Sometimes We Need Freedom To Do Something Just Because

Sometimes we all need freedom to do something just because….so on National Just Because Day, today’s a day to celebrate! To take a drive through the rural countryside on the way to visit family in another state, to eat a creme-filled donut, to nap in a hammock with a book. Today’s poetry form shared in Dictionary for a Better World is a Cento, a poem created from lines borrowed from other poems. I often call these mashed potato poems, since they’re like a mix-tape of eclectic songs that all come together to make great sense to the listener….or not. I keep a bank of Cento lines written on large craft sticks in a decorative box on my bookshelf, just waiting to find their way into new poems! Try your hand at a Cento today, and share in the comments below!

*During the months of August and September on days when I’m not participating in the Open Write at www.ethicalela.com, I will be writing in response to the pages of Dictionary for a Better World: Poems, Quotes, and Anecdotes from A to Z by Irene Latham and Charles Waters, illustrated by Mehrdokht Amini. The poems, poetic forms, narratives, quotes, and calls to action to make one small difference might be just the medicine my world – or the whole world – needs. I’ll be inviting insights in the form of an immersion into a 10-minute-a-day book study (just long enough to read the page, reflect, and connect). If you don’t have a copy of the book, you can order one here on Amazon. I invite you to join me in making August and September a time of deep personal book friendship. A few teachers will be following the blog and engaging in classroom readings and responses to the text. So come along! Let’s turn the pages into intentionally crafting beautiful change together.