Poetry in the Halls, High School edition

Poetry is everywhere; it just needs editing.
~James Tate

Hi folks! Happy Poetry Friday!

As a gift to celebrate 16 years of blogging, I'm offering a pdf for Poetry in the Halls, High School edition. It features poems by Michelle Heidenrich Barnes, Matsuo Basho, Doraine Bennett, William Blake, William Stanley Braithwaite, Gwendolyn Brooks, Karen Eastlund, Barbara Kingsolver, Michelle Kogan, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Amy Lowell, Bridget Magee, Carl Sandburg, Janice Scully, Edward Shanks, Sara Teasdale, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, E.B. White, and me.

Print out these ledger-sized poems and put them up in your school hallways, library, or other poetry-inviting place! Laminate them if you can :-) They look great mounted on colored construction paper, too!

I coordinated Poetry in the Halls in various elementary, middle, and high schools for a dozen years. One of my daughter Elena's favorite poems is The Orange by Wendy Cope, which she saw in the halls.

A(nother) Year of Reading has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Mary Lee!

Making art a priority

Five years ago, the Arts Council set out to produce a threefold definition of art's purpose: to increase people's capacity for life (helping them to "understand, interpret and adapt to the world around them"), to enrich their experience (bringing "colour, beauty, passion and intensity to lives") and to provide a safe site in which they could build their skills, confidence and self-esteem. Other forms of endeavour do some of these things. Only art does all three.
~David Edgar

Hi y'all! Time for Art Thursday. First up, Sarah Green/The Art Assignment with "Should Art Be Publicly Funded?"



Next, Rajiv Surendra Visits the Metropolitan Museum of Art - John Singer Sargent Painting:



The screenshot at the top is from Why Does the Government Pay for Art?

Germans turning 18 to be offered €200 culture pass ‘birthday present’ (joining France, Italy, and Spain)

Dancing down to Earth

Sing like no one’s listening
Love like you’ve never been hurt before
Dance like Sam Rockwell in an otherwise entirely serious movie
~Medlife Crisis

For Music Monday, a song by Australian duo Flight Facilities featuring Sam Rockwell dancing:



Charlie's Angels spoiler warning for this video about Sam Rockwell dancing:

Beacons, birdwings, and butter

Sit in reverie and watch the changing color of the waves that break upon the idle seashore of the mind.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Hi y'all! I am on vacation the second half of this week, and it sort of seems like I started early since I didn't post for Music Monday. Here's a non-music video by someone who has totally convinced me to try Julia Child recipes:



I really want to make Crepes Suzette. If you want to watch Jamie struggle, check out the French Jelly Roll.

I saw some Birdwings in an exhibit recently. So eye-catching!

Rajah's Brookes Birdwing
Bernard Dupont

Rajah Brooke's Birdwing (Trogonoptera brookiana albescens)
CheongWeei Gan

I don't have a poem planned for this week! So I just checked to see if there was anything of mine I could share, and there's one that kind of fits because someone got my hopes up that no one, not even a former president, is above the law. Edouard de Laboulaye had the idea for the Statue of Liberty, a gift from France.

First, the arm with the torch was built

In 1865 when the Union held,
in his mind's eye
Edouard de Laboulaye
spotted the light of a beacon
in the hand of a woman in New York
all the way from France

what greater gift
what better friend
than one who calls forth
the truest self
again and again?

Tuar ceatha

Leprechauns are not twee beings dreamed up by the tourist board, but warriors of legend...Their mission, their life’s work, is to protect the gold. What better way to hide it than to become a joke, a story nobody takes seriously?
~Kathy Bryson

Hi folks! Happy Poetry Friday! How did this week get away from me? I have been working on a printable pdf "Poetry in the Halls" packet for high schools (like the one I made for younger grades in 2019). I'm just not done, though! I don't want to rush.

If you have a poem you think might be great for reading on the way to class, email me at tabatha(at)tabathayeatts(dot)com. I could use something funny.

I did finish this National Poetry Month logo:

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In honor of St Patrick's Day, a poem (from 2019) about a rainbow.

photo by Lux Raimbow Rafael

Five things about the rainbow:
by Tabatha Yeatts

1. The rainbow is unconcerned about being person-seen. She will dart out when everyone is still inside, wondering where they left their umbrellas.
2. She hopes that the hill doesn't notice how often she alights near him. Or if he does, that he starts wishing for rain.
3. Though the rainbow's trying not to be obvious with her attentions, she can't help but appreciate how very soft his mossy sections are. The grass IS actually greener on his side.
4. She accidentally blushes a double rainbow when his flowers brush up against her. The people who spot her capture photo evidence of her embarrassment.
5. Maybe other locations would like a warm and dazzling rainbow now and then, but she moves around less and less. She feels lit up here, even when it doesn't rain.

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Laura Purdie Salas has the Poetry Friday round-up at her blog Small Reads for Brighter Days. Thanks, Laura!

Toy theaters

Long before Netflix or video games, these tiny paper theaters served as home entertainment, outlets for imagination crafted for young people but popular with adults, too.
~Wendi Maloney for the Library of Congress, who has dozens

Theaters made of paper for Art Thursday. I love these so much I could go on and on. I saw one with a paper pit orchestra in front...how great is that??

Mon Theatre, a short-lived but prolific twice-monthly magazine, was published in Paris by Albert Mericand. It provided characters and scenes for this large Art Nouveau style theater.
Tiefenschaerfe

Toy theatre with Little Red Riding Hood
Tiefenschaerfe

Schreibers Papiertheater, Bühnenhintergrund
Unknown author

Silhouettes
John Wolff, publisher

Tafel aus "Puppen- und Kasperlspiele", 1925
Franz Wacik - Dorotheum

Der Freischütz
Benno Mitschka

A holiday at sea

The first things that she took from me were selfishness and sleep
She broke a thousand heirlooms I was never meant to keep
She filled my life with color, canceled plans, and trashed my car
But none of that was ever who we are
~Brandi Carlile, "The Mother"

For Music Monday, Brandi Carlile: