Poetry | Reflections on the Teche

Archive for the ‘Poetry’ Category

Torn Paper Chalkabration

Posted in Chalk-a-bration, Gifted Education, Poetry, tagged Betsy Hubbard, palm tree poems, Teaching Young Writers, torn paper collage art on February 28, 2015| 5 Comments »

Ruth Ayres invites us the celebrate each week. Click over to her site Discover. Play. Build. to read more celebrations.

Join the Chalk-a-bration at Betsy Hubbard’s site Teaching Young Writers.

The last day of the month is Chalkabration time, a time to celebrate poetry and chalk and creativity. My students love Chalkabration, the brain-child of Betsy Hubbard. Yesterday was a bit chilly for chalking outside, so we did an inside art/poetry project with torn paper.

On Thursday, Paw Pride, a leadership group at my school, went to a local low income housing for the elderly to deliver socks we had collected. The apartments are housed in an old school. Outside where we gathered, there is a draping old oak tree with palm trees underneath. When Jacob arrived with his sister, he looked at the tree and said, “Mrs. Simon, can we write a poem about this tree?” Gotta love him!

“Yes, Jacob, tomorrow is Chalkabration!”

A Palm Looking Tree
At the end of February in southern Louisiana,you’ll most likely find a palm looking tree.
by Vannisa

Ancient Chickens
hiding among trees
spreading wisdom
running from tree to tree
in secret.
These are Ancient Chickens.
by Tyler

Paradise by Matthew

Coconut Tree
The top of peeled off coconuts.
With green roots coming out.
Sun shines on the coconut peels.
I want to be inside of it.
by Jacob

Palm tree haiku
by Margaret Simon

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PsyKu Poetry Form by Kids

Posted in Gifted Education, Poetry, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged haiku, Laura Purdie Salas, MMPoetry, new poem form on February 27, 2015| 28 Comments »

Join the roundup with Heidi at My Juicy Little Universe

I have discovered from being surrounded by gifted kids and showering them in poetry that they get adventurous and brave. They try new things in poems. And they invent new poetry forms.

This week I used a picture prompt as I often do. This week’s Robin Update from Journey North was a close-up image of a robin with a berry in its mouth. I introduced Laura Purdie Salas’ latest poetry project, Why-Ku. I haven’t read Mary Lee Hahn’s activities yet, but I doubt one of them is to create your own poem form.

I have a few boys who seem to find every excuse to get distracted from the task at hand, but this time I waited and allowed their distraction to see where this would go.

“Let’s write a Psy-ku?”

“Great! A Sci-Ku with scientific facts.”

“No, Mrs. Simon, not Science haiku, Psy-ku, like crazy.”

While the rest of us worked on poems about the robin, the boys were scheming and making up a new form.

They created a syllable count: 5,4,5,5,5,6,5,7,5,8

Then the poets three headed to our Kidblogs site to try to create the next poetry phenomenon.

Reed wrote, “A new thing that me REED and Nigel have created is called a psyku. This is an out -of-the-world dumb type of writing. You just make up a topic and have it carzyfied! It can be something about a dumb person or a wacky topic.”

I would skate Monday,
With unicorns.
I would skate Tuesday,
With Spongebob Squarepants.
I would skate Wednesday,
With the Greek Roman gods.
I would skate Thursday,
With Godzilla and Bigfoot.
I would skate Friday,
With another bottle of gin.
Nigel, 6th grade

I know the bottle of gin is probably not classroom appropriate, but I had to laugh. They didn’t really know what it was. Who knows? This psy-ku form may become a thing. If you are so inclined to give it a shot, write one in the comments or comment on our Kidblog. Go for it!

Here is a link to our Kidblog site: http://kidblog.org/class/SliceofLifeChallenge/posts

Announcement! I have been selected to be one of the 64 authletes in the 2015 March Madness for Kids’ Poetry. The competition begins on March 10th. I am totally intimidated by the competition, but I am Reaching this year, and what better way to reach than to do something scary. Here is the tournament poster. You can find me in the Passion category. Check Ed’s site for updates.

MMPoetry bracket Round One

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The Poem in the Tree

Posted in Gifted Education, Poetry, Poetry Friday, Teaching, Writing, tagged 15 Words or Less, Laura Purdie Salas, Nature poems, oak tree on February 20, 2015| 11 Comments »

Join the roundup with Linda at Teacher Dance.

