Today is the first Friday of April, of National Poetry Month. Please check out the progress of the Kidlit Progressive Poem with Patricia Franz. The journey to Poetry Land has begun and Patricia added a spice of alliteration. There are three days open at the end of the month. Please let me know in the comments or by email if you would like to participate.
Today I am supposed to be posting a poem alongside my Inklings prompted by Linda Mitchell. Ars Poetica which is poetry about poetry. I failed at the assignment because my week was full of teaching teens. Did I hear an audible sigh?
As a teaching artist, I want to accept whatever gigs come my way, but on Monday when I walked into the middle school where the secretary left me in a chemistry lab alone to prepare for 6th, 7th, and 8th graders, I felt like I had been dropped back in time to my high school which, frankly, terrified me. Chemistry was not my best subject.
I made the decision to use a “higher level” lesson plan rather than read the picture book “How to Write a Poem” by Kwame Alexander. So not only did I feel strange in a strange land, I was trying to get teens to come up with symbols to match an emotion. They stared at me with their evil eyes that said, “You want me to do what?”
On Tuesday, after a wise lunch with some friends, I went back to my tried and true lesson plan that begins with “How to Write a Poem.” Things went much better. I told Azul that I would share his poem and painting on my blog. He was beaming! Even eighth graders just want to be seen.
When I was wandering around the room during writing time, Azul had not written anything. He had a title because I asked them to write a title for each of their paintings. But he just couldn’t get started. I whispered to him, “Start with the word imagine.” He was too shy to read it out loud, so I asked if I could read it. He agreed, and his pride was palpable when I read with confidence and expression.
Sometimes when we teach in a foreign land, we have to take the small wins. Not every teen got a poem they were proud of. One boy handed me his paintings and poem and said, “What do I do with these?”
I said, “Take them home!” In my singsong elementary teacher voice.
He said, “I’m embarrassed.”
“Then I will take them! Thank you for sharing!”
On the third day of my work with middle schoolers, I drove home by way of a rookery on Jefferson Island.
I watched the egrets and roseate spoonbills swoop in and out of their nests, listened to croaking frogs, and was eyed by two small alligators. I wrote this poem in my car before heading home.
After the School Visit
I went to pray in the rookery
to breathe
to leave the scratchy spunk
of teens resisting
to just be with God
There I found praise
praise for the awkward ones
hiding their paper from my onlooking eyes
their fear of failure like an odor on their skin.
I sigh and realize their prize
was recognized after the teaching artist left
as they shared their paintings and poems
walking back to class.
I stand in the field of dragonflies
and watch egrets rise.
Margaret Simon (draft)
Reflections on the Teche 