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Archive for the ‘Poetry Friday’ Category

Poetry Friday: Word Wandering

Posted in Poetry Friday, tagged , , , , , on December 14, 2018| 11 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Laura Shovan.

One of the best parts of this Poetry Friday community is the Winter poem swap managed by Tabatha Yeats.  My recipient this year was Matt Forrest Esenwine.  He posted my gift and poem on his site today along with a virtual Christmas party.

I received a handmade journal and a poem from Linda Mitchell.  She is in my writing group. How serendipitous!  She explained that she had gathered words and phrases from one of our Zoom meetings and weaved them together into this amazing reverso poem.  She also hand made the little snowman from cutting paper from an old discarded picture book.

 

 

With my students this week, we explored word wandering.  I remembered first seeing this idea on Today’s Little Ditty when Michelle featured Nikki Grimes.  Some great examples are included in the Best of Today’s Little Ditty, 2014-2105.  Breighlynn wandered with the word bell.

Bell

by Breighlynn

Bell is a shiny word,
the music in my ears
Ding! Ding!
The bell rings for school
for lunch
even playtime
Bells help us learn
just like music.

 

I played around with a few words in my notebook, and each one seemed to lead me to babies.  (Wonder why?)

Small is a tiny word
rolling on the page
where nothing is too small
to be noticed.

Small is my baby boy.
His lips circle and stretch
as he tastes the world.

Whenever you feel small,
think of this tiny miracle
and you will know
the truth
of pure love.

(draft) Margaret Simon

Grandbaby Leo with the blanket I made for him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Poetry Friday: Lion of the Sky

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, tagged , on December 6, 2018| 14 Comments »

Poetry Friday roundup is with Elizabeth Steinglass

Laura Purdie Salas is one the most clever poets I know.  In 2014, she invented a new form of haiku, the riddle-ku, when she decided to write riddle+mask poems for National Poetry Month. In Spring of 2019, a new book of riddle-ku poems will be available, Lion of the Sky. 

I received an advanced copy at NCTE.  For reading with small children, the illustrations give pretty strong hints to the answer to the riddle, so I didn’t show my middle grade students the illustrations until they “gave up.”  I was surprised both by the ones they guessed and the ones they missed.  Nevertheless, they had a good time playing along.

Then, of course, we wrote our own riddle-kus. I copied lines from Laura’s book onto popsicle sticks and let the students select a stick and decide how to use the line in their own riddle-ku.

Laura shared her webpage for this book which includes a padlet for students to post their poems.

Sprite+Mentos=Explosion

(This title is a shout-out to another of Laura’s new books, Snowman-Cold=Puddle)

Exploding red hot
lava oozing out on top
Dangerous! Don’t touch!

by Chloe, 3rd grade

Endless Parched Sea

Wide, curvy, golden
I am a sea needing rain
Memories within

by Madison, 5th grade

I wrote a few, too.  The one above with the picture of burning sugarcane fields, but my favorite is this one.  Can you guess what it’s about?

On the waiting page,
I flow from your colored pen
Word patterns counted

–Margaret Simon, (c) 2018

In the comments, take a guess for each poem.  Thanks!

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Poetry Friday: Mesmerizing Nature

Posted in Photography, Poetry, Poetry Friday, tagged , on November 30, 2018| 5 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Carol at Carol’s Corner.

My mother-in-law just returned from a trip to Whidbey Island in Washington where she did some amazing bird watching with her second son’s family.  I was most intrigued by her description of the western sandpiper’s murmuration.  I’ve only seen murmurations on video.  I’d love to see one is real life.  Breathtaking!

Laura Purdie Salas posts an image on Thursday for a weekly poetry writing prompt, “15 words or less.”  This week she had a picture of a sculpture in the Houston Convention Center that I probably passed by numerous times and didn’t take notice.  The art piece looked like a flock of birds.  My mind went to sandpiper murmurations. (My sister-in-law sent me this video. It’s mesmerizing.)

 

 

Dunlin sandpiper migration
high wind murmuration
frosty sunrise creation
bird watchers’ salvation

(c) Margaret Simon

If you read my poem on Laura’s site (we post them in the comments), you may notice a correction in the breed of bird from sandhill crane to dunlin sandpiper.  I did some fact checking.

Mary Lee Hahn invited us to join her in a December haiku-a-day project.  I’ve started early.  When I returned from my morning walk, I took this picture of grandmother oak, but what I noticed was the color of the cypress tree behind her.  I don’t usually see this color.  Most of the time, the cypress trees quickly shed their needles.  I wonder why they are holding on longer this fall.

