As today is Poetry Friday and also the penultimate day for the A to Z 2024 Theme Reveal, I thought I'd feed 2 birds with one feeder (I'm a feeder not a killer) in today's post.
Not everyone participating in Poetry Friday may be familiar with the A to Z challenge. It's an annual challenge where for 26 days in the month of April you write about something with another letter in the Alphabet. In addition to that you can coordinate all your posts in a theme. For example, a few years ago, my theme was the songs of the Sherman Brothers who wrote songs for movies like Charlotte's Web and Mary Poppins. More recently in 2022 my posts featured a limerick from every letter of the alphabet. Many people over the years have used the theme of forms of poetry. One of the best things about the A to Z challenge is the community of bloggers who will read the entries and comment on them. In that way it's very similar to the Poetry Friday community. Poetry Friday makes Friday the best day of my blogging week and the A to Z challenge makes April the best month of my blogging year. I thought today I would encourage you Poetry Friday folks to consider the challenge this year.
This year my theme is Holiday's to see my theme reveal click here. To see my poem inspired by the Holiday, Take A Poet to Lunch Day, click here. For more about the A to Z challenge and theme reveal click here.
Poetry Friday is hosted this week by Tanita S. Davis at Fiction, Instead of Lies . Check it out!
Last year at this time I commemorated Sir Randy Stonehill's 71st birthday by sharing 71 of my favorite songs of his on this blog. As he is adding a candle on his birthday cake this year, I am upping my 71 song salute to a half gross. I was able to see Randy at 2 concerts since he turned 71. One with Phil Keaggy last Fall, and a few weeks ago I crossed the border into Missouri to catch an epic solo concert.
In tribute to that performance I am including every song I can find on the internet that he performed at that concert. All of the songs he perfformed on March 2nd in St. Louis are listed in Bold Letters (Just in case you don't know what Bold Letters look like, they look like this.)Many of his songs can be found on Spotify. Songs I could not find on Spotify, I found on BandCamp. Songs I could not find in either place I pulled from you-tube or Patreon.
1. Irresistable Future - Mystery Highway
2. Faithful - Until We Have Wings
3. Get Me Out of Hollywood- Get me Out of Hollywood
5. Christmas Song For All Year 'Round - Welcome To Paradise
6. I Love You - Born Twice
7. Norman's Kitchen - Born Twice
8. Bad Fruit -The Sky Is Falling
9. Still Small Voice - Celebrate This Heartbeat
10. Christine - Between The Glory And The Flame
11. Can Hell Burn Hot Enough - Until We Have Wings
12. Light Of The World - Equator
13. First Prayer - Welcome To Paradise
14. Keep Me Runnin' - Welcome To Paradise
15. Stop The World - Celebrate This Heartbeat
16. Sunday's Child - Mystery Highway
17. Love Beyond Reason - Love Beyond Reason 18. Ramada Inn (Live) - Until We Have Wings 19. Everything But Love - Stonehill 20. Didn't It Rain - Until We Have Wings 21. One True Love - The Sky Is Falling 22.Until Your Love Broke Through- Love Beyond Reason 23. Celebrate This Heartbeat - Celebrate This Heartbeat 24. The Hope of Glory - The Wild Frontier 25. Modern Myth - Celebrate This Heartbeat 26. Can't Buy A Miracle - Can't Buy A Miracle 27. Leonard Has A Toaster - Lost Art Of Listening 28. Glory And The Flame - Between The Glory And The Flame
29. Stand Like Steel - Return To Paradise 30. Hand of God - Thirst
31. Barbie Nation - Wonderama
32. Old Clothes - Until We Have Wings
33. Charlie The Weatherman - Stories
34. Try Havin' Some Faith - Spirit Walk
35. Turning Thirty - Equator
36. Lazarus Heart - Lazarus Heart
37. This Old Face - Lost Art Of Listening
38. Baby Hates Clowns - Thirst
39. Strong Hand Of Love - Welcome To Paradise
40. Stormy Winds- Uncle Stonehill's Hat
41. Die Young - Between The Glory And The Flame
42. Who Will Save The Children - Celebrate This Heartbeat
43. Arriving to Depart: Not yet on album
(Pulled from You Tube video from Jan 24 concert, song begins at approximately 19:00)
44. King Of Hearts: Welcome To Paradise
45. That's The Way It Goes (Live) - Edge Of The World
46. Shut De Do (Live) - Equator
47. Jesus - Breath Of God
48. Big Ideas (In The Shrinking World) 49. Beginning Of The Living End - Lost Art of Listening
50. Broken Places - Spirit Walk 51. Hymn - Love Beyond Reason
52. Billy Frank - The Lost Art Of Listening
53. Venezuela - The Sky Is Falling
54. What Do You Want From Life? - The Wild Frontier
55.Brighter Day - Can't Buy A Miracle 56. Get Together - The Wild Frontier
57. Ready To Go - Welcome To Paradise
58.Rachel Delevoryas - Wonderama
59.In Jesus Name - Lazarus Heart 60.Last Time I Saw Eden - Spirit Walk 61. Everything You Know (Is Incorrect) - Thirst
62.I've Got News For You (Paradise Sky Version) Welcome To Paradise -
63. When I'm Afraid Lazarus Heart
64.When I Look To The Mountains - Celebrate This Heartbeat
65.Mercy In The Shadow Land - Lost Art Of Listening
66. Backwards On Her Bike - Mystery Highway 67.Cosmetic Fixation - Equator
68.A Promise Made Is A Promise Kept - Lazarus Heart
69. The Keeper Of The Bear - Thirst
70. I Don't Ever Want To Live Without You - Return To Paradise
71. One Last Song Before I Say Goodbye - Not yet recorded on an album
72. Life is Tough, God Is Good - Spirit Walk
Happy Birthday Randy! I encourage anyone who spends time listening to these songs to buy some or all of them on Band Camp. Also you can sponsor Rand's ministry on his Patreon page.
