Highlights of NCTE
- Seeing at least a tiny bit of Boston.
- Meeting up with so many friends from Slice of Life, Ethical ELA, and Poetry Friday.
- Listening to the brilliance and excellence of Ketanji Brown Jackson and the humor and vulnerability of Kate McKinnon.
- Rooming with and getting to know Tammi Belko.
Tammi, me, and Glenda (Photo by Glenda) - Glenda Funk rushing in to the children’s luncheon, but stopping by to bring me a saguaro-shaped emery board I had admired on her blog once.
- On the last night, Tammi and I were thinking about where to go for dinner, when Glenda Funk graciously invited us to join her at the
- Little, Brown and Company dinner with authors Andrea Davis Pinkney, Quartez Harris, and Leslé Honoré.
- Riding across the Boston Harbor by water taxi on a crisp beautiful day. (And the riding back to the airport on the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority bus.)
- Presenting with Sarah Donovan, Kim Johnson, Leilya Pitre, Tammi Belko, Wendy Eberard, and Ann E. Burg about Words That Mend, and bathing in the beautiful poetry that was written by the 75 or so participants.
- Walking in the rain with Sally Donnelly and getting delicious take out at Greco’s and her warm embrace and shared tears.
- Happy hour at Serafina’s with a table jammed full of Slice of Life friends.
- Laura Purdie Salas introducing me to so many gifted people at a gathering of poets on Friday evening. I was a total poser, but it was fun to be with them.
Left – Laura Purdie Salas, me, and on the right is Irene Latham - Volunteering for about 11 hours alongside other professionals in the local literacy affiliates at NCTE. I didn’t get to go to as many sessions as I would have, but I felt that working was a great way to participate as a retired person. It was very rewarding.
- Hearing the passionate keynote of Bryan Stevenson, attorney and social justice advocate, founder of EJI.org, Equal Justice Initiative.
Jars of soil collected at the site of lynchings of Black people between Reconstruction and WWII are displayed at the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. (See more here.) In his keynote, Stevenson told a beautiful story about a Black woman who was collecting soil from a lynching site when she was approached by a white man. Their encounter was healing and impactful. This poem is based on that story he told:
Stop.
Ask what’s going on.
Hear the history.
Listen to the lynching stories.
Say their names.
Dig your hands deep into the soil.
Dig into the injustice.
Dig into the oppression,
the abuse, the violation.
Unearth justice.
Unearth hope.
Unearth our stories.
Stop burying truth.
My one little word for 2024 was CHERISH. I wrote about it 
