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Poetry Friday: Buffy Writes

Posted in Books, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged Buffy Silverman, Finding Fall Treasures, On a Gold-Blooming Day on July 8, 2022| 23 Comments »

Jan has the round up today at Book Seed Studio

My friend, poet Buffy Silverman is releasing a new word-blooming picture book, On a Gold-Blooming Day coming September 6, 2022. This rhythmic, rhyming, all-about-fall book is enchanting from start to finish. You will be transported to the season through words and images.

From On a Gold-Blooming Day, photos by Buffy Silverman

I asked Buffy to tell us how she is inspired to write.

I have been fascinated with the natural world for as long as I can remember. When I was six I collected a jar full of grasshoppers from an empty lot to keep as pets in the garage. I learned the hard way that insects need oxygen! I spent hours perched in the branches of our maple tree as a kid, watching the world below.
I still search out the small animals that share our habitat. We are lucky to live at the swampy end of a small lake, with frogs, turtles, birds, and woods as neighbors. We stopped mowing most of our backyard about twenty years ago, and a meadow has grown in its place, attracting a variety of insects. Now I collect critters with my camera instead of in a jar, and try to share what I see through my writing. My hound keeps me walking every day, no matter what the weather or season, so I get plenty of opportunity to make new discoveries!
I hope that my words might inspire a young person to look more closely at and fall in love with the world around them. The world desperately needs a generation of environmentalists, and I think that is most likely to happen if children spend time outdoors, make their own discoveries, and fall in love as I did with nature.
Buffy Silverman

From On A Gold-Blooming Day by Buffy Silverman

This golden glowing book is for preschool through 3rd graders. The back matter provides more information about the animals and plants mentioned in the text and images. A glossary of new words helps developing readers. Add this book to your fall reading list. Buffy’s website is here.

On Wednesday, Buffy responded with a very Buffy-styled poem to This Photo Wants to be a Poem.

Fishing Expedition
Long legs.
Long beak.
Step right.
Cool creek.
Step left.
Trout streak.
Stoop low.
Sneak peek.
Fast jab–
full cheek!
–Buffy Silverman

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Poetry Friday: Persistence

Posted in Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged dandelion, Inklings, Tony Hoagland on July 1, 2022| 12 Comments »

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Janice Scully at Salt City Verse

This month’s Inkling challenge comes from Heidi Mordhorst: I’m looking out at my yard, my garden, and no matter what’s happening outside or in, THE PLANTS KEEP GROWING. They rarely give up. There are so many ways in which we’ve all (but especially as women, as educators) had to be persistent, despite our weariness. Write a poem (for kids or adults) about PERSISTENCE.

Heidi suggested a model poem by Tony Hoagland, Please Don’t. I borrowed a few lines and the word swobtoggle.

Dandelion Garden
Hello, dandelions
in the ditch,
You pop forth
taller than I’ve ever seen,
reaching higher
for a taste of the sun
before the storm comes
to swobtoggle*
your seeds away.
You look at me
with a wispy wink
waiting for a child to hold
& blow.
Persistent in your volunteer work
knowing
someday soon,
you will fly.
*from Tony Hoagland, “Please Don’t”
Margaret Simon, draft

Dandelions in a ditch, photo by Margaret Simon

See what other Inklings did with this prompt.

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

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Poetry Friday: Heartfelt Exchange

Posted in Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged Kat Apel, summer poem swap, wood duck chicks on June 24, 2022| 8 Comments »

Poetry Friday is with Catherine at Reading to the Core.

Thanks, Tabatha for leading the Summer Poem Swap.

Each summer Tabatha connects us kidlit poets by coordinating a poem swap. My first poem swap was with Kat Apel, all across the globe in Australia. Believe it or not, we have met face to face. She is a tall, sunshiny gal. I finally got around to sending her a poem yesterday, and she has shared it with the world today. Check it out here.

Kat loves nature and often writes about it. She has watched our wood duck nesting box project over social media. She sent me this poem a few weeks ago. She captured the photo from my video, so cute with two ducklings peeking out. The poem is a lai form (which I looked up here.)

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Poetry Friday: Honestly

Posted in #sosmagic, Gratitude, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged friendship, grief, honesty on June 16, 2022| 5 Comments »

Poetry Friday is hosted this week by Michelle Kogan

Honestly, I’m not sure
if I’ll be home soon.
I’m glad you were able to see me.
I love how you hear a different story from my eyes,
how we find honesty under the moon–
a strawberry moon
rising–
like a beacon through the trees.
You read me with an elder’s wisdom.
Tears well up when you hold my heart with your eyes,
how they flow with knowing.
Your own tears leaking onto your cheek.
You never even met my father,
but he was speaking through you,
his presence nowhere and everywhere.
Honestly, the well of deep compassion
grows when watered with our tears.
Margaret Simon, for Carolyn

Open invitation from Ruth Ayres: Honesty

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Poetry Friday: Chasing Rainbows

Posted in being mamére, Gratitude, Photography, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged being grandmother, Simon Summer Camp, songwriting on June 11, 2022| 16 Comments »

Poetry Friday this week is hosted by Buffy.

