Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Poetry’ Category

I am a hopeless romantic who believes that dreams come true. Recently, for me that has been wonderfully true and painfully false all at the same time. I think that’s life. How can someone capture that feeling in a photograph? Molly Hogan does. The photo for today she took on her way to work. The caption on Facebook simply said, “What almost made me late for work twice this week.” The reality is that we work every day, and sometimes those days are hard and don’t go the way we planned. We do it anyway, every day. But sometimes there is beauty that stops us in our tracks, makes us pull the car over and wonder at the miracle of two things, flowering branch and rising sun, can come together in a composition of Awe.

Put on your awe-glasses today. Find the flower in the rainstorm. Be aware that life will not always be so hard. Breathe. Join me in musing over this amazing photo and write for a few minutes. It will be good for your soul.

Photo by Molly Hogan.

Summer Comes

I have a long list
of things to do.
You know the one
we write each May
and tick away day by day
until you wake up on a morning
in June and find peace
on a branch with blue blossoms
welcoming you awake.

Margaret Simon, flash draft

Read Full Post »

The Great Blue Heron is a loner, often seen wading across the bayou on stealthy legs. No fast movements for this bird. And when he takes to flight, it is a glorious regal sight of his wingspan of six feet. The Great Blue Heron is a widespread water bird foraging in marshes, swamps, and lakes. I’ve seen them in Louisiana and Mississippi, and my friend Molly Hogan took an amazing close up of one in Maine. I think a bird image can make us pause and marvel in the beauty of nature.

Blue Heron Portrait by Molly Hogan

A Lune for the Heron

Stealthily abides.
Feathers glide.
Minnows, you should hide.

Margaret Simon, draft

When writing small poems, each word counts, especially in such a short poem form. I rewrote my last line in a number of different ways and settled on speaking directly to the minnows. Try to condense your words into a small poem today. Add it in the comments and support other writers with your comments. Thanks, Molly, for the image. Thanks to my student James for asking for a bird photo today.

Read Full Post »

For Easter I brought my three-year-old grandson a dinosaur bubble blower. He went outside to blow the bubbles. I’m not sure how he figured out how to make bubbles pile up on each other. He was first doing this on the ground. Then he made this beauty on a vine. It looks like a flower of bubbles.

I wrote about bubbles in Two Truths and a Fib poetry anthology edited by Bridget Magee. I like playing with forms, so if you’d like to join me, select a form you’d like to try and go for it. Bubble up with a new poem today. Share it in the comments. Support other bubble blowers in the comments.

A Prime Number Haiku (Syllable Count= 2, 3, 5, 7, 11)

Bubble
one becomes
rainbows blossoming
building hexagonal blooms
on a vine to be blown into the wind: Poof!

Margaret Simon, draft

Last night I had the honor of participating in a Facebook video with my Poetry Friday friends. We talked about how Poetry Friday has influenced our lives and ways to use poetry in the classroom with students. I joined Laura Shovan, Heidi Mordhorst, Sylvia Vardell, Matt Forrest Esenwine, Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, Mary Lee Hahn, Janet Wong, and Irene Latham. You can view the show on Facebook at this link.

The Kidlit Progressive Poem is with Patricia Franz today.

Read Full Post »

This month, National Poetry Month 2023, I’ve been following the prompts on Ethical ELA, a virtual treasure of inspiration. But I keep writing about the same thing over and over. My father, my mother, my own role as a grandparent. I think when we write condensed lines, we push our deepest thoughts up to the surface. I’m trying to let that part of me flow where it wants (or needs) to flow. This week I’ve written two of these kinds of poems to #VerseLove. Prompts can be found here.

If you want to be a poet, I highly recommend joining in with #VerseLove. Just like the hashtag says, it’s all about love. Each day that I write, I feel wrapped in the arms of other writers, tenderly cared for. Putting your writing out there into the world is hard and intimidating. Finding a caring community is rare and special. Like the community of writers at Two Writing Teachers, the teachers at Ethical ELA have become my friends. I am grateful to all the writers there, especially the ones who seek out my writing amongst many and comment like wind beneath my wings.

Photo and poem by Margaret Simon.

I am saving my poems in a Google slide show which allows me to save each slide as an image and share it here. Above is a photo of my father and my granddaughter Stella in the summer of 2021.

Today’s Ethical ELA prompt was given by Jessica, a self-identifying cinquain.

I am a Grandmother

Altered
state of being
fertility startled
by faces of me reflected
in you.

Margaret Simon, draft
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.

