Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Poetry Friday’ Category

Poetry Friday: Summer Poetry Postcards

Posted in Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , on July 17, 2026| 16 Comments »

Poetry Friday is being hosted by Jill. She offers an instructional video on making zines.

A few months ago I joined a poetry postcard exchange group. I’ve received creative handmade postcards and poems from people I’ve never met. It is so much fun to find one tucked into my mailbox, a bit of sunshine on a cloudy day. I need to figure out a way to keep them so that I can enjoy both sides. Any ideas?

Poetry Postcards

This month I sent out a photo card I made on Canva using a photo of passion flower.

The poet
finds a prayer
on the passion vine
resting on yellow anther
sprinkling pollen
on bumblebees.

The hope is in the bee’s
instinct to stick around.
Margaret Simon


I’m also participating in the Summer Poem Swap that Tabatha organizes. I received a Little Golden Book handmade book from Linda Mitchell. I love that she kept all the pages from the original book.

Little Golden Book journal made by Linda Mitchell.

I’m using it to do collage journaling about my summer. Here is a page spread I made about birds. The watercolor goldfinch is from an Emily Lex Studio watercolor painting book.

In what ways are you embracing poetry and creativity this summer?

I want to thank Joyce Uglow for featuring me and my book “What’s That Sound? Birds of the Bayou” on her uGroNews series this week.

I have moved “This Photo Wants to be a Poem” to my Substack. Please consider subscribing so that it will show up in your inbox.

Read Full Post »

Poetry Friday: Dead Tree is Alive

Posted in nature, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , , on July 10, 2026| 11 Comments »

Poetry Friday roundup is with Jan at Bookseed Studio.

I can always count on Georgia Heard for getting me through a writing slump. She sends out a monthly prompt calendar. Each prompt is easily accessible from where I sit at my kitchen table. The prompt for July 8th was “Describe a place by what’s missing from it.”

My gaze went directly to the window to the dead satsuma tree outside. We lost it in the big freeze of 2025. I’ve asked my yard man (my husband) to let it be. I was hoping to attract downy woodpeckers. In the spring passion vine sprang up around the trunk of the tree. As I had hoped, the space has become alive with bees and butterflies and birds.

Dead Tree is Alive

With passion vine
open purple flowers
for fritillary lighting.
A suet feeder invaded
by raccoon fingers
lies open and empty.
Old satsuma leafless
sweet fruit a memory.
Lichen clings, fluffs in misty rain.

You are holding hope
of feathers
on bare branches,
Alive.

Margaret Simon, draft

Dead Satsuma Tree on Bayou Teche, LA.

Read Full Post »

Poetry Friday: Singing

Posted in being mamére, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , , , on July 3, 2026| 21 Comments »

The Poetry Friday Roundup today is at Michelle’s place: More Art 4 All

Today is the first Friday of the month, so we have an Inklings Challenge. Catherine asked us to use a prompt from Audrey Gidman’s June list:

“Read “Digging” by Seamus Heaney. Think about something that has been handed down to you—from a parent, a grandparent, an elder in your life—that feels alive in you now. Think of how it is the same and think of how it has transformed in you. Notice how, for Heaney, it’s gardening and writing—two kinds of digging, but still the digging continues through the generations. Write a poem that digs into what was handed down to you and examines what you carry now.”

This summer I have been doing a good deal of babysitting for my grandchildren. This has been both a privilege and a challenge. I have a lullaby that was passed down to me that I sang to my children and continue to sing to my grandchildren (even to Leo who cringes every time).

Singing

Inspired by Seamus Heaney

My grandson asks for a lullaby 
while he covers his head, hiding 
beneath the blankets.

When my mother sang an operatic alto,
in a foreign language she’d never spoken,
I hid from her joy, let her vibrato shiver 
my heart under a pillow.

I didn’t want to know opera 
like her father taught her, 
but she took me anyway, 
read the plot before curtain call.

I made my body small
in the plush red theatre seat. 

Now, I see her face in mine.
My voice cracks on the high notes.
My smile wrinkles into soft blush.
Singing was the last thing to go.   

Here, I sit perched on the edge of the bed
leaning into a seven year old boy
claiming his independence
while wishing
for a song to cling to. 

