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National Poetry Month #1: The Thing Is…

Posted in Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged 2022 Kidlit Progressive Poem, Ellen Bass, Inklings challenge, National Poetry Month on April 1, 2022| 20 Comments »

Official Poster from Academy of American Poets

Today is Poetry Friday and April 1st and the first day of National Poetry Month. My Sunday writing critique group, the Inklings, take on a challenge each first Friday of the month. This month’s challenge comes from Mary Lee Hahn. She suggested that we write a poem like Ellen Bass The Thing Is. Another Inkling, Heidi has the round up this week.

My One Little Word 2022 is Enough. It surprises me how often enough appears in the poems I write. It’s happened again.

The Thing Is
after Ellen Bass
to become yourself, become you more fully
even if you don’t like what you see.
Even as the river dries, revealing cracks
in the surface, displaying a dump
of glass bottles as the only thing
binding you to this place.
You are who you are.
You have this one wild life
to live, no matter the manifest;
That face in the mirror is yours,
hold it with affection,
send it a kiss like the dew
on the womb of the morning*,
praising This is Good.
This self is enough.
You will love her more
and more every day.
* Psalm 110:3
Margaret Simon, draft

Azalea morning
Pink echoes dawn sky
Radiant spring
(c) Margaret Simon

Read other Inklings take on this challenge:

Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone
Mary Lee at A(nother) Reading Year
Heidi at my juicy little universe
Catherine at Reading to the Core
Linda at A Word Edgewise

I’m excited to have two poems in this new book alongside many of my Poetry Friday friends.

Irene starts us off this year with the opening line.

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Slice of Life #25: Poetry News

Posted in Poetry Friday, Progressive poem, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged Amy Ludwig Vanderwater, Imperfect II, Tabatha Yeatts on March 25, 2022| 19 Comments »

Poetry Friday is with Amy at The Poem Farm

I’m excited to hear from Tabatha that Imperfect II is almost here. I have a few small poems included. The anthology is ready for pre-order here. The blog for this book is here.

My blog is featured on Twinkl as a Top 10+ poetry blog for children.

The Kidlit Progressive Poem begins on April 1st. The schedule is ready to go. Irene Latham starts us off. I can’t wait!

Click here to copy and paste the Kidlit Progressive Poem schedule.

I won a copy of Amy Ludwig VanDerwater’s new book If This Bird Had Pockets, released March 1st. Amy is one of my favorite poets and people. Her poetry makes me smile. It’s accessible to children and is just plain fun!

Personal signature on the title page of If This Bird Had Pockets

Many poets take on a poem-a-day project during National Poetry Month. I haven’t decided yet if I am creating one or just following along with someone else. What are your plans for celebrating National Poetry Month?

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Poetry Friday: Spring Triolet

Posted in Poetry Friday, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged Irene Latham, student poetry, triolet on March 18, 2022| 10 Comments »

Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.

My drive to my schools changes with the seasons. In fall, the sugarcane is tall and takes my attention. In spring, these fields are fallow, and some become meadows of golden wildflowers. Horses roam. I wish I had taken a picture, but I’m usually on a strict time schedule.

Last week my student Chloe and I played with the triolet form, inspired by this Irene Latham poem, Triolet for Planting Day. It was a more challenging form than I thought it would be.

Triolet for Field and Breeze
When Field awakens to glimmering gold,
Breeze gallops upon green waves.
An ember mare nuzzles her foal
when Field awakens to glimmering gold,
and readies itself for a front of cold,
with frolics over winter’s graves.
When field awakens to glimmering gold,
Breeze gallops upon green waves.
Margaret Simon, draft

Spring Triolet
Spring colors over winter’s greed.
The rain fills all the holes.
Marshy areas buy blankets of reed.
And spring colors over winter’s greed.
Birds come home, now flight freed.
Out comes the little moles.
When spring covers winter’s greed,
The rain fills all the holes.
Chloe, 6th grade

The Progressive Poem Schedule is Complete. Click here to grab the schedule.

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Poetry Friday: Spark Art!

Posted in Poetry Friday, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged art collage, Linda Mitchell, Spark! on March 11, 2022| 16 Comments »

Poetry Friday is with Sylvia at Poetry for Children

I signed up to do an exchange for Spark Art #50 with my friend Inkling Linda Mitchell. Linda creates wonderful collages, so I asked her to do the exchange with me. She sent me a collage and I sent her a poem. She was charged with creating a collage from my poem and me with creating a poem from her collage. Fun, right? It is fun when you are playing with a friend you know will be respectful of your work and who does good work herself.

