Have you ever had a form attach itself to you and beg you for a daily poem? I’ve hoped for a daily haiku to come to me for years now. I’ve tried it on, and some days it fits just fine, but I’ve recently felt a tug toward elfchen which is a similar form to a cinquain. Five lines. However, in an elfchen (elevenie, in English) there are more specific directions that stretch the form to a higher problem-solving level, a level of Flow for me, not too hard, not too easy.
On Tuesday, I wrote about beginning this new year with a practice of notebooking with my students. I shared an elfchen there.
Do you read The Marginalian? I highly recommend it as a weekly practice. Maria Popova sends a newsletter each Sunday, and it never fails to inspire me. This is a found elfchen from Jan. 7, 2024.
Attention
Margaret Simon, found in The Marginalian
high degree
be as prayer
gravity in acts of
Love
“Perhaps this spiritual dimension of love stems from a simple equivalence: At its core, love is the quality of attention we confer upon another; and as Simone Weil observed in her timeless meditation on the nature of grace, “attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer.” All of love’s gravity and all of its grace are found in our acts of attention.” Love and the Sacred–The Marginalian.
Have you started a new poetry practice? What commitment to writing have you made?
Reflections on the Teche 