Word After Word

At the West Chester Conference, I saw/heard twenty-five poets read their work.  And I took all these books with me, and because of the Greatest Tub Ever (something about the way the sides slanted back, pitching one into the perfect pose for reading…and the way the water came out of the spigot, in a ribbon, quietly like silk, not splashy, disastrous for books…) I read read read.  And I as I read, I “taught” these books–I want to use all of them in my classes.

Glen Rock Book of the Dead Marion Winik.  Memoir.  Tiny little chapters. Every one she knows who has died. I had much resistance at first. On page 38, the book opened, really opened to me and this will be a great way to teach Summary. And Significant detail: I’m still not over those 12 shades of purple thread!  No scenes.

 

All Souls  Christine Schutt   Fiction. I love this author and will always love anything she writes. I love what she leaves out. She writes in all these crazy little sections. She writes from the points of view of all the different girls at the fancy day school in Manhattan, and their moms and teachers and a dad, but it never feels like their points of view, it feels like she knows more about each character than they could know, but yet they do know…..it’s just crazy, jumpy, scritchy, majestic. This will be so good in Linked Stories, I think. I am hoping my students will read and tell me (book orders are due end of September).

all the poems by Kate Light

all the poems by Molly Peacock