I like to keep my poetry in practice, so I often enlist my students in my pet projects. I love Laura Purdie Salas and her blog site. Every Thursday she posts a picture and asks writers to post a poem comment using 15 words or less. Not every Thursday, but many of them, I show her image to my first bunch in the morning. We talk about the image, someone rings the sacred writing bell, and we write.

Yesterday, Laura posted an old tree. I listened to my first grader, the youngest of the bunch, explain to a fifth grader what he needed to do. “Look at the picture. Then use your imagination.” We read Laura’s poem and Jacob said, “I’m stealing the word squirrels.” I swear this kid could lead a writing workshop already!

Old Tree by Laura Purdie Salas

I posted this poem early in the morning. The tree image reminded me of the old live oak in our backyard.

Grandmother Oak

With footholds to climb
Eyes that see time
Stories in my rings
Come swing.

–Margaret Simon

Grandmother oak in the sunset

Then I wrote again with my students.

Stories told
from a wisdom of scars
wrinkled into skin
like crevices on this old tree.

–Margaret Simon

If you would like to play, go to Laura’s site on Thursday mornings. It’s a fun place to be.

Old People

Two old men
bickering every day
scaring nature away.
These old hags
should calm down.
–Tyler, 6th grade

Another poetry practice project I am doing is on another Laura’s site, Laura Shovan of Author Amok. I am joining some fabulous poets writing to sound prompts. Check it out!

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From the Heart

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, tagged Author Amok, Laura Shovan, Sound poetry on February 6, 2015| 16 Comments »

Join the roundup with Liz and all her wisdom.

I can’t help it. I try to write poems, but my emotions get in the way. My self and all her flaws permeate every word. You may think I am missing self-confidence. Maybe I am fishing for compliments. That’s not it at all.

Laura Shovan has done this to me again. Like last year, I am taking her challenge to write a poem every day in the month of February. Unlike last year, the words are flowing. Does this come from practice? self-confidence? wisdom? Not really. It comes from the heart. I am pouring it out on my sleeve and sending it to her to publish on her blog. Bleeding on the page as some wise writer said. Was it Hemmingway?

I want to thank Laura for allowing, no, encouraging me to write like this. Please visit her site and listen to some of the sounds for this project. I guarantee they will open a vein for you.

My submissions for Thursday and Friday are below. Thursday we listened to the sound of a ballet dancer practicing. On Friday, the sound was a theremin. I had never heard of this instrument before, so I spent some time on YouTube listening. One of my favorites was this rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

Ballet Practice

Body of intense beauty
strength of muscles flexed
arabesque held still

Life ends.
We know it must.

Beauty dissolves
into a limp plie’
held en pointe
by loving hands.

–Margaret Simon, for Suzy

Revealing Energy

The director’s hands
stir the air like a scientist.
Vibrating fingers
tune an invisible voice;
sound becomes color—a rainbow
of intonations exploring
the foreign frontier
of our ears.

–Margaret Simon

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Reach

Posted in Poetry, Spiritual Growth, Writing, tagged Author Amok, Laura Shovan, OLW, Reach on February 5, 2015| 3 Comments »

Click here to read more #spiritualjourney posts. Thanks Holly for hosting this roundup!

Since the new year, Holly has gathered our spiritual journey posts about each person’s one little word. Today my word Reach is the featured theme.

I haven’t really settled in with my OLW yet. Reaching takes active work. It’s not a passive word. I can’t just sit back on it and wait. I have to go out there and do something about it. I want to embrace this word Reach, but on these cold wet winter days, I’d rather be lazy, curl up with my dog and rest. Exercise another day.

I stretch my sore, tired muscles.
I look at the amaryllis, now wilting.
I notice new growth, a new stem creeping up alongside the blossom.
Where did that come from?
Sometimes without us even noticing, God plants new growth.
We can bloom again.

I chose Reach for completely selfish reasons. I have a few writing projects that I am working on and others I am thinking about. I set a goal to move forward with writing, to Reach for publication. Maybe I should have chosen a braver word, like Courage.

This month a Poetry Friday blogging friend, Laura Shovan, has started a poetry project to celebrate her birthday. I have been writing a poem each day to a posted sound. This project is stretching my writing muscles and giving me a creative place to go each day. Am I Reaching? I can think about this writing as stretching, exercising, and moving my writing muscles. All a part of Reaching. Follow this link to read poems about a thunder storm sound.

