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Archive for the ‘Poetry Friday’ Category

Poetry Friday: Magic Sky

Posted in Photography, Poetry, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , , on July 7, 2017| 15 Comments »

Poetry Friday is Carol at Beyond Literacy Link

 

While I was vacationing for the 4th of July in Santa Fe, NM, my Voxer Good2Great friend, Jen Hayhurst tagged me in a post about her #ProjectPoetry.  I wrote about the project on my Slice of Life post on Tuesday. 

I have this self-assigned goal of writing a poem a day.  That gets tough when you have a husband who wants to walk all over New Mexico.  My writing muscles had to give way to my walking muscles.  Nevertheless, I took some pictures that planted some ideas in my brain.  Once home I had time to sit.  Sit with the images and process a poem.  Jen’s goals for writing poems are to synthesize experience and ignite curiosity.  This is what poetry should be, in our lives as well as in our classrooms.

Last night I watched Kylene Beers and Bob Probst do a Facebook live video about their book, Disrupting Thinking. When someone asked if poetry should be the first unit taught in the school year, Kylene answered, “Poetry is not a unit. Poetry is something we breath in.  We should breathe in poetry every day.”

Take a deep breath and look at the amazing sky.  I was astounded and mesmerized by the huge sky of New Mexico.  It seemed somehow bigger and brighter and mightier there.  Maybe because I was paying attention.  Maybe because there was something to be learned.  Maybe just to be captured in a poem.

The Magic Sky
Sculpts grey clouds
into bursts
of sparkling rain.

Then a rainbow,
a puffy horse
riding beside.

I stand above
this Rio Grande Gorge,
feel like a speck
of dust in the wind
to the magician
of the sky.

–Margaret Simon

Next Friday is National Mac and Cheese Day.  Who knew there was such a thing?  So Poetry Friday folks are planning to write about Mac-n-Cheese.  Join in the yummy fun.

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Juxtaposition Poetry

Posted in Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , , , on June 30, 2017| 19 Comments »

Poetry Friday is with Dianne at Random Noodling

I think one of the most enjoyable things about writing poetry is playing with words. I’ve been known to have multiple tabs open on my computer to dictionary and thesaurus sites as well as research sites. I’ll Google a word and get lost in the direction it takes me.

This week one of my self-assigned poetry writing activities was to play with the juxtaposition of words. Inspired by activities in the book Rip the Page: Adventures in Creative Writing, I filled a few pages in my notebook with “words that need a friend.”

Then I wondered what I should do with these lists. I found more inspiration from Naomi Shihab Nye’s book A Maze Me. The poem “Where are You?” included this line that I borrowed, “I’m tucked inside each fresh paper page.” My friend Dani calls this “Taking a line for a walk” from her recent institute with the Montana Writing Project.

By giving myself the discipline of writing a poem every day, I am finding new and innovative ways to encourage my students’ writing when school begins again.

Pixabay photo

A Poem is Waiting

I’m tucked inside
each fresh paper page–
feathery poems
softly drizzled on Tuesday,
a perfumed whir,
blink in the sunshine
of your imagination.

A poem is salty chatter
of newly hatched chick-a-dees
twittering in the nest of cloud-joy.

A poem is a twister of whispers
rising on the weather front
of waving slurps of watermelon.

A poem is a show-off peacock
emerging from the bush
of brain bellows,
a scented thunder
from afternoon rain

sprinkling my face,
touching my hand,
this page.
Open gently.

–Margaret Simon

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Poetry Friday: Carolina Wren

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, tagged , , , on June 23, 2017| 18 Comments »

Poetry Friday is with Heidi at My Juicy Little Universe

Photo from Flickr: Kelly Colgan Azar

When I was home last weekend with my parents and my sister’s family, we watched a Carolina wren feed a nest of babies inside a flower pot.  I posted about this miracle of nature here.  ( I even made a short video of the nesting chicks.)

My summer discipline includes writing a poem every day. In the Practice of Poetry, Deborah Digges offers an exercise titled “Evolutions” that can be traced back to Philip Levine.  “When you can’t write, try writing about an animal.” This exercise takes some research.  Having the internet at my fingertips helped me find information about Carolina wrens.

This exercise came with warnings: “be careful not to sentimentalize, to usurp the animal you have chosen by turning it into a flaccid symbol for human emotions…The animal is itself.”  I tend to over-sentimentalize, so I tried to focus on the behaviors of the birds.  After some work and a few writing partner critiques, I feel good about this one.

 

 

 

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Poetry Friday: Remember the Clover

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , , on June 16, 2017| 14 Comments »

Poetry Friday is with Carol at Carol’s Corner.

My writing group has decided to explore a book on writing poetry this summer. We chose The Practice of Poetry edited by Robin Behn and Chase Twichell.

I have been thumbing through and randomly choosing an exercise to try. On pages 51-53, Susan Mitchell’s exercise is titled “Experience Falls Through Language Like Water Through a Sieve.”

