Mural in process at The Southern Linen Company, New Iberia, Louisiana
I was running late for a lunch date with friends, but I had to stop. The artists, Hannah Gumbo and Terez Molitor, were hard at work painting this bright and cheerful mural. A little while later, they stopped for lunch at the same cafe. I was able to get their names and thank them for their tireless work on the mural. They both lit up. Creating this art brought them joy. And now it will bring joy to passers-by. Public art is for everyone!
Can you write a small poem inspired by this photo? Join us in the comments. After you write, be sure to stop back by to leave some comment love on other writers’ poems. Together we are creating art with words.
At Ethical ELA Verselove, Leilya inspires us to write a tricube poem. This form is 3 stanzas of 3 lines with 3 syllables each.
Mural Art
In spring, red dances with yellow light.
Buds become butterfly, bee feeders.
Painted walls fill my heart with delight. Margaret Simon, draft
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Today is the last day of March which means I have finished my 12th year of writing a slice of life for 31 days. It’s easy to think this is some great accomplishment. But who matters more to me are the bloggers I do this with. Through the Two Writing Teachers blog, we have connected over time and space and supported each other. I always end with the wish that I had read more and commented more. What a wonderful community of teacher-writers! Thank you!
I also want to express my pride over my students who stuck with the daily slicing challenge. Julian wrote “This is the final day for writing and I cannot believe I actually did it. Before I ever did this challenge I was having trouble with writing 1 SOL a week. I never would have thought I would be able to write one continuously for a month straight. But I did and I’m very proud of myself.” You can view their posts at Fanschool/ GT Allstars
Tomorrow begins another writing adventure: National Poetry Month. Many of my poet blogger friends are doing projects. I will be writing with Ethical ELA VerseLove as I have done since 2020. At Ethical ELA, there is another great community of teacher writers who support each other.
I coordinate a gathering of children’s poets to write the 2025 Kidlit Progressive Poem. Linda Mitchell has bravely agreed to start us off. You will find her post at A Word Edgewise. We have three slots left at the end of the month if you want to play along. Kidlit Progressive Poem 2025 Sign Up.
Tomorrow is a big day for me. Release day for Were You There? A Biography of Emma Wakefield Paillet that I co-authored with Phebe Hayes. I will be presenting this weekend at the Books Along the Teche Literary Festival at the Shadows on the Teche Visitors Center at 11:15 AM on Saturday. My co-author Phebe Hayes and I are excited to launch this important book about the history of New Iberia, LA. If you are local, please join us for this long awaited release.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
If you are a blogger and would like to add a line during National Poetry Month to our Kidlit Progressive Poem, please make a comment or send me an email with a date choice and a link to your blog. Everyone is welcome to play!
The early morning school playground was covered in a sheet of fog. Avalyn and I went outside to write. This is something she often requests. There is an old oak with a picnic table in a just right spot for writing in our notebooks. I wrote about my surroundings, observations of the morning.
The fog hovers over the playground. I hear echoes of a church bell chime. Traffic moves beyond carrying the day-workers. Birds call to mates as spring slowly wakes sprouting on this weary morning.
Form can give us a container for our words. I looked up the triolet form. I labeled my paper with the number of lines and the rhyme scheme. The poem changed shape while still holding the mood.
Fog hovers on soft spring air, tip-toes as a church bell chimes. Work day traffic moves on everywhere. Fog hovers on soft spring air. Breeze tickles my face with hair. Morning wakes right on time. Fog hovers on soft spring air, tip-toes as a church bell chimes.
(Margaret Simon, draft)
I used these two drafts to discuss revision with my students at the next school in the afternoon. I suggested they go back to a poem and revise it.
Max who is a humble poet will rarely share his poems out loud, so I asked his permission to share his revision here. He wrote it on Fanschool, and you can leave comments specifically for him there.
“Insects buzzing all around,
Bugs are feeding on the ground,
For there is no need for them to hurry,
So why should they need to worry?”
March 25th, 2025: I absolutely despise the quality of this poem. REVISE!