Perhaps when I read all the Spiritual Journey posts about my OLW I will embrace it, feel it, want to, own it. Today, I will Reach for Reach.

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Sound Poetry Project

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged Christine Balfa, Haiku Deck, Laura Shovan, Sound poetry on February 2, 2015| 5 Comments »

Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

Laura Shovan creates a writing challenge every year for her birthday month of February. Last year she posted different Pantone colors as prompts. This year she is posting sounds. On Feb. 1st, she featured my poem along with some of my favorite Poetry Friday friends’. Click here. I am enjoying the path of discovery this writing challenge is taking me on.

The sound for today is angel chimes. You can listen to them here.

I went to Haiku Deck to write a haiku about Spanish moss. The tinkling of the chimes made me think of the rhythm of the moss blowing. I recently took pictures of the moss, not knowing that it would lead to this poem.

When I wrote the line, “Spanish moss two-step,” I liked it so much that I wanted to re-write the other lines to make them fit. So I Googled Cajun triangle. What came up was a 2012 NPR story about Christine Balfa. In the feature, she is heard playing solo triangle which sounds a lot like the Swedish angel chimes. So Christine made it into the poem.

Christine has recently been nominated for a grammy with a group of women musicians called Bonsoir, Catin which means “Goodnight, Darling.” . I am excited that my quest for a line of poetry led me to her music and memories of two-stepping to Bonsoir, Catin.

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Cat Talk

Posted in Gifted Education, Poetry, Poetry Friday, tagged Barry Moser, cats, Patricia Maclachlan, Wonderopolis on January 30, 2015| 6 Comments »

Join the roundup over at These 4 Corners with Paul.

Have you ever wondered why a cat lands on all fours or why its tongue is rough or if he really has nine lives? These are some Wonders you can explore on Wonderopolis.
I am a cat owner. I’ve had many cats in my life from my first cat Tommy to the meanest cat ever, Mimi. Years ago I picked up this beautiful poetry collection by Patricia MacLachlan and her daughter, Emily. The illustrations were done by one of my favorite artists, Barry Moser. I could spend time petting his cats. I love the poems because they do not rhyme. I am not a rhyming poet, and more and more, I embrace this fact of my poet-life. These poems captured the personalities of each cat from Tough Tom who climbs through the window to Peony who under all her fur is little.

I asked my students to notice the literary elements. We talked about many: personification, onomatopoeia, metaphor, simile, imagery, and alliteration. When writing our own poems, let’s try to use at least one of these elements.

Reed wrote while I read the poems. He was thinking about what Shakespeare said about the nine lives of a cat, “For three he plays, for three he strays and for the last three he stays.” – See more at: Wonderopolis

Bad Kitty

For three, he plays and plays with me.
Why, is it a sight to see.
The way he’ll twirl and whirl looking like a squirrel,
I start to wonder is he a boy or a girl.

Next three he stays in the allies on the streets.
Many people who look may think he’s sweet.
Trust me he’s not. I’m not sure he loves me.

The last he will stay and curl up with me
as I know I must let him free
onto heaven with a cat trinity.
–Reed

Tyler has experience with cats, too. His poem reflects found lines from Maclachlan’s poems.

A Cat’s Needs

The black shadows of the night,
Stalking their prey so silently,
Quietly licking your ankles,
and lying on your face
not wanting to move.
They have many things that
they like to do.
–Tyler

Emily illustrated her poem and took a picture of me and Jack (the lemur) holding it up.

Mimi has no interest in poetry or Henry.

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Thesaurus Poetry

Posted in Digital Learning, Gifted Education, Poetry, Teaching, tagged Billy Collins, Canva, thesaurus poem on January 25, 2015| 5 Comments »

Please use this button on your site for DigiLit Sunday posts

When my students were working on their One Little Words, I discovered how much fun thesaurus.com can be. I was curious if there was a form for thesaurus poetry. A Google search turned up a funny metaphorical poem by Billy Collins. You have to love a sarcastic poem that ends with a love story between two words.

I would rather see words out on their own, away
from their families and the warehouse of Roget,
wandering the world where they sometimes fall
in love with a completely different word.
Surely, you have seen pairs of them standing forever
next to each other on the same line inside a poem,
a small chapel where weddings like these,
between perfect strangers, can take place.
See complete poem here.