 

photo by Margaret Simon

Bronze cypress needles
cling as a child on rope swing
resist winter’s grip

#haikuforhope

(c) Margaret Simon

 

 

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Poetry Friday: Sculpture Garden Found Poem

Posted in Photography, Poetry, Poetry Friday, Travel, Writing, tagged , on November 23, 2018| 13 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Irene at Live Your Poem.

 

Spending some time in New Orleans filled me with inspiration, especially in the Syndey and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden at the New Orleans Museum of Art. I took pictures and found a poem.  My friend, Dani Burtsfield from Montana, walked with me and found her own poem.  The two compliment each other like we do as friends.

 

 

 

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Poetry Friday: Writing Like Kwame

Posted in Poetry Friday, Teaching, Writing, tagged , on November 9, 2018| 16 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Michelle at Today’s Little Ditty..

I’ve been reading aloud Kwame Alexander’s Newbery Award winning book in verse, The Crossover. This is a great book to read aloud, but it’s also visually appealing.  I don’t think there is a name for this form of writing when the written words express the feeling of the word.  But my kids got it!  Such a fun way to write about sports.  Of course, I wrote about dancing.  Have some fun with the way the words look on the page, Kwame style!

Karate by Breighlynn, 3rd grade

 

 

I kick the ball

and watch it

f

a

l

l

GOAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

we yell

cause that’s where it

f

e

l

l

I take a glance at my team

And realize we look like we’re from a meme

It’s up to me to save the Day

Cause if we don’t win

This is where our

G

r

a

v

e

s

will lay

I Kick

b           u             c               s

It          o            n              e

And I scream, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

Will my team really loose?

Will they think we’re fools?

NO, NOT IN THIS LIFE NOR THE NEXT!!!!!!!

Jayden, 5th grade

 

by Margaret Simon, 2018

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Poetry Friday: Autumn Morning

Posted in Photography, Poetry, Poetry Friday, tagged , , , on November 2, 2018| 14 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Jama at Jama’s Alphabet Soup.

 

Autumn takes its time coming to South Louisiana.  It comes in small, unnoticeable ways like the browning of cypress trees, or in larger, violent ways as in a storm leading a cold front. So here we are on the second day of November and temperatures have dropped to the 50’s, a pleasant change from the 80’s to 90’s of the previous six months.  I so envy the images of orange and red fall leaves filling the trees.

Since we have not changed our clocks quite yet, the sun is coming up later each morning, and I’ve noticed a heron on the bayou sitting right in the direct ray of the rising sun.  I tried to capture him with my telephoto lens, but he heard me and flew off.  No matter.  I can still write him into a poem.

Carol Varsalona curates a gallery at her blog site for every season.  Currently she is collecting images and poems for Abundant Autumn. I borrowed a photograph of a heron at the beach from fellow poet (and better photographer than me) Wendi Romero to use as a backdrop to my poem. I love how the challenges of Poetry Friday peeps push me to spread my writing wings.

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Poetry Friday: Reverso Mountain Sparklers

Posted in Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , , on October 26, 2018| 16 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Kay at A Journey through the Pages.

At Today’s Little Ditty, this month’s ditty challenge has sent me for a loop.  Michelle interviewed Calef Brown here, and he challenged us “Write a poem or a story about two anthropomorphized objects.” 

At first I tried to write about two birds on a wire, but they weren’t speaking to me.  Then I grabbed a bag of story starting cubes and rolled a mountain and a star.  As I revised this poem, I decided to try a reverso.  (See Marilyn Singer’s explanation and model poems here.) I have not been terribly successful with this form.  I can’t seem to make the two verses from different perspectives, but I want to be a player in the ditty game, so here it is…

Mountain Sparklers

To mountain high
old star appears
spiraling out of the sky,

“Shine like a sparkler.
Be who you are.”

In a spray
of light flakes,
Mountain glows
old with wisdom
from Star, his friend.

From Star, his friend,
old with wisdom,
Mountain glows
of light flakes
like a spray.

“Be who you are.
Shine like a sparkler
spiraling out of the sky.”

Old star appears
to mountain high.

Margaret Simon, 2018

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Poetry Friday: Writing Poems Together

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Teaching, Writing, tagged , , on October 19, 2018| 8 Comments »

Brenda Davis Harsham is hosting Poetry Friday today.

We talked about descriptive poetry, writing so that your reader can visualize your topic.  I have the privilege of working with small groups of students, so I am able to collaborate with an individual student on a poem.  Chloe wanted to write about a swan.  I shared a poem from my book Bayou Song that was about the white ibis.  The poem was in a triptych form.  Chloe and I wrote a poem using the same form writing description from a photograph of a swan.  In the process, she learned the word cygnet, and we both learned that a swan tucks her cygnets under her wings.

