Words from the Heart

While summer and fall play tag with each other, it is difficult to think about November. However, the mid-autumn season of gratitude and poem-ing will soon be upon us. Once again, I am taking up the challenge to write 30 Poems in November!   This is the major fundraiser for Center for New Americans were I teach English as a second language to adult immigrants and refugees. The event is community-based. Poets from 5 to 95 write poems everyday in November with others pledging their support for the writers. During December, there is a celebration at Smith College's Poetry Center, where poets read one of the poems they have written and attendees can sign up for copies of the anthology that is put together from poems written during November. This year, I will be focusing my poems on the journey of the immigrants and refugees. I will write about their hopes, dreams, struggles, joys and pain.  I will write about my own family's journeys that make me a third generation Ame...

November is the Poem-a-day challenge. This will be my third year in the challenge, but this year there is a twist.  This year, for each poem I write, people will be pledging money that will go to the Center for New Americans (CNA), a non-profit organization that supports and educates immigrants and refugees and their families.   I am excited for two reasons: one, this is where I teach and I love my students.  Two, the money will be going to continue our family literacy program, which allows children of our adult students to be taught in a pre-kindergarten literacy program, while their parents are learning English.  30 Poems in November was conceived by Northampton Poet Laureate Leslea Newman , who challenged the poets and writers of Northampton to write their poems during November 2009 to raise funds for CNA.  The idea caught on like wildfire and the fundraiser not only was a success, but it became a yearly event that has now grown into a community c...