We write poems about what we can’t articulate, but feel pressured to say, which is why poems use language in unusual ways…And often, metaphor and simile may be a poet’s only means for capturing experience in its rich complexity.
Susan Mitchell in The Practice of Poetry, pages 51-52

She explains that when we use metaphor, we often write ahead of our understanding. When I write poems, I connect to a deeper part of myself, one who I don’t know as well, one who reveals more of myself to me.

In this exercise, I read one of the suggested poems Milkweed by Philip Levine and decided to use its form to inform my own.

Remember how
we sat in a field of clover
picking handfuls of white bursts
tying stem to stem
to make crowns, bracelets,
necklaces. We’d promenade
among the pine trees
overlooking Purple Creek,
curtsy,
loop our arms,
do-see-do
through those carefree
days of summer
that meant nothing
to anyone, even us.

Yesterday I walked my dog
through a field of clover.
While he stopped to sniff
and leave his scent, I watched
the clustering blossoms
sway and bow
to the coming
of a summer shower.

–Margaret Simon, after Philip Levine, all rights reserved

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Poetry Friday: I Spy

Posted in Poetry Friday, tagged , , on June 9, 2017| 13 Comments »

Poetry Friday is with Mary Lee at A Year of Reading.

 “Write a poem inspired by I Spy, the guessing game popular with kids during car rides and other long periods of downtime, in which the spy offers descriptive clues that hint at a visible object for other players to guess.”
Poets&Writers poetry prompt

I Spy

in the dome of the sky
a face
full and bright.

I spy
rising on the horizon
a sphere
of golden might

I spy
smiling through the trees
a force
moving the night.

–Margaret Simon

 

 

 

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Poetry Friday: Summer

Posted in Poetry Friday, tagged on June 2, 2017| 21 Comments »

Poetry Friday is with Buffy today.

I don’t think of myself as any kind of poetry expert, but I do love poetry in many ways. When my Voxer friend, Dani Burtsfield, asked for help with writing a poem for her mother, I was honored and humbled. Yesterday she went for a walk in the mountains of Montana where she lives and sent me a message about the lilacs and how their blooming means summer. “I think I feel a poem coming on.”

Thus began our late night discussion of her poem. This is what poetry should be, a walk in the woods that leads to talk that then becomes a poem. Jane Hirshfield writes in her poem, Mathematics, “Does a poem enlarge the world/ or only our idea of the world?” I believe that poetry and your own expression of it does enlarge the world. We experience the experience in a new and loving way. Please go to Dani’s blog and read her poem, her first brave contribution to Poetry Friday.

Our discussion of summer made me think about how summer reveals itself differently in different parts of the world. For Dani, it’s in the lilacs. Here in South Louisiana, the landscape is different. My poem attempts to capture my own summer landscape.

Summer

Summer waits
like the rope swing
hanging
from the old oak.

Summer welcomes
like sunflowers
opening
a morning

Summer vibrates
like cicadas
buzzing
at twilight.

Summer lingers
like the sun
hovering
the horizon.

–Margaret Simon, all rights reserved

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Poetry Friday is Here!

Posted in Poetry Friday, tagged on May 26, 2017| 25 Comments »

Poetry Friday is here!

Sorry, my Poetry Friday folks!  I forgot I was hosting.  You see, yesterday was our last day of school, and there were other things occupying my limited brain space.  But here I am and here you are.  Link with the button at the bottom of this post.

Each month on the first week of the month, a group of us bloggers post for Spiritual Thursday.  We are a group of open-minded thinkers who enjoy exploring what God means in our lives.  Irene Latham coordinates our group.  Last month she wrote this in her post about Reaching. 

Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam.” What beauty there is in that breath between those two fingers! And what makes it beautiful to me is the anticipation of touch, the reaching, the beauty and openness of that moment– before we know what happens next. –Irene Latham

Those words moved me.  A poem appeared as response.  I love when that happens. Thanks, Irene.

 


Breath of God

Breath–
one small space
as God reaches
to Adam
hanging high
above
turned up heads.

Eyes cannot focus
on such a small space
so far away,
yet Michelangelo
placed it there,
an inch between them.

In that space
I can rest
suspended,
floating between
God’s hand
and my own.

Nothing
becomes
everything.

–Margaret Simon

 

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Poetry Friday: Path, a Found Poem

Posted in Photography, Poetry, Poetry Friday, tagged , on May 19, 2017| 14 Comments »

Poetry Friday is with Keisha at Whispers from the Ridge

Photo by Kim Douillard

I follow Kim Douillard’s blog. She posts a weekly photo challenge. Last week’s challenge was “Path.” To me, her post was poetic, so I took words and lines and created a found poem.

Path
a found poem from Thinking through my Lens

The snail’s wet trail caught my eye.
I remember Emerson’s words–
go where there is no path
and leave a trail.

