Read more Wild posts in Irene Latham’s Blogiversary Round up.
Irene Latham is one of my very favorite Poetry Friday bloggers. She’s also an awesome author and sweet writing friend. She is having a “blogiversary” celebration rounding up blog posts for her 10 year blog anniversary on the theme of WILD! How wild is that?!
When you get a wild hair about something, you go off into new territory. Live outside the box, so to speak. The urban dictionary defines a wild hair as a decision to do something unexpected.
Wild Hair
Give me wild hair today,
the kind that waves at everyone,
happy to be alive
and free.
Give me wild hair today,
remind me to reach for the sky,
grateful for the curls,
ready to be me.
The weather actually cooled off last week, so with the crispness of the air and the ending of September, we ventured out to the sidewalk to chalk fall poems.
I love to post poems that my students write. Today I celebrate a new writer in my class. Kaiden, 5th grade, joined us at the end of the year last year. (Gifted classes are revolving all year.) I love how he used the repetitive rhythm of the word fall as well as imagery about the season.
Fall
by Kaiden
Crisp brown leaves crunching under our feet
Fall
The cool breeze blowing against our faces,
Fall
The appearance of scary monsters and pumpkins,
Fall
A possible stroll through pumpkin patch,
Birds migrate south,
Fall
Vannisa, 6th grade, is back this year and adding in a little research into her fall poem. She actually looked up which meteor showers occur in the fall. I love how she wanted to connect meteor showers with fireworks.
As we Fall
by Vannisa
As we fall into winter,
the weather chills
and the leaves come down.
They fill the ground with
a fiery red
and blazing orange.
As we fall into winter,
we can no longer watch fireworks
like 4th of July,
but we can watch
the shooting stars of
Orionids and Leonids
and watch the days get shorter
until Spring comes back again.
Ruth Ayres invites us the celebrate each week. Click over to her site Discover. Play. Build. to read more celebrations.
August oppresses me. I know I shouldn’t let it. But the heat and heaviness of the air gets to me. Yesterday was my anniversary. I’ve been married an amazing 33 years to the best guy in the whole world, but I was in no mood to celebrate. I was hot and tired. But then this came: a package and a poem.
Heidi Mordhorst sent me a poem. We are exchanging in the Summer Poem Swap designed by Tabatha Yeatts. Heidi visited Greece this summer. We had a connection because I went on a trip there 4 years ago. The image captures the amazing blue of the Aegean Sea. And her poem captures the magic. Thanks, Heidi, for lifting my soul.
Laura Purdie Salas is one of my favorite poets and teachers. She has a great website and has published a number of teacher aids for writing poetry with students. I can’t wait to share this newest publication with my students. Catch Your Breath: Writing Poignant Poetry.
School started this week. I haven’t started pulling my students yet, but I saw them and hugged them in the hallway. I love having this kind of connection with my kids. I teach them year after year, so our relationship strengthens each year.
At one of my schools, the year theme is reading and books. We all wore Dr. Seuss t-shirts on the first day. I love the quote on the back. Reading is magic. I strive again this year to open this magic door for my students.
Join the Two Writing Teachers blog for Tuesdays Slice of Life Challenge.
Today is my first day back to school. The kids come on Friday. Ready or not?
This year our gifted team plans to focus on heroes. For one of our Summer Poem Swaps, Tabatha Yeatts sent a prompt to write a poem from the words of someone. I chose to look at Malala Yousafzai’s words with the theme of heroes in mind. I found this image and quote.
One child
can step by step
walk across stones
wobble, fall, rise
to hope.
One teacher
can line her shelves
with books, voices
pointing the way
to climb.
One book
can open young eyes
to injustice, prejudice, pain
so they can build a road
to peace.
One pen
can move a single hand
to create new lines, new words
new art, making a change
to the world.
–Margaret Simon
Who is your hero? Can you write a poem off his/her words?
This week I have had the privilege to host a writing camp for kids. I have a small group ranging in age from 10 to 17. I have taught many writing camps over the years, but this is the first time that everyone there is truly a writer. I feel like my job this week has been to open up a faucet and watch the water flow. They just know how to do it.
Since I am holding the camp at a school within my church on Main Street, I decided that each day we would venture out to places close by to write. We have written in a bakery/gelato shop, an art gallery, a museum,a church, a bookstore, and a cafe.