This week was the first week of Simon Summer Camp with the visit of Thomas, better known as Tuffy. We have had a wealth of experiences each day. How do you build memories for a 2.9 year old? Why, you sing about it, of course. Tuffy and I have been singing along to the brilliant and everlasting Raffi. (If you’re a grandmother, you must download his songs.)

I haven’t had much time to spend alone writing poetry, but that’s as it should be. I missed posting yesterday on actual Friday. His mother is back from her “trip.” The song we sang together to tell her about his camp week is sung to the tune of “If You’re Happy and You Know it.” When I sang it to him last night at bed time, he cuddled up on my shoulder, and I looked at my daughter and whispered, “I think I’m going to cry.” He popped his head right up and said, “Don’t cry, Mamère!” Then we all laughed and laughed. Pure Joy!

Uncle Ric fixed your tires, so you could stroll.
Svitlana gave you vegetables to grow.
CeCe watered flowers and plants in her yard,
And Mr. Al waved good-bye.
KiKi showed you sculptures you could touch.
She told you all about them, oh so much.
Sophie made quesadilla out of play dough,
And Rylee chased water rainbows.
Mamère and Tuffy, Summer Camp Song 2022

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Poetry Friday: Joy

Posted in Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged Covid, George Bilgere, Inklings challenge, joy, The Writer's Almanac on June 3, 2022| 15 Comments »

Image by Linda Mitchell
Round up this week is with Karen Edmisten.

Today is the first Friday of June, so that means Inkling Challenge! My writing group rotates a challenge for each month, and we post on the first Friday of the month as a group, The Inklings! This month Molly Hogan challenged us to write about a domestic task.

Truth be told, I did not read the mentor poem or write about spring cleaning because the truth is I’ve been very ill. I got Covid on a family trip to Seattle and had to stay alone in a hotel room for five days. My husband’s brother, who is a doctor, was nearby and on call for me, but there wasn’t much he could do. I just had to get through it, so I could fly home. I made it home on Saturday night. I’m still recovering, but I no longer have the virus. On Sunday morning, I read The Writer’s Almanac and used the poem “Joy” by George Bilgere as a mentor text. His poem was about recovering from the flu. I borrowed a few lines. The form helped me write again which brought me Joy.

Joy
after George Bilgere
Today I sit in the kitchen
with a glass of Gatorade, on ice,
my daily cocktail.
The door is open
to let in cool morning air.
I sit with my body, just the two of us
for a change. Covid has left us
and moved on to someone else,
with its knife well-sharpened
to gut and leave behind
loose limp skin.
I am sitting in amazement
that I am able to be here breathing.
Amazed at a body’s will to survive
even in the deepest dark cave of fear.
For a while I thought I would never get better.
That I would dissolve into dust in a hotel room alone,
not discovered for days.
But every day there are miracles.
We wake up. We taste and smell the air.
Tiny eggs in a nest hatch into finches that will fly.
Today I sit watching a prothonotary flutter at the window,
make a mental note to refill the feeders.
The desert rose at my front door
welcomes me home with a fireworks show.
The tomb is empty.
Margaret Simon, 2022

Poetry Friday: Sitting with Grief

Posted in Creativity, Poetry Friday, tagged Catherine Flynn, grief, Heidi Mordhorst, Inklings, Linda Mitchell, Mary Lee Hahn, Molly Hogan on May 19, 2022| 8 Comments »

One of the wisdoms I have gained as a writer is that writing with others creates strong friendships because writing is such an act of vulnerability. It is true for the classroom, for writing workshops, and for critique groups. My group, the Inklings, are true friends. They listen, respond with integrity, and encourage me as a person as well as a writer. We live far away from each other, but we used Zoom long before the pandemic, and see each other twice monthly. This is all to say that when my father died, they did what they do best, and sent me a book of poems. I sat alone with these poems and let the comfort and wisdom of words wash over me. I offer a video today of me reading each poem sitting out by my beloved bayou. It’s 8 minutes long.

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Poetry Friday: Poems Hide

Posted in Poetry Friday, Teaching, Writing, tagged ars poetica, Awakening the Heart, Georgia Heard, Naomi Shihab Nye, student poetry on May 13, 2022| 11 Comments »

Design by Linda Mitchell
Poetry Friday round up is with Rose today at Imagine the Possibilities

Awakening the Heart by Georgia Heard is a go-to book for me. I recently came back to it to find an inspiring poetry lesson (page 48) around a stanza of Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem Valentine for Ernest Mann.

We watched this video of Naomi reading it and telling the story of its inception. Then we borrowed the words poems hide for our own poems. Avalyn says it’s the best poem she’s ever written (in her year of writing poetry with me.)

I was reminded of a resident at my parents’ retirement home. When my father was ill, I stayed with my mother in her apartment and got to know many of her friends. This is a true story about Angel, but after I gave her a copy of the poem, she had to correct me that the cats do trust her and let her pet them.

