Zombies! Evacuate the School!

Zombies! Evacuate the School! — page 1 — A F W wo os ABOUT 20MBi S PO T Y AND Tl-t STUFF What You think zombies were in my school when I was a kid I wish An occasional zombie would have been a pretty great diversion from my two most memorable school zone pastimes perfecting my fake sneeze and pushing the drool around in my mouth with my tongue trying to look interested while my mind was outside on the playground In school I was never what some people think you should be which is perfect Everyone knows you get points off for anything less than perfection I bet you think that I went to a perfect school with perfect teachers and that I was even perfecter than all of them added up together That I got all A's and was like a jack in the box on awards day popping up to shake the principal's hand and collecting stacks of certificates to post on my bedroom wall next to all the blue ribbons I got from playing the violin A I can't play the violin B I never got all A's Not even once If you count being quiet as being good at school then I was pretty good Aaaaa choo I did most of my worksheets top reading group but I still remember across the ocean to the New World in 1492 how to conjugate verbs and that Otto Mergenthaler the linotype machine so I can't honestly say that school was a waste Even though my school days were littered with mind <cid_not_found_(cid:173)> sucking black holes I did learn stuff that Christopher Columbus bobbed I was afraid not to I wasn't in the invented What I did not learn in school was how to write poetry The first poem I remember writing that was not for an assignment was about how it felt to be blind Guess I tuned out the write what you know part of that lesson There were no real reasons in my life to play the sympathy card so I just made one up for poetry purposes because it seemed like the right thing to do Poetry is supposed seriously medium Could be I was looking for poetry to put a little drama in my boring life or maybe I was just a little nuts so I thought at the time-and my life was to be happy or sad-or Kids start out a little nuts and then become more nuts as they turn into grown ups Take my teacher at Anderson Middle School Mrs Housch She was about 112 wore lace up high heels and her eyeglasses on a string around her neck She galloped around the room when she read us Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere her glasses bouncing up and down She was what's called in poetry an image a mind picture that sticks with you I didn't realize what a good image she was until years later when I still remembered what she looked like Mrs Housch turned out to be an image that stuck with me for a long time like a mosquito bite scar After her gallop around the room Mrs Housch announced that there that week We each were to write a would be no worksheets for homework poem and it was due on Friday That was my poetry writing lesson I was clueless Write a poem I'd gotten pretty good at filling in the blanks but how was I supposed the class and saw all the perfecter kids get busy writing I froze up as solid as a pant leg in a bike chain I wasn't going anywhere to write a poem When I looked around So that night at home I went to the bookshelf and pulled a dusty ancient poetry book with all kinds of loose threads hanging off it and copied a poem out of it about autumn and turned it in I made sure I had some major erasures here and there to show how hard I'd worked on it I think I tore the page in one place It was perfection My luck Mrs Housch with a few loose threads of her own was older than that book She knew the poem the book it was swiped out of and that I'd signed my pencil smeared name to it Busted Points off Story of my life My punishment was to write another poem only this time using my own words Can you believe that being a poet is now my job since the first poetry <cid_not_found_(cid:173)> writing experience I remember was dealt out as a punishment True story The thing is you never know what's going to stick out of your whole school experience or what lessons are going to help you later in life Turns out my tendency matter if Housch taught me how to write poetry Writing poetry is something I had to learn on my own toward daydreaming has been a real plus and it didn't really Knowing that I decided to put this book together with the idea that as writers we are all teaching ourselves along the way We do that through our reading and experimenting with words So included in this book along with images of school are some ideas on how you might try using some of my poems as models for your own writing kind of like the way people sing other people's songs before they write their own And here's another fact I've picked up as a writer the awful boredom I dreaded as a kid is now my friend In order to be a writer I have to carve time out of my day-time away from the TV and my past due deadlines-to be bored and see what my brain comes up with Mind skate time I call it Mind skate time is leisure time a concept that in the age of flat screens video games and ear buds has almost become extinct That element of writing leisure time is as important as pencil and paper So take this book find yourself some paper pencil and leisure time and let yourself get bored I'm waiting to hear from you 8 9