The links to our exchange on the Spark website are here and here.

I am sharing my poem process that responded to this collage.

The first thing I noticed was the moon. I wrote the title first, “Moonlight Sonata” and played Beethovan’s Sonata for inspiration. I noticed the foreign words. I asked Linda about the flowers, but she didn’t know what they were. I decided they were edelweiss. I got stuck, though, and decided to use a poem I had written for Laura Shovan’s February project and combine it with the work I was doing on responding to the collage. I don’t usually do this, and it created a level of mystery to the poem. And I’m OK with that.

Moonlight Sonata

Moon, wild orb nightly shining
high above the oak trees.
Your pull breaks waves
and concrete where oak roots
rise like bread, yeast pressing
our foreign earth.

How can you feel sadness
if you’ve not known joy?

When the edelweiss blooms,
we breathe in sweet scent,
welcome Spring
and sing praise for your goodness, Moon.

We push on and on
until, like you, the flower, the oak
we find our light
and shine.

There are only a few dates left for the Kidlit Progressive poem. Claim your day here.

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Poetry Friday: Quote Challenge

Posted in Poetry Friday, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged Madeleine L'Engle quote on March 4, 2022| 15 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Kat at KatWhiskers.

Here we are again at another first Friday of the month. Since it’s Slice of Life Challenge month, this is a dual post. It was my turn to choose a challenge for my writing group, the Inklings. In my classroom, we are writing responses each day to a quote. I challenged my fellow Inklings to find a favorite quote and write a poem. Form was optional.

I am pulling a poem from the February project for Laura Shovan’s birthday. The prompt came from Ruth Lehrer who posted a video of Theo Janson’s Wind-Powered Sculptures. Fascinating. And the same day I saw a Madeleine L’Engle quote in my Instagram feed. I think there was also an influence of form from a poem-of-the-day, but I can’t remember which one. Muses, muses everywhere.

“Believing takes practice” Madeleine L’Engle
If believing takes practice
then wind plays
with swirling moss
hanging in the trees
practicing for inevitable storms
holding on for the ride to come.
Tell yourself you believe
over & over again
like the Dutch artist who preserves
the beach by creating beach animals
walking believing
so when midnight comes
vacant empty of moon or stars,
you can reach out & touch
the heart of the lonely
and bring them back to love.
©Margaret Simon

Other Inklings Poems:

Molly Hogan
Catherine Flynn
Heidi Mordhorst
Linda Mitchell
Mary Lee Hahn

There are still a few slots left for the KidLit Progressive Poem. If you’d like to participate, click here and leave me a comment.

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Poetry Friday: The Beauty of One

Posted in Poetry Friday, tagged Ethical ELA, nature poem, wood ducks on February 25, 2022| 12 Comments »

Poetry Friday is with Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect

Britt Decker wrote a prompt for Ethical ELA’s Open Write this week inspiring us to use a picture book quote to write a poem. At the school book fair, I bought “I am One” by Susan Verde and Peter Reynolds. It made me think about our one wood duck hen who is nesting. We have a wood duck house with a Ring doorbell camera inside so we can watch the progress of our tenants. Each day the Ring goes off around 7 AM, and we look at the video to see her poking around the shavings and settling in to lay an egg. She will do this for a week or so, then she will sit on the clutch. After 28-30 days, the ducklings will hatch. That’s the most exciting part. Within 24 hours they jump from the box into the bayou.

“Beautiful things start with just one.”
One wood duck hen
flies in the house each day
to lay a single egg
one by one
until her clutch becomes a dozen
twittering,
chittering,
jumping
chicks.
Margaret Simon, (c) 2022

If you haven’t signed up to add a line to the KidLit Progressive Poem in April, go to this post.

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Poetry Friday: We Belong

Posted in Books, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged Laura Purdie Salas, We Belong on February 18, 2022| 15 Comments »

Poetry Friday is with Laura at Small Reads for Better Days

Laura Purdie Salas is our Poetry Friday hostess and a favorite author in my gifted classroom. Her lyrical, poetic language sings. We love to read her words again and again. Laura graciously sent me an F&G of her latest book, We Belong.

Check out this video where Laura talks about how it came to be.

There are so many things to love about this book. I love that it’s full of literary elements that make writing stronger. When we read good writing, we become better writers. The theme is set up by the title, but inside, the book is full of surprises. You can be quiet or loud, short or tall, and still you belong.

