Today I participated in an International movement “100 Thousand Poets for Change”The objective was to read a poem to a child, which I did at Swift School in nearby Bon Secour, a small fishing village across the river from me. It’s a small school, but Baldwin County’s oldest, established in 1920. I was honored to have the opportunity to read to 19 first graders whose attention I captured 100% as I read” Horton Hears a Who” by Dr. Seuss. Horton, a kind elephant tries to protect the small creatures on a speck of dust in the Jungle of Nool. Not an easy task as the sour Kangaroo and the big jungle monkeys, The Wickersham Brothers, thought Horton was crazy trying to save something they could not see nor hear. But alas, eventually, right before the specks were boiled in Beezle-Nut stew, they were able to make enough noise to convince their opponents not to boil them, which they were happy not to do when they realized they did exist, small and quiet though they were. “A person a person, no matter how small” was the underlying message of this story. In the end all the jungle animals banded together to protect the “Whos” and of course lived happily ever after. I can not begin to express how much fun I had with these kids. I was rushed like a rock star by all of them when the story ended, and all wanted to chat with me, hug me, and touch my Dr. Seuss hat. Little Shelby begged me to stay and have lunch with her class. A special thanks to Michael Rothenberg , along with Terri Carrion, who co-founded this movement I feel so passionately about. It was a fun to stop ranting and read to kids who have not yet realized what so much ranting is about. Thanks to Moe Seager Rethabile Masilo, Lindsay Gordon Rethabile Masilo and Lindsay Gordon, some of my tribe members in Paris, for their encouragement for this event.