One activity I enjoy doing with young writers is ekphrasis, writing to art. We are holding our meetings in the fine arts building. The art teacher is a folk art collector. She has left parts of her collection in the building for art inspiration. We used it for writing inspiration. Emery wrote this piece to a painting of a woman holding paint brushes fanned out over her face. The insight of this 13 year old is amazing.
George said that he could paint anything. He said that he could even paint me. I protested, but he insisted. I put my dirty blonde hair into a messy ponytail, my bangs fell to the left side of my face. I asked if there was any way to hide my face. He said,”Hold these paintbrushes in front of your face.” He handed me his extra brushes and I fanned them out. I put my hand to my cheek, for I could feel myself blushing. When he told me he was done, I took a look. I found a beautiful girl in black and white. She had two sides of her face, one light and one dark. The darker side showed where I hid my blush. The lighter side showed my blemish free skin. I saw a beautiful girl with insecurities, hiding behind paintbrushes. George had shown me the way that I see myself, and the way other people see me. He told me to take it home and hang it on a wall. I hung it in my living room. Every time I saw it, I remembered my insecurities and the man who painted me. He showed me how beautiful I really am.
–Emery
In the gallery, Kaylie focused not on the art but the building itself. She found an old door to write about.
Tall wooden door.
Antique. Riddled with
cracks. Green vine,
hello, creeping up
the wall. Brick
covered by thin
layer of paint, chipping,
like the floor,
patterns of red and
gray. Ancient hinges
on door, probably
can’t even open.
Doesn’t matter–blocked
by drying racks, a
hat stand and a
dusty flowerpot. Not
to be opened, nailed
shut by a rusty bar.
Why? What are you
keeping out? Or
what are you locking in?
–Kaylie
I hope you will come back over the next few days as I publish more of their work. This has been a pure pleasure to be with such wonderful writers.
Join the Two Writing Teachers blog for Tuesdays Slice of Life Challenge.
The creative process is nothing if not elusive. As soon as I’ve figured out what direction I want to go in, my other self takes over, and we go somewhere else entirely.
The Clmooc community welcomes this kind of wayward creative thinking. In fact, it depends on it. If you are not participating, you should at least lurk. Twitter is #clmooc. Facebook page here. Google plus here.
This week’s make assignment comes from the University of Illinois Writing Project. They posted a video, and they all look so young. No worries. That was me, once.
The make instructions can be a bit confusing. They ask us to remediate. But the word isn’t what we typically think about in education as remediation. The word comes from re- and media, meaning taking something and changing the media, creativity at its best.
I thought about this while I perused Facebook, a typical avoidance behavior for me. But this time, I was looking for what I thought would make a found poem. On Sunday, I posted a picture of a baby baptized in our church. This post got an amazing number of likes and comments. I decided to remediate the picture using the app WordFoto. The words came from the comments on the picture.
I wasn’t satisfied. So I kept looking. I saw a post that read, “Same sky. Same moon.” That did it. I wrote a poem using these lines as the kick off. I went to Animoto to build a video. Last week was a monumental week in the life of our country. We all know this. I was riveted by our president’s singing of Amazing Grace during his eulogy for Reverend Clementa Pinckney.
Amazing Grace has taken on new meaning for me. Always a favorite, I now see it as a song that gathers people together, all of us together under the same sky, the same moon, the same grace.
Join the Spiritual Thursday round up at Reading, Teaching, Learning.
Yesterday I bought roses at the grocery store. I placed them in a vase. One broke off the stem. My cat is eating another one. This is not part of the plan. The roses were supposed to bring me joy. They were supposed to open up and shine like the sun in my breakfast room. But no.
I could fix this. I could rearrange them. Take out the messed up flowers. Place them away from kitty’s perch.
Mimi wants to eat my roses.
So it is with God’s plan. Roses in a vase that get messed up, fall over, die.
Why do we keep looking for a plan? There isn’t one. Sorry folks. The God that I know and love is not upstairs looking down with his clipboard checking off when I do something that is part of the plan. Nope. Not happening.
My mother gave me a set of CDs of Richard Rohr and Russ Hudson discussing the Enneagram and Grace. What they say about the human condition and God’s part in it makes sense to me. What God is about is transformation. God is already a part of each of us. His spirit is within us all. We are the ones who need to change. We have to sit quietly with God and allow his grace to transform us.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer. Psalm 19:14
Someone I love dearly is in terrible pain. Her illness is not in God’s plan. I cannot accept that excuse. Pain happens. Tragedy happens. A deranged boy can enter a church and kill nine beautiful souls. There is no plan.
