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Archive for the ‘Poetry Friday’ Category

Poetry Friday: Penta Poem

Posted in Poetry Friday, Teaching, Writing, tagged , , , on October 23, 2020| 16 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Jama today.

I enjoy playing with a new form, and this week I had a few to try out. One was invented by my very own student Chloe. This has happened only a few times in my teaching career when students become so comfortable with poetry that they venture into creating a new form. Chloe was writing to a prompt from Write Out, a collaboration between the National Writing Project and the National Park Service. The prompt asked students to draw a bird and write a journal entry for a day in the city. Chloe decided to draw a peacock. Then she wrote a very P heavy peacock poem. The aha came when she realized there was a distinct rhythm to her words. Voila! A new form!

Her form uses the syllable count of 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. We talked about the number five and decided that Penta-poem (more P words) had a nice ring to it. There is an optional rhyme scheme.

Peacock by Chloe, 5th grade
Peacock Penta poem by Chloe, 5th grade

I used another Write Out prompt to play with Chloe’s form. This prompt asked us to write from the perspective of an underground creature.

Some of our Poetry Friday peeps have also tried the Penta-Poem: Responses to This Photo Wants to be a Poem and Linda Mitchell uses a variation with a found poem.

I was introduced to a few other new-to-me forms on Ethical ELA Open Write this week. Anna J. Small Roseboro presented “Take a Word for a Walk” like the 5-finger exercises that pianists use. Writing to a daily prompt is exercise for the poet. Read Anna’s prompt here.

Why Worry?

I worry that I’m not good
enough to worry about myself when
I give in, worry for the sake
of all my silly worry lists
waiting for nothing but for worry.

Margaret Simon, draft

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Poetry Friday: Hop to It

Posted in Books, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , , , , , on October 16, 2020| 20 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Janice Scully at Salt City Verse.

Today I am thrilled to be a stop on the blog tour for Hop To It: Poems to Get You Moving, the latest anthology from the dynamic duo, Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong of Pomelo Books. The call went out earlier this year for poems that children can experience with their bodies. When the pandemic hit, Sylvia and Janet, who are known for responding to world events with poems, gathered pandemic poetry as well. This book is an inspiration for poets, teachers, and children.

Order copies here with a limited time discount.

I have written a collection of mindfulness poems that have yet to find a home, so I submitted a few to Sylvia and Janet, who selected Zen Tree. I absolutely love how the side bar bubbles give more information as well as a paired poem. This added touch is what makes Pomelo Books unique and teacher-friendly.

Heidi Mordhorst and Catherine Flynn, two friends from my Sunday Night Swaggers writing group, also have poems included. Catherine’s birthday is today, so hop over to her post to wish her Happy Birthday and to read her Mental Floss poem. Heidi gave me permission to share hers here. We are bouncing, flossing, tickling, and breathing along with 90 poets. What an amazing party!

Next stop Poetry for Children, blogspot for Sylvia Vardell, for more fun news about this book.

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Poetry Friday: Ode to the Uneven Bars

Posted in Poetry Friday, Teaching, Writing, tagged , , on October 9, 2020| 13 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Bridget at wee words for wee ones.

Pablo Neruda was the master at writing odes, skinny poems of praise that would go on and on, metaphor after metaphor, describing the most ordinary thing. With my student Chloe, we read Neruda’s Ode to My Socks. We discussed metaphor. Then I asked her to write a skinny ode about something she cares about. Gymnastics came to mind right away. She made the connection between the uneven bars and a tree, and off she went.

Ode to the Uneven Bars

A high twig
it holds me. I’m
a feather. 
Cartwheels
on air
that bring
me higher,
my hands
are explorers
that discovered
a path
to the
wonderful
world of
magic.

I hold up
my invisible
hands
that reach
from island
to island.
My hands
are telescopes
that help me
see the world.
My arms 
wrapping
around trees,
my hands
out of
control
going everywhere.
Suddenly
they fly
high,
higher than
the trees
that wait
for me.

Chloe, 5th grade
2018 Summer Youth Olympics
Sandro Halank, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

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Poetry Friday: The Duplex of Virtual Teaching

Posted in Poetry Friday, Teaching, Writing, tagged , , , on October 2, 2020| 19 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference

I have become enamored of the duplex poetry form, a modern take on a ghazal + sonnet + blues poem invented by Jericho Brown, the Pulitzer Prize Poetry Winner for 2020. I’ve read the description in this article over and over, and every time I see something new. In other words, it’s complicated.

Here are the boundaries:

Write a ghazal that is also a sonnet that is also a blues poem of 14 lines, giving each line 9 to 11 syllables.

The first line is echoed in the last line.

The second line of the poem should change our impression of the first line in an unexpected way.

The second line is echoed and becomes the third line.

The fourth line of the poem should change our impression of the third line in an unexpected way.

This continues until the penultimate line becomes the first line of the couplet that leads to the final (and first) line.

For the variations of repeated lines, it is useful to think of the a a’ b scheme of the blues form.   