Insects hover in the air,
Gracefully, glide without care.
Spot a flower, beautifully white.
Harvesting energy, basking in the sunlight.
Insects, bugs, air and the ground.
Moving, flying, all around.
To hurry is not a worry, for them.
Unless by something, they’re found.
Then Scurry!
I would add something else, but this is just about it. (Max, 6th grade)
How do you approach revision? Is it hard for you? I think students don’t usually like to revise. They like to write and move on to the next thing. Honestly until I read Max’s post, I thought the class didn’t think much of my little revision lesson. Modeling our own writing process with our students makes us vulnerable, but in the long run, shares how we all are in this together, writing side by side.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
The “I am From” poem form has been a tried and true form to model with students. A few weeks ago, I pulled it out again in hopes to get my students to write for a hometown poetry contest. It didn’t really work out. But while I wrote with them, I ended up with a version that I liked.
I had to explain “pot liquor” to my students because the alarm bells went off when they heard the word liquor. Isn’t it funny how you can know something so well that you don’t even notice? Pot liquor is the distinctly southern delicacy of the broth from boiling greens. (AI says it is also “potlikker”.) My mother would mix it with corn bread and black-eyed peas and eat it with a spoon from a coffee mug. I never developed much of a taste for pot liquor, but what I wouldn’t give to smell it again.
I am From “The most important aspect of love is not in giving or the receiving: it’s in the being” Ram Dass
I am from a gold pearl ring on my right hand. I am from a grandmother with my name– (Margaret, meaning pearl)
I am from Dot, too, from her laughter at things funny, not funny, from her nimble fingers playing classical piano. From lazy afternoons with a Ding-Dong and a Coke.
I’m from photos by the azalea bushes full pink blossoms rising behind our blonde heads. From pot liquor with black-eyed peas and pecan pie fresh from the oven on Thanksgivings in Morton.
I open my mother’s jewelry box, a calm of pearls and golden beads slip on easily. Margaret Simon, 2025
I put this one off, I admit. I knew I had a week of break to prepare, but still I created this last minute. I went back to the poems I wrote for Laura Shovan’s February project using the theme of Space. I had a different poem in mind when I found one I had written about the Aurora Borealis. I had just talked with a friend whose daughter had seen the Northern Lights on a trip to Norway. He shared fabulous photos from his phone. Definitely a bucket list item for me.
I realized I could transform my poem into a weather forecast. The creation part took some time using Canva and playing with placement of lines. I tried to adapt some of the words actually used in a forecast. Forget time; I was in Flow. The image is a bit busy for my taste, but I had to get this post done for the early Poetry Friday posters.
If you are interested in participating in the Kidlit Progressive Poem, click the link and leave a comment or email me your name, date chosen, blog name, and URL. Thanks!
Please sign up to add a line to the Kidlit Progressive Poem coming April, 2025. On your chosen day, you will copy and paste the previous lines of the poem to a blog post and add your own line. When you sign up, create a hyperlink to your home page. For example, Margaret at Reflections on the Teche. Thanks!
Happy May! In many ways, I’m sad that it’s May. I looked over the school calendars, and I have fewer than 10 days left with my students. May’s calendars are worse than December. They are full of “Fun Days”, field trips, and “Awards Day”… Where are the time-with-my-students days?
Of course, there are some wonderful days on the same calendar: Teacher Appreciation Week, Mother’s Day, Memorial Day, Sleep-in-it’s-summer days.
Today is Inklings Challenge of the Month Day. Linda Mitchell hit us with an interesting challenge to exchange poems and “Fiddle with, play with, tinker, tear-apart, be inspired or stumped by” the poem you were given. I chose to find a nestling ( à la Irene Latham). On this Canva design, you can see the poem Linda sent and my nestling.
Full poem “Star Says” by Linda Mitchell Nestling “Star” by Margaret Simon
Links to other Inklings. Molly had my poem to fiddle with. I can’t wait to see what she did with it.