Margaret Simon, draft

Check out other Inklings poems below:

Catherine @Reading to the Core
Heidi @my juicy little universe
Linda @A Word Edgewise
Mary Lee @Another Year of Reading
Molly @Nix the Comfort Zone

Free photo

Read Full Post »

Poetry Friday: Summer Walks

Posted in being mamére, nature, Poetry Friday, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , on June 26, 2026| 14 Comments »

Poetry Friday Roundup is with Tricia today at The Miss Rumphius Effect.

A Walk to Port Townsend

I hear
chirps of Pine Siskin hiding in the bushes,
watch seeds of cottonwood
fly like moths on fluffy wings—

Hold
the view of Pacific waters chanting
over wishing stones, calling me
to inhale.

Open
a door
to a free poem-of-the-day—
Here is Pádraig’s “Our Lady of the Garden”.

Thank you, universe, for all this time with you.

Poem found in a poetry box in Port Townsend, Washington.
Illustration by Leo, age 7

This Mamére has been busy this summer. In early June, we took a trip with two of our three daughters and their families to the Pacific Northwest. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and cool. I found poetry everywhere, on trails, in town squares, and in poetry boxes.

This week I was in charge of Leo, my oldest grandson who is seven. Seven changes everything! He can read and write and walk 2 miles in the heat. We took a long walk to our local city park. He humored me by helping me write a poem about our walk. He illustrated. You can see a video of him reading the poem on my Substack.

Read Full Post »

Poetry Friday: Lupine

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , on June 12, 2026| 16 Comments »

Poetry Friday is being gathered today by Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise.
Our view of the Elwha River and Olympic Mountains, Port Angeles, Washington

When we first arrived in the Pacific Northwest and awoke to an amazing view of the Olympic Mountains from the AirBnB, I thought I would write poetry every day on our trip. That didn’t happen as we got busier with the family, day hikes, town shopping, river rock throwing (children love a good game of throwing rocks). However on that early June morning, I opened Audrey Gidman’s prompts and wrote a poem using a flower as the title, inspired by James Wright’s Milkweed. For the most part, I wanted to capture the essence of place in the amazing peaceful scene of the Olympic Mountains.

Lupine

While I looked beyond the window
lost in blue-green of Crescent Lake,
I sat in longing.
Tall Douglas fir scented the air
of Christmases long ago.

I look up now.
The view is changed.
What was color
is a wild warmth
seeking my sincerity—
a vision of bright red strawberries
sweeter than the sun.

Margaret Simon, draft

Free image, lupine

Read Full Post »

Poetry Friday: Pantoum with Pádraig

Posted in Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , on May 29, 2026| 19 Comments »

Mary Lee has the roundup today as well as a sign up for Poetry Friday hosts at A(nother) Year of Reading.

Pádraig Ó Tuama is a master at the Pantoum poetry form. In his newsletter last week, he offered sentence stems and a 1-8 line prompt. He suggested “Don’t stress over it: bring yourself generously to yourself.” The whole prompt can be found here. If you haven’t tried a Pantoum before, you should give it a try. This time I was pleased enough with the results to share my poem with you.

Time

Today, my mind wants peace
and I watch the white cat;
although yesterday I sang of grace.
As I write, I cling to memory

and watch the white cat.
When I was younger, I thought tears were weak.
As I write and cling to memory,
I couldn’t have known, terrible things would happen.

When I was younger and thought tears were weak,
I wish I’d known grief is a bitch.
I couldn’t have known how terrible things happen.
I had a dream I was a cloud.

Grief is a bitch anyway;
although yesterday I sang of grace.
I dream of clouds.
Today my mind offers peace. 

Margaret Simon, draft

Releasing a Gulf Fritillary butterfly
May, 2026

Read Full Post »

Poetry Friday: Magnolia Mindfulness

Posted in Gratitude, nature, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , , , , on May 22, 2026| 15 Comments »

Poetry Friday is hosted today
by Carol at The Apples in my Orchard.

Last weekend I participated in the Open Write with Ethical ELA. Erica Johnson’s prompt “Talk about Trees” inspired me to praise the state tree of both of my home states, Mississippi and Louisiana.

Read Full Post »

Poetry Friday: Sail Away

Posted in Poetry Friday, Spiritual Growth, Writing, tagged , , , , , on May 15, 2026| 11 Comments »

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Patricia Franz.

I’ve been taking a class in watercolor painting, and I find it challenging. This morning I went to yoga at my friend’s house. She does a private session with a sound bath meditation at the end. During the meditation shavasana, I had a vision of billowing waves of an ocean. I wanted to capture the vision in a watercolor, but I’m not brave enough yet to paint without help. I used a YouTube video to produce the image for my poem today.

