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Archive for the ‘Poetry Friday’ Category

Poetry Friday: This is Just to Say

Posted in being mamére, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , , on September 25, 2026| 1 Comment »

Poetry Friday is being gathered today By Tricia Stohr-Hunt at The Miss Rumphius Effect.

At the end of every month, the Poetry Sisters put out a challenge for their group as well as any others who may want to give it a shot.

Today’s call came from Mary Lee Hahn. She borrowed the prompt from Colby Sharp’s collection The Creativity Project. “It was all my fault.”

There are hard things as well as joyful things when taking responsibility for a seven year old. My daughter is on a work trip, so I am responsible for getting Thomas up, fed, dressed, and to school by 7:35 sharp each morning. I wished I could have written a note to his teacher. “This is Just to say…”

Dearest First Grade Teacher,

This is just to say
it’s all my fault
he has no water bottle today,
his hair is misaligned,
his shirt untucked.

We were in a rush,
you see. The dogs needed feeding,
homework reading, and of course,
the nerf gun reloading.

Please forgive me
if he is a little off his rhythm.
We did text his mom “I love you”
and I pecked a kiss in carpool line.

We are both doing the best we can.

Sincerely,
Mamére

Thomas trying to remember what happened in school. Om!

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Poetry Friday:

Posted in nature, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , , , , on September 18, 2026| 5 Comments »

Poetry Friday is being gathered today by Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link.

Today is the first day of Open Write at Ethical ELA. Today’s prompt was offered by Mo Daley.

Mo asks us to consider our place in the world, where we are, and who may have come before. I went to one of my favorite topics, the grandmother oak in my backyard.

I am also thinking about the upcoming Write Out from the National Writing Project in partnership with the National Parks. The theme this year is “Where We Stand”. Please consider writing outside this fall between Oct. 11-25, 2026. There are many student resources available.

Grandmother Oak

To enrich this earth,
I have planted my feet
in the solid arms
of grandmother oak planted
three hundred years ago.
Chitimacha women prayed over the sapling.

I do not wish to escape
her history
scarred into her flesh.

Let me feel it, stroke
her old skin worn
and strong—single survivor.

I praise her hold
of the sunrise
where I rise
to be blessed.

Grandmother oak with Bayou Teche beyond.

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Poetry Friday: Artist Date

Posted in Creativity, Photography, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , on September 11, 2026| 12 Comments »

Poetry Friday roundup is with Linda at Teacher Dance

This week I am #beingmamére in New Orleans. My grandson, Thomas, is in first grade, and I have the duty of getting him to school on time and picking him up. What should I do with the time in between?

Yesterday I had tea with my cousin who teaches architecture at Tulane. He suggested that I visit the Ogden Museum to see a new show of contemporary Louisiana artists. Amazingly, traffic was minimal, so I was able to get there and park without too much anxiety. I also lucked out that the museum is free to Louisiana residents on Thursdays. Meant to be.

I happened upon a photograph by Jennifer Graycheck. Hey, I know her! She lives in New Iberia and teaches art at the school where my girls went. She also has an amazing sunflower farm with her husband who is a landscape architect. She took my author photos! And here she was in a juried show at the Ogden. What an amazing accomplishment!

Selfie with Jennifer’s photo.

As a poet, I was attracted to the artists’ statements. For today’s Poetry Friday, I am sharing an art piece called “Flamingos” alongside a found poem from the artist statement. And her name is Margaret!

Flamingos by Margaret Davis, Ogden Museum, New Orleans, LA.

Like flamingos,
girls embody grace
in uncertainty—
Flood water
a landscape of disaster,
gold emergency
sealed in physical
figures.

Margaret Simon, found poem

Junk journal page

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Poetry Friday: Hawk Sighting

Posted in Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , , , on September 4, 2026| 18 Comments »

Poetry Friday is being gathered today by Patricia Franz at Reverie.

Happy Poetry Friday! This is the first Friday of September, and my name came up on the spinner to offer a challenge for the Inklings. Honestly, I didn’t have an idea, so I gave it back to the group, and Molly said, “What about kennings?”

A kenning is a figurative compound word that takes the place of an ordinary noun.

I wrote a poem this week from a prompt from The Time is Now to use the line “There is always a ________ somewhere” after Marie Howe’s poem “Chainsaw”.

Hawk in oak tree. (Free image)

Hawk Sighting

There is always a hawk somewhere,
soaring low above the oaks,
hungry and hunting.

You wanted to show me.
You wanted to find the binoculars,
focus on the old oak
and show me the wild thing.

Almost every day I hear the high whistle
of a hawk echoing over the bayou.

There is grief in that piercing call-sound,
wailing for what feels like desperation.

Will you call to me like a hawk
or with a soft whisper-twitter
of a hummingbird?

However you make a call-sound,
I will answer with wonder.

Margaret Simon, draft

How other Inklings met the challenge:

Linda at Another Word Edgewise
Mary Lee at A (nother) Year of Reading

Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone

Heidi at my juicy little universe

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Poetry Friday: Still Life (a haiku sonnet)

Posted in art, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , , on August 28, 2026| 17 Comments »

Poetry Friday is being gathered today by Mona Voelkel.