Maybe you’re happy.
A fun magic trick.
A sprinkler rainbow.
A kitten’s rough lick.
Maybe you’re sad.
A cloud.
A small cave.
Maybe you’re trying
your best to be brave.
Laura Purdie Salas, We Belong

The illustrations by Carlos Vélez Aguilera introduce us to a group of kids who are not alike, but they join together to play and welcome new friends in. We Belong reminds us that we’re alike and different and that’s not good or bad, it’s just what is true. And concludes with my One Little Word “You are Good. You’re enough.”

Laura’s rhyming verse refreshes the age-old message of I’m Ok. You’re OK. Let’s join hands and hearts and make what is true Sing!

Sign up for the 2022 April Kidlit Progressive Poem Here.

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Kidlit Progressive Poem Sign Up

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Progressive poem, Writing on February 17, 2022| 49 Comments »

You may use the graphic for your Progressive Poem Post

Poetry Friday Peeps, it’s time to sign up for the National Poetry Month Progressive Poem. If you’d like to play along, you can commit to adding a line to a child-friendly progressive poem and posting it on your own blog. Copy and paste the poem into your post and add a line. You can also copy the following schedule (once complete) onto your blog site with the above graphic.

April 1 Irene at Live Your Poem
2 Donna Smith at Mainely Write
3 Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core
4 Mary Lee at A(nother) Year of Reading
5 Buffy at Buffy Silverman
6 Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone
7 Kim Johnson at Common Threads
8 Rose Cappelli at Imagine the Possibilities
9 Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link
10 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
11 Janet Fagel at Reflections on the Teche
12 Jone at Jone Rush MacCulloch
13 Karin Fisher-Golton at Still in Awe
14 Denise Krebs at Dare to Care
15 Carol Labuzzetta @ The Apples in my Orchard
16 Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe
17 Ruth at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken Town
18 Patricia at Reverie
19 Christie at Wondering and Wandering
20 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge
21 Kevin at Dog Trax
22 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
23 Leigh Anne at A Day in the Life
24 Marcie Atkins
25 Marilyn Garcia
26 JoAnn Early Macken
27 Janice at Salt City Verse
28 Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference
29 Karen Eastlund at Karen’s Got a Blog
30 Michelle Kogan Painting, Illustration, & Writing

Leave your date choice, name, and blog address in the comments. I will update the calendar as often as I can.

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Poetry Friday: Fog bow

Posted in Photography, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged #poemsofpresence, Fog bow, Laura Shoven, Time on February 11, 2022| 11 Comments »

Poetry Friday is with Linda at TeacherDance.

I am participating in Laura Shovan’s February Poetry Project over on Facebook. The prompts around Time are varied and interesting. Buffy Silverman posted photos of animal prints in snow. But my attention went somewhere else as soon as I drove to school and witnessed the phenomenon of a fog bow. I googled “White rainbow” to find out that a fog bow is similar to a rainbow, but the sun is shining through fog rather than rain. A cemetery is across the street from my morning school. I took some pictures of the fog bow over the cemetery and actually pointed it out to a parent in the parking lot. She obviously had somewhere else to be.

Fog Bow

Making excuses
for being late,
this morning a white rainbow
rising above white tombs.
Science tells me it’s the fog–
diffraction of small water droplets.
I shout to another driver
probably running late like me.
See! Look!
Amazement lost in the rev of an engine.
Nature’s marker of time doesn’t need
a watch or digital reminder
of what to do when.
This gift.
This sign.
I’ll take it as Mine.
Margaret Simon, draft 2/10/22

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Poetry Friday: Winter Chrysalis

Posted in Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged Inklings, monarchs, nonet on February 4, 2022| 17 Comments »

Poetry Friday is with Elisabeth at Unexpected Intersections

Inklings Challenge from Catherine this month: “Write a mathematical poem, such as a fib, pi poem, nonet, etc.” I forgot all about it, so this poem is a bit of a LaMiPoFri* poem. I wanted to try a nonet. I remembered Janet and Sylvia’s advice to write about what you know. I’ve been tending monarch caterpillars in my kitchen for weeks. There have been some losses, but today I am happy to report 9 healthy looking chrysalises and another caterpillar in J formation. I still have 4 free roaming caterpillars on very little milkweed and butternut squash.

Our country once again is in the midst of severe cold storms that bring ice and snow. Here in South Louisiana we are expecting freezing temperatures in the wee hours of the morning. We will not get snow or ice, the meteorologist predicts. All of that came together in this draft of a nonet. I used Canva to make it look all pretty. Thanks for reading.