Jericho Brown

I decided to challenge my writing group, The Sunday Night Swaggers, with the form. Challenges help to get us moving. (I hope my partners aren’t throwing eggs at this blog post.) I enjoyed this process. The repetition with the permission to vary it led to new discoveries.

To see more duplex poems from our group:

Catherine at Reading to the Core

Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone

Heidi at My Juicy Little Universe

Linda at A Word Edgewise

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Poetry Friday: A Poem for Me

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , , , on September 18, 2020| 13 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Matt at Radio, Rhythm, and Rhyme.

Last week I posted a poem I wrote for my mother-in-law, a work commissioned by her for a local writing festival fundraiser. I commissioned a poem for myself and selected Bonny McDonald to write it for me.

Bonny and I have lost touch over the years, so I enjoyed our email exchanges that put us back into that comfortable place of friendship. You know the kind. When you feel like you were never really separated.

Bonny didn’t just take the questionnaire that was given by the Festival of Words organization. No, she emailed me more questions like
What makes you think of your ancestors, and what messages do you get or teachings do you carry in your heart from those who came before you in your family?

My answers to that question and to “Who is your favorite poet lately?” (Jericho Brown) led to this wonderful duplex poem just for me. I cried when she read it at the Zoom event.

Namesake  

A duplex for Margaret Simon, 
 inspired by the portrait of her grandmother, Margaret Shields Liles  

The mother of your mother is with you 
Margaret, still, a figure in a painting 

Margaret’s figure sits still in the painting 
Her violin poised to spring up for a tune 

A tune fit for a violin springs up 
For the child of your child in your lap 

Oh child of my child, a song for you 
I wrote a few verses to leave with you 

Now to leave them is what’s left to do 
A note resonates with the lift of the bow 

A note resonates a little while  
Harmonics hold to a foundation 

Your grandchildren hold you to the place where
The mother of your mother is with you 

Bonny McDonald, all rights reserved
This portrait of my grandmother Margaret hangs in my dining room.

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Poetry Friday: Desert Rose

Posted in Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , , , on September 11, 2020| 14 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Kiesha at Whispers from the Ridge

Last night I participated in a poetry reading Words for You with the Festival of Words. It was a fundraiser event for the festival. We usually find sponsors and read in a day long poetry event in downtown Lafayette, but this year fundraising, as everything, looks different. Louisiana writers volunteered to be commissioned to write a poem. Each poet wrote a special, unique poem for the person who selected them. I was chosen by my mother-in-law, Anne Simon.

I was touched by a poem by Li-Young Lee “From Blossoms” and used it to form a poem for “Minga” (her grandma name my oldest child gave her). Just a few words about this amazing woman. She is a retired district judge. She’s the mother of three, grandmother to six, and great grandmother to 2 with another on the way. She is fond of birds and flowers, tennis and basketball, and foreign travel. She’s taken me along on a trip to Greece when she turned 80 and Africa for her 85th birthday.

I hope that my poem honors who she is in some small way. Writing for someone you know well is not as easy at it may seem.

Desert Rose
for Anne Simon
after Li-Young Lee “From Blossoms”

From a broad-base bonsai trunk,
trumpet-like blossoms pop festival-red,
that desert rose Julie bought at Lowe’s
when Love was a potted plant.

From desert soil “complex, yet refined”
a pearl in an ocean of sand, your hand
taps to test its dampness. You are judicial

even in your watering. The flowers stand up
and notice your kindness. O, to take what we love
inside the porch, a safari, to see 
not only the rose, but the whole Serengeti.

There are days we talk
as if death will not separate us;
Your voice, my heartbeat from love 
to love to love, from rose 
to soil to deepest esteem,
the deepest kind of esteem. 

Margaret Simon, all rights reserved, 2020
Desert Rose on Anne’s patio

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Poetry Friday: In One Word

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Teaching, Writing, tagged , on September 4, 2020| 15 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Carol at Beyond Literacy Link.

The Sunday Night Swaggers are back to monthly challenges. This month Catherine Flynn has challenged us to write an In One Word poem created by April Halprin Wayland. See her introductory post here.

I know I am not alone in having a rough beginning to this school year. Foremost on my mind is what is best for kids. Unfortunately, there are many meetings and required gobbledygook to get to the fun part of teaching. Every year, my goal is to inspire explorers, writers, and scholars. Following April’s prompt, I went to Wordmaker to gather words that can be made with the letters in inspiration. Each line ends with a word I chose. Thinking about this exercise was just what I needed to block out the messiness.

Virtual Teacher

I didn’t warm-up for this sprint.
Breathless; my hand anoints
each name, a nonart
list that rips
into a class of sorts,
a prison
on screen, trap
of pixels, brain strain.
Who’s bringing the aspirin?

In the spirit
of language, I rant.
Yet, I don’t rant
about you. You are the rain
to my pain,
showing me we can soar.

