The Winter Poetry Swap has arrived. Our friend Tabatha Yeatts matches us up for a rich exchange of poetry inspired gifts. This year I was paired with Tricia Stohr-Hunt. This week I received her gift.
Tricia spent some time on my gift. That impresses me because these days, especially in December, time is precious and small. She cross-stitched my favorite line of poetry from Naomi Shihab Nye. Now to know this, she had to read my blog posts. Then design and stitch.
And to top it all off, she wrote a wonderful golden shovel using the line.
Golden Shovel for Advent
It is not the season of me or I. nor the season of greed and want. It is time for reflection, time to prepare for the guest. We must be ready to reach out to someone, anyone who needs, anyone who asks. Let us draw nearer to what makes us whole. As the year crowns, it is music that fills the air and our hearts with expectation. Stars keep watch. My, how they shine! Rejoice, for the Lord is coming.
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Last week our gifted students in grades 4-6 went on a field trip that incorporated three activities. Each teacher’s group rotated through practicing for the Shadows Christmas play, visiting the Bayou Teche Museum, and going on a Poetry Walk.
Pelicans, a sculpture at Paul Allain’s Architecture office
The Poetry Walk took students through a sculpture garden, bayou side boardwalk, and a pocket park called Church Alley. I wanted the students to experience each space in a unique way. For the sculpture garden, we wrote a simple free verse poem of 15 words or less, along the boardwalk, a haiku form that reflected the theme of nature, and in the alley, a mask poem written in the voice of someone from the past.
At the museum, we learned interesting facts about the Bayou Teche and the founding of New Iberia. Frederick Duperier, a founding father, wanted a pathway from his home to the church, and later, the alley was used by nuns who lived in Mount Carmel, the Duperier’s former home.
Here’s a sampling of poems from my students.
Bayou Teche, a snake slithering its way past us. The Teche silent still.
Breighlynn, Bayou Teche haiku
Walking through an alley a very dark, dark alley to be lit up by a beautiful church. The dark dirt of the alley much darker than I thought but a bit brighter from my very own steps.
The nuns, somber and solemn, pass silently by my form. They are hope, in a dark world.
Madison, Church Alley septercet
eyes big nose as big as an elephant peeper sees everything no matter mouse or bug
Landon, Sculpture poem
On the Bayou Teche pelican in the distance lily pads floating
Maddox, Bayou haiku
We celebrated these small poems with sharing time after each writing time. The students cheered for each other and enjoyed being poets paying attention to common places. Each poem was unique. The whole walk took about an hour with 20 minutes in each site. I recommend creating a poetry walk for your next field trip.
Our Sunday night Poetry Swaggers group is posting today with a challenge from Molly Hogan. “This month, I invite you to reinvent the world around you (or one aspect of it) by shifting your lens to see the beauty in what at first seems to be ugly or unnoteworthy.”
Molly quoted Naomi Shihab Nye who says, “Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us, we find poems.” All we need to do is shift our focus a bit to find beauty in the everyday, otherwise passed-over things.
I pass this dilapidated house often, yet after Molly’s prompt, I noticed the beauty of the plants justing up through the floor boards.
There are signs on the door fingerprints, peeling paint. We’ve been here, so have they- gone now the way of time.
Margaret Simon, draft 2019
Steps to a house in New Orleans. I was struck by the pattern of color in the peeling paint.
The Smell of Morning
Sagging fog, thick on the morning, captures the scent of my walk.
Someone is running the dryer blowing Downy air.
Every morning, he smokes a cigar on his front porch, white rocker, booted feet propped on the railing. He waves and with it comes a pungent smell of burning wood–a home scent.
Beneath my feet, pine needles crunch releasing a breath of Christmas. My mother would gather them to mulch the flower beds for winter.
As I walk, I practice my deep yoga breath, in, hold, out, hold, pausing to savor the ordinary, extraordinary scents of the day.
Margaret Simon, draft 2019
Be sure to visit the other Swaggers today to enjoy more beauty in the ugly.
Michelle Heidenrich Barnes hosts today with an announcement of the third collection of Today’s Little Ditty. I have a little ditty in the book as do many of my PF friends.
A few weeks ago I grabbed a poetry writing idea from Kim Douillard. She had her students make heart maps about a place they love and write a poem after Lee Bennett Hopkins’ City I Love.
I did this with my students. We cut simple heart shapes from plain paper and drew and wrote on them. Then glued them into our notebooks. Here’s a photo of one of mine.
On the Bayou I Live Near
after Lee Bennett Hopkins
On the bayou I live near– bayou I love– morning sun streams in wide golden beams gleaming a new day.
On the bayou I live near– bayou I love– afternoons bloom while speedboats vroom through sweet olive perfume.
On the bayou I live near– bayou I love– sunsets glisten, a lone heron listens as the hoot owl who, who, whos me to sleep.
My poet-friend and writing group partner, Molly Hogan, is a fine art photographer in her spare time. She lives in Maine and posts amazing photos on her blog and Facebook page. Sometimes her photos inspire me to respond in poetry.
photo by Molly Hogan
Dawn on the Marsh
Dawn on the marsh glows like embers, like the final flash of a torch lighting the tiny particles of fog rising ghost-like and dreamy.
High in the sky geese line up to honk their way south
In the distance, deer graze, tentatively perk their ears to your sound.
You do not feel the cold that numbs your fingers and toes as you click the lens of your camera
Today is National Author’s Day, and my friend and critique partner Linda Mitchell challenged our writing group, The Sunday Night Swaggers, to write a poem inspired by a favorite author.
When she challenged us, I thought of the most recent book I read Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. According to The New York Times Book Review, this book is “Painfully beautiful…At once a murder mystery, a coming-of-age narrative, and a celebration of nature.”