I find the sculpture;
Its path formed of trash
her artistic eye transformed
into beauty.

My own path
ebbs and flows like the tides.
I follow moments of sunshine
to clouds echoing the waves.

Seabirds above
follow an invisible path.
In the sky, agile pelicans
intersect the line of a hang glider

Causing me to wonder
what magical paths
await if we are willing
to look.
–Margaret Simon

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Poetry Friday: Kyrielle and Lists

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , , , on April 28, 2017| 8 Comments »

Poetry Friday is at Teaching Authors.

If you’ve been following my National Poetry Month project, you know I’ve been teaching a poetry form each day to my students. I am learning so much about the benefits of writing a poem each day, but most of all, I glow when my students skip into class each day asking what are we writing today?

Writing a poem each day stretches your writing muscles. Like in a yoga practice, you find new muscles that you didn’t know you had. Word play leads us to discover deeper meanings for every day language.

Today I am sharing two of my poems from this week. The kyrielle is probably the most challenging form we have tried. Noah wrote a Kyrielle about dirt. I know I’ve reached my boys when they can adapt any poetry form to a typical boy topic.

Kyrielle Poem on Dirt

A substance covering the ground.
Laying on the ground all around.
Not making any sound at all.
Tracked by dirty feet down the hall.
Noah, 5th grade

For list poems, I turned to Falling Down the Page by Georgia Heard. We read the poems that started with “Things to do if you are…”

My student, Jacob, shouted, “Sky!” Then Madison said, “Always change colors!” and this poem was born.

Things to do if you’re the Sky

Always change colors.
Hold onto clouds.
Sparkle like diamonds.
Water the garden.
Dance with the wind.
Paint treetops green.
Wake up the morning glories.
Invite birds over for tea.
Make every day beautiful.
—Margaret Simon (with a little help from Jacob and Madison)

Yesterday, Michelle Heidenrich Barnes featured Madison’s cinquain on Today’s Little Ditty. Madison wrote her poem after pulling a cadet blue crayon from the crayon box. My students are feeling like “real” poets this month. Thanks, Michelle for the affirmation.

You can read more of my students’ poem on our Kidblog site.

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Poetry Friday: The Golden Shovel

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , , on April 21, 2017| 14 Comments »

Poetry Friday is with Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference.

Nikki Grimes did not invent the Golden Shovel poetry form, but she may have perfected it.  After listening to this podcast on All the Wonders, I pulled out the advanced copy of One Last Word that Nikki graciously signed at NCTE 16.  To share the poems with my students, I copied the original poem written by a Harlem Renaissance poet alongside Nikki’s Golden Shovel poem.  These were high level poems that really pushed the thinking of my students.

The idea of a Golden Shovel is to take a line or stanza of a poem, write the words down the right margin and build your own poem around the words.  I had never done one myself, so I wasn’t really sure how well my students would do.  I gave my students the option to use a line from the poems I shared with them or choose another poem from the plethora of poetry books on the shelf.

Imagine my surprise when I selected No Images by William Waring Cuney that I found in Hip Hop Speaks to Children and realized that Nikki Grimes had tackled this same poem in One Last Word.  I felt a kinship to her with this serendipity.

With her lips, she
speaks volumes but does
only good, careful not
to disturb what they think they know
about her
She does not know her own beauty.

With her eyes, she
looks deeply, thinks
longingly about her
future in brown
skin.

If love has
an answer, then no
one can take away her glory.

–Margaret Simon

No one knows Everything
the world Is
a mystery, but digging deeper shows Everything
has a connection, a purpose, but What
is the meaning of life? Is
it just simply surviving, no! Lives are Meant
to be lived; hearts are meant To
be shared; care is supposed to Be
given. People don’t donate their emotions anymore, but they Will
regret this. Remember no one knows everything, so let it Be

After Lauryn Hill

by Emily, 6th grade

“The line I used came from the poem, For a Poet by Countee Cullen.  The line is And laid them away in a box of gold.” Lynzee, 2nd grade

 

I have hopes and
dreams. I have laid
all of them
my blossoming treasures away.

They are safe in
a box beside my heart; it is a
treasure too, my glittering box
full of
treasure, made of gold.

This is what my student Andrew, 4th grade, had to say about writing a Golden Shovel poem.

“When I was told to do a golden shovel poem I was like, ” Hm. That shouldn’t be so hard.” Then BOOM!! You get punched in the brain. So we have to take a whole line from a poem and use all the words and every sentence that you make has to end with one of the words. For example . The sentence that I chose was, “We move and hustle but lack rhythm.” The first sentence had to end with We. The second sentence had to end with move then so on so on. I have to admit that was the hardest poem I have to make. And it took the longest to come up with. I don’t know the exact time but it was more than twenty minutes. Usually my poems take about 5-10 minutes but this was a lot longer. But I think that might be my best poem.”

Thanks, Nikki, for the punch in the brain.  I think we are all better poets because of it.

 

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