I warned my kids who are 4th and 5th graders that this form would be a challenge. Not all of them were ready and willing and that’s OK when we are creating our own poems. I wanted to share a few because the prompted lines work in a unique way so that each student (and myself) felt a sense of a successful poem.
Kailyn loves candy and has written a fantasy story that takes place in Kind Candy Kingdom. This is her pantoum poem.
Yummy candy I see, A candy shop is your home. At the mall I beg my mom, then my brother takes you from me : (
A candy shop home seems nice! When you are with me I feel happiness and joy… you being taken from me. It tastes sweet but sometimes sour.
You fill me with joy and happiness, the sounds of crinkling wrappers. When I put you in my mouth, you are sweet and sour, tingling on my tongue.
The crinkling wrappers from kids inside, at the mall I beg my mom. Tingling on my tongue, Yummy candy I see.
Kailyn, 5th grade
In my classroom, I have a collection of Flair pens. My students are allowed to choose from them to write. When Avalyn’s mother gave me a gift card to Target, I bought a set of scented flairs. She wrote a pantoum praise poem for her scented pens.
Scented pens can squiggle on the page In a poem in my notebook These scented pens are extraordinary on the inside If there is a blank page, these pens can make it colorful
In a poem in my notebook When I make colorful marks on the page, it’s inspiring If there is a blank page, these pens can make it colorful But really these markers are flowers
When I make colorful marks on the page, it’s inspiring O’ my non-smelly pens But really these markers are flowers As my hands hold the pen like an extraordinary trophy
O’ my non-smelly pens These scented pens are extraordinary on the inside As my hands hold the pen like an extraordinary trophy Scented pens can squiggle on the page
Karen Edmisten is gathering Poetry Friday posts here.
I am still riding the wave of a silent retreat last weekend. I wrote about it for Slice of Life and This Photo Wants to be a Poem. Our guide, my friend Susan, gave us a small notebook. The jottings I made are feeding my poetic soul while I busily prepare for NCTE next week.
One of the meditations took place around a lotus pond.
The Lotus Pond The lotus is a flower that grows in muddy ponds and swamps. It is a symbol of spiritual growth and enlightenment. In the midst of difficult or chaotic circumstances, one can remain grounded and find inner peace and clarity.
photo by Margaret Simon, lotus flower in a sugar kettle.
Lotus Water
Mindful listening gazing every moment-change Nothing can be forced
Linda Mitchell challenged the Inklings this month to write a prose piece and use it to create a poem. I thought of how much the Poetry Friday community nurtures me and keeps me writing, so my prose and poem are in praise of you, my Poetry Friday peeps.
Because our kindred spirits meet each week, we read, internalize, explore words, thoughts and meanings from our virtual friends who write their hearts out, who transform small things into murmurations echoing through cyberspace.
In the sky of our world, words are offered up like kites in the wind, flipping to and fro, and sometimes taking flight, yet always tethered to its person– a human trying to make sense of the world, to take an ordinary day and make it shine like the sun or peek out from the clouds like the full moon.
I am honored by their presence inside my computer, by their comments that urge me onward or rest with me in grief. I cannot measure their worth with a single gesture. I can only take it all in as a gift, a surprise, or a nod that means everything will be fine. I am not alone. Hope is with me.
Kindred spirits meet Move like a murmuration Spreading cyber-hope.
Margaret Simon
To see how other Inklings approached this challenge, visit these sites:
The National Writing Project’s Write Out ended last Friday with the National Day on Writing. All the wonderful content is still available, and my students aren’t ready to stop writing. Yesterday we perused the site and found information about Phillis Wheatley from the Boston National Historic Park. When I was researching to write poems for my forthcoming book Were You There: Biography of Emma Wakefield Piallet, I used a line of Phillis Wheatley to write a golden shovel. I shared the mentor text with my students.
They were fascinated to try writing golden shovels, so we found a poem written by Phillis Wheatley on Poetry Foundation. We read “A Hymn to the Evening.”
Soon as the sun forsook the eastern main The pealing thunder shook the heav’nly plain; Majestic grandeur! From the zephyr’s wing, Exhales the incense of the blooming spring. Soft purl the streams, the birds renew their notes, And through the air their mingled music floats. Through all the heav’ns what beauteous dies are spread! But the west glories in the deepest red:
Thursday was a special day in our small room. The butterfly whose chrysalis lay on the zipper finally emerged. We were excited because it meant we could finally open the enclosure to release them all. We had four that I had been feeding with mandarin oranges from the cafeteria.
We had the privilege of watching their daily antics and marveling at their beauty. The butterflies were Gulf fritillaries. And flit they did. This breed was less tame than the monarchs we have raised before. They did not light easily on a finger. We had some exciting moments trying to catch them all. But we did and together released them into the butterfly garden. Luckily one of them hung around for a photo.
My mind and my golden shovel poem were both on this miracle of Mother Nature.
A Hymn for the Gulf Fritillary after Phillis Wheatley “A Hymn to the Evening”
Fritillary soft petals purl from enclosure to the spread of wings, flitting over streams, freedom like the birds who renew, survive and thrive singing their tender, sweet notes.
I was once told that I had a poor vocabulary for someone who wanted to be a writer. Sounds offensive, but really I felt the same way. Words don’t stick with me. I am often using a thesaurus to find a just right word. I keep a notebook of words. And I subscribe to two different “Word of the Day” emails. Today the word was aide-mémoire. Isn’t that a lovely, fancy word for a list? So here is a list poem/ definito hot off the presses. (in other words, drafted right here, right now)
To Do List
Leave out the empty bottle of Pledge, box of ziplocs Memory aid written on a free notepad from St. Jude’s. What time is your hair appointment? Draw a line to the train schedule. Lesson plan, your son-in-law’s birthday both due on Saturday by noon. Books to read in a stack by your bed. Folded business card, field trip bus driver, Things to do, things to buy, letters to write a pile on the kitchen counter… aide-mémoire.
The first Friday of the month is reserved for the Inkling challenge. This month Mary Lee fascinated us with Visual Frameworks as a prompt for writing. You can see all the choices here.
With school, teaching, volunteering all get fully underway, I feel the sense of juggling lots of balls in the air. And at any time, one or more may fall, and mess with the balance I am currently trying to hold onto. I taught the zeno form to my students last week and featured it on This Photo, so I chose the form to juggle this challenge. I like how the rhythm of it creates the sense of juggling.
Juggling Zeno
A system complex and controlled keeps all balls up– motions bold. Ability to thrust/ hold– a blink of eye plunges my load.
Today is the last Friday of September. Time for the Poetry Sisters’ challenge. I was inspired this month to play around with their challenge to write a diminishing verse. The basic idea is to remove a letter from the end word with each line.
Layers We are only stardust holding on with unsteady trust painting layers, repairing rust.
Margaret Simon, draft
My students wrote Zeno poems to This Photo. I was impressed with how well they tackled this difficult form. Kim Johnson wrote one, too, and is featuring it on her blog Common Threads today.
I’ve had a wonderful week getting back into the classroom. I have some new students as well as the ones I taught last year. I teach gifted ELA pull out for two elementary schools. The hardest part of the job is packing up the cart and moving to the next school. Once I am there, though, all is right with the world. I am meant to be a teacher!
On Wednesday I led my kids through “This Photo Wants to be a Poem.” We use Fanschool and I place the same photo from my blog post to Fanschool. The kids write their own poems in the comment section. Two of my students who signed into gifted this week had never written a poem before. I find joy in the process. I think I spread that passion to them. Their responses were amazing.
This week was Ethical ELA’s Open Write. I wrote about one of my students in response to Barb’s prompt here. A comment from Kim Johnson gave me an idea for the ending metaphor. This is a wonderful community of teacher-writers. Join us in October, 21st-25th.
Volleyball Team
Last year in fourth grade she would skip recess awkwardly reading in a corner of my classroom.
Fifth grade offered a volleyball team. She arrived with a brightly colored volleyball, tossed it with confidence, leaning on it while writing.
“I’m on the volleyball team this year.” We talked about the serve I could never master. She showed me how it’s done now– from the palm-up wrist rather than the thumb.
A flower blooming through a crack in the concrete, hoping to find its way to shine on the court.
This week I have felt nearer to normal. I’ve been thinking about teaching and preparing lessons for my return on Monday. I’m pushing away concerns that I have no control over. Yesterday I invited a neighbor, a retired teacher, to cut and paste magazine words onto Jenga blocks, an idea that originated with Paul Hanks and used by Kim Johnson. (See this post.)
I get a lot of poems in my inbox. Some days it’s too overwhelming to read them all. Some days I find inspiration in a line or a form or an idea. This week I found a first line from Ching-In Chen’s poem Breath for Metal.
Breath for Flesh
This a story I’ve kept inside my soft body. I’ve discovered
breath dissolves fever–practiced pulling in, hold, hold, hold– sigh.
I am being gentle with her, speaking softly through tears like a light rain in fall.
Creative endeavors are returning to me. It feels good and right. I recently read the poems in The New Yorker of August 28, 2023. The poem What’s Poetry Like? by Bianca Stone was popping out to me as a perfect erasure poem. I enjoy whittling down to essential words. I found another poem here with a slightly different meaning than hers. I hope she is the type of poet who knows the highest form of flattery is imitation.
Poetry
Poets play love essential moment, shared written
resuscitate wildlife disappearing ourselves
Poetry finds deficient words, immortal hunt
you’re trying to get back bittersweet tongue, all the emoting, all the surrender
reckless insight, hidden wisdom slips into truth
the form itself words that sing yet-
unspoken things wafting waiting to be opened.
Margaret Simon, erasure poem from What’s Poetry Like? by Bianca Stone The New Yorker, August 28, 2023
The Poetry Friday round-up today is with Amy Ludwig VanDerwater at The Poem Farm.
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 