Poetry Friday & Daylight Saving Bank

Stonehenge Sunrise

by Georgia LV

Are you used to the time change yet? Over here we're still adjusting our body clocks to the clocks in the world. And my car is still an hour ahead!

Students - today's poem comes to you from the Manuscript Bus Station. Some time ago, I wrote a poetry collection titled IMAGINARY NEIGHBORHOOD, and it's a rustle of poems about places that don't really exist except for in my mind. No, there's not a real "Daylight Saving Bank" or a real "Snowflake Designer's Studio," but in the IMAGINARY NEIGHBORHOOD...there is.

What's the Manuscript Bus Station? Well, it's not a poem. But it's a place where manuscripts wait for someone to pick them up and take them home. Writers spend lots of time visiting the Manuscript Bus Station, checking to see if they got a ride with a publisher.

This poem came from my crazy head and my constant confusion with Daylight Savings Time. The Daylight Savings Bank is a made up place, one I think would be neat to visit in real life. What place do you wish to invent? Go for it! Your imaginary place can come to life in your notebook! Thinking about different times in the year is another way that I find writing ideas.

Today is Veterans Day. Last year, I posted To You on Veterans Day, and today I am especially thinking about those who have served and continue to serve our country. Last Friday, my mother shared this family scrapbook with me - full of letters from my grandpa Norman H. Dreyer to my grandmother, Florence E.C. Dreyer, during WWII. I will be writing about these soon, but today I will be rereading the letters and thinking about my grandparents between 1943 - 1945.

Dreyer Family Letters

Photo by Amy LV

It was such a delight to talk with teachers at last week at Literacy for All about writing history poems in social studies class. This week I've been mulling over many of their comments and stories, and I am excited to continue this conversation at NCTE in a couple of weeks.

Today I look forward to talking with parents at the NYS PTA Convention about "Encouraging and Strengthening Young Writers at Home." If anyone would like the handouts from that session, please just send me an e-mail to amy@amylv.com, and I will be happy to send them on their way to you.

April Halprin Wayland is hosting today's Poetry Friday buffet over at Teaching Authors. Thank you, April!

(Please click on POST A COMMENT below to share a thought.)

Poem #347 Brings Daylight Saving Time

Clock

by Amy LV

Happy Daylight Saving Time!

Yesterday I listened to an interview with Howard Mansfield in which he spoke about TURN AND JUMP, his book focusing on how we perceive time.  "Spring ahead.  Fall back."  That's what my mom always used to say.  Daylight Saving Time is a funny thing.

Here at the Naval Oceanography Portal, you can read a bit of history about Daylight Savings Time in the US as well as the dates for Daylight Savings Time for the past and next several years.

As for funny stories around here regarding Daylight Saving Time...one fall we invited friends  for dinner, and I could not figure out why there were soooo rudely late.  'Turns out I had not changed our clocks back.  And last night I looked at the kitchen clock, stunned that it was already 11pm.  'Turns out Mark had set the clocks back early!

Students - occasionally the calendar dictates our writing.  Today was one of those times for me.  What on the calendar interests you?  Is there a month, a holiday, a special birthday or anniversary that makes you want to sit and write or sit and draw or sing?

Teachers - DAYS TO CELEBRATE, edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins, includes calendars with fascinating facts about different dates as well as several timely poems for each month.  It's a handy and interesting classroom resource, illustrated beautifully by Stephen Alcorn.

Shop Indie Bookstores

There are two states in the United States which do not honor Daylight Saving Time.  Do you know which ones they are?  Check npr to find out.

(Please click on POST A COMMENT below to share a thought.)