yes. In despair. We are…and starting to feel held hostage by those that would put guns over lives. I’m with the children praying for peace.
Kim, as always, your spare lines are packed with power…here capturing the failure to protect the most vulnerable among us, the children. The eternal grief the ripped souls, the despair…it is a pure and straightforward statement of the terribleness of our times. The way you wove the forms together so seamlessly amazes me!
Kim, what power in these phrases. Your haiku speak volumes, like the untimely and unwanted “Empty nests: hearts grieve”
And the tie-in to the airports where guns are banned: “As children take flight” So painful and powerful.
Glenda—thank you for tackling such a real and present topic for the classroom teacher today. I retired, but still find myself analyzing rooms for their safety or lack of hiding places. I always wondered whether I would open that door to let the student in the hall inside. I a glad I never had to make that choice…
The Door
I used to love
opening
my outside door
on early spring days,
letting in the air
and the fresh green
and the sounds of the world.
My kids would
breathe in hope
and life
and newness.
That door
remains closed now,
open only to
escape
the artificial danger
of fire drills.
Doors are different now.
Gayle Sands
January 22, 2023
Yes, doors are different now. The panic of seeing a door propped open is real. How sad these lines make me…but how true.
Gayle,
Your poem echos the loss of innocence so many teachers and students experience these days. I like that you focused on the history of an object and contrast what it was to what it is now.
Gayle, what a powerful poem – the then and the now, and that closing line just echos and echoes and echoes. Doors are different now. Artificial danger. I was in fifth grade when my classroom with those old-style Florida windows faced Ocean Boulevard on St. Simons Island, Georgia, and we could hear the waves crashing on the rocks every afternoon during reading. My heart aches for children whose world feels far less safe than mine did, and your poem speaks to that! Thank you, dear Gayle.
Gayle, the loss of open doors is one of our greatest losses – the welcoming, the trust, the breath of life – all gone. And the reality is, no matter what we do, the gunman will find a way (even as we build steel structures upon steel to reinforce that point of entry)
Gayle, I love how such a sad poem can be beyond beautiful, too. You reminded me of what my grandma said long ago when she came to visit us after we moved. She bemoaned the fact that all the houses around us had gates and fences and said there never used to be a need to fence your house in. We truly have lost the “front porch” world of just a couple generations ago.
Gayle, wow, I love everything about your poem and love how you captured the significance of a door in a school. As teachers we understand florescent lights and stale air, tiled floors and uncomfortable seating. Your ending line “Doors are different now.” is such a heavy final note and compares so well with the bright and fresh opening of your poem. Magnificent work!
Gayle,
I appreciate your reference to doors and how your perception of them has shifted. I did something similar with keys.
They sure are.
So many things are different now. The line that caught me here is “the artificial danger”. The kids are always asking at fire drills: “Is this real?” As if we can ever say, “Yes.” Your symbolic poem so speaks to what is lost, Gayle.
Gayle, thank you.
Doors to “let(ting) in the air
and the fresh green
and the sounds of the world” is so beautiful. And the sad conclusion…”Doors are different now.” Wow.
Good Morning, Glenda. I so appreciate you using art to address your feelings about society. It is maddening that we must deal with this kind of wack-a-mole violence. Uvalde really shook me up too. I was stunned again that the world just picked up and kept on moving while I and so many others were shaken to our core after some very difficult demands put on educators last year. I remember telling my sister, “no one checked up on me…how I was feeling.”
We’ve had a recent shooting in my state. A first-grade student shot his teacher. It was not an accident.
Triolet for a Teacher
She took a bullet in her chest
one hand raised to protect the kids
teachers don’t wear bulletproof vests
She took a bullet in her chest
she asked them all to do their best
cross the hall to the other kids
She took a bullet in her chest
one hand raised to protect the kids
…and she got her kids to safety before taking care of herself. The repetition in your poem is powerful. We always work to protect the kids, don’t we?
Linda,
The poem is perfect. There’s something about a structured form that highlights the chaos educators face in the aftermath of lockdowns and shootings. When I saw the news of this six-year-old child shooting his teacher, I felt paralyzed. How the hell does a six-year-old get that depraved that fast. We are so broken.
That repetition is powerful here, and may be a further symbol for the repetition that we need as a nation in continuing the pressure for lawmakers to make the changes that they have failed to make to keep our children – and teachers – and everyone else – safe. We’re far from safe, and your poem reminds us that shootings are still happening frequently, and too many seem unaffected.
Linda, your poetry form works so well to bring us back to the person. That repeated line is a punch, one that we can’t dismiss, shouldn’t dismiss. Keep reminding us. It needs to be said.
Yes, the repetition drives the point home of the tragedy and the selflessness of the teacher—one hand raised to protect the kids…
Linda, I am so sorry about the shooting in your state. I’ve heard about this and find it so alarming. Using the triolet is incredibly effective. “one hand raised to protect the kids” is sizzling with emotion and accuracy. Brilliant poem!
Linda,
It sure feels like you picked the perfect form to capture this situation. Concise with key repetition. Bravo! (Though it feels icky to celebrate something about such a senseless tragedy but her bravery is what resonates.)
Linda, the triolet form perfectly captures the poignance of that teacher trying to protect the kids…an indelible image. I have followed this story closely, for it is close to home; I grew up in that area. I have so many questions. So many whys. I celebrate that she’s recuperating while wondering how painful it will be, on many counts…
Linda — This has me in tears. Susie
What powerful repetitions here, Linda:
“She took a bullet in her chest
one hand raised to protect the kids”
Your introduction about no one asking about how you were doing after Uvalde, and now this in your own state. How are you doing? How are teachers doing? How can we continue with this? God bless and hold you.