Timothy V. Rasinski coming to Poetry from Daily Life

Hi everyone,

If you visit my blog often, you’ve seen the name and face of this weekend’s guest columnist numerous times. It is my good fortune and pleasure to have known TIM RASINSKI and worked with him on education books for more than twenty years. Tim is a professor emeritus of literacy education at Kent State University. If you are attending a national conference and walk down the hall past an auditorium packed with teachers, there’s a good chance they came to hear Tim Rasinski talk about his research, which has focused on helping struggling readers in the foundational reading skills. In his research and work in the reading clinic that Tim made famous, he found that poetry is one of the best texts for helping struggling readers improve their reading proficiency. And that’s where I came into his life as a writing partner when he needs a poet.

Be sure you read what Tim has to say in this week’s edition of Poetry from Daily Life. It will appear on Saturday in Springfield News-Leader and on Sunday in the online edition. Sunday morning I will post the link to that edition. The column is also carried in papers in Missouri, Kansas, and South Dakota.

If you appreciate this weekly poetry column, I hope you will take a moment to thank our host, who has made this all possible. AMOS BRIDGES is Editor-in-Chief of Springfield News-Leader and can be reached at Bridges, Amos abridges@springfi.gannett.com .

My Word of the Month poem

Hi everyone,

Here’s my June poem, inspired by this month’s word — PAL.

METADATA-START

The Best Squirrel Dog in the County

Pal was small, wiry, a mixed mutt,
white with brown patches.
“Best squirrel dog in the county,”
Glen liked to say. 

Glen was a forest ranger,
spent days high in his tower,
watching for smoke, reading his bible.
He was always glad to see Dad and me,
loan us his dog when we showed up now and then,
hoping to get a squirrel or two.

“Pal! Get a squirrel!” Glen would say,
and that little dog would tear out,
legs kicking up leaves
as he raced off into the woods.

Before long we’d hear him,
far off at the base of some tree,
and we knew we’d find him,
dancing around a trunk,
staring up into the limbs, 
yapping frantically for us to get the squirrel.

With or without success,
we’d finally have to tell him,
“Pal! Get a squirrel!”
and off he’d go,
leaving us to stand and listen
for his hysterical yapping,
somewhere a hard walk away,
to announce another squirrel up a tree.

That was all long ago.
I grew up, got married, moved away.
My dad, Glen, Pal, are gone.
But there are times when memories of those days
kick up leaves, like Pal,
racing through the forest of my mind.
He was the best squirrel dog in the county.

© 2024 David L. Harrison, all rights reserved