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Language of Cancer, Leontia Flynn, Memoir, Northern Ireland, Rituals, Seamus Heaney, Themes of childhood
Poetry: Works like a Charm
Ukrainian-American poet, Ilya Kaminsky, writes in the New York Times, of his desperation to find ways out of Ukraine for his friends - writers, poets, and translators. Many of them do not want to leave their homes, even as Russia continues to bombard their cities: I ask how I can help. Finally, an older friend, a lifelong journalist, writes back:…
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these are the good old days. . .
January 1, 2013 Two o’clock in the morning. All is quiet – the right time for taking stock. My parents are here, fast asleep having brought in this New Year with the fireworks we’ve been saving for a special occasion and, for good luck, my husband designated as the ‘first-footer’ after midnight. It is a relief to shut the door…
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favorite teacher, Frank O'Connor, Great teachers, Memoir, Mr. Jones, Music, Short Stories, Teacher Appreciation Week, Teaching, Themes of childhood
every day is teacher appreciation day
There’s no word in the language I revere more than ‘teacher.’ My heart sings when a kid refers to me as his teacher, and it always has. I’ve honored myself and the entire family of man by becoming a teacher. I won’t be the only one to invoke Pat Conroy’s Prince of Tides during this Teacher Appreciation Week We…
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How to Open a Book
Some years ago, science fiction writer, John Scalzi, penned a homage to the libraries of his life prompting me to do the same today, World Books Day. Not a bricks and mortar library, my childhood library was a bus full of magic that visited a housing estate on Antrim’s Dublin Road every week. Although a world away from the United States,…