Last week I attended an artist roundup at the Acadiana Center for the Arts. It was a free event for any artist in the community. This roundup was centered around still life drawing. In the large gathering room, there were supplies and circles of chairs around a variety of still life models/set-ups. I chose to sit between two friends, so I could feel safe among so many different artists. I walked around the room to see what others had done, but the intent was an open space for creatives to meet and talk and practice, not to compare yourself to others.

I’ve been dabbling in watercolor. I was pleased with the vase of flowers, so I cut it out of the whole painting. I decided to use this experience to write a haiku sonnet with the Poetry Sisters.

Still Life by Margaret Simon

Each artist sees
with different eye-angles,
not one best view.

She paints in color
while another scratches
pastels or charcoal.

No ring leaders here.
A circle of practicing,
finding our flow.

I choose the vase
of dead flowers leaning,
colors faded depth.

Judgement left outside the door
open easy to joy-play.

Margaret Simon, draft

I encourage you to go to the Poetry Friday roundup to see how other poets wrote haiku sonnets. It’s a fun form to use.

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Poetry Friday: Paint Chip Poetry

Posted in Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , , on August 20, 2026| 15 Comments »

Poetry Friday is being hosted this week by Denise at Dare to Care.

At our Inklings retreat earlier this month, Heidi pulled out the paint chip poetry box. This is always a fun writing activity. How many chips do you select? Do you go with the prompt card?

We had returned from a busy day at Planet Word in D.C.. I highly recommend a trip there if you are ever in the area. The museum is a mastery of interactive activities with language as the focus from multilingual speakers on a screen to karaoke. Molly and I laughed out loud at the joke station.

Sculpture outside Planet Word museum

When I picked my wild assortment of color cards, I drafted a fun imaginative poem that tickled me.

Once Upon a Time in WhisperShout Studio

(a potpourri poem)

Here on Spirit Rock, near Silver Springs 

beyond Wax Waterfall, 

the acorn of my heart 

opens like a lotus blossom 

(a spotlight to what’s hidden.)

I wax-seal this day into my journal 

full of cumulonimbus clouds of words

holding 

my hot saucy breath

ready for fresh air. 

Margaret Simon, draft

Tree of language at Planet Word

I am posting my weekly photo prompt on Substack. Here’s a link if you want to check out this week’s photo and poem. Subscribe if you want to get a notification each week. Thanks!

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Poetry Friday: Notes on a Walk Along Paris Avenue

Posted in being mamére, nature, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , on August 14, 2026| 13 Comments »

Poetry Friday is hosted today by my dear Inkling friend in Maine, Molly Hogan at Nix the Comfort Zone.

This week I celebrated my 65th birthday with my family on Tuesday in New Orleans. I have been babysitting my youngest grandchildren, June (3.5 years) and Sam (13 months) while my daughter and son-in-law work. The kids are adorable and exhausting, entertaining and a physical work-out, especially Sam who is climbing and into everything.

My favorite moments include nightly story time. June squeezes in next to me on the glider. Sam loves holding the book and babbling like he is reading along.

Yesterday while June napped, I took Sammy out in the stroller. He is happy being outside, even in mid-90 temperatures.

Notes on a Walk along Paris Avenue, New Orleans.

As the stroller passes, a squirrel leaps
to the next oak, blue reflections in its tail
as if the sky was caught there, unaware.

The baby hums along with the breeze,
a song dancing in his head.

Echoes from the neighborhood school garden:
”Clap, Clap, Clap! Listen!”

A Little Free Library opens
at the hummingbird house.

Bright pink Crepe Myrtle blossoms
canopy overhead, the only flower that blooms
in this heat.

My heart rate matches time with sidewalk bumps. Baby babbling softens as he sleeps.

Margaret Simon, draft

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Poetry Friday: July Pantoum

Posted in Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , on July 31, 2026| 8 Comments »

Poetry Friday is gathered today by Tabatha Yeatts.

I am in a comfortable space on Heidi Mordhorst’s front porch for our long awaited Inklings retreat. We’ve been meeting on Zoom as a writing group for around 10 years and this is the first time we’ve been together in person. Heidi’s front porch welcomes the morning sun and is a perfect place to sit with coffee and type a PF post.

I don’t always participate in the Poetry Sisters’ challenge; however, this month’s prompt is a favorite of mine, Pádraig Ó Tuama’s Pantoum.

July Sings, Sizzles

Cicada song sizzles with rising heat.
My neck sweats, wet like a glass of iced tea. 
I feel my body slowing down.
Even the birds stop singing by ten.

My neck’s wet like a glass sweats.
Shade just an illusion of cool.
Even the birds stop singing by ten.
Yet, today I release another butterfly.

Shade, an illusion of cool, waits 
for grief like the great blue heron he drew.
So today I release another butterfly.
I had a dream he returned like the sun.

Grief is the great blue heron he watched.
I feel my own body slowing down.
I had a dream he returned as my son.
Cicada song rising with the heat. 

Heron in Flight by John Gibson

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Poetry Friday: Summer Poetry Postcards

Posted in Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , on July 17, 2026| 17 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.

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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.

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