Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
The week of Earth Day was a spring break for my grandson Leo. Because he has working parents, he went to his former daycare for the week. We are not sure if that is where he learned about Earth Day, but he came home and wrote in his special journal (the one with the soft cover). Leo is in kindergarten, so he is new to reading and writing, but this grandmother/ teacher/ writer sees the potential of his writing. If nothing else, it will go in the archives of his earliest writing.
My interpretation: “How Do You Help The Earth”
Do not litter. Do not throw trash on the ground. Do not pick the plants. Do not kill the plant. Do not kill the environment. Do not cut the trees because the trees help us breathe.
How do we help the people?
We can help people walk and help people get things if they can’t reach it. We can help do the remote when people can help people keep up the house and we can all help people get ready for a party. We can help people if they have a broken leg. You can help people if they are not tall enough to put up the lights.
How do you share? You can give away something.
Keeping the world good. by Leo, age 6 (kindergarten)
I’ve been writing this month with Ethical ELA’s #Verselove. On Sunday, Susan Ahlbrand led us in a prompt called “Lingering Lines.” We could choose a song from a musical to use as inspiration. One of my favorite musicals is Waitress by Sarah Bareilles, and my favorite song is You Matter to Me. Try to listen to it without crying. I can’t.
My grandson, Thomas (5.5)
This weekend my daughter was visiting with her son, Thomas, who is now 5 and a half. How time flies! He is the sweetest boy with an active imagination and crystal blue eyes. He loves me without condition which warms my mamére heart. I borrowed the song lyric and wrote a short poem for Thomas.
You Matter to Me
I find sea glass treasure in your eyes. You look in my heart as a mirror and smile for the picture frame. You matter to me.
I sing a lullaby love song and you think I’m magical. You say “I love you” like they’re the easiest words to say.
I know your love is true innocence of a 5 year old simple and free, no baggage or judgement. You see You matter to me.
Margaret Simon, draft
Kidlit Progressive Poem Update: Patricia had a family emergency, so Rose is taking her line today (at Imagine the Possibilities). That is one thing I love about this community. We can lean on each other.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
I am writing daily poems with Ethical ELA’s #verselove. Today’s prompt is with Brittany Saulnier.
Visiting my mother is filled with emotions for me. Bittersweet is a good word because she’s still here with us, but in many ways she is far from us. Her Alzheimer’s is advancing slowly at this point. Each visit she’s thinner and less able. Yet, she knows me and loves me and tries so hard to talk to me. This morning I will visit her before I drive back to Louisiana. Will this be the last time? Who knows?
At the hotel, I looked out at a beautiful sunrise. It reminded me of days sitting on the back porch with Mom and Dad looking at the lake behind their house. How I long for those easy days. There was always a heron that came to perch. All of these thoughts came when I read Brittany’s prompt to write about nature using 3 different colors.
Outside the hotel window in Ridgeland, MS.
Sunrise
I wake to sky color– golden-white-lined gap in purple-blue clouds
where sun rays sparkle through like angel wings.
Bittersweet grey clouds hover high like heaven’s shroud
reflected in heron’s stealth.
I imagine you next to me with the news (all ghastly) and your coffee mug steaming.
We sit in silence, the silence of years between us looking for the heron.
Margaret Simon, draft
The Kidlit Progressive Poem continues its ride through spring with Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
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.
Spring is my favorite time of year When the sky is blue and clear. Birds are singing all around. Flowers growing from the ground.
This verse was the first poem I remember writing. I was waiting for my mother to pick me up from my piano lesson and I was twirling around the tree in Miss Joe’s front yard. Maybe I was 12?
The words echo in my head today as spring is here. A week ago the cypress trees were still brown. Today they are bursting with bright green needles.
My friend Mary, who is a master gardener, sends me a photo every other day of flowers blooming. The fields that haven’t been mown are sparkling with purple and yellow wildflowers.
Blooming orchid
When I take my morning walk, the birds fill the page on my Merlin app.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
On Fridays, I usually post a poem for my students to read and discuss. This week we looked at Billy Collins’s poem Today. This has been a favorite of mine for a long time. When I looked back on my blog, I found a poem I wrote after Today in 2011. (See the post here.) My students were shocked by this because none of them were even born at that time.
Today begins with a wonderful line for getting into a poem, “If ever there were a spring day so perfect,” As the poem continues with two lined stanzas, there is no end punctuation until the last line, “today is just that kind of day.” The whole poem is one sentence. I love how this works to make the poem sound more urgent and energized.
I invited my students to use these lines to create their own poems about a perfect day.
Spring 2025 after Billy Collins
If ever there were a spring day so perfect, so full of bird song
that it made you want to