Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Spring is my favorite time of year When the sky is blue and clear. Birds are singing all around. Flowers growing from the ground.
This verse was the first poem I remember writing. I was waiting for my mother to pick me up from my piano lesson and I was twirling around the tree in Miss Joe’s front yard. Maybe I was 12?
The words echo in my head today as spring is here. A week ago the cypress trees were still brown. Today they are bursting with bright green needles.
My friend Mary, who is a master gardener, sends me a photo every other day of flowers blooming. The fields that haven’t been mown are sparkling with purple and yellow wildflowers.
Blooming orchid
When I take my morning walk, the birds fill the page on my Merlin app.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
On Fridays, I usually post a poem for my students to read and discuss. This week we looked at Billy Collins’s poem Today. This has been a favorite of mine for a long time. When I looked back on my blog, I found a poem I wrote after Today in 2011. (See the post here.) My students were shocked by this because none of them were even born at that time.
Today begins with a wonderful line for getting into a poem, “If ever there were a spring day so perfect,” As the poem continues with two lined stanzas, there is no end punctuation until the last line, “today is just that kind of day.” The whole poem is one sentence. I love how this works to make the poem sound more urgent and energized.
I invited my students to use these lines to create their own poems about a perfect day.
Spring 2025 after Billy Collins
If ever there were a spring day so perfect, so full of bird song
that it made you want to join with your own singing
and open your whole mouth to the world of nature,
a day when dew drops cool grass, and the garden roses popping
with red reflect the sun, so much light that you feel like breathing,
releasing the grief you’ve held in and cry real tears at the beauty
of it all, walk with light pink and orange rising before
you, welcoming you with open arms of rose and green and sky.
Today is that kind of day.
Margaret Simon, draft
As we head into spring, Avalyn and some other students are still dreaming about the amazing snow we had this winter. She asked if she could write about a winter day. “Of course, it’s your poem.”
If there were a winter day so perfect so cold with icy air
Could I pretend to hunt ghosts while drinking a warm cup of hot chocolate
Could I put on layers of clothes and roll in the snow
Could I sit in my warm bed watching TV and “being productive”
Could I play outside bands performing plays
Could I read a book my best days
Dreaming of presents can you imagine? Well you can because today is that day.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
If you are a blogger and would like to add a line during National Poetry Month to our Kidlit Progressive Poem, please make a comment or send me an email with a date choice and a link to your blog. Everyone is welcome to play!
The early morning school playground was covered in a sheet of fog. Avalyn and I went outside to write. This is something she often requests. There is an old oak with a picnic table in a just right spot for writing in our notebooks. I wrote about my surroundings, observations of the morning.
The fog hovers over the playground. I hear echoes of a church bell chime. Traffic moves beyond carrying the day-workers. Birds call to mates as spring slowly wakes sprouting on this weary morning.
Form can give us a container for our words. I looked up the triolet form. I labeled my paper with the number of lines and the rhyme scheme. The poem changed shape while still holding the mood.
Fog hovers on soft spring air, tip-toes as a church bell chimes. Work day traffic moves on everywhere. Fog hovers on soft spring air. Breeze tickles my face with hair. Morning wakes right on time. Fog hovers on soft spring air, tip-toes as a church bell chimes.
(Margaret Simon, draft)
I used these two drafts to discuss revision with my students at the next school in the afternoon. I suggested they go back to a poem and revise it.
Max who is a humble poet will rarely share his poems out loud, so I asked his permission to share his revision here. He wrote it on Fanschool, and you can leave comments specifically for him there.
“Insects buzzing all around,
Bugs are feeding on the ground,
For there is no need for them to hurry,
So why should they need to worry?”
March 25th, 2025: I absolutely despise the quality of this poem. REVISE!
Insects hover in the air,
Gracefully, glide without care.
Spot a flower, beautifully white.
Harvesting energy, basking in the sunlight.
Insects, bugs, air and the ground.
Moving, flying, all around.
To hurry is not a worry, for them.