The assignment: Choose a word. Write it in capital letters. Find 4 synonyms. Write those in a second line. (Pick the easiest word to rhyme for your last word.) Then write a phrase that ends with a rhyming word. As a class, we wrote this poem.

MAGICAL
Imaginary, mythical, enchanting, spellbinding
Potions of my mind unwinding.
–Mrs. Simon’s Caneview class

I let the students go. When one or two were getting frustrated by line placement on Kidblogs, I suggested Canva. We have talked about design before. More than ever, I watched them wrestle over design. One student got frustrated that every background cost a dollar, so she said, “I just made my own background.” She used the plain color background and added free icons. She also changed the coloring on the icons. I marveled at her quick turn around.

Digital Literacy should be more about the literacy than it is about the digital. Technology enhanced my students’ poems with design and allowed them to share their work globally. However, the most value was in the play and problem-solving with words and language.

Erin created her own Extraordinary design for her OLW thesaurus poem.

Kielan’s mother is getting married in June. What a sweet gift.

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Sometimes on the Bayou in January

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Teachers Write, Writing, tagged 59 Reasons to Write, Kate Messner, Teachers Write on January 23, 2015| 28 Comments »

My favorite writing teacher, Tara is rounding up today at A Teaching Life.

Last Saturday I celebrated that my Teachers Write reflection was published in Kate Messner’s new book for writers, 59 Reasons to Write. On Tuesday, I showed the book with my name in the index to my students. Matthew exclaimed, “Mrs. Simon, you are in the index of a book that is written about your passion! I can only dream about being in the index of a book about magic.”

After I glowed in their attention and admiration, we thumbed through to find an activity to do. We tried Kate’s Three-Column Brainstorming activity. I was amazed that all of us, myself included, got good ideas for new fiction stories.

So here it is the eve of Poetry Friday, and I need an idea to write about. Kate to the rescue once again. She suggests using a poem she wrote, Sometimes on a Mountain in April, as a mentor text. So here is my attempt.

Sometimes on the bayou in January,
rain falls all day
soaking the dry leaves,
softening the hard earth
while softly whispering promises
of resurrection.

Sometimes on the bayou in January,
temperatures drop twenty degrees
reminding the cats’ coat to thicken,
the cardinals to find nests,
and mothers to pull on fleece.

Sometimes on the bayou in January,
bare cypress trees scarcely sway
reminding me to slow down,
take shelter,
drink warm tea.

Sometimes on the bayou in January
light hides behind grey,
the owl hoots before sunset,
shadows disappear
and I watch
for a poem hiding there.

–Margaret Simon

Through the screen door

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Wisdom of the Sea

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, tagged Deep Wisdom Poems, Joyce Sidman, Today's Little Ditty on January 16, 2015| 12 Comments »

Find more Poetry Friday with Irene at Live your Poem.

The shells went to school this week. Children are fascinated by shells. They loved picking out their own special shell to write about.

In her book Awakening the Heart, Georgia Heard writes about spinning metaphors, “Spinning metaphors and similes has the effect of spinning a kaleidoscope around to see the beautiful and multifaceted color variations.” On a clean notebook page, let’s see how many metaphors we can think of for our shells. Then we started spinning.

Wonderopolis has a number of seashell-oriented Wonders. We explored two of them: How Much is a Sand Dollar Worth? and How are Sea Shells Formed?

After enjoying the Wonders, shells, and discussion, we had a “sacred writing time.” During this time, I gave them the option to write a Deeper Wisdom poem introduced by Joyce Sidman at Today’s Little Ditty, Michelle H. Barnes.

The steps are:
1. Choose a subject. It can be anything: an ant, the Empire State Building, your father. Your poem will be called “What Does [your subject] Know?
2. Think about the greater Truths that this particular object knows, whether it is alive or not.
3. State these truths—six of them—in two stanzas, repeating your question before each stanza.
4. If you want, rhyme each final word—but this is not necessary. (Joyce Sidman)

My student Matthew met this challenge with an amazing result.

What does a seashell know?
It doesn’t know the Pythagorean Theorem
Or how to count by fives,
But it knows the ocean’s feelings.
It’s felt the sea god’s cries.
It knows it has an owner.
It knows that it’s a shield.
It has one life purpose—
to make the sea assassins yield.

By Matthew, 5th grade

I struggled with this form. Rhyme stumps me up every time. After quite a few tries, I tweaked the form a bit to write the poem I wanted to write.

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