Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, tagged butterfly, Cathy Mills, ekphrasis, poetry on March 11, 2013| 11 Comments »
Slice of Life Challenge Day 11
Inner Faces by Cathy Mills
Inner Faces
If only I could see you in double,
inside and out,
transformed
like the wings of a butterfly
opening, welcoming,
letting me in.If only you could know my desire
to be your only mother,
the one who loves you most,
maybe you would honor me
with your presence
and let me in.If only our lives were connected
by a strong abdomen
we could share more than a name,
a recognition of two faces
mirrored and aware,
letting me in.
Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, tagged Acadiana Wordlab, candle, pysanky making on March 10, 2013| 12 Comments »
Slice of Life Challenge Day 10
The candle
At the Acadiana Wordlab yesterday, Kelly Clayton put ordinary objects on the table. Actually, some of the objects were quite weird, like the two orange plastic Neanderthal men. She called this prompt “Object Lesson.” I think she got it from Writing Alone and with Others by Pat Schneider. We had to select an object and write 10 stanzas of three lines each. It reminded me of Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens. My photo above is not the greatest, but you can see some of the other objects in the background.
I. Candle on a string
once you were two
and dipped.II. White wax
nondescript
unscented
waiting to be lit.III. Standing in a circle
side by side
sisters pass you around,
an ancient ritual.IV. Set in a wreath,
counting the days
until a Savior’s birth.V. Darkness is not dark
unless the light
knows it.VI. Melted and scripted
with a kistka* and a steady hand,
dying reveals patterns.VII. I will tuck you away
in my purse
in case the lights go out.VIII. Tasting with a lick,
smooth and waxy,
reminds me of waxed lips.IX. Wedged in a bottle
adorned with drippings,
you light our Italian meal.X. The slight wind
created by your flame
can lift a whole balloon.
Pysanky making
*After the wordlab, I attended Art Walk and met a Slavic woman who had a show of her Pysanky eggs. Her husband was demonstrating the process using a stylus called a kistka. I had to add that to my poem. Pysanky is the ancient Eastern European art of egg decorating. The name comes from the verb to write, as you use a stylus (called a kistka) to write with wax on the egg shell. The process is similar to batik.
Pysanky egg by Nicole Holcombe
Posted in Slice of Life, tagged Bay St. Louis, Bayou Teche, Grandmother Oak, writing muse on March 9, 2013| 14 Comments »
Sunrise at Bay St. Louis
The Slice of Life Challenge is just that…a challenge. We must pay attention every day to our lives. We have to listen and think. We have to compose in our heads. We even dream about what we will write next. I use the proverbial we here because I’m sure all of the Slicers are experiencing this. Today is Day 9, and I was running low on the muse. I have been keeping up a day ahead, but yesterday was Friday, which translates to “I’m fried day.” I had just enough energy to take on the commenting challenge, but I wasn’t up to writing.
This morning early I texted a friend to check in. We haven’t been able to work out a get together in a while. She was, low and behold, on the beach. She sent me the picture above. She also sent me a recording of the sounds she heard, the swishing of waves and the calls of the gulls. Here is our conversation. Walking together, alone.
I’m on the beach
walking with the laughing gulls
calls and caws.Tell them hello in gull speak.
Thanks for lighting up my cell this morning.
Missing my friend!
Missing you, yet happy to be in touch again.
What beauty you walk in. I will hold
this gift for those days when
I need a calm friend.Sweet.
I walked outside to the sounds of mockingbirds, woodpeckers, and robins. This is my scenery, our grandmother oak standing tall and proud over the bayou. Not bad for a quiet Saturday morning.
Grandmother oak on Bayou Teche
Slice of Life Challenge Day 9
Posted in Poetry Friday, Slice of Life, tagged haiku on March 8, 2013| 15 Comments »
Hop on over to My Juicy Little Universe for more Poetry Friday delights.
My students are participating in the Classroom Slice of Life Challenge at Two Writing Teachers. They are writing like crazy. It makes this writing teacher so happy.
For 6 years, I have been teaching gifted elementary students. To be able to teach them all in a day, I have to mix grade levels. I have always enjoyed the richness this adds to my class. Sometimes I feel like a juggler when I have 3 different spelling tests to give, but, for the most part, the students mix well and learn a lot from each other. The class is fluid, too, because as the year goes on, I may get new students as they are identified. This year, Vannisa joined one of my groups. She is in third grade and had never written a haiku. What better time to try than in the SOLC. This week she wrote her first haiku. A few weeks ago my students did name research, and Vannisa discovered her name means “flighty.” I told her that was perfect because she flits like a butterfly all over the classroom. Not surprising her haiku is a butterfly haiku.
