Hello, and welcome!
I’m Jody Collins, author, poet, and retired teacher. My days are centered on lifelong learning, reading, writing, and sharing my love of words and The Word.
With 20+ years’ experience in elementary classrooms and my own journey into writing, publishing, and teaching poetry, I’m passionate about inviting others to make friends with poetry.
MY STORY
The seeds for my love of poetry were planted in 1973,
the year I was married, when I discovered the words ‘poetry’ and ‘Christian’ could actually go together. I began by reading the work of prolific poet & publisher Luci Shaw and dove into years of writing Very Bad Poems. I was always writing.
I went back to school as a mom at the age of 36 and pursued an educational program, graduating with a K-8 Teaching degree & Early Childhood Endorsement. I spent over 20 years wrangling early learners from Kindergarten through 6th grade and loved it, completing my last 5 years before retirement with a team of educators serving kids with autism. I also taught middle school for two years and lived to tell about it. (Give me all the six-year-olds.)
In 2012, after my son & daughter were gone and married, my writing bent resurfaced, filling my in between hours. I discovered the world of blogging and wrote about the intersection of faith and life. My online readership began to grow as I connected with other Christian writers through social media and ‘bloghops’ and commenting on other people’s work.
In 2017, I self-published my first book, Living the Season Well: Reclaiming Christmas, to help families deal with the pressures of the Christmas season, inspired by my grandkids.
In 2018, after feeling a nudge to explore poetry in my personal writing, I shared my first published poem with none other than Luci Shaw (!) at a Christian writing festival. Her response—“It’s only the beginning”—gave me the courage to pursue poetry wholeheartedly.
Since that time, I’ve published two books of poetry–Hearts on Pilgrimage-Poems & Prayers (2021) and Mining the Bright Birds-Poems of Longing for Home (2023).
Now, as the mom of two grown children and Nana to six kids, aged 6 to 23, I enjoy not only reading poetry to them but helping them make friends with poetry, too.
3 Things poetry can do:
1. Reading poetry gives us language to express ourselves; we often we don’t know what we think or feel until someone says it for us. And the best poems cause us to look up to God. Plus, we learn new vocabulary! I love it when a poem sends me to the dictionary.
2. Writing poetry makes us more attentive to the world around us, causing us to slow down and notice little things (and big) like autumn sunsets or the way light lands on the trees or the feeling we get hearing birdsong. Poetry’s form forces us to be more intentional, sparking creativity as we learn to say more with fewer words.
3. Helping children make friends with poetry offers the joy of seeing an ‘aha’ on their faces as they discover new ways to think about the world. Poetry tunes their ears to the musicality of language and offers a way in to writing down the wonder they see, the thoughts and feelings they hold dear.
Luci Shaw on my left in sage green blazer. 2018, Grand Rapids, MI.
