National Poetry Month, Day 8

Do you ever have imaginary conversations with people? I do, all the time, especially people with whom I don't get to talk in real life as much as I'd like to. After I found this poem by Linda Pastan (I'm not sure when that was, but it's been open on my desktop for a while), I wrote a poem called "Imaginary Conversation," which I won't be sharing. And since then I have written a lot of conversations that didn't really happen. Sometimes imaginary conversations are better than the real thing, because you can make the person say what you want, and you don't run the risk of painful misunderstandings. But I'd always prefer the real thing.

Imaginary Conversation
by Linda Pastan

You tell me to live each day
as if it were my last. This is in the kitchen
where before coffee I complain
of the day ahead - that obstacle race
of minutes and hours,
grocery stores and doctors.

But why the last? I ask.

Here's the rest of the poem.

This poem has a resonance that it didn't have the last time I read it; thinking about death is something we've all been doing a lot of lately. I wonder if the person with whom Pastan is imagining this conversation has already died. That's a question that didn't occur to me when I read it before.

Having conversations is challenging these days, just in general. We're hearing a lot about all the technology we can use, but it's just not the same as face-to-face connection without any intervening devices. I'm thinking mostly now of my classroom, where, admittedly, my middle schoolers aren't always paying full attention to what I say. But I can always walk over to an individual and get eye contact and speak directly to him or her. On Google Classroom I send comments and suggestions and emails, and all of those are pretty easy to ignore. I miss talking to my kids, and laughing with them, and collecting funny stories about what happens in Real Classroom.

I'd always prefer the real thing.

But enough of those sad reflections; let's look at today's line for the Progressive Poem! You can read the two options here.

1 Donna Smith at Mainely Write
2 Irene Latham at Live Your Poem
3 Jone MacCulloch, deowriter
4 Liz Steinglass
5 Buffy Silverman
6 Kay McGriff
7 Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core
8 Tara Smith at Going to Walden
9 Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link
10 Matt Forrest Esenwine at Radio, Rhythm, and Rhyme
11 Janet Fagel, hosted at Reflections on the Teche
12 Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
13 Kat Apel at Kat Whiskers
14 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
15 Leigh Anne Eck at A Day in the Life
16 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
17 Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe
18 Mary Lee Hahn at A Year of Reading
19 Tabatha at Opposite of Indifference
20 Rose Cappelli at Imagine the Possibilities
21 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
22 Julieanne Harmatz at To Read, To Write, To Be
23 Ruth, thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown.blogspot.com
24 Christie Wyman at Wondering and Wandering
25 Amy at The Poem Farm
26 Dani Burtsfield at Doing the Work That Matters
27 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge
28
29 Fran Haley at lit bits and pieces
30 Michelle Kogan