I have also included a group of questions Mrs. Heinisch’s class asked her in a comment on her blog. I especially love her response. Notice she mentions I Haiku You, a book I learned about on Two Writing Teachers.
Little Butterfly
Fluttering past a flower
Too small to be seen
–Vannisa
Thoughts from Mrs. Heinisch’s 6th grade class:
Why did you pick to write about butterflies?
Why did you chose to write it as a Haiku?
Do you think the word butterfly comes from flies sitting on butter?
How big was the butterfly?
Who made up the word butterfly?
Thank you for posting your Haiku today! We all enjoyed it!
Vannisa’s response:
Well it is nice to know that sixth graders are reading one of my post because I’m only in third grade.
First and second question:
I read a book called “I Haiku You” by Betsy Snyder and I decided to write a haiku. I thought it was going to be hard because a haiku is five syllables and then seven then five. It turns out it wasn’t that hard because my gifted teacher said haikus usually are making the reader put a picture in their head and that they’re usually about nature.
question three:
Actually sometimes, but my name means flighty. Like I’ll do something and then another thing.
question four:
I would say… as big an average human palm.
number five:
I don’t know, and like I said I’m only in third grade.
Slice of Life Challenge Day 8
Posted in Slice of Life, Teaching, tagged Diane Moore, Flood on the Rio Teche, project based learning on March 7, 2013| 4 Comments »
Slice of Life Challenge Day 7
Yesterday our sixth grade gifted students met the author of a book they have been reading for our enrichment Wednesdays. We’ve been using project based learning while meeting monthly focusing on the theme of water. We selected the book Flood on the Rio Teche by Diane Marquart Moore for a number of reasons. One, this historical fiction novel would help the students learn about the history of New Iberia’s discovery and settlement, and Two, water is important to the story. Also, the author lives locally part of the year. We were lucky to catch her before she moves back to Sewanee, TN for the spring and summer.
Our students were interested in how she came to write the book, her inspiration and her research. But I saw the lights go on when she talked about being an author. She didn’t candy-coat it, either. Being an author is hard work. She gave advice that she had gotten from Ernest Gaines when she had the privilege of taking a class with him. He said, “Revise, revise, revise,” and “The first sentence is the most important one of the whole novel.” She talked about how once she figured out that the rain on a palmetto roof would hiss like the snake for which the Teche was named, her book was ready to be written.
Opening sentence for Flood on the Rio Teche: Rain hissed on the palmetto roof, and Antonio felt like hissing back at the downpour.
Diane writes a blog at A Word’s Worth.
The Slice of Life Challenge has been revealing to me as I participate with my students. There is an immediacy about it. They rush to the computer and often compose right there. Then they hit the publish button. I am amazed how fresh and fun some of the writing is. However, the teacher in me wants them to be conscious of their reader and use correct grammar. I want to think about how I can continue the momentum while showing them the value of revision and editing.
Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, tagged rondelet on March 6, 2013| 12 Comments »
Serendipity from the Slice of Life Challenge is learning about new poetry forms. At Birds and Trees of the Mind, Paul is trying different poetry forms. He posted a rondelet recently. Rondelet is a French poetry form derived from a word meaning small circle. The poem circles. The syllable pattern is 4A /8b /repeat line 1/8a/8b/8b/repeat line 1.
From Creative Commons
Into the night
Crescent moon rises up singing
into the night
reflections through the leaves alight
wind swept silences, chimes ringing
Tomcat prowls, his proud catch bringing
into the night.
Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, tagged Acadiana Wordlab, dreams, Poetry prompts on March 5, 2013| 9 Comments »
Slice of Life Challenge Day 5
The Dream I Never Had
I have never flown in my dreams.
I want to feel this free–
Oh, in the arms of Superman,
or on the magic carpet with Alladin,
on the wings of an eagle,
better yet–be the eagle–
soar, swoop,
slide across the clouds,
circle the moon.
Fly? Me? No!I dream of children’s voices,
lost keys,
closed locks,
smothering.My daughter once wrote a dream blog.
Her dreams were like wild fairy tales.
I want to dream like she dreams.
Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, tagged Bayou Teche, Clare Martin, collaborative poem, nature poem on March 4, 2013| 5 Comments »
Every week I get an email from Poets & Writers called “The Time is Now.” You can sign up, too. They send out prompts for writing. A few weeks ago, the poetry prompt suggested collaborating by email or text on a poem with each person adding a line until the poem felt complete. I invited my new poet friend, Clare Martin, to participate with me. We composed it using Facebook messenger. We each revised to create our own poem. I am posting my version.
Stained Glass
Reflection of bare trees
stripe the still bayou.
See into the reflection.
Clouds become water.Water holds a dark harm–
dangerous depth,
deceiving beauty.
The surface holds the whole sky.A single tear
breaks the glass.
Slip within the sky.
See your self in the depths.Slice of Life Challenge Day 4
Posted in Slice of Life, Teaching, tagged eponymy, word origins, words on March 3, 2013| 5 Comments »
Slice of Life Challenge Day 3
Fun Facts from Anonyponymous: Anonyponymous refers to those people whose names, eponymous, have become so much a part of our language that the person of origin has become anonymous.
1) Cereal comes from a reference to the goddess Ceres, goddess of crops.
2) Frisbee comes from drunk Yale students playing catch with a leftover tin plate from Mrs. Frisbie’s Pies of Bridgeport.
3) Hooligan (I sometimes call my students this when they are acting up.) Patrick Hooligan was a bouncer at an Irish pub in the slums of London, but his legacy was the mentoring of young hoodlums in the arts of robbery and assault.
4) Blurb was a buxom cartoon character placed on the cover of books Gelett Burgess handed out at the annual American Booksellers Association Dinner in 1907. Burgess defined blurb as “a sound like a publisher.”
On further examination of the book, I realized it is not going on the shelf in my classroom. I’m afraid some of the words are inappropriate for classroom research.
To see what my students are writing for their Slice of Life Challenge, click here.
Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, tagged fibonacci poem on March 2, 2013| 10 Comments »
Teacher 1, Teacher 2
On Friday, many of the teachers arrived at school wearing their “Teacher 1” or “Teacher 2” shirt in honor of Dr. Seuss’s birthday on March 2nd. We soon figured out that we would not be having school that day. The plumbing was out. Who wants to have school with no plumbing? So after about 20 minutes, the buses returned, parents were called. My students were full of excitement. Before they could leave, though, I asked them to post their Slices for March 1. Together we wrote a Fibonacci poem about the day. Joy at Poetry for Kids Joy posted a Fib poem on her blog on Poetry Friday, so I borrowed the idea. The syllable pattern is 1/1/2/3/5/8/and back again 8/5/3/2/1/1. Read about Fibonacci series here
Fibonacci Spiral
School’s
out
today–
no water–
Dr. Suess would play.
Thing 1 and Thing 2 come out and
help fix this messy problem-o,
clean up and repair
broken pipes,
but we
don’t
want!
Our address on the Bayou Teche
Order on Amazon.
April 1 Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
April 2 Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect
April 3 Robyn at Life on the Deckle Edge
April 4 Donna Smith at Mainely Write
April 5 Denise at https://mrsdkrebs.edublogs.org/
April 6 Buffy at http://www.buffysilverman.com/blog
April 7 Jone at https://www.jonerushmacculloch.com/
April 8 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
April 9 Tabatha at https://tabathayeatts.blogspot.com/
April 10 Marcie at Marcie Flinchum Atkins
April 11 Rose at Imagine the Possibilities | Rose's Blog
April 12 Fran Haley at Lit Bits and Pieces
April 13 Cathy Stenquist
April 14 Janet Fagel at Mainly Write
April 15 Carol Varsalona at Beyond LiteracyLink
April 16 Amy Ludwig VanDerwater at The Poem Farm
April 17 Kim Johnson at Common Threads
April 18 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
April 19 Ramona at Pleasures from the Page
April 20 Mary Lee at A(nother) Year of Reading
April 21 Tanita at TanitasDavis.com
April 22 Patricia Franz
April 23 Ruth at There's No Such Thing as a Godforsaken Town
April 24 Linda Kulp Trout at http://lindakulptrout.blogspot.com
April 25 Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe
April 26 Michelle Kogan at: https://moreart4all.wordpress.com/
April 27 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
April 28 Pamela Ross at Words in Flight
April 29 Diane Davis at Starting Again in Poetry
April 30 April Halprin Wayland at Teaching Authors
Reflections on the Teche 