Today at school was the readathon day. Instead of having core classes (Math, Social Sciences, ELA, & Science) are middle school students were able to read in those classes and have teachers and other staff read to them as well.
As a building sub I don't usually know who I'm going to be that day. Today I subbed for a paraprofessional in one of our SPED classes. This particular class is rather low functioning so the books read to the students were geared for much younger children. There was one book the teacher read called Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein. The title reminded me of the old knock knock joke:
A: Knock Knock
B: Who's There
A: Interrupting Cow
B: Interrup
A: Moo
I was able to find a read aloud version of the book on you tube. This is not that difficult of a thing to do. I have considered in the past having an A to Z challenge of children's books being read aloud on you tube videos.
March 10th is the official theme reveal for the 2024 iteration of the A to Z challenge. Last year I actually announced my theme for 2024 here a year early while announcing my theme for 2023. In that post I stated,
"The 2024 theme will be Narnian characters and creatures from A to Z. My working title is Narnia: From Aslan to Zardeenah."
Well it turns out, I lied. Lied is a strong word. I miscalculated. Almost every year for the last 35 years I have reread each book in the Chronicles of Narnia. Last year when I made the announcement, I had not yet started on my literary pilgrimage to Narnia and thought the idea of reading the books would help in making the alphabetical list of entries.
I ended up reading a sum total of zero Narnia books in 2023. While it's true that I could easily journey from Archenland to Zalindreh, my heart was not in it. I chose to abandon delay my Narnian sojourn for another time (Although I would prefer to do all my blogging in Narnia, as no time would pass while I was writing).
I then toyed with the idea of having no theme and simply blogging about something new from A to Z each day. I liked that idea quite a bit, but then it occurred to me, I would have nothing to say at the theme reveal. I then thought of having an overarching theme but leaving it wide enough to choose the individual topics the day they were due. That also seemed a little problematic as I often suffer more from topic block than it's cousin writer's block.
Finally I thought of a topic that would give me both flexibility and stability. I decided to blog about Holidays. However instead of A is for Arbor day, C is for Casmir Pulaski Day (It's A Chicago Thing), I will be focusing on lesser holidays, the kind you would find at sites like the National Day Calendar or What is Today Holiday's like National Take A Poet to Lunch day which takes place on January 6th each year, the holiday that inspired this poem.
My process this year is each day of the challenge to post about a holiday that is taking place that day. Some holidays like April Fools day on the 1st would match very well for the letter of the day. Others will take a little pushing to make it fit the letter of the day. April 2nd for example is Children's Book day. If I choose that holiday, I would have a title like B is for Books for Children.
In addition to actual holidays, I am going to also create 5 new holidays as part of my list, including ways to celebrate these new festive occasions.
Recent A to Z Challenges
2023 A Month At The Movies
2022 Limericks, Homeruns, & Wordles (Oh My!)
2021 A to Z People who were alive in 1921
2020 State (& Other) Capitals
Each year on Spotify I make an A to Z playlist for the year. At the end of each post I will have a link to the song for that day .
I am very excited about this Holiday edition of the A to Z challenge. To learn more about The 2024 A to Z Theme Reveals click here, if you are ready to participate in said reveals click here, and finally if you are looking for a spreadsheet of who is already participating this year click here.