The ocean is interesting, but the sailboats…well…ew. I accidentally dribbled some blue, and one thing my instructor said about accidental spots really helped me. He said, “Make them into birds.”

My poem wanted to be a shadorma form. (3, 5, 3, 3, 7, 5)

Waves of sound
surround in seaflow
billow sails
simply free
Meditation comes to me—
whispers of owl wings.

Margaret Simon, draft

For Mother’s Day, my daughter gave me a beautiful oracle deck. The card I picked today was the owl “Wisdom”.

Roots and Wings Oracle Deck by Katharine Ryalls

What is inspiring you these days?

Read Full Post »

Spiritual Journey and Poetry Friday: Mothers and Daughters

Posted in Poetry Friday, Spiritual Growth, Writing, tagged , , on May 8, 2026| 18 Comments »

Spiritual Journey First Thursday is being gathered by Chris Margos at Horizon 51.
Poetry Friday is being hosted this week by Cathy Stenquist.
My mom pretending to sleep with my (or my sister’s) Raggedy Ann.

Isaiah 43:18-19: “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” 

Chris Margos of Spiritual Thursday suggested this verse to write about this month. With Mother’s Day big and bright in every gift store, it’s hard not to think of my first Mother’s Day without a mother. The sadness I feel; however, is calmed by being surrounded by the best mothers I know, my daughters. All three of them are in the deep throes of motherhood, juggling it all, with professional lives and kids, and they are crushing it!

Yesterday I went shopping with my youngest daughter. The other women in the store and dressing room were charmed by her interest in finding me some cute new clothes. Martha was happily taking pictures of me and texting her sisters. It was a sweet scene, I admit. I am blessed they all want to spend time with me (and help me dress better!)

A page of my new book is dedicated to my mother, who my oldest daughter renamed as GiGi when she made her a great grandmother. My illustrator, Drew Beech, used a photo of my mother with my daughter as a child to create the illustration.

What’s That Sound? Birds of the Bayou

See, Mom! I am doing a new thing! I love that I can share my mother every time I read aloud my book. After all, it was in her lap that I became a reader.

For Poetry Friday, I am in with an Elegy for Mothers using the duplex form created by Jericho Brown. This poem is dedicated to all who have lost a mother, and every mother who has lost a child.

Elegy for Mothers (A Duplex)

after Jericho Brown

The rain sounds like a mother weeping,
softly kissing away touches of pain.

Mother washes away pain with a kiss
as her child nestles in her embrace.

The child will leave her embrace someday—
Memory echoes in her lullaby.

When memory echoes her lullaby,
hushing sounds of the storm calm outside.

Winds brush the chimes of time
like the sound of a mother singing.

Mother rocks on the soles of her feet
feeling the rhythm of life changing.

The rhythm of life is always changing
when the rain sounds like a mother weeping. 

Margaret Simon, draft

Read Full Post »

Poetry Friday: May Be

Posted in Chalk-a-bration, Poetry Friday, Teaching, Writing, tagged , on May 1, 2026| 15 Comments »

The Poetry Friday roundup is with Rose Cappelli today at Imagine the Possibilities.

Happy May Day! My daughter sent this message in our text group: “Friday the first of May is the most powerful day of 2026 so far…strongest full moon and it’s when the Fire horse begins galloping so it will force you to get rid of what you no longer need in your life bc Fire horse can’t gallop with baggage.”

Firehorse postcard from Tricia Stohr Hunt

I worked with first graders this week in a workshop called “Chalkabration.” I think I love first graders. We wrote poems with the line “Summer is…” using all of the senses, “I hear…I see…”

Today is also the first Friday of the month which means Inklings Challenge. Heidi challenged us to “Celebrate May by writing a poem that Maykes use of the verbs may, might, could, can, ought.” 

First Graders Cheat at Mother, May I

When lines are drawn
rules are made,
Or where there’s an “ought to”
seven year olds will push,
split, cross, test.
Mother nature made us to question
boundaries, “Who am I?”
A galloping competitor or a friendly companion?

Choices might change everything.

Margaret Simon, draft

To see how other Inklings met this challenge:

Heidi @my juicy little universe
Catherine @Reading to the Core
Molly @Nix the Comfort Zone
Linda @A Word Edgewise
Mary Lee @Another Year of Reading

The Progressive Poem is new hit wonder of The Land of Poetry. See the final poem here.

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »