Poetry | Reflections on the Teche

Archive for the ‘Poetry’ Category

#SOL21 #This Photo Wants to be a Poem

Posted in Photography, Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged March haiku, This Photo Wants to be a Poem on March 24, 2021| 26 Comments »

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

You may use this image on your blog if you share a poem from this prompt.

The clocks have been set forward, the days are getting longer, and there is a rumor that spring is here. I forget how turbulent March can be. It’s like the weather can’t decide. There is a war between hot and cold, humid and dry, that causes wind and storms and then bright sunny days and flowers.

I love spring flowers. My photo app is full of them. One of my favorites is the wisteria vine. Wisteria is an invasive species in South Louisiana. My husband hates the insidious vines that rot wooden railings. I’ve lost the battle over trying to keep it in our yard. But this week they were blooming beautifully in our neighborhood. On my walk, I smelled their fragrance before seeing the vine.

Lavender leaves weep
wander in March windy ways
fragrant springtime tears
Margaret Simon, March haiku

Join me today and write a small poem in the comments or on your blog (leave a link in the comments). Be sure to support others with encouraging comments.

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#SOL21: Day 22 Writing is

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged free verse poetry, kingfisher, writing is on March 22, 2021| 10 Comments »

“Writing for me is no different than playing basketball, it’s my body moving among and pushing up against and being moved by other bodies of language and the energy of language,” says Natalie Diaz in an interview with Brandon Stosuy in the Creative Independent, in which she talks about the physicality of writing and how her experience as a professional athlete and her Mojave culture affect how she writes. “I don’t only feel with my body, I think with it. Even text is a physical space for me.” This week, write a short essay describing what your writing process feels like. How does articulating the way you write help focus your process?

From Poets & Writers, The Time is Now

My writing follows a white-crested bird
diving into the bayou
then flying off into a tree and shaking its feathers out–
jumpjabfly
I write with tabs across my computer screen,
a cup of coffee growing cold,
and fingers jumping on a trampoline
of similes, images that come to my mind
and fly away as fast as the bayou bird.
Maybe I should open a tab and find out its name;
specificity is good to use in writing,
but then I’d have to stop, take a sip of water,
wash down the inspiration and start again.
Writing is no different from bird watching,
trying to name the thing that captures you
and takes you into a new space
of discovery. I didn’t even know I knew how to say that.
Margaret Simon, draft

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#SOL21: Creative Notebooking

Posted in Creativity, Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged art collage, erasure poetry on March 18, 2021| 12 Comments »

Playing with lots of creative ideas on this notebook page. I started with a falling apart copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I wanted to try writing a blackout (erasure) poem that had nothing to do with the actual content on the page.

The second thing I made was the notecard design. This is a method of meditation I learned last year at an art museum workshop (the fall of 2019 when we could go to these things.) It’s a simple concept. Choose 3 colors that express your mood. Set the timer for 3 minutes and follow where the lines take you. I use a meditation timer on my phone with some ambient sound.

I had been struggling for days to learn how to make an origami butterfly. I finally got one and added it to the page.

The final touches were some magazine cut-outs I had set aside for when I may need them. There is a creative satisfaction that happens when all the elements come together in a pleasing way.

Text of the black-out poem:

back to
Sunday morning
grudgingly
skating on
Zoom
losing one face
in the window
just before lunch.
Margaret Simon, from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

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#SOL21: This Photo Wants to be a Poem

Posted in Creativity, Photography, Poetry, tagged #smallpoems, handprint, Leo, rainbows on March 17, 2021| 39 Comments »

Join our weekly writing prompt by leaving a poem in the comments or a link to your blog post.
You may use this image and the prompt image with a pingback to this site.

Usually on this weekly photo prompt I post a photo from nature. But this week I wanted to try something new. Abstract art by my grandson, Leo. He loves doing art, especially painting. His parents are proud of his work and place it in a gallery on the kitchen wall. Obviously Leo’s daycare teachers have an amazing amount of patience and skill to get this art piece. Is it possible to recognize someone by their handprint?

While I was visiting on Sunday, Leo had a tumble and scraped his finger. We continued our walk to the park, but I noticed he was shaking his hand. He said, “Burns.” I offered to take him back home and clean it up. On the way, he said, “Don’t cry Leo.” I told him crying was OK when he was hurt.

We washed the boo boo, but he did not want a band-aid. On FaceTime Monday, he said, “Mamere, finger better.”

This image may take you to a child you know, a memory of hand print art, or to the idea of spring and rainbows, health and healing. Follow the muse wherever it goes. Leave a small poem in the comments (or a link to your blog post). We appreciate encouraging responses to other writers.

Familiar fingers
reach for the sky
touch a cloud
release a rainbow.
Margaret Simon, draft

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#SOL21: Day 16 A Moment

Posted in Photography, Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged grandmother, National Geographic, Pandemic on March 16, 2021| 6 Comments »

I have subscribed to the National Geographic newsletter. One of these days I will break down and pay the subscription fee for full access because the images and articles are so inspiring. This one included photographs taken all around the world during the pandemic selected to express “how we deal.” My prompt for my students: select a photograph and take words from the text descriptions to write a poem. And I wrote, too.

I chose a photograph of a pregnant woman. My daughter found out she was pregnant around this day a year ago. I was drawn to the woman. Having a child during a pandemic can bring about heightened anxiety. As the grandmother, I felt the joy.

A moment
is all it takes
to cancel
close
lockdown.

A test
of our humanity
our hunger
our resilience.

We cannot close our eyes, blind-out reality.
To grow a life
inside a womb,
nourish and protect,
celebrate its birth– there is somewhere
to go, to be
with a moment,
comforted and belonging
to the insanity
of things.
Margaret Simon, draft

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#SOL21: #13 Impending

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, tagged Ethical ELA, memory poem on March 13, 2021| 8 Comments »

I discovered Ethical ELA a year ago. This community has been such a blessing to my writing life. Today begins another 5 day open write and the prompt is from Kim Johnson. I highly recommend you check it out. It’s another community, like TWT, that supports a writing life of teachers with encouragement.

A year ago today, life suddenly changed. At first none of us believed that the virus would shut us down for more than a year and take so many lives. But my memory doesn’t go there. My memory of last March was a quiet announcement, a budding new life, my granddaughter (who is now a smily, healthy 3 month old). My daughter had a miscarriage before having two beautiful healthy births. That loss clouded her joy over a positive pregnancy test. This is the memory that rises for me today. This is what I wrote for the Ethical ELA prompt, still very drafty.

Impending
On a March wind,
a virus swirls
much like an impending hurricane.
After my morning walk
and weeding, coffee in hand,
my phone vibrates.
Her voice, shaking, quiet,
“I’m pregnant.”
No ultrasound photo wrapped like a birthday present.
“I don’t know if it’ll take.”
New life is fragile
like the wildflowers, newly budding, blowing.
Gripping the phone, tears welling,
I am inwardly in prayer, fervent and furious.
Calmly, with a mother’s voice,
I say, “Congratulations.”
Margaret Simon, draft

Photo by Polina Tankilevitch on Pexels.com

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#SOL21: #This Photo wants to be a Poem

Posted in Photography, Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged Clover, spring, This Photo Wants to be a Poem on March 10, 2021| 20 Comments »

This photo was an impulse photo, like an impulse buy in the grocery store at the check out line. I was walking in the cold of the early morning and making a wish for warmer days. I know I’ll get my wish soon enough, but 41 degrees is chilly, and frankly, I’m tired of having to put on layers for my walk. I almost tripped over this patch of clover.

Where did it come from? How does it know it’s time to bloom? When everything else is still brown? So I stopped, grabbed my phone with my stinging cold fingers and took a picture. I think my wish worked because the day warmed up to 70 without a cloud in the sky. Spring is coming slowly but surely.

Secret starbursts proud
emerging from a green cloud
Harbinger of spring.
Margaret Simon, draft

The way this works: Look at the photo for inspiration and write a small poem in the comments. Leave encouraging comments to other writers by replying to their poems. Let your mind wander. No pressure.

