Last month I participated in two challenges: Spark and Sunday Swaggers. Spark is an exchange between writer and artist led by Amy Souza. I partnered with Jone MacCulloch. I sent her a poem. She sent me this amazing photograph.
How Do We Stand?
I go to Lady Bird Johnson Grove
to be among these giant trees.Fenced forest of ten thousand branches
diffuses blue sky radiation
illuminating tunnels in the midstof roots ungrounded–a path
to the great unknown.Moved by stillness,
we pass ancient ruins,
an army of roots intertwined.
I’ll lock arms with youthrough dark spaces
Margaret Simon, all rights reserved
where rays of light
are swallowed
and breathe in blue forever.
Molly Hogan challenged our Sunday Swagger poetry group to write after Cheryl Dumesnil’s Today’s Sermon. I created a collage. Sometimes doing this helps me focus and inspires creative juices. After playing with collage and word collecting, I pulled together a poem using the anaphora of Today’s Poem.
Link up your post here:
Reflections on the Teche 
What fun challenges! Love Jone’s photo and your response to it. Beautiful! Like your idea of making a collage to get the creative juices flowing. Thanks for hosting this week. 🙂
Thanks, Jama.
What a rich post Margaret, I love your Magazine Collage art too, especially the pinks, peaches, and woman that
“gathers trash
while jogging.” And
“picks thunderclouds
from a field of poppies.”
In your first poem created from Jones stunning photo, this is such a sumptuous image,
“where rays of light
are swallowed
and breathe in blue forever.”
Thanks for all here and for hosting!
The verbs in ‘Today’s Poem’ are wonderful! think, pick, gather, scribbles, imagining….all things I hope to do without as many time constraints in about a week. Jone’s photo and your poem pair are truly beautiful. What a SPARK of light between the two of you. “breathe in blue forever” is such a lovely end line. Thank you for hosting this week.
Thank, Linda. It really was a gift.
So much beautiful here, Margaret! I love your response to Jone’s luminous photo and your response to the prompt challenge. I especially love “picks thunderclouds from a field of poppies.” Thanks for hosting with an inspiring post!
Thank you, Molly. that day was such a gift.
Margaret, your collage idea is wonderful. I have another friend who does that, and I’ve never tried it, although you’re both inspiring me now to give the visual side of inspiration/idea generation a try. 🙂 Thank you!
That, indeed, is quite an amazing photo Jone sent you! Love both of your responses…the rays of light breathing in blue, and your thoughts on “today’s poem,” which could be any of our poems! Thanks for hosting, Margaret. My post goes live shortly after midnight.
Thank you, Matt.
Wow. Amazing images and responses. I love the idea of the poem ‘gathering trash/while jogging’. I guess I went to images of cleaning up rather than of the trash itself – poetry making the world a better place. Thanks for hosting.
So much to love about the collage poem. I love the idea that “today’s poem asks where you are going”.
Thank you for sharing my photo. I love how you captured many feelings of the grove.
[…] Thanks to Margaret Simon for hosting Poetry Friday today. You’ll find this week’s poetic links at her blog, Reflections on the Teche. […]
Jone’s photo is an invitation for us all to go there and your poem completes it, Margaret. I just started reading Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard, already amazing. And I love what you did with your collage & the response to ‘Today’s Sermon’, love those tiny things that are poems. Beautifully done! Thanks for hosting this first weekend of your vacation!
Thanks for hosting, Margaret. I love the colllage idea. I think art would help me get creativity flowing, but I’m not an artist. Making a collage is a great alternative.
Wow! What a stunning image from Jone. And your response to it is so evocative. I’m especially struck by:
illuminating tunnels in the midst
of roots ungrounded–
Lovely work in Today’s Poem, too. I was caught by the lines:
gathers trash
while jogging.
Thanks for hosting today. I’ve added my link though the post won’t go live for a few hours yet.