Poems Hide
in an Instagram image
of sunrise
a small songbird
the trickle of water
over a streambed.
Poems hide
in the calico that lost its tail
in the woman named Angel
who sits on the ground
to feed the lonely cat,
her hand out, longing for trust.
Angel laughs in poetry.
She gives me a Styrofoam cup
of cut roses aflame in her hand.
I find poetry
in the things I touch
and in your forever love.
Margaret Simon, all rights reserved

Poetry Hides
by Avalyn, 2nd grade

poetry hides
in talent,

poetry hides
in your favorite stuffed toy

poetry hides
in the beautiful Robin you saw hurt on the ground

poetry hides
in yourself and all beings

poetry hides
in magnolia flowers

poetry hides
in the things you love most

poetry hides
in the ones that helped you get awards and medals

poetry hides
in the lost and found shared memories

poetry hides
in your life and soul

poetry hides
in the book of quotes that helps you feel grateful

poetry hides

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Poetry Friday: The Acorn

Posted in Poetry Friday, tagged #verselove, Ethical ELA on April 29, 2022| 10 Comments »

There’s a loss of energy in grief, a sadness that is heavy and weighs you down. I’m not at all sure that writing helps, but writing for me is the most personal act and wherever I am, my writing is there, too.

Over at Ethical ELA, Shaun Ingalls posted a prompt inspired by Alicia Mountain’s “Drift” inviting us to re-encounter something with a new perspective.

I Hold an Acorn
in my hand
in a field of clover.
Am I a child now?
Walking with sun
bright in my eyes as it rises
above the live oaks?
It is spring, to be sure,
a time of resurrection.
Yet you are
not here.
I cannot call
you or text (You never learned how to text),
so I stand in the field,
hold
the acorn
lift it to smell my childhood, like the scent
of the Paschal candle, anointing
to save,
to savor.
I am here.
You are
not.
Margaret Simon, draft

Grandmother oak in the morning. Photo by Margaret Simon

The Kidlit Progressive Poem is nearly complete. You can follow its progress with the schedule on the side bar. Karen has the next to last line today.

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Progressive Poem and Poetry Friday Gathering

Posted in Poetry Friday, Progressive poem, Writing, tagged 2022 Kidlit Progressive Poem on April 21, 2022| 42 Comments »

The Kidlit Progressive Poem is stopping here today. It’s been on a long journey and now we are turning toward home. I want to take this opportunity to thank all the participants who without much guidance just kept this poem going and growing.

The last stop was with Kevin Hodgson at Kevin’s Meandering Mind. Here is the poem so far with my line added in italics.

Where they were going, there were no maps.
Sorry! I don’t want any adventures, thank you. Not today.
Take the adventure, heed the call, now ere the irrevocable moment passes!
We have to go back. I forgot something.
But it’s spring, and the world is puddle-wonderful,
so we’ll whistle and dance and set off on our way.
Come with me, and you’ll be in a land of pure imagination.
Wherever you go, take your hopes, pack your dreams, and never forget –
it is on our journeys that discoveries are made.
And then it was time for singing.
Can you sing with all the voices of the mountain, paint with all the colors of the wind, freewheeling through an endless diamond sky?
Suddenly, they stopped and realized they weren’t the only ones singing.
Listen, a chattering of monkeys! Let’s smell the dawn
and taste the moonlight, we’ll watch it all spread out before us.

The moon is slicing through the sky. We whisper to the tree,
tap on the trunk, imagine it feeling our sound.

Clouds of blue-winged swallows, rain from up the mountains,
Green growing all around, and the cool splash of the fountain.
If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden,
a bright, secret, quiet place, and rather sad;
and they stepped out into the middle of it.
Their minds’ libraries and lightning bugs led them on.
The darkwood sings, the elderhist blooms, the sky lightens; listen and you will find your way home.
The night sky would soon be painted, stars gleaming overhead, a beautiful wild curtain closing on the day.
Mud and dusk, nettles and sky – time to cycle home in the dark.
There are no wrong roads to anywhere

I am away from home staying with my mother. My father is in hospice care in the hospital after a stroke ten days ago. This liminal time has been a blessing in many ways. I am listening to my mother play the piano as I write this. She and Dad are big Leonard Cohen fans. My father gave her a picture book of “Dance Me to the End of Love” illustrated by Matisse. I am not sure my line makes sense with the poem, but I also know that poetry is a safe place and a place of mystery. So I’m just going with it.

lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove

1. The Imaginaries: Little Scraps of Larger Stories, by Emily Winfield Martin
2. The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien
3. The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame
4. Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
5. inspired by “[in Just-]” by E. E. Cummings
6. “Pure Imagination” from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
7. Maybe by Kobi Yamada
8. Sarah, Plain, and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan
9. inspired by Disney songs “A Whole New World” from Aladdin and “Colors of the Wind” from Pocahontas
10. The Other Way to Listen by Byrd Baylor
11. adapted from Cinnamon by Neil Gaiman
12. adapted from The Magical Imperfect by Chris Baron
13. adapted from On the Same Day in March by Marilyn Singer
14. adapted from a line in Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
15. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
16. Prince Caspian by CS Lewis
17. The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera
18. Kate DiCamillo’s The Beatryce Prophecy
19. The Keeper of Wild Words by Brooke Smith
20. Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv
21. ThePhantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
22. Dance Me to the End of Love by Leonard Cohen