Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Literacy

"Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope." ~Kofi Annan

International Literacy Day is 8 September 8th.  Media: Djibril Kebe, UNESCO Media Section, d.kebe@unesco.org

"This year’s International Literacy Day will be celebrated worldwide to promote literacy as part of the right to education, as well as a foundation for individuals' empowerment and inclusive and sustainable development. . . . On the occasion of International Literacy Day 2019, the main characteristics of multilingualism in today’s globalized and digitalized world will be discussed, together with their implications for literacy in policies and practice in order to achieve greater inclusion in multilingual contexts. "

"Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world." ~Malala Yousafzi

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 “Frederick Douglass taught that literacy is the path from slavery to freedom. There are many kinds of slavery and many kinds of freedom, but reading is still the path." ~Carl Sagan 

What do we mean by literacy in a digital world?

Posted on 8 September 2017 by GEM Report

Midweek Motif ~ Literacy  

          I don't remember learning to read.  How did that happen?  I remember trying to learn to read German and Spanish and achieving only minimum success.  It was harder than I had imagined to look at unfamiliar combinations of letters representing sounds and derive meaning from them.  

          And now I volunteer tutor for an adult literacy program.  My student is from the Ivory Coast.  French is the first of the 5 languages he knows, but he needs to read and write and speak in English to pass the USA naturalization test. English is not easy.  And gaining literacy is even more difficult if early education doesn't include the experience of reading.  

        Where does your life intersect with issues of literacy?

Your Challenge: Address the flowering of literacy ~ one instance/element of how it is an entry ticket or a barrier ~ in your new poem. 

source

There is no Frigate like a Book (1286)

By Emily Dickinson

There is no Frigate like a Book

To take us Lands away

Nor any Coursers like a Page

Of prancing Poetry –

This Traverse may the poorest take

Without oppress of Toll –

How frugal is the Chariot

That bears the Human Soul –

source

Notes on the Art of Poetry
by Dylan Thomas

I could never have dreamt that there were such goings-on
in the world between the covers of books,
such sandstorms and ice blasts of words,,,
such staggering peace, such enormous laughter,
such and so many blinding bright lights,, ,
splashing all over the pages
in a million bits and pieces
all of which were words, words, words,
and each of which were alive forever
in its own delight and glory and oddity and light.

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Learning to Read

By Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Very soon the Yankee teachers

   Came down and set up school;

But, oh! how the Rebs did hate it,—

   It was agin’ their rule.

Our masters always tried to hide

   Book learning from our eyes;

Knowledge did’nt agree with slavery—

   ’Twould make us all too wise.

But some of us would try to steal

   A little from the book.

And put the words together,

   And learn by hook or crook.

I remember Uncle Caldwell,

   Who took pot liquor fat

And greased the pages of his book,

   And hid it in his hat.

And had his master ever seen

   The leaves upon his head,

He’d have thought them greasy papers,

   But nothing to be read.

And there was Mr. Turner’s Ben,

   Who heard the children spell,

And picked the words right up by heart,

   And learned to read ’em well.

Well, the Northern folks kept sending

   The Yankee teachers down;

And they stood right up and helped us,

   Though Rebs did sneer and frown.

And I longed to read my Bible,

   For precious words it said;

But when I begun to learn it,

   Folks just shook their heads,

And said there is no use trying,

   Oh! Chloe, you’re too late;

But as I was rising sixty,

   I had no time to wait.

So I got a pair of glasses,

   And straight to work I went,

And never stopped till I could read

   The hymns and Testament.

Then I got a little cabin

   A place to call my own—

And I felt independent

   As the queen upon her throne.

Adult literacy lessons transforming Aboriginal communities

By Pallavi Singhal 
The Sydney Morning Herald, February 18, 2019

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A link to another Mighty Fine Poem:  Love Letters

By Lynn Crosbie

"I would give my husband drawings for grocery lists,

with smiling faces on the eggs, and spider feet

dangling everywhere. I could draw letters too.

fat senseless alphabets, lexical landscapes of

pointed trees and bloated clouds. that is how I

wished words were, with changing colours and

feathers in their spines. on road signs in my

dreams, they shimmied, their Rockette heels a

variegated sunburst. unlike the stiff black

knots and stakes that glared at me from envelopes

and books. . . . 

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Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community—

(Next week Susan’s Midweek Motif will be ~ Looking at Stars)