We enter the darkness. We enter the tragedy, the sorrow, the pain. There, we find God. Then we can crawl out on the other side. Then we can shine a light. Then we can be the resurrection.
I must make myself humble, the size of a mustard seed. Plant it deep in the soil of God’s love. Then I will grow. I will spread love. I will be transformed.
Rain with a borrowed line from Kazim Ali “The sky is a bowl of dark water, rinsing your face.”
Blue Jay sings to the rain,
“See you. See you. Come. Come.”
The sky is a bowl of dark water,
The deck covered in crystal glass.
I step outside in the rain.
Let it rinse my face.
Join the bird in a song
that turns to a sad tune.
No matter. My face is wet
with God’s tears. I am the rain.
–Margaret Simon
Join the Two Writing Teachers blog for Tuesdays Slice of Life Challenge.
I am sharing my gift of words with you on Tuesday hoping to encourage you to join Poetry Friday. I was nudged by a blogging teacher friend to enter this community a few years ago. I have met some of my favorite people through this link up every Friday. One of these people whom I love and admire is Tabatha Yeatts. Tabatha organizes a poetry gift exchange every summer and around Christmas.
Once you let Tabatha know you want to participate, she matches you up and sends out a prompt every few weeks. Her first prompt reflected back to Michelle Barnes’ ditty challenge for May, Nikki Grimes’ word play poem. You can read about the prompt here.
Tabatha sent me a poem last week. She chose the word “dance” because she associated that word with me. I love that. I also love her poem.
Zydeco dancing
dance is a word
by Tabatha Yeatts
for Margaret
dance is a word
that flexes brawny muscles
to lift you up in the air
and land you gently on the ground.
dance sweeps and curls,
curves and arches,
giving everything
to sound.
dance matches song
to heartbeat,
pairing the rush of your blood
to the swish of your feet.
Here’s a peek at my gift. I covered a little notebook and placed my poem inside. Sh! Don’t tell. I want it to be a surprise.
The slow down days of June give me the gift of time. Time to watch and be present. I am visiting my parents at the lake. There are always things to watch at the lake. Now as I sit on the back porch, I see a turtle on the small island sticking his little head out to taste the breeze. I see a mallard floating on the waves the breeze has mustered up.
Observation is the seed to creativity. Earlier I took a walk and ran into a deer on the road. Here is a draft of the poem I wrote upon returning. I didn’t have a camera with me. But I don’t think I could have captured this moment with a lens. I capture it now in words.
The Doe
Walking
Dover Lane,
She stands near my path
like a statue someone placed there.
Still,
quiet,
looking,
our eyes greet,
speak of love.
She’s the first to move,
scurries into the brush.
I pause as I pass
to watch
the shadows of three deer–
her family.
We are mothers
eye to eye
holding in a moment
nature’s promise.
Join the Spiritual Thursday round up at Reading, Teaching, Learning.
“In the silence of the heart God speaks. If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you. Then you will know that you are nothing. It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness, that God can fill you with Himself. Souls of prayer are souls of great silence.”
― Mother Teresa, In the Heart of the World: Thoughts, Stories and Prayers
Ah, the silence of summer. Days full of nothing. The older I get the more I appreciate silence. Sometimes silence is awkward, so we try to fill it up with sound. We turn on the TV or radio. We make a phone call. In the car, I rarely ride without the radio on. At home, I turn on the TV.
Over and over I am reminded that God comes in silence. When I take the time to turn off the devices and just listen, I hear joy in the songs of the birds. I hear the whisper of wind. I hear the quiet voice of God.
I took a walk to the park and did not take my phone. I walked alone. I was amazed at the noisiness of the birds, especially the mockingbird. I recorded one high in a tree. During the recording you can hear me say good morning to another walker. Listen and count the number of tunes the mockingbird sings.
When you are most at ease with another person, silence isn’t awkward. We stop trying to fill the open void with chatter. Notice this with your closest loved ones. With them, silence is golden. That’s how it is with God. Quiet moments given to prayer and meditation. Don’t chatter. Let your thoughts flit away like a moth. Ride the silent wave to an ultimate closeness with your creator.
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.