Challenges often lead us to creative places and your responses to various challenge are evidence of this Margaret. Enjoyed the repetition and personification inherent in your poetic response. I also enjoyed the montage of words and images brought together in your collage response. Thank you for hosting, but also for highlighting the broader responses we can consider as options.
Margaret, wow! These are two sweet challenges you did in May. Beautiful. I enjoyed looking at Jone’s gorgeous photo. As I read your poem I saw all the visible and microscopic animals making a home there in this forest cathedral–“the great unknown” to casual observers, but you made us look more closely with your beautiful poem.
These lines from Dumesnil’s poem are moving and hope-filled:
“Today’s sermon is
dragging grace around
like a rust-eaten wagon
pretending it’s whole.”
I can see why you were inspired by hers to create your “Today’s Poem” with its call to stop, gaze, and imagine.
Thank you for this post today, and for your consistent sharing, teaching, and inspiring me and so many others!
[…] looking for more poems and links, head on over to Margaret Simon’s little home on the web, Reflections on the Teche, for today’s complete roundup – and not one but TWO responses to poetic challenges she […]
Margaret, I loved your imaginings that turned into beautiful artwork and poetry. A tribute to blue-where rays of light/are swallowed/and breathe in blue forever. Your writing flows from one poem to the other as a river running downstream. Thanks for sharing your magical touches of inspiration and for hosting this week.
I love poetry challenges! And I’ve never thought of making a collage as a source of poetic inspiration. Thanks for sharing these wonderful ideas, and for hosting today.
Wow, two great challenges. The way you describe Lady Bird Johnson Grove is beautiful and peaceful. The magazine collage is wonderful. It was fun to see your collage and then scroll on to read your poem.
[…] lovely and talented Margaret Simon is hosting the Roundup at Reflections on the Teche. Drop by to check out the full menu of poetic goodness being served up around the blogosphere this […]
Gol-darn, Margaret, it is fun to see both of these in their final form. Each responds to its prompt quite directly but with added ideas and tone, and I’m liking also how they talk to each other about uncertain journeys. I especially like (to my surprise) the stanza with pink&blue, easy&hard, old&new. Thanks for hosting.
You mastered both challenges, Margaret! And Jone’s photograph, swoon! Thank you for hosting and sharing a sneak peek into the creative process (a collage!) behind “Today’s poem”. 🙂
Thank you.
Margaret, your poem really put me in the space of the forest, “through dark spaces/where rays of light are swallowed” Thank you for sharing your colorful and inspiring collage. Lovely post. Thanks for hosting.
Thanks for hosting today, Margaret. I haven’t done Spark in many years, but I appreciate your reminder in this post of what a rich creative experience these collaborations can be.
Margaret, your poem is truly inspiring. The forest is such a unique and necessary part of our life on earth – of course, it holds our history as well – These lines reflect those thoughts so clearly to me,
“Moved by stillness,
we pass ancient ruins,
an army of roots intertwined”
Thank you for hosting and for your beautiful work.
I adore poetry about poetry. Yours is fabulous. Thanks for hosting us this week!
That collage is so awesome! What a great idea to interpret a poem visually with a magazine collage! I love how Today’s poem develops! My favorite stanza is probably is the third stanza about thinking outside the box. It must have taken courage. The risk paid off.
Thank you for sharing and hosting!
Thank you for hosting this week, Margaret! Your response to Jone’s stunning photo is gorgeous. I love “and breathe in blue forever” and that the ending to “Today’s Poem” gazes back to the trees in Jone’s photo. Your rich post has inspired me this morning.
Thank you for hosting, and for all your wonderful creativity this week! Ruth, thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown.blogspot.com
[…] in the mail from Jone MacCulloch along with a plaque print of her amazing collage response for our Spark exchange. Jone’s card inspired me to try again with a mentor to […]
[…] off a notebook to Tabatha herself. And she gifted me with a poetic zine, Today’s Poem (after me, after Cheryl Dumesnil’s Today’s […]