Zombies! Evacuate the School! — page 2 — A F W wo os ABOUT 20MBi S PO T Y AND Tl-t STUFF What You think zombies were in my school when I was a kid I wish An occasional zombie would have been a pretty great diversion from my two most memorable school zone pastimes perfecting my fake sneeze and pushing the drool around in my mouth with my tongue trying to look interested while my mind was outside on the playground In school I was never what some people think you should be which is perfect Everyone knows you get points off for anything less than perfection I bet you think that I went to a perfect school with perfect teachers and that I was even perfecter than all of them added up together That I got all A's and was like a jack in the box on awards day popping up to shake the principal's hand and collecting stacks of certificates to post on my bedroom wall next to all the blue ribbons I got from playing the violin A I can't play the violin B I never got all A's Not even once If you count being quiet as being good at school then I was pretty good Aaaaa choo I did most of my worksheets top reading group but I still remember across the ocean to the New World in 1492 how to conjugate verbs and that Otto Mergenthaler the linotype machine so I can't honestly say that school was a waste Even though my school days were littered with mind <cid_not_found_(cid:173)> sucking black holes I did learn stuff that Christopher Columbus bobbed I was afraid not to I wasn't in the invented What I did not learn in school was how to write poetry The first poem I remember writing that was not for an assignment was about how it felt to be blind Guess I tuned out the write what you know part of that lesson There were no real reasons in my life to play the sympathy card so I just made one up for poetry purposes because it seemed like the right thing to do Poetry is supposed seriously medium Could be I was looking for poetry to put a little drama in my boring life or maybe I was just a little nuts so I thought at the time-and my life was to be happy or sad-or Kids start out a little nuts and then become more nuts as they turn into grown ups Take my teacher at Anderson Middle School Mrs Housch She was about 112 wore lace up high heels and her eyeglasses on a string around her neck She galloped around the room when she read us Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere her glasses bouncing up and down She was what's called in poetry an image a mind picture that sticks with you I didn't realize what a good image she was until years later when I still remembered what she looked like Mrs Housch turned out to be an image that stuck with me for a long time like a mosquito bite scar After her gallop around the room Mrs Housch announced that there that week We each were to write a would be no worksheets for homework poem and it was due on Friday That was my poetry writing lesson I was clueless Write a poem I'd gotten pretty good at filling in the blanks but how was I supposed the class and saw all the perfecter kids get busy writing I froze up as solid as a pant leg in a bike chain I wasn't going anywhere to write a poem When I looked around So that night at home I went to the bookshelf and pulled a dusty ancient poetry book with all kinds of loose threads hanging off it and copied a poem out of it about autumn and turned it in I made sure I had some major erasures here and there to show how hard I'd worked on it I think I tore the page in one place It was perfection My luck Mrs Housch with a few loose threads of her own was older than that book She knew the poem the book it was swiped out of and that I'd signed my pencil smeared name to it Busted Points off Story of my life My punishment was to write another poem only this time using my own words Can you believe that being a poet is now my job since the first poetry <cid_not_found_(cid:173)> writing experience I remember was dealt out as a punishment True story The thing is you never know what's going to stick out of your whole school experience or what lessons are going to help you later in life Turns out my tendency matter if Housch taught me how to write poetry Writing poetry is something I had to learn on my own toward daydreaming has been a real plus and it didn't really Knowing that I decided to put this book together with the idea that as writers we are all teaching ourselves along the way We do that through our reading and experimenting with words So included in this book along with images of school are some ideas on how you might try using some of my poems as models for your own writing kind of like the way people sing other people's songs before they write their own And here's another fact I've picked up as a writer the awful boredom I dreaded as a kid is now my friend In order to be a writer I have to carve time out of my day-time away from the TV and my past due deadlines-to be bored and see what my brain comes up with Mind skate time I call it Mind skate time is leisure time a concept that in the age of flat screens video games and ear buds has almost become extinct That element of writing leisure time is as important as pencil and paper So take this book find yourself some paper pencil and leisure time and let yourself get bored I'm waiting to hear from you 8 9

Zombies! Evacuate the School! — page 3 — l 1 1mr 11 BACK TO SCtlOOL 11 1 11 i I ii I 11 I've rewatched every rerun I have no skin on my knees I've had it with the crickets the sunburn and the bees I 11 I I l 11 1 II I II II l i I hiked around the woods and got peed on by a tree toad My neighbor took me fishing I got gang-jumped by mosquitoes I've been bitten scorched and stung and the ball field is a sneeze My controller went on strike and I'm bouncing off the trees Days no longer long whisper Time to move along School is calling no use stalling Fall is falling and it cannot be ignored Should I follow Might as well HA'f O'J 0 ii M otJ 5Ul MI I AC J i tO I I t i I'm pretty bored I rJ J

Zombies! Evacuate the School! — page 4 — l 1 1mr 11 BACK TO SCtlOOL 11 1 11 i I ii I 11 I've rewatched every rerun I have no skin on my knees I've had it with the crickets the sunburn and the bees I 11 I I l 11 1 II I II II l i I hiked around the woods and got peed on by a tree toad My neighbor took me fishing I got gang-jumped by mosquitoes I've been bitten scorched and stung and the ball field is a sneeze My controller went on strike and I'm bouncing off the trees Days no longer long whisper Time to move along School is calling no use stalling Fall is falling and it cannot be ignored Should I follow Might as well HA'f O'J 0 ii M otJ 5Ul MI I AC J i tO I I t i I'm pretty bored I rJ J

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