Margaret Simon, draft
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Other Swagger Posts In One Word…
Catherine Flynn
Linda Mitchell
Heidi Mordhorst
Molly Hogan

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Poetry Friday: Monarch Nursery

Posted in Poetry Friday, tagged , , , on August 21, 2020| 9 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Ramona at Pleasures from the Page.
Monarch momma in my backyard. Margaret Simon

Earlier this week, I witnessed a female monarch laying eggs in my milkweed. She was an unexpected, yet welcomed visitor. I watched while she flitted from leaf to leaf. I have gathered 10 of the leaves into a net habitat to wait and watch.

My writing partner Catherine Flynn wrote an etheree today on her site, Reading to the Core. Here is the definition of the form:

An etheree is a poem of ten lines in which each line contains one more syllable than the last. Beginning with one syllable and ending with ten, this unrhymed form is named for its creator, 20th century American poet Etheree Taylor Armstrong.

Inspired by Catherine’s Queen Anne’s Lace Etheree , I decided to write one about my monarch eggs.

Monarch Nursery

Pearl
on milkweed,
seed for monarch,
still and quiet August:
Promised ingredient
to Mother Earth’s recipe
for autumn migration glory.
Like watching the birth of a grandchild,
I’m mere observer of this miracle.

Margaret Simon, 2020

For my birthday last week, Catherine sent me this sweet golden shovel. I’ve met many kind people in the Poetry Friday community, and Catherine is one of the best. We’ve been in a writing group for five years. We meet by Zoom (even before the pandemic) every other week. I am blessed to have such a kind and loving writing partner. Thanks, Catherine. The feeling is mutual.

“…all that might be gained
from opening one’s heart wider.
Rebecca Mead, My Life in Middlemarch

How fortunate am I that of all
the people in the world that
I might
have met, I met you, a kindred spirit, destined to be
friends. So much to give, so much to be gained
by writing together, learning from
you, opening
my eyes to new vistas, so different from ones
I know, reaching my heart,
helping it grow wider.

Catherine Flynn

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Poetry Friday: Muses

Posted in Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , , on August 14, 2020| 14 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone.

On Tuesday I treated myself to a virtual writing marathon sponsored by the National Writing Project. #WriteAcrossAmerica. I showed up for the last stop on a journey across the country. I’m sorry I missed out on all the other stops. This last one was in New Orleans where the writing marathon originated.

Years ago I would spend some time each summer at the New Orleans Writing Marathon organized by the Southeastern Louisiana Writing Project. Three to four days of walking the French Quarter and writing led to lifelong friendships and a few memorable writing pieces.

Unfortunately, the virtual marathon happened in my own house through a screen, but because of the miracle of technology, I was able to connect with new friends and see some old ones. We had three writing sessions and shared in small break out rooms.

The third writing session led me to this poem, still quite drafty. I was just getting my writing muscle to work and the whole thing was over, not a marathon at all, but a quick 75 minute sprint.

Muses

Muses have a lost sense of time.
They live in the back of Napoleon’s Bar
drinking Pim’s Cups.

I’ve asked them to visit me
here on the bayou steeped
in cafe au lait brown
buzzing with cicada song.

They come in the long shadows
of a summer afternoon.
or in the fractal face
of a sunflower in bloom.

Muses mock me
with their silver linings,
here then there,
then nowhere,
hiding in plain sight.

Sometimes, I step on them
by mistake.

Give me that mess
again. My pen is waiting.

Margaret Simon, draft
Backyard Shadows by Margaret Simon

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Poetry Friday: Anniversary

Posted in Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , on August 7, 2020| 17 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Laura at Writing the World for Kids.
Photo by Daria Obymaha on Pexels.com

Today is my 38th wedding anniversary. Yesterday I was buying a last minute card for my husband, and I told the clerk, “I almost forgot; tomorrow is my 38th wedding anniversary.”

She smiled under her mask and behind plexiglass and said, “That’s so nice.” Something in her voice made me hear her longing for love in her own life.

I replied, “It is nice when you find the right one.”

I’ve been blessed I found him so early in my life. I was not yet 21 when I walked down a long, candlelit aisle knowing with confidence I was doing the best thing I could ever do. And I was so right!

On Sundays we change the sheets. Sometimes he’ll put them back on the bed before I know it, a sweet surprise. And sometimes we make the bed together. I am reminded of this love poem by Li-Young Lee from Behind My Eyes. Li-Young Lee turns this chore into a love song.

to hold :: li-young lee

So we’re dust. In the meantime, my wife and I
make the bed. Holding opposite edges of the sheet,
we raise it, billowing, then pull it tight,
measuring by eye as it falls into alignment
between us. We tug, fold, tuck. And if I’m lucky,
she’ll remember a recent dream and tell me.

One day we’ll lie down and not get up.
One day, all we guard will be surrendered.

Until then, we’ll go on learning to recognize
what we love, and what it takes
to tend what isn’t for our having.
So often, fear has led me
to abandon what I know I must relinquish
in time. But for the moment,
I’ll listen to her dream,
and she to mine, our mutual hearing calling
more and more detail into the light
of a joint and fragile keeping.

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