AN AFTERNOON OF IMPOSSIBLE -- Sherman Week Three

On Wednesday afternoons, I drive to 51st and Morgan to hang out with two amazing 4th grade boys, Jioni and Antoine. We write together for an hour and a half on a little red carpet by the windows. By four the sunlight streaks our faces in strips of gold. Yesterday afternoon, I asked them to make a list of impossible things. I got this idea from writing mentor David Schein. What's an impossible thing? Jioni says, "something that's UN-believable." We made this list and then we each chose our favorite two and wrote them on little pieces of paper. Next, each of us chose a mystery impossibility and had to speak on that idea for two minutes each. We had to pretend that this thing was actually a possibility and that we had experienced it. We talked about what it felt like, what we smelled, saw, heard, and experienced. Then we each had to write a poem just about that single idea. Here are their poems:

I climb a ladder
all the way
to heaven
and I heard
babies crying and
God was cooking
cookies and I smelled
soap, God was cleaning,
and God was
having a party and
a mom was melting
chocolate on her
baby.

-- Jioni

I smelled lots of flowers
When I was a bird
I heard other birds singing
When I was a bird
I felt the love
from my parents
When I was a bird
The bird flies
in the school and
sees this crazy party
When I was a bird.

-- Antoinne