Poetry | Reflections on the Teche

Archive for the ‘Poetry’ Category

This Photo Wants to be a Poem: Papère’s Hand

Posted in being mamére, Gratitude, Photography, Poetry, This Photo Wants to be a Poem on December 28, 2022| 5 Comments »

Welcome back to This Photo Wants to be a Poem, a weekly writing prompt that I borrowed from Laura Purdie Salas’s Fifteen Words or Less. I was not here last week, so Linda Mitchell took the reins with a beautiful photo from Amanda Watts. I was busy last week with the arrival of my 4th grandchild, June Margaret. You can read about that experience here.

On Christmas Day, my husband and I were separated for the first Christmas in 40 years. He traveled to New Orleans on Christmas Day to meet his new grandchild and have a bowl of gumbo. Baby June is a big baby, and her fingers are long. I marveled at them as Jeff (Papère) held her tiny hand. This is a more personal image than I usually post. Forgive me, I’m smitten.

Papère’s Hand

Christmas package
wrapped in tiny fingers
perfectly peaceful
Margaret Simon, draft

Take a peaceful moment for yourself to write, remember, marvel and share. If you are able, write an encouraging comment for other writers.

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This Photo Wants to be a Poem: Early Sunset

Posted in Photography, Poetry, This Photo Wants to be a Poem, tagged #poemsofpresence, #smallpoems, This Photo Wants to be a Poem on December 14, 2022| 31 Comments »

I read somewhere that the earliest sunset is on December 13th. Did you think, like me, that it would be on Winter Solstice Dec. 21st? After carpool duty, I was walking to my car and saw this beautiful ray of sunlight peeking through the clouds. I noticed the sun was lower in the sky. My school is situated out in the country among sugarcane fields. This single horse only recently appeared in the field next door. At the end of a long day, this scene brought me peace.

Winter sun slyly slips
lower in the sky
beckoning me to slow down
and be still.
Margaret Simon, draft

Write a small poem in the comments and support other writers with encouraging words. Thanks for stopping by.

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This Photo Wants to be a Poem: Fountain at the Zoo

Posted in Photography, Poetry, This Photo Wants to be a Poem, Travel, Writing, tagged New Orleans Audubon Zoo on December 7, 2022| 4 Comments »

A few weeks ago our family celebrated Stella’s second birthday by going to the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans. After a full day of rain on Saturday, Sunday dawned clear and mild. A perfect day for the zoo. The Audubon Zoo has a signature fountain as you walk in. Some of the sprays create an arch over the walkway. It is a place where families meet to take a photo.

I’ll be writing later with my students and will add my poem here. Please consider writing today and supporting other writers with encouragement.

Avalyn and I wrote together using Rose’s poem as a model. Thanks, Rose.

Meet Me at the Waterfall

Meet me
at the waterfall
where elephants
play,
where penguins wiggle
toes
in a cold, icy sleigh.

Meet me
at the waterfall
where my dreams
come true,
and if you make a wish,
yours
will come true, too.
Mrs. Simon and Avalyn (3rd grade)

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Poetry Friday and Spiritual Thursday: What’s the Question?

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Spiritual Growth, Writing, tagged Amy Ludwig Vanderwater, enough, Faith Broussard, Inklings challenge, One Little Word, spiritual journey, unasked question poem on December 2, 2022| 13 Comments »

Poetry Friday is with Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core.

Today is the first Friday of the month. Time for the Inklings challenge. Molly challenged us to write a poem that answers an unasked question in the spirit of Amy Ludwig VanDerwater’s poem Answer. I was intrigued by the way that Mary Lee responded to this prompt by writing after Joe Cottonwood’s Because a Redwood Grove. I wanted to borrow the form and use a repeated because.

Because a Poem

Because upon entering
your breath is taken away
into aha,
yes-and,
me, too.

Because breath has power
to stop your heart
and fill it up again.

Because words seem to know what they are doing.

Because alongside stars,
rivers flow capturing refracted light.

Because something holy
happens here.

Because a poem
is enough.
Margaret Simon, draft

Other Inklings Responses to the Challenge:

Heidi
Molly
Mary Lee
Catherine
Linda

If you would like to join the host round-up for Spiritual Thursday 2023, fill out this form.

The first week of the month also brings Spiritual Thursday. This is a roundup of bloggers writing about their Spiritual Journey. Bob Hamera has the gathering at his blog. He selected the topic of Acceptance and Change.

I follow Faith Broussard on Instagram. Faith was a classmate of my daughter’s and she currently lives in Atlanta. On Instagram, she’s become an influencer known as Fleur-de-lis Speaks. I loved her message today, and she used my 2022 One Little Word, Enough.

My family has changed in the last year. We lost my Dad, and this month we will meet our newest granddaughter. I once had a mentor who told me that God is Change. I actually believe that God is the constant in change. God does not leave us where we are, ever. There are changes that are hard, and changes that are good. Whatever the change, our acceptance, our open arms, our breath is enough. I am enough.

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This Photo Wants to be a Poem: Start with a Dream

Posted in Photography, Poetry, This Photo Wants to be a Poem, Travel, tagged #gratitude, #poemsofpresence, #smallpoems, Barry Lane, Paul Hankins on November 30, 2022| 28 Comments »

Welcome back. I’m sorry I missed posting last week, but my flight left Los Angeles at 5:50 AM. I had a wonderful trip to NCTE and lovely visit with my friend Julieanne. Then it was home for Thanksgiving and to New Orleans for a birthday weekend with my grandchildren. Life has been full and busy lately. ‘Tis the season.

The photo today was posted by Barry Lane, author, musician, and educator. It was tagged for This Photo by Paul Hankins on Facebook. Not only does the photo speak to travel, it seemed to travel itself to get to me. Even if you haven’t been traveling lately, you can relate to the image through the inscription on the building (which I totally missed the first time I saw the photo, so I’m pointing it out.).

