This weekend in New Iberia was the third annual Books along the Teche Literary Festival. On Friday, I attended a reading by former state poet laureate and one of my mentors, Darrell Bourque. He brought along accordion artist Mary Ardoin Broussard.
Mary Broussard plays the old Creole style of Zydeco music known as La La music. Darrell’s poems from his book Where I Waited (Yellow Flag Press, 2016) are written in the voices of early Cajun and Creole musicians from the 1930’s and 40’s. Cajuns and Creoles in Louisiana spoke French. I don’t speak French, so sometimes I have a hard time following along. I love this music for its dancing beat, but I can’t sing the lyrics and rarely know what they mean.
Darrell wrote about the song Quoi Faire in his poem for Golden Thibodeaux with the title “Here and Here.” Mary said quoi faire means “Why you broke my heart like that?”
Darrell then spoke of the energy in Golden Thibodeaux’s music. I, however, listened to the energy between Darrell and Mary, making their own kind of music by echoing and honoring the voices of the past.
I played in a different way with my own poetry finding new lines within the lines of Darrell’s poem Here and Here.
Today I have two drafts written with a roll of metaphor dice. I tend to roll them until I get something I think I can write about. “Truth is a glorified meadow” was a first roll and it stumped me. Before re-rolling, I asked my student Landon what he thought it meant. He said, “It’s like when you have the truth, you have a wide open field of possibility.” Such wisdom in a young 5th grader.
I also challenged myself to use the zeno form: syllable count 8,4,2,1,4,2,1,4,2,1 with each 1 syllable rhyming.
Truth is a glorified meadow finding you in a clear field open playground without shield your forgiving spirit healed –Margaret Simon (draft) 2019
For the next metaphor dice poem, I used magnetic poetry words to help guide the results.
Hope is a glorified dance to delicate music– a gorgeous goddess whispering near, misty gift here. –Margaret Simon (draft) 2019
Thursday was a stormy day. Everyone was talking about the storm, so when we were looking for a topic for a zeno poem, Thunder came through.
A zeno poem was invented by J. Patrick Lewis and it follows the mathematical sequence 8,4,2,1,4,2,1,4,2,1, and the one syllable words rhyme. Great time to pull up RhymeZone and do some chatting about word meanings like dire.
Thunder is a loud, cranky noise terrifying crackling fire electric charges targets wire outrageously shocking dire.
–Mrs. Simon’s class
I then set my students loose to write their own zeno poems while I worked on my own. I tried the haikubes, but there are no rhyming words in them, so it proved nearly impossible to make a zeno. Then I turned to metaphor dice. A little better, but I’m still not completely satisfied with the results. But, as writing partner Molly Hogan stated in her post yesterday, I honored the play of it all.
The mind is a back-handed drum pounding fissures into line beating thoughts with rhythm time waiting for my soul to shine.
See more Spiritual Thursday posts with Dani at Doing the Work that Matters.
Today is the first Thursday in April and a group of bloggers are gathering at Dani’s place to write about “renewal.” I am working on mindfulness daily. Focusing my thoughts on light and love keeps worry at bay. But sometimes the clouds cover the sun, and it’s hard to see the light.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Psalm 51
Renew a right spirit in me, Oh God.
Help me walk in the path of light and truth.
Keep me from wandering far from you.
I am weak, but my heart is eager.
I open my soul to you
like a flower seeks the light, reaching.
Your grace is mine, I know.
Guide me to the light.
Iris in a neighbor’s garden. Photo by Margaret Simon
The following is a poem from a Facebook poet friend, Wendi Romero. She is posting daily poems during Lent. This one spoke to me.
I love how Wendi uses the word “lean.” Even if I am imperfect and often can’t see the light, I can lean in. And the more I lean, the more I awaken to my higher self.
This month I am playing with poetry with poet-teacher-blogger friends. Feel free to play along.
I am also playing alongside my students. We brought out the cookie sheets of magnetic poetry. I talked about two similar poem forms, the How to poem and the Things to do poem. You can read their poems here.
I also played with my Word Swag app in my phone to create a more beautiful and professional looking image.
Here’s another on the cookie sheet. I can’t remember who brilliantly suggested using cookie sheets for magnetic poetry, but it works great. For an itinerant teacher like me, it’s a convenient way to carry them. I also have some in a tin which works equally as well. The lid of the tin serves as a composition space.
