November 20: Zeno Zine

I’ve got a bad case of FOMO this week as all my writing friends and fellow English teacher buddies gather at NCTE to share time breathing the most fantastic air ever in Denver, Colorado. Some of them will be giving a presentation on various formats of poetry at a roundtable session, and my fellow authors of Assessing Students with Poetry Writing Across Content Areas will all be at a book signing sponsored by Routledge/Taylor & Francis. I’ll miss my small group of Stafford Challenge writers, my EthicalELA pals, those with whom I’ve collaborated on writing a few other books, and the Slice of Life writers who will be gathering for dinner and rich conversation. I am thrilled for them, but I feel such longing in my heart that I cannot be there this year to celebrate all things Literacy.

My friend Margaret Simon, who blogs at Reflections on the Teche, will be one of those at NCTE, and she will be hosting a roundtable of Zeno Zine writing. Here is the link to her blog, where you can read the format for a Zeno and Margaret’s Zeno. She writes, “. A Zeno poem is one in which the syllable count is 8, 4, 2, 1, 4, 2, 1, 4, 2, 1. The challenge is each one syllable line rhymes.” When I read her blog yesterday morning, it was all the inspiration I needed to write a Zeno. Since yesterday was our annual Friendsgiving feast at work, that will be my topic today.

Friendsgiving Zeno