I am so happy to be here today! The Progressive Poem has always brought me joy, despite sometimes offering my line with a bit or more of trepidation. This year is no different. I am able to participate thanks to Margaret’s generous offer to host me here at Reflections on the Teche. For most of the years of the Progressive Poem’s existence, Irene has taken blog-less me under her wing. I am grateful to both poets and friends.
While my participation at Poetry Friday ebbs and flows, I am always captivated and inspired by the community I have come to feel so a part of. I look forward to your creative, enriching new works and words. I am intrigued by the newest project or offering. And your books. Oh how I love to read and share them with children. I love when I have the time to devote to joining in. And I am beyond thrilled to have met so many of you in person. You are my people and I feel at home here. Thank you for your continued friendship and inspiration. It really means the world to me.
My friend Donna has started us in a lovely way. Besides swaying daffodils and violets, I am a proponent of choice for children (I taught for 41 years and still sub!) so I like this. Perhaps a little less pressure, I don’t know, but I feel our poem has thus far developed with flair and wonder. And perhaps a metaphor for the times we are living in; our path may be lonely, but there is light and water, music and nature surrounding us. To me that is hope.
Thanks to my friend Matt at Radio, Rhythm and Rhyme I had two lovely lines to choose from.
Sweet violets shimmy, daffodils sway
along the wiregrass path to the lake.
I carry a rucksack of tasty cakes
and a banjo passed down from my gram.I follow the tracks of deer and raccoon
and echo the call of a wandering loon.
A whispering breeze joins in our song.
and night melts into a rose gold dawn.Deep into nature’s embrace, I fold.
Promise of spring helps shake the cold
Next I hand the poem to Linda Mitchell’s pen to see where we go:
Hints of sun lightly dapple the trees (choice A)
I whistle, then whisper a snippet of poem (choice B)
Janet Fagal aka Janet Clare F. or Janet F. (Long story how this came to be, but I am too low tech to really change now.) On Facebook I am Janet Clare and I love new friends. My favorite name is Grandma.
A bit about me:
Besides teaching and being Grandma to two sweeties ages 4 and 1, I consider myself to be a poetry advocate for children. I visit classrooms and fill the hours with poetry books piled on desks for children to read and share poems to learn by heart. I have always been met with warm enthusiasm from the children. It is the poetry not me!
I have poems published in various places. My biggest thrill was being asked by my mentor and friend, Lee Bennett Hopkins, to write for the last anthology published in his lifetime, I AM SOMEONE ELSE: POEMS ABOUT PRETENDING which has my poem about wanting to be a mermaid. I have a poem in Pomelo Publishing’s Great Morning!, Best of Today’s Little Ditty 2014-2015, several in books, magazines, and online for the National League of American Pen Women (NLAPW.org), and most recently Clare Songbirds Press’s The Brave.
Here’s where you can find all the contributors to this year’s Progressive Poem. It’s a fine journey and I hope you will leave a comment or two along the way. It is always nice to hear from readers and other poets:
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1 Donna Smith at Mainely Write
2 Irene Latham at Live Your Poem
3 Jone MacCulloch, at deo writer
4 Liz Steinglass at Elizabeth Steinglass
5 Buffy Silverman at Buffy Silverman Children’s Author
6 Kay McGriff at A Journey Through The Pages
7 Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core
8 Tara Smith at Going to Walden
9 Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link
10 Matt Forrest Esenwine at Radio, Rhythm, and Rhyme
11 Janet Fagal hosted at Reflections on the Teche
12 Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
13 Kat Apel at Kat Whiskers
14 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
15 Leigh Anne Eck at A Day in the Life
16 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
17 Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe
18 Mary Lee Hahn at A Year of Reading
19 Tabatha at Opposite of Indifference
20 Rose Cappelli at Imagine the Possibilities
21 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
22 Julieanne Harmatz at To Read, To Write, To Be
23 Ruth, There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town
24 Christie Wyman at Wondering and Wandering
25 Amy at The Poem Farm
26 Dani Burtsfield at Doing the Work That Matters
27 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge
28 Jessica Big at TBD
29 Fran Haley at lit bits and pieces
30 Michelle Kogan at Michelle Kogan
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Reflections on the Teche 
Ooooh, I am so loving this poem! Nice pick and wonderful choices, Janet!
Me, too. Donna. Thanks for your encouraging words. Wouldn’t a walk like this be fun today? Even if we have to spread apart! Thinking of you.
I love the line you chose, Janet, and the choices you’ve served up for Linda!
I’ve been looking forward to seeing which line you’d choose and where you’d go. Now Linda has two options full of possibility!