I have a new student, Maddox, in 4th grade. Sometimes kids walk into my classroom already knowing how to be a poet. Here is Maddox’s first poem.
How to Be a Storm
rock the ships below
boom like a thundering drum
blast the air with a gale
use your wrath in a tempestuous storm
then let the sun shine again
There are a number of bloggers playing along. One of these is Christie Wyman at Wondering and Wandering.
Yesterday she posted a tanka she wrote using paint chips. Tanka is a form that uses a 5,7,5,7,7 syllable count. My students and I took out the paint chips, and I suggested they find three in the same color hue, so their poems would become about that color in some way. Then we tossed around the Haikubes. Karson said, “This is fun!” Music to my poet-teacher ears.
I pulled out three cards in the orange color range. The words were field of poppies, fresh-squeezed, and sun rays. I thought of pictures I had seen of California poppies. The haikubes mixed it up a bit to make for a compelling poppy tanka.
Field of poppies in
Southern California
fresh-squeezed dripping dots
Precious whispers glancing up.
Flying sun rays from the sky.
—Margaret Simon (draft) 2019
Kim Douillard is a photographer-teacher-blogger living in Southern California. She posted this image on Instagram of poppies near her school’s playground.
See more posts at Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life
Some of you have been following our wood duck house story. In late February, my husband built a wood duck house and set it up near the bayou. We put a Ring doorbell camera inside to capture the whole process. We were amazed when a hen came in the very next day. It took her a few weeks to lay the eggs and begin sitting on them. I wrote about it here and here.
The last time I was able to count the eggs, I had counted 13 eggs.
The problem with using a Ring camera is, with the constant motion of a hen sitting fairly consistently, the battery runs down. We changed it out once with no problem, but Saturday afternoon, it had totally died. Because we couldn’t look at the camera to see if the hen was in the house, my husband spooked her when he went to change the battery.
She came back for a brief minute then flew back out at around 7:30 PM. After that, nothing.
Did she abandon the nest altogether? Alerts to motion come onto my phone. I usually turn off notifications during the night but I didn’t Saturday. We waited for the buzz of the phone. Nothing.
Sunday morning I looked out the window, saying a few prayers that she would return. I saw the couple in the water. I practically begged at the window, “Please go back in. Please go back in.”
She flew up and around the house and landed back in the water.
I woke up my husband who admits he wasn’t really sleeping. I said, “There must be some kind of sound coming from the camera to scare her like that.”
He said, “To hell with broadcasting, we need to save these eggs.”
But taking the camera out didn’t prove necessary. I heard a buzz on my phone. She’s back! She was in the box, settling in, poking around, as if nothing had happened. Whew! Relief!
Relieved to get this phone alert.
Jeff watched one of the videos from the camera and noticed that there was a hen perched at the hole flying out while another hen was in the box sitting. Could they both be sitting? Are they sharing the nest?
While our hen was away, I was able to get a shot of the eggs. She hadn’t had time to cover them before she left. I counted 20 eggs! Twenty!
If my calculations are right, and the 12 hour hiatus doesn’t change the incubation time, the eggs are due to hatch on or around April 11th. You know I will be posting. You can follow on my Instagram or Facebook page.
Now for poetry. I am playing with some fun poetry games. My students are playing along and posting on our Kidblog site.
With Paint Chip Poetry, I pulled honey, quicksilver, and under the sea. The prompt was “We’re all in this together.”
We’re all wild honey under the sea free and quick like silver sparkles together making waves splashing sprays whale family.
My box of Paint Chip Poetry arrived just in time for this month’s poetry writing. I am playing with poetry. In Paint Chip Poetry, you select a prompt which is a phrase, along with some paint chips. The paint colors have names. I’m not sure if I’m playing right, but here is what I got.
A little revision:
Far, far away before the rain, a sunburst glows on scarecrow makes him believe in magic like gold at the end of the rainbow. –Margaret Simon, (draft) 2019
Matt Forrest Esenwine has the first line for the Progressive Poem. He is using found lines. The schedule is in the sidebar. National Poetry Month begins!
Margaret Simon lives on the Bayou Teche in New Iberia, Louisiana. She is a retired elementary gifted teacher who writes poetry and children's books. Welcome to a space of peace, poetry, and personal reflection. Walk in kindness.
National Poetry Month 2019: I am playing with poetry alongside 
Reflections on the Teche 