Wednesday, October 3, 2012

woman of words

My co-teacher this year is a poet. Not only is he a poet, but he loves teaching poetry, and so he does. We have poetry day each week, and I think he does an awesome job. He's teaching me about poetry too. Actually, he's re-acquainting me with an old friend. When he has the kids try their hand, I usually try mine, too. There are many teacherly reasons I do this. It sets a good example of participation. It gives him an example to read if the kids are too shy to read theirs. (they aren't as often now, which is awesome).

The last couple of days, for the last part of class, he's been showing us a documentary on a poetry slam contest that is done in Chicago. There are some wonderful teenage poets who compete. The kids have issues and troubles and genius, like teenagers do. I've been enjoying it, and I hope that the students are getting something out of it as well.

Today, walking out to my car, I began composing a poem. I worked on it a little this evening, not the least of which was getting it written down, and I'm going to share it with you. It may - or may not - be your cup of tea, and that's OK. If you want to give feedback, I'm fine with that, too. Here it is:



I am a woman of many words.
Words that I say to myself.
Poetic words, that pour across the page
Piling up upon each other
Words that I read and read and read
Words that I hear in Maya Angelou's voice
In my head
Standing proud and smart and woman.
I am a woman of many words.
Waiting for the moment
That is my moment.
Waiting for the moment that words
Show what kind of woman I am.
Finding my voice to speak them
Aloud.
I am a woman of many words
flowing from my fingers to the
keyboard to the
computer screen
like my voice but with the space bar clicking.
I am a woman
of words

                    Dina Honeycutt 2012

2 comments:

Fran said...

Brilliant. Just absolutely, perfectly brilliant!

Linda said...

Awesome poem!