Swan Triptych

1.
It’s the way
white wings swim
in the crawfish pond.

2.
It’s the way
mother swan protects
her cygnets
tucked into her wings
softly.

3.
It’s the way
the beautiful swan
is reflected on the water.

by Mrs. Simon and Chloe

With Landon, we used metaphor dice.  The dice turned up “My soul is a silent trophy.”  I suggested changing trophy to garden.  He loved the idea and guess what? The line was eight syllables long, perfect for the first line of a zeno. (See more about zenos here.) I asked him, “What did you see in the garden?” He remembered a praying mantis hiding in a bush.  As we continued to discuss the word choices for this poem, we decided to break the rule about the one syllable words rhyming.  Sometimes when you try to rhyme, you lose meaning.

Garden Zeno

My soul is a silent garden
Praying Mantis
Stealthy
Stands
camouflaging
into
leaves
The small garden
is their
home.

by Landon and Mrs. Simon

Collaborating with students on poems or even having students work together can result in rich conversations around word choice and produce a poem that all are pleased with.

 

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Poetry Friday: It’s Great to be one of US!

Posted in Bayou Song, Books, Photography, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , , on October 5, 2018| 11 Comments »

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

 

What a thrill to be a part of this amazing collection of poems from all over our great country!  This honor was made possible by the connections I’ve made in Poetry Friday.  Because Amy Ludwig VanDerwater knows me, when J. Patrick Lewis was looking for a Louisiana children’s poet, she connected us.  The poem I wrote, “Louisiana Bayou Song” became the title poem of my first poetry book published by UL Press this summer.

I also know many of the poets included in the collection, and if you read more Poetry Friday posts, you will find them, too.  Today, Buffy Silverman’s post includes 4 poems from the book.  Last week, Amy Ludwig VanDerwater posted her poem “A Note from the Trail.”

Here’s Linda Kulp Trout’s poem about Helen Keller.  And Mary Lee has two poems included. Robyn Hood Black shared her poem, “Mural Compass.” If I find more, I will add the links into this post.

My poem sits on a two page spread that includes an amazing heron photograph and a heart-wrenching Katrina poem by the anthologist J. Patrick Lewis.  I feel I am sitting among my poet-heroes.

 

Louisiana Bayou Song

Sometimes on the bayou in Louisiana
a storm rolls in quickly–
Cypress trees
sway to the sound.

Sometimes on a quiet day
when the sun is high and hot
a heron happens by–
The bayou slows to the beat of his wading.

The song of the bayou
can be as fast and frenetic as a Zydeco two-step
or as soft and slow as a Cajun waltz–
The bayou sings a song to me.

Margaret Simon (c)

 

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Poetry Friday: Love, Agnes

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Teaching, Writing, tagged , , on September 28, 2018| 15 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Jone at Deo Writer.

 

Click to Pre-order

Octopus Zeno

Octopuses are amazing
cephalopods
mollusks
beak

8 tentacles
wave on
fleek

looking anywhere
for food
sneak

Breighlynn, 3rd grade

Irene Latham is an accomplished author/poet, and she is a generous friend.  She sent me an advanced copy of Love, Agnes which will be released on October 1st.  Agnes has declared October as Octopus Month. See Irene’s post here. 

With my students, I read Love, Agnes.  We enjoyed logging into this video.

We gathered some amazing octopus facts and words.  And, of course, we wrote octopus poems.

Over the weeks we’ve been together, we’ve explored some different poetry forms.  For this activity, my students chose their own forms to use and two of them even invented new forms.  Madison created the octaiku.

“An Octopus form, or, as I like to call it, a Octaiku ( A combination of Octopus and Haiku. ) The form is 2, 4, 8, 2 ,4 because 2 and 4 can go evenly into 8.”

Eight Arms
Suction Cupped
Cephalopod, Mollusk, Family
Giant
And Beautiful.

Madison, 5th grade

Madison met Irene Latham at the 2016 Louisiana Book Festival.

 

Things to do as  an Octopus

Wear a color changing coat,
call it camouflage.
when you get hurt,
heal up soon.
Something’s going to scare you,
blast streams of black goo.
Time to lay eggs,
protect them till you’re dead.

Landon, 5th grade

 

My life as Agnes

My friend who lives on shore.
I think he thinks I’m a bore.

He sends me a postcard everyday.
He makes me wanna shout “HOORAY!!!”

I protect my babies ’til they go away
And then I pass away.

Kaia, 3rd grade

 

 

 

 

 

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