Unless by something, they’re found.
Then Scurry!
I would add something else, but this is just about it. (Max, 6th grade)
How do you approach revision? Is it hard for you? I think students don’t usually like to revise. They like to write and move on to the next thing. Honestly until I read Max’s post, I thought the class didn’t think much of my little revision lesson. Modeling our own writing process with our students makes us vulnerable, but in the long run, shares how we all are in this together, writing side by side.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
A few weeks ago I attended a writing workshop with one of my mentors Darrell Bourque, former poet laureate of the state of Louisiana. He asked us to look at common language to explore in a poem form. He suggested a pantoum. I wrote one there, but there were parts that didn’t work for me, some rhymes that seemed forced. Was my heart in it? I knew what I wanted to say. Sometimes a form is the just right thing to contain all that your poem wants to say.
This workshop, Darrell’s gentle guidance, have stayed with me. Last week I copied into my Notes app a billboard catch phrase, “I triple-dog-dare you.”
Yesterday I read Fran Haley’s post, a beautiful pantoum about a rainbow. I looked up the form again and took another shot. This one satisfies me.
On Sunday I texted my neighbor to go for a walk with our doodle dogs. Her husband passed away last Sunday. I didn’t know if she would be up for it, so I was pleased when she agreed to go. Even though she thanked me profusely for reaching out, I felt it was my honor to be with her. Grief can be a weird time, and we are often not sure of the “right” thing to do to help someone through it. The dog walk was the right thing for both of us.
Dog Walk Pantoum
Split in a million heart pieces, I triple-dog-dare you to go. We walk our dogs on their leashes connecting puzzle pieces as we go.
I triple-dog-dare you to go to the place where grief hides in shadows. Connecting our puzzle pieces as we go. Comfort in our walk-talk grows.
The place where grief hides in shadows; Listen close to the sound of the wind. Comfort in our walk-talk grows. Each of us finds a good friend.
Listen close to the sound of the wind chimes, like a million heart pieces. Each of us finds a good friend. We walk our dogs on their leashes.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Maggie told me that Stella had found a crystal buried in their yard and brought it into her room.
“Ever since she’s been a little crazy.”
Stella turned four. What four year old isn’t a little bit crazy, with energy enough for whining and staying up past her bedtime?
My friends, Stephanie and Carolyn are interested in the healing power of stones. Stephanie brought me rose quartz and blue agate. “These are for Stella.” The idea is for Stella to put back the crystal she dug up, but knowing Stella as I do, these new ones will be added to a collection.
I looked up their meanings. Blue agate is said to bring calmness and emotional balance. The blue agate is the perfect size for Stella’s small hand. Over Facetime, she told me she loved the blue one.
The other is rose quartz which symbolizes everlasting love. Of course, lovely.
Carolyn said, “If I could be a stone, I’d be malachite.”
I listened and her words became a poem:
If I could be a stone, I’d be malachite: Rich, green, deep dark green, swirls of frequency from the depths of transition before I was brought forth to the earth. I’d be a strong stone.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
As the 3 year anniversary of my father’s death approaches, I’m in a different place. A space of love and acceptance, appreciation rather than deep loss. Grief takes time. It changes but never fully leaves you.
For some reason that I can’t ask him, my father had a little plastic Yoda on the shelf in his bathroom. It was obviously something he wanted to see every day. I took it home with me and it lives in my closet alongside my mother’s jewelry box. I wrote a poem about it.
“Do or do not”
Wisdom of Small Things
I’m a collector of small things: A miniature Yoda from my father’s bathroom shelf reminds me, “Do or do not. There is no try. “
Try as I might to let Dad go, I still want him here to guide me.
My father once told me I could only do what I could do. I remind myself everyday to leave my students’ problems at school.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Sun dappled live oak on Bayou Teche
EnneaThought® for the Day
Type Four EnneaThought®
“Are you still yearning for your ideal life? Appreciate the small daily pleasures, kind words, and heartfelt exchanges that are already present. You’re already more appreciated than you may think.”
