Mes livres (My books)
Par ecrit, e’dite’, poli, et publie’
(Written, edited, polished, and published)
Sont les fruits
(Are the fruits)
De mon labeur.
(Of my labor.)
Comme branches
(Like branches)
Mes bouts des doigts
(My fingertips)
Baisse au clavier
(Kiss the keyboard)
Produisent les fruits
(Producing fruits)
De pense’e provacante,
(Of provocative thought,)
Sagacite’, courage, puissance, amour
(Wisdom, courage, power, love)
Dans les feuilles de mes livres
(Within the leaves/pages of my books)
Etre lu,
(To be read,)
Devore’,
(Devoured,)
Savoure’,
(Savored,)
Comme poires
(Like pears)
Si sucre’
(So sweet)
Par les yeux
(By the eyes)
Du monde
(Of the world)

If I actually said something other than what the translation implies, please correct me!

In addition to teaching, I write books. So this poem is a study of what writing means to me. I’m going to paint the words on canvas and hang it in my living room as a sort of personal goal. Maybe that sounds cheezy, but it’s the truth. Thanks for your generosity in helping me!

It’s a relatively short poem. Would I offend you if I just posted it here? I’m only wanting to make sure the lines use correct grammar. Or you could send me an email and I could send it to you that way. My email address is mfogelsong@buhlschools.org

You don’t have to be good at poetry to be able to tell me that my verbs are incorrectly conjugated, if you know what I mean…. Thanks. = }

When I was in college 15 years ago, I majored in English, minored in French. I’ve been teaching English at a middle school in the western US for a number of years, coupled with an exploratory class I invented called “Introduction to Foreign Languages” (I’ve also studied some Spanish and Japanese). When the “No Child Left Behind Act” was passed, supplemental classes like choir, band, and foreign language were cut from our small school’s budget in favor of doubling the school’s math and English courses. So I’ve had zero practice at my French in something like five years.

As the saying goes, if you don’t use it, you lose it. I can feel my French skills slip, slip, slipping away. So this summer, I decided to start renting Netflix movies in French and doing some writing in French, just to help me refresh my memory. One of my writing projects is a little poem. I’d like to add this poem to a painting I’ve done, but I would first like to have someone proofread my peom to see if I have any grammatical errors. Would you be interested? If not, could you recommend someone?

I was thoroughly impressed with your blog. You seem to be highly skilled at French. In fact, I’ve bookmarked this blog. If I ever get to teach foreign language again, I’ll recommend it to my students!