Hosting Poetry Friday & A Singing Lady

Welcome to today's Poetry Friday buffet...here! I hope you're hungry, as there will be many links to munch on throughout the day.

Plane Tickets

Students - today's poem comes from something that just happened to me...almost. This week, I had the chance to work with some fantastic and warm teachers in Ohio's West Carrollton Schools. Ohio is several hours from home, so this work required some air travel.


On Wednesday evening I flew home through Newark, and while in the airport restroom, I heard a woman singing a lovely and mysterious Spanish song. It was mysterious to me because I do not speak Spanish and because I have never sung in a public restroom. I just stood there, washing my hands, savoring water and words both.


Were there others there? No, we were alone. Was it in a store? No, it was in an airport. So no, the facts of this poem are not exactly accurate. That's why I say that this "almost" happened to me.


The facts are not exact, but the spirit and soul of this moment could not be more true. I was touched by the openness of song in a restroom, of joy in the most mundane moment of daily life. My evening was made more beautiful by this chance encounter, and I know that I will think about this lady again and again.


Remember this - you do not need a perfect memory or the exact facts of an event to recapture the mood and dust left upon your heart.


To leave your link for today, please click on "Mister Linky" below and add a direct link to your Poetry Friday post. Along with your link, please include your name or blog's name followed by the topic of your post in parentheses.


For example: The Poem Farm (Original poem "I Heard a Lady Singing")


I will add posts throughout the day, though I will be out for much of the morning. Please click below to see what's here, and I'll round everything up as soon as I get back home.

Today's Dishes at the Poetry Friday Buffet
Steven Witherow at Crackles of Speech offers up an original poem about Facebook titled "Friendism."


Charles Ghigna at Father Goose leads us into autumn with his original poem "Autumn's Way."


Myra Garces-Bascal at Gathering Books features poet Professor Gemimo Abad.


Julie Larios at The Drift Record, in love with New York City, shares Allen Ginsberg's poem "My Sad Self."


Mary Lee at A Year of Reading brings us David Budbill's "What We Need" and some donuts.


Mandy brings Target's "Haiku-pons" over at Enjoy and Embrace Learning.


Maria Horvath's Daily Poems shares a poem about the ambivalence of love, "I Can't Hold You and I Can't Leave You" by Juana Inez De La Cruz.


Debbie Diller at A Journey in Learning shares Jane Kenyon's "Trouble with Math in a One-Room Country School."


The Stenhouse Blog spotlights a poem by California English Teacher Gayle Hobbs, "Thinking Survived."


Laura Purdie Salas at Writing the World for Kids offers Alice Schertle's "Spider" from Alice's book KEEPERS.


Laura also invites us to join her 15 Words or Less Poems with a "Barred" photograph.


At Random Noodling, Diane Mayr brings "That's the Sum of It" by David Ignatow along with a video of Ignatow reading "I Killed a Fly."


Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference shares "Poor Angus" by Shel Silverstein.


At Kids of the Homefront Army, Diane Mayr has an original poem titled "Mail Call."


Diane also has cat poetry at Kurious Kitty's Kurio Kabinet, including "Pussycat Sits on a Chair" by Edward Newman Horn.


At Kurious K's Kwotes, Diane offers a quote from Picasso about art.


Robin Hood Black shares Rose Fyleman's poem, "The Best Game that Fairies Play."


Over at Author Amok, Laura has a tribute to neglected master, Samuel Menashe.


Dori ushers in fall with Jeanie Tomasko's poem, "Edge of September."


At Jama's Alphabet Soup, Jama feeds us Mary Oliver's "The Poet is Told to Fill Up More Pages."


Sally, at Paper Tigers, shares the book UNDERWATER FARMYARD by Carol Ann Duffy.


At Across the Page, Janet offers James Taylor's song, OUR TOWN along with thoughts about the recent flooding in Owego, NY.


JoAnn Early Macken has an original poem about revision, titled "Revising a Poem" at Teaching Authors.


Greg Pincus shares his original poem, "The Writer's Chant (Butt in Chair)" over at GottaBook.


At Picture Book of the Day, Anastasia Suen brings the book Cats, Cats by author-illustrator Michelle Nelson-Schmidt.


David Elzey offers some minimally invasive poems at Fomograms.


Over at The Small Nouns, Ben shares Walt Whitman's poem, "Miracles."


Elaine Magliaro continues taking us through the year with poetry books over at Wild Rose Reader.


To read Elaine's first post about poetry books through the year, visit Wild Rose Reader here.


At All About the Books, Janet Squires brings AMAZING FACES, edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins.


Pentimento offers us Jane Hirschfield's poem, "French Horn."


At Check it Out, Jone MacCulloch shares "The Words Under the Words" by Naomi Shihab Nye.


TeacherDance jumps into sharing on Poetry Friday for the first time with a poem for the beginning of school, James W. Hall's "Maybe Dats Your Pwoblem Too."


Over at Musings, Joyce Ray has an original 9/11 poem titled "Golden Seams."


Jennie, at Biblio File, offers up a Shel Silverstein poem from WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS.


At Twinkling Along, Carlie shares her original poem, "Lost Phone."


At There is No Such Thing as a God-Forsaken Town, Ruth shares "Hurry" by Marie Howe.


Please come back later for dessert!


I would like to invite you over to my new blog, Sharing Our Notebooks. In this space, you can expect regular sneak-peeks into the notebooks of others. (Maybe yours?) Today you can see the scrawls-before-books of Anne Mazer.


Thank you to my daughter Georgia for today's calligraphy!

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