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#SOL21: #9 Tension

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, tagged Book Scavenger Hunt Poem on March 9, 2021| 9 Comments »

On Friday, I joined my writing group in posting poems written from an Amanda Gorman prompt. This Book Scavenger Hunt can work over and over again with different books, different moods, and a different page in the notebook. Find a nearby book and go to 3 different random pages and select a word from the page. Now write for 5 minutes.

For this one, I chose the book White Rose by Kip Wilson and found these words: guilt, endanger, coat pocket.

Tension
Hands held in a coat pocket
fisted, fingering tissue
tearing it to shreds.

This mood endangers
my attitude,
takes my mind
to guilt.
Release, let go,
open your hand.
The sky is waiting
to shine.
Margaret Simon, draft

Notebook Collage, March 5, 2021. Found a sticky note on my classroom door, so I added it to my daily collage. The notecard design was a meditative doodle I had drawn using colored pencil.

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#SOL 21: Erasure Every Letter

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged erasure poetry, Jennifer Sinor, The American Scholar on March 8, 2021| 8 Comments »

Erasure Poem, “Every Letter is a Love Letter” by Jennifer Sinor, *The American Scholar*, Spring 2021

I was fascinated by the article in The American Scholar by Jennifer Sinor, “Every Letter is a Love Letter.” She wrote of how Georgia O’Keefe wrote letters for years to her husband. The thing that drew me in was the language, the words in the article expressing the space that letters provide. There is the space of time between the writing and the receiving. In this day when a message can be sent before you even check the spelling, words can fly across vast spaces in a millisecond. I wanted to capture this idea somehow, so I thought of using erasure poetry.

The frustration for me was erasing the other words. So many artists do it in a way that somehow preserves the words behind the erasure. I tried different things so I ended up with a layered look that I don’t hate. I’ve typed the words I kept into poem form below:

Every Letter

we find those spaces void
you see canyons
empty spaces reveal vastness
Time in life’s work
experience of being in art
we fit ourselves

I wrote to my husband
Before long He left quiet communion,
heart of prayer, easy, difficult love letters.
You take your wounds handwritten
to be unrecognizable.

A letter is time–
rest in the gap
across space
binding us
to moment
to everyone–
Margaret Simon, erasure poem

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Progressive Poem Sign up 2021

Posted in Poetry, tagged Progressive poem on March 5, 2021| 54 Comments »

Grab this free image for your blog post.

April will be here before we know it. Yippee! National Poetry Month and the Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem. Click here to see past poems. And here for the 2020 poem.

There are few rules. The poem will be passing from blog to blog with each poet-blogger adding a line. The poem is for children. Other than that, anything goes. Usually the poem takes on a life of its own, so don’t be intimidated to sign up. Just do it and wait for your turn. Then let the creative muse do what she must.

Copy and paste the poem up to your date and add your line. Simple. Some poets like to write about the process which is always interesting for the rest of us to read, but it isn’t necessary.

When you sign up, state which date you would like and leave an active link to your blog. After the list is complete, you can copy and paste the list to your own blog post. I like to put mine in the sidebar as well.

Please email me with any questions. (margaretsmn at gmail)

April 1 Kat Apel at Kat Whiskers
2 Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
3 Mary Lee at A Year of Reading
4 Donna Smith at Mainly Write
5 Irene Latham at Live your Poem
6 Jan Godown Annino at BookseedStudio
7 Rose Cappelli at Imagine the Possibilities
8 Denise Krebs at Dare to Care
9 Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche
10 Molly Hogan at Nix the Comfort Zone
11 Buffy Silverman
12 Janet Fagel at Reflections on the Teche
13 Jone Rush MacCulloch
14 Susan Bruck at Soul Blossom Living
15 Wendy Taleo at Tales in eLearning
16 Heidi Mordhorst at my juicy little universe
17 Tricia Stohr Hunt at The Miss Rumphius Effect
18 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
19 Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link
20 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge
21 Leigh Anne Eck at A Day in the Life
22 Ruth Hersey at There is No Such Thing as a God-forsaken Town
23 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
24 Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference
25 Shari Daniels at Islands of my Soul
26 Tim Gels at Yet There is Method
27 Rebecca Newman
28 Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core
29 Christie Wyman at Wondering and Wondering
30 Michelle Kogan at More Art 4 All