Hi Matt, I loved both your offerings ! And I could tell you gave it such considered thought.You really seemed to take the pressure off for me this year. I love our meandering journey-er with a rucksack and cakes and banjo. I also like the rhythm and move toward a rhyme pattern that is working. Looking forward to Linda’s choices, too. I am enjoying this new twist that Donna came up with. As I wrote, I love this poem and the group dynamic!
[…] next host. Margaret is posting Janet’s line options for the next host, Linda, on her blog, Reflections on the Teche. I’m excited to provide the 24th line on Friday, April 24th. I hope you’ll join us to see what […]
The choices keep getting better and better. Both of these lines are beautiful offerings to inspire Linda for the next line.
Thank you so much, Kay. Isn’t this fun? Waiting to see what is next and in the midst of our trials, a beautiful walk?
I love that you chose to ‘shake the cold’, Janet & then your choices of “sunshine” or “poetry” both would add beauty to this walk. Love how it’s going!
Thanks, Linda. Matt gave me to great choices but that one spoke to me more. And then the others flowed. You know how that goes. The first year I did it it took about 1000 iterations of line possibilities to hit on one I thought was worthy. And even last year I know I pondered. (Music lines which I loved, but found a challenge.) So Matt’s line led me to mine pretty easily. It seems like it is coming together nicely but I just can’t wait to see the arc and ending, too.
Thanks, Janet! Either of your lines would be wonderful to continue the journey. And I see someone signed up for the 28th! That’s been worrying me! Ruth, thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown.blogspot.com
Thank you, Ruth. Yes, glad we have all the poets we need (for now). I do love how this is going and appreciate your “applause”.
Two compelling lines you have left for Linda! Children are lucky to have such a poetry advocate and poet as their teacher. Lovely post, Janet.
Thanks, Janice. I am really enjoying seeing where this poem is going. Have you had a chance to read some of the previous creations. Some really appealed to me. I think it is so much fun and am glad to see you here!
I like your choice of spring and rhyme. Both of your choices are great! This poem is fun and I enjoy seeing the progression from everyone.
Thank you, Gail. Glad you are reading and enjoying.
Two great choices, Janet–love the way the poem is unfolding.
Thank you , Buffy especially sharing some of your birthday minutes with us!
Great pick from Matt’s lines, Janet, and I look forward to seeing which one of yours Linda chooses. Those “hints of sun” dappling the trees are lovely! Thanks for your participation and enthusiasm each year, and for all you do all year long.
Thanks so much, Robyn! And your kind words. Spreading poetry love is my mission these days for sure.
This is unfolding so beautifully and musically … trying not to let pressure mount about my contribution near the end of the month -!!
I agree, Fran. Thanks for your note and fret not, I am sure you will offer some lovely choices!! I think the end is a bit of pressure but maybe this year it won’t be as tricky!! I am wondering if the last person will get to choose the title since they will not be actually writing a line of their own….just thought of that twist but I like twists.
Janet, I did read this yesterday but had no time to respond. Spring is here on Easter Sunday and you brought us Matt’s sunshine and your promise or a poem. The choices are presenting such a wonderful journey.
Hi Carol, Thanks for spending a little Easter with us! I love what Linda has chosen and offered. Each year is so different and this one is unfolding so sweetly. Let’s see where we go!
I have my fingers crossed for a certain line! Love both, though!
Curious if you got your wish BUT I love the choice Linda made and where we are going. Walking and Wandering is you!!! PM me your choice? All these lines can send us to write a variety of poems. I am going to write them all down and save them as possible idea starters……thanks.
I was secretly hoping for “I whistle, then whisper a snippet of poem,” but I love them both! Great idea to hang onto all of them!
Well, what I love about this is we can take it and write our own poem, right? I did like that line, but it’s still singing in its own way. I liked the dapple one, too. Sometimes I surprise myself! LOL. I think it always depends on how hard the muse is working. Thanks, Crhistie.
I’m smiling at you and hanging onto the spares. Because I’ve been collating them too – wondering if they’ll write their own second poem. (There is one line that repeats, though…) I must go and update my list, because I’ve been out of the loop for a little while. Like you, Janet, I’m loving the element of choice. I wonder if that’s what made it much less stress to write my bit? (Or if it’s the fact that I’d just come back from the creek… and was ripe for a little bit of adventure?) Either way, it was my quickest, stresslessest contribution. I love both your lines – that they offer something completely different. And I really loved your chatty catch-up! I was so surprised and delighted to meet you at Baltimore. Smiling now, as I remember it. Take care! 🙂
Popping in on the progressive poem late. This is the first time that I simply can’t choose. I love both lines you’ve offered up.
My favorite name is Grandma too. And while I’m keeping up with boys via Zoom story time and Face Time, my lap aches, longing for them to be plopped there instead of seeing them via the screen.