Read Full Post »

On Sunday morning we paddled on Mother Earth’s church, the Bayou Teche. The day was near perfect with a little cloud cover and moderate temperatures. We invited friends to join us. We actually saw an alligator. He was a juvenile about 3 feet long sunning himself on some concrete rip-rap. I got a good picture of him. He was totally still, not spooked at all by our moving closer to him. He smiled for me.

Gator juvenile, downtown New Iberia, LA. photo by Margaret Simon

Bayou Cinquain

Notice
how light dances
on bayou’s belly rolls
washing us with soothing hopeful
Nurture

Margaret Simon
Bayou Teche, New Iberia, LA (photo by Margaret Simon)

The Progressive Poem is with Janet today at Tabatha’s blog The Opposite of Indifference.

Read Full Post »

My birthday is in August. August is the first month of school when everything is getting put into place, so when the birthday buddy list was circulated, my birthday had passed. I never gave it a thought.

Until Monday when a special gift was delivered to me from a third grade teacher. On the note, she wrote “Happy Birthday from your Birthday Buddy! Since your birthday had passed when I received your name, I got to choose today to celebrate you!”

Not only was the thought of a nonbirthday-birthday fun for me, the gift was just right, a bird seed wreath to hang near a window to watch the birds come to eat. Thoughtful, kind, and all about me!

On Monday, I shared Allan Wolf’s poem “Living the Poet’s Life.” Each line begins with “A poem can be…” Allan is sharing videos each day of this month on his Instagram as well as YouTube.

Allan Wolf reciting “Living the Poet’s Life”

My students and I borrowed the form to write our own poems repeating the line “A poem can be…” I made my poem into a zine thank you note for my birthday buddy.

The Kidlit Progressive Poem is with Cathy Hutter, Poeturescapes.

Read Full Post »

My classroom neighbor is connected with a door between our rooms. Often she or I will knock and visit. One of those visits I talked about my weekly blog post of a photo, and she showed me photographs from her dance troupe. I was moved by the seeming still life of a dancer in flight. Kim got permission from both the photographer, Jon Rabalais, and the dancer, Lacey LeBlanc, for me to post this photo as a poem prompt. I hope you are inspired as I was to write about this amazing photo. Thanks to Jon and Lacey for sharing it with us.

My poem is a bit of word play, changing nouns to verbs. I enjoyed creating my poem. Please leave a small poem in the comments and encourage other writers with your comments. Honor the artistry of dance and photography with words.

Photo by Jon Rabalais. Dancer is Lacey LeBlanc.

I bird-dance
fling-flash
my winged hands
I leg-lift
flamingo-stance
prance
I body-rise

Margaret Simon, draft

The Kidlit Progressive Poem is gaining suspense in the garden. Check out today’s line at Carol’s blog: https://theapplesinmyorchard.com/

Read Full Post »

I’ve been participating in VerseLove over at Ethical ELA. Today, Fran Haley invited us to write a triolet. This is a form I find challenging because the repeated lines, while they should be easy, make it hard to create an original poem in which the flow doesn’t seemed forced.

I love nature and observing the intimacy of birds. Recently I witnessed a cardinal couple feeding. Such a sweet moment to see the male feeding the female. In case you are wondering, I intentionally changed the last line to play with metaphor.

Read Full Post »

Looking at the calendar-chart plan for this month, I realize I haven’t written a cinquain yet. This form is a five-lined verse with a syllable count 2, 4, 6, 8, 2. Yesterday was the most perfect spring day after a raging storm the night before. The air was breezy with a touch of cool. Perfect canoeing weather, so Jeff and I seized the day and paddled for a couple hours. One of our goals for each paddle is to clean up crap junk from the bayou. Yesterday we retrieved a basketball, a soccer ball, and a few cans and water bottles, one large piece of styrofoam. A small part, but we had a good time finding and trying to retrieve it.

Notice
how light dances
on bayou’s belly rolls
washing us with soothing hopeful
Nurture

Margaret Simon, draft

Read Full Post »

I got sidetracked from using the daily calendar that Molly and I created for our National Poetry Month Project. Even though we decided it was flexible and not a commitment, I wanted to check off another form with today’s poem.

One of my favorite forms for playing around with words is Heidi Mordhorst’s Definito. What a clever form! It’s a poem for children of 8-12 lines that uses word play to define a word. I had a draft started about the word Shenanigans. Isn’t that a fun word to say? After spending a night with grandson #2, I was taken back to it.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »