Rose, Where Did You Get That Red?

24 October 2018: Big thoughts swirling around my head these days, tinging a bit darker thanks to our Gender and Women's Studies class's visit to the women's prison in Maryland. It's the fourth time I've gone and it only gets harder each visit.

Back on campus, I found myself trying to get ahead on plans for my Young Adult Literature class, where we start YA poetry next week. What a treat to go back to Kenneth Koch's Rose, Where Did You Get That Red? and be reminded of what kids can do with great poetry. (Koch's book is about younger children than we address in my class, but his basic ideas transfer.)

Here's just one that stood out to me today, by Andrew Vecchione, who was in 5th grade, I think, when he wrote this (probably 50 years ago). It's inspired by Donne's "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning."

"Love is a Scissor"
Love is a like a scissor
When it's together it's happy
When it's apart it's sad
When it's rusty it has a sore throat.

Andrew gets it.