The poet in me was inspired by her beautiful writing about nature. I turned to a page and gathered words and lines to put together a poem “after Delia Owens.”
Sandbar
How quickly the sea and clouds defeat the spring heat, how the grand sweep of the sea and sand catch-net the most precious shells. How its current designs a sandbar, and another but never this one again.
She had long known that people don’t stay. This fiery current was her heart-tide releasing love to drift among seaweed.
How drifting back to the predictable cycles of tadpoles and the ballet of fireflies, Nature is the only stone that does not slip midstream.
Margaret Simon, found poem from Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Read my writing partners’ offerings for National Author’s Day:
I’ve joined in with a group of poets on social media writing to #inktober word prompts. It’s a great way to jot a little poem that keeps creative juices flowing. On Thursdays, Laura Purdie Salas faithfully posts an image prompt for 15 words or less. This week I used her photo of a red blooming tree and the inktober word, dizzy, to create an autumn haiku. Canva is my go-to site for creating image poems. Follow my posts on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. And join in the fun!
My new middle grade novel, Sunshine, is available on Amazon. I can’t wait to open the box of books coming soon. See a review here.
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This fall has been slow in coming. The leaves are changing, the days are shorter, but the temperatures are not cooling off much. It makes it hard to get into the mood of autumn. I got a little help from Georgia Heard. She has a sweet poem from Falling Down the Page called Recipe for Writing an Autumn Poem.
Recipe for Writing An Autumn Poem
by Georgia Heard One teaspoon wild geese. One tablespoon red kite. One pint trembling leaves. One quart darkening sky. One gallon north wind.
This is a wonderful prompt to use with kids.
I decided to combine this poetry prompt with the National Writing Project and NCTE’s Day on Writing prompt #WhyIWrite.
Recipe for Why I Write
One teaspoon clean paper One tablespoon colored ink One cup imagination One pint relationship One quart dedication One gallon liberation
An empty page invites color, lines, words, sentences which become an expression of emotion looking for connection. This relationship is rocky, requiring dedication. But one thing is certain: The freedom to write belongs to everyone!
Margaret Simon, (c) 2019
Jaden responded with a beautiful recipe for writing.
A Recipe for Writing a Poem
by Jaden, 4th grade
One teaspoon of creative minds One tablespoon of repeating and rhyming words One cup of a magic image One pint of dazzled emotion One quart of comparing things with like and as And one gallon of my heart
Every week I am delighted to visit The Poem Farm. Amy Ludwig VanDerwater posts a poem and a student writing activity. A few weeks ago, I borrowed this post, The Real Me, and wrote I am poems with my students.
My students loved the activity. Many of them chose to post their poems on our kidblog site. I invited Amy to write comments. You should have heard them reading aloud their personalized comments; the pride in their voices made my heart sing. Amy has a talent for connecting to kids and finding just the right words to say. Thanks, Amy.
I wrote alongside my students. I put together my favorite lines to create this poem:
I am a lionness set in the stars, that drumbeat around a warm campfire.
I am a longing look from a silent child, a melody strummed on his guitar.
I am a secret scratched on a yellow sticky note. Don’t tell anyone who I am.
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Nature and beauty is pretty. The trees, the wind, and everything you know. Beauty in the diamonds and when I look inside, I see the face I love.
Annie, 4 years old
I was asked to teach a writing workshop for kids at the Hilliard Museum’s Play Day. “You have to be flexible because we’re never really sure who will show up.”
Annie came in with her father. I’ve met Annie a few times because our paths have crossed. I’m friends with her grandmother, and her mother is a journalist who has connected me with writing opportunities. So when she walked in, I greeted her, “Hi Annie. We are writing poems today. Would you like to write a poem?”
She began… “Yes. Nature and beauty is nice because…” and she continued. “Wait,” I said pulling out a clean piece of paper and a pen. “I wasn’t ready. Now slow down, and I’ll write what you say.”
Me with “Princess” Annie posing for a picture to send to Nanna B.
She is already a poet. I didn’t read one of my poems. I didn’t talk to her about forms. I didn’t give her any suggestions. She already knows how to write a poem.
Then we made a zine, a small foldable from a single sheet of paper. “Now,” I explained. “I could write the words for you, and you can draw the pictures.”
“No, I can write the words.” And she could! She copied the words she had dictated to me into the book. This took her at least 30 minutes. I was amazed at her focus and her determination. I was also amazed at her father’s patience. He sat comfortably while she meticulously copied each word.
The gifted teacher in me noted signs of perfectionism. When she messed up a letter, she got upset and rubbed it as if to erase it. I said, “Don’t worry. You can just make that a picture.”
Her letter a with the too long tail became what looked to me like a bug. I asked her, “Is this a butterfly?”
“No, it’s Diamond. Daddy, does it look like Diamond?”
“Yes, it does,” Daddy promptly said.
I looked at him and whispered, “Who’s Diamond?”
“Her imaginary friend” His whispered reply.
Annie continued writing word for word. An i placed in the wrong place became a tree.
When she finished, I said, “You need to sign it ‘by Annie’.”
She asked, “On the back?”
I showed her my book, Bayou Song. “On my book, my name is on the front. It says ‘Poetry by Margaret Simon.'”
Of course, Annie wrote on the front “Poetry by Annie.”
She is the youngest poet I’ve ever met, yet I have no doubts she is a writer. Just like her mom.
Margaret Simon lives on the Bayou Teche in New Iberia, Louisiana. She is a retired elementary gifted teacher who writes poetry and children's books. Welcome to a space of peace, poetry, and personal reflection. Walk in kindness.
Reflections on the Teche 