Make New Friends and See the Old… I mean the Longtime…

I have had a great week at IRA. Each morning, I walk through Centennial Olympic Park undisturbed by traffic or bustling people on my way to the World Congress Center. Sometimes, as I walk through this well-kept community space, it is hard for me to imagine the size of this city.  Today, on my way back from convention meetings, I stop to watch the children and fountain frolic together, playing and toying with one another. A few minutes later, the fountain’s tenor changed from a child’s water wonderland to choreographed dance that mesmerized children and adults alike.

I met more people today. If you’ve read any of my other blogs this week, you know that I have been making the acquaintanceship of many interesting and thoughtful people. But today was especially fulfilling! Can you imagine out of some 25,000 teachers from countless points on the globe, I ran into an old a longtime friend from college days that I hadn’t seen in years. It’s not that we live that far apart, but our lives don’t intersect as frequently now as in those days gone by. Marilyn asked me if I was planning to attend the 14th IRA Poetry Olio–something I had never attended but felt compelled to visit.

I have got to tell you that was an experience. There were four or five professional poets who did interpretive readings and groups who set poetry to music. My favorite was probably Dead Poets , a group of three gifted musicians who interpret classic poetry (Shakespeare, Wordsworth, and Langston Hughes among others) to music. Some of the tunes and ‘tudes are reverent and others, well, let’s say they take some poetic license. But all of their work is meant to bring positive attention to language and poetry.

Flocabulary, another group that kids would love performed a scene from Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. Their approach to langauge is meaningful and memorable in a modern sense. I wish I were back in the classroom so that I could share them and Dead Poets with the kids in my community. Their website has music samples, lyric texts and primary source documentation.