Add your small poem in the comments and respond to other writers with encouragement.

Dream your dream.
Carry on.
Take me with you.
Margaret Simon, draft

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Slice of Life: I am Poem Videos

Posted in Poetry, Writing, tagged #NCTE22, Canva video, I am poem, Poetry Lesson on November 15, 2022| 7 Comments »

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

Last week fellow poet-blogger Patricia Franz taught me how to make videos on Canva. It’s so easy that my students picked up on it pretty quickly. I had to do some of the audio and adjusting time on each image, but they were able to add elements, text, and record their own voices.

I will be sharing this lesson this week at NCTE in a session I am giving called “Are Your Words Like My Words: Accessing Your Inner Light Through Poetry” on Thursday at 11:00 AM. I’m excited to be presenting live, in person again and alongside two of my favorite poets, Laura Shovan and Mary lee Hahn.

My book Bayou Song opens with an I am poem, I am a Beckoning Brown Bayou. I projected this poem for my students. We discussed the alliteration of the opening line and how each line begins with an I + action. They selected their own topic and wrote their own poems. Here is a link to the Google doc I am form.

I am a Cypress Tree, Sincere in my Surroundings by Avalyn, 3rd grade and Mrs. Simon

I’m a Big, Bouncy Bubble by Brayden, 3rd grade

I’m a Big, Brown Box Turtle by Adelyn, 4th grade

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Poetry Friday: My Father’s Drawing

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged Canva video, Illuminate, John Gibson on November 11, 2022| 14 Comments »

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Buffy Silverman.

This post is dedicated to the memory of my father, Dr. John Y Gibson. In 2013 to celebrate his 80th birthday, we created a book together. Illuminate features ten of his Christmas card drawings alongside my poems. Today would be his 89th birthday. He passed away on April 22, 2022.

Patricia Franz offered to teach some of us bloggers how to use Canva to make videos. I forgot all about the Zoom meeting on Monday, but she graciously recorded it and sent me a link. I decided to make a video with some of my father’s drawings and a poem I wrote for him in 2008. It’s my first attempt, but Canva and Patricia’s guidance made it fairly easy to do. Thanks, Patricia.

Light comes out of darkness. As an artist, I want to tell you that in my ink drawings it is the darkest dark that reveals the brightest light. So it seems also in life.
John Y. Gibson

A poem video “My Father’s Drawing” by Margaret Simon

My Father’s Drawing

Dots of ink and graphite rise in tension with paper
to form a likeness of mother and child.
The wild contrast of darks to light
plays in harmony creating a vision of love.

In the meantime, I grew up,
became a mother with children
living away from my father.
His words came to me in thank you notes
and birthday cards, an occasional phone call.

Yet everyday, I look at his drawing–
the dots of pointillism reach out from the wall
and grant me an audience
with his grateful praise.
Margaret Simon, Illuminate

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This Photo Wants to be a Poem: Cajun Prairie

Posted in Photography, Poetry, This Photo Wants to be a Poem, Writing, tagged Cajun Prairie Habitat Preservation, haiku, James Edmunds on November 9, 2022| 27 Comments »

In most parts of the northern hemisphere, fall is a time when leaves change hue and fall getting ready for the dormancy of winter. But here in the deep south of Cajun country, the prairie goes to seed. My friend and neighbor James Edmunds recently photographed fields of prairie grasses. I was attracted to the starlike seed pods of this one.

On Instagram, James wrote, “The Cajun Prairie project in Eunice right now is in a beautiful post-flowering, going-to-seed stage. The perimeter can be walked on nice sidewalks and gives views into a wide variety of native grasses!” To see more, I found a website for Cajun Prairie Habitat Preservation. It does my nature-loving heart good to see there are organizations dedicated to preservation and restoration of natural land.

Prairie grass sashays
replanting, replenishing
starlike seedlings soar

Margaret Simon, haiku draft

Write your own small poem in the comments and support other writers with comments. Thanks!

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This Photo Wants to be a Poem: Milkweed Seed Pod

Posted in Photography, Poetry, This Photo Wants to be a Poem, Writing, tagged Karen Eastlund, milkweed, seedpod on October 12, 2022| 9 Comments »

I love how both students and poet participants are on the look out for photos that want to be poems. Last week I featured a sunset photo taken by a third grader. This week Karen Eastlund sent me an interesting photo from her garden. She said they planted milkweed hoping for monarchs. I have recently found 3 monarch caterpillars on my own milkweed. Two of them were on volunteer milkweed that had planted itself in a crack of concrete near my air-conditioner units. I’m so glad I left it there growing wild and free like the weed it is meant to be. Thanks Karen for this amazing photo of a milkweed seed pod, open, soft, and free.

Seed pod opens
to the morning sun
waiting for a wisp of wind
to carry feather-soft seedlings
to the sky.
Plant me upon your pinwheel
and carry me along.
Margaret Simon, draft

Please leave a small poem draft in the comments. Come back, if you can, to write encouraging comments for other writers. Happy Hump Day!

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This Photo Wants to be a Poem: Student Version

Posted in Photography, Poetry, This Photo Wants to be a Poem, tagged #poemsofpresence, #smallpoems, student photo, sunset on October 5, 2022| 35 Comments »

This week’s photo is from my student Brayden. Over the weekend I got a text from his mom. First came the photo. Then she wrote, “Brayden took this picture and wants to write a poem about it.”

I think my eyes welled up. I won’t go into the whole history of Brayden for privacy’s sake, but this felt like a turning point to me, not only in his writing life, but also in his relationship with me (and all things School). What teacher wouldn’t want a student to look at a beautiful sunset and think about poetry? It’s a first for me.