Common Core Standards and Urban Decay Inspire First Poem for 30/30 May

This May I will be giving my time to write 30 new poems for Tupelo Press, which is in the throes of raising money via crowd-sourcing for new projects. They are non profit. Grants remain at recession lows.

So, this morning as I met with my graduating seniors during their one on one conference (we discuss plans for success, grades, papers, attendance, etc) I pulled up Common Core Apps while waiting for a senior to fetch his book for his book report. The app is Common Curriculum, a cool lesson plan and web posting service. For some reason the idea struck to adopt some of the standards for a United States of Poetry--which sounded dystopian and Orwellian to my ears. So I mashed up some made up standards with some urban decay riffs. The urban decay riffs will need tweaking as they don't really strike any new visual ground, but rather cull standard tropes together. The made-up Common Core riffs are meta, and will also need to be made consistent. There is obvious commentary about CC evident in the adoption of them as a trope, but personally I don't feel one way or another about CC.  It's solid. It's red tape mumbo jumbo. Some politician's pet publishing project will make millions from the lobbying CC has generated/will generate.

Hey--I only have a few hours after school to make this stuff up. There is little league soccer, homework with my kids, homework to grade, and chores to be done--after co-teaching with a student intern all day.

Here's a sample. You can enjoy the whole thing here--when it's posted. You can donate as well, please just mention my name at the CC or paypal line.

CITY DYSTOPIA POEM WRITTEN IN COMMON CORE STANDARDS