Free Range Readers

Nurturing Self Reliant Readers and Writers in K-6 classrooms

#Poetry Friday: Healing Maya Angelou

| 5 Comments

Poetry Friday!

Thanks to A Journey Through the Pages for hosting this week’s roundup. Check out a fantastic post there!

Words matter. Actions speak louder than words, sometimes. The events of the past week, month, six months require us to take stock of our lives and to think about ways that we can be our better selves. The responsibility to lead an examined life — a woke life — feels even bigger when our work is with children.

This week’s poem is from Maya Angelou. I was trying to find poems that I will share with children in the coming weeks, and always appreciate Maya Angelou’s beautiful and profound poetry. I’m sharing part of the poem below. Listen to Maya Angelou read her poem here and find the complete poem here:

Human Family

I note the obvious differences
in the human family.
Some of us are serious,
some thrive on comedy.

Some declare their lives are lived
as true profundity,
and others claim they really live
the real reality.

The variety of our skin tones
can confuse, bemuse, delight,
brown and pink and beige and purple,
tan and blue and white.

I’ve sailed upon the seven seas
and stopped in every land,
I’ve seen the wonders of the world
not yet one common man…..

I note the obvious differences
between each sort and type,
but we are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.

We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.

We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.

 

May the force of love be with you in these troubling times.

 

 

Author: mnosal

I have been in education for all of my life, in one way or another. After teaching 5th grade at an urban public charter school, I have decided to return to the public schools and to literacy coaching K-5. I also teach and mentor preservice teachers.

5 Comments

Leave a Reply

Required fields are marked *.


Skip to toolbar