If you followed the Progressive Poem, you can find the poem as a whole at this link: 2024 Kidlit Progressive Poem: Border Crossing This year felt different, a higher stakes dramatic story evolved. Thanks to everyone who participated.
I will be participating in a poetry reading event on Saturday night. It’s been a while since I have read for an audience. Wish me luck.
Kidlit Progressive Poem is moving along with apprehension and worry for our two refugees. See the latest line at Opposite of Indifference with Tabatha Yeats.
Being a part of the Poetry Friday community has given me much to be grateful for. We are writing together a wonderful Progressive Poem. Today’s line is with Denise Krebs and yesterday was Linda Mitchell. I’ve met these poets along with many others through our weekly postings. These posts have led to collaboration on other projects. Linda is a writing group partner and Denise and I are a part of Ethical ELA and a book we are collaborating on. (More on that later.) I would never have met them in real life. The gathering of a like-minded community of writers has all occurred right here with my blog.
This week I attended the Fay B. Kaigler Children’s Book Festival and had the privilege of presenting with Irene Latham. Irene and I met through Poetry Friday and in person years ago at the Louisiana Book Festival. We’ve presented together before at NCTE.
Irene is such a humble leader. She turns every eye away from herself toward you. She makes everyone in the room feel like confident poets. What joy! You can see our slideshow here.
Margaret and Irene presenting at Fay B Kaigler Children’s Book Festival: “Poetry as a Time Machine”
Next year, you should consider attending the festival in person. They invite the most inspiring speakers. This year I heard keynotes from Lesa Cline-Ransome as well as her talented husband, James Ransome, Cynthia Leitich Smith (Southern Miss Medallion), and Juana Martinez-Neal who won the Coleen Salley Storytelling Award. Jason Chin, deGrummond Children’s Literature Lecturer, impressed me with his curiosity about the world and how that curiosity has led him to illustrating. He won a Caledecott Medal for Watercress. The book that impressed me the most was The Universe in You: A Microscopic Journey (Caldecott and Sibert Honoree). As you can see, the Fay B Kaigler invites some of the best authors and illustrators in the children’s literature realm.
And now for a poem. Following Ethical ELA VerseLove has kept me writing a poem each day. Yesterday’s prompt was an ode to the unworthy. I’ve lived in Louisiana and Mississippi all my life, so I’ve had many hurricane experiences. I wrote an Ode to the Hurricane.
Ode to the Hurricane
As the wild winds swirl together above the Gulf, you become a massive creation threatening a nation.
No matter how we prepare– buy bread, water, flashlights, charge up Sparky, the generator, your fierce presence is feared.
They give you gentle names: Katrina, Ida, Andrew, Camille. Names that will live in history. Names that define an era.
After you pass through, an eerie calm descends upon a community. We band together to feed each other, to clean up destruction you left behind.
Oh, hurricane, you are the hint of end times. Behold your survivors–we tell your story.
This first Friday of National Poetry Month, we have an Inklings challenge brought to us by Mary Lee Hahn. Mary Lee asked us to write a haiku sequence about poetry without using the word poetry.
I’ve been on an Emily Dickinson kick watching the surreal series “Dickinson” on Apple TV and reading through a dog-eared collection of her poems. When I read Mary Lee’s challenge, I decided to write individual haiku on slips of paper from the pile on the kitchen counter. That way I could arrange them in a logical/ illogical/ artistic/creative way.
random collection of haiku
I played with the order and this is what I have, for now. One of the best parts of writing poetry is revising, so I am open to rearranging and rewording or throwing it all into the flame.
Envelope opens words release into hands timeless treasure
2. Flame rises too high under the white carnation searing joy to ash
3. Whispers of wishes within earshot of your eyes written by my hand
4. Slips of paper feathers folded in hope message delivered
5. Metaphoric company of lacewings urging me to fly
Margaret Simon lives on the Bayou Teche in New Iberia, Louisiana. She is a retired elementary gifted teacher who writes poetry and children's books. Welcome to a space of peace, poetry, and personal reflection. Walk in kindness.
Reflections on the Teche 