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Poetry Friday: It Runs In The Family
Inheriting a love for words has been a lifelong gift.
If you’ve followed my posts for any length, you’ll know that family is important to me. With my parents being elderly (85 &86), we have begun to make quarterly trips to see them as they live in their own home, 900 miles from us. Luckily, my sister lives only an hour away and can see them more frequently.
My mom was a third-grade teacher for over thirty years. She loves language and that love was passed on to me. We are both lovers of words, both took Latin as a foreign language, and both consider ourselves writers. My mom wrote some poetry while my sister and I were growing up.
She had several pieces published. This was a hobby for her as she was teaching full-time. A long time ago, she also told me that she didn’t like that getting published was “like a business.” She meant that it had to be pursued with seriousness and constancy. She didn’t pursue anything after having those few pieces published. I also don’t think she had much, if any, support.
My mom spent a lot of summers during her teaching years developing curricular materials. It was an aspect of having a classroom that she really enjoyed. At a time when classroom teachers still retained control over what and how things were taught. She had units on Robin…