I am a type four on the Enneagram. I’m the one who cries, who ponders over the past, and who turns to romanticism. Daily the message for me is to be present. Be still and know…
Recently I have felt rushed and busy. I try to take some time or myself in walks and in writing time. What space can I give to just being in the moment? How can I slow down to breathe and be present?
In poetry, I find a place to be present. When I write with specificity and imagery, I feel present. I also like the comfort of anaphora, a phrase that leads to a new thought. This poem I wrote in response to a prompt on Ethical ELA here from Sarah Donovan. She used the mentor poem “A Place to Breathe” by Christine Hartman Derr from a free Ethical ELA anthology Just YA.
There’s a Way to Breathe Today
It’s the way the sun dapples the oak tree with a halo of light.
It’s the way the cypress needles pop out like green leprechauns.
It’s the way a bayou runs through and around a town of ancestry.
It’s the way I sit at my table with coffee and a pen. Margaret Simon, draft
I hope you find a little corner to breathe in today. Find stillness. Find peace. Write about it.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
How many words do you write in a blog post? Have you ever counted?
My students write on a blog site, Fanschool. (Some are doing the daily Classroom Slice of Life Challenge.) One of the cool features on Fanschool is the word count. I usually tell my students that 200-300 words are the best for blog posts. I use word count to encourage my young ones to elaborate on their topics. I also tell them that no one really wants to read more than 300 or so words at one time. Without my priming them, students will sometimes get competitive with themselves and others over word count. I’ve learned that while word count doesn’t really matter, it is something I can leverage if I need to. “Let’s set a goal for at least 100 words today.”
Chance didn’t need a word count limit or a competition; he was ready to pour out his heart and soul on the blog in the first quarter he landed in my class. He had things he wanted to share. At 4th grade, he’s not real adept at punctuating complex sentences, but when he writes, words flow. I was thinking of him when I wrote this poem.
The Space He Needed
On the blog space, he wrote and wrote. I asked him “What are you writing?” He said, “1000 words about my brothers.”
So many words, like a dam had been opened to his life, his words.
A space to write away from the constraints of a paragraph about the Declaration of Independence. The blog opened his independence, his need to tell the world all he had been through.
For ten long years, he held inside who he was, all his secrets, waiting for this space to declare his freedom. 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.
Each week I find a photo to write about. This form of poetry is called ekphrastic poetry, verse written in response to art. I invite my students to write alongside me on Fanschool. I ask my blog visitors, too. No pressure. If you feel inspired, write a small poem in the comments. Encourage other writers by visiting Fanschool or responding to writers here.
Butterfly Garden: Swamp Milkweed
The spring means time to ready the butterfly gardens. This year I have to put my butterfly plants in pots due to a puppy that likes to discover things by nosing, peeing, and chewing. Last night he was chewing and chewing. When I finally scraped his mouth, I found an electric wire. Yikes! That could have caused all kinds of damage.
If you could name a just right plant for feeding pollinators this spring, If milkweed, fennel, or parsley are on your garden list, swallowtails and monarchs, too, may stop by this place for a day or two, drop off an egg upon a leaf to start a new life.
If you could name just one small plant, and save it for the spring, you’d plant a lifetime once again where butterflies can come back home.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Yesterday on March 14th, I received this text from a colleague who teaches gifted math:
Every year my students and I write pi-ku on Pi Day. I literally have to look up the definition each year. I’m a writing teacher, not a math teacher and for that matter, not a math person.
Some of my gifted students want to show me (in full song) that they have memorized the first 100 digits of pi. This year I banned the song. It’s a complete ear worm.
But I did encourage a pi-ku poem. These are short form like haiku except the syllable count follows the digits of pi. (3, 1, 4, 5, 1, 9)
Circumference Earth a peppermint pizza diametric ride all of us have Pi Day every year (Carson, 3rd grade)
Happy Pi day! March the fourteenth. Hey come with us to celebrate the day with some good pie. (Kailyn, 6th grade)
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 