Do you have some words bubbling up inside you, just waiting to get out?
We have all been hunkering down from this virus, from unrest, from…
NPR is giving us an outlet.
Even if you don’t consider yourself a writer, I know you have words you can use to describe how you’re feeling. Write them down and send them to NPR and Kwame Alexander, Morning Editing’s resident poet – yes the show has it’s own poet, who knew? – will pick out words from our entries and create a poem for us!
The NPR piece and info on how to enter is here: https://www.npr.org/2021/01/18/956827920/poetry-challenge-honor-mlk-by-describing-how-you-dream-a-world
Here is the except from the Langston Hughes poem “I Dream a World”
I DREAM A WORLD WHERE MAN
NO OTHER MAN WILL SCORN,
WHERE LOVE WILL BLESS THE EARTH
AND PEACE ITS PATHS ADORN
I DREAM A WORLD WHERE ALL
WILL KNOW SWEET FREEDOM’S WAY,
WHERE GREED NO LONGER SAPS THE SOUL
NOR AVARICE BLIGHTS OUR DAY.
A WORLD I DREAM WHERE BLACK OR WHITE,
WHATEVER RACE YOU BE,
WILL SHARE THE BOUNTIES OF THE EARTH
AND EVERY MAN IS FREE,
WHERE WRETCHEDNESS WILL HANG ITS HEAD
AND JOY, LIKE A PEARL,
ATTENDS THE NEEDS OF ALL MANKIND-
OF SUCH I DREAM, MY WORLD!
image from weknowyourdream.com
When I get the chance, I listen to NPR while I do work at my desk that doesn’t require my undivided attention. This morning I heard this piece about an Italian schoolboy who invented a word on some homework he handed in recently. His teacher marked it as incorrect, as teachers are apt to do, but she wrote him a little message telling him she liked his new word. She also wrote the powers that be in her country and is trying to get his new word put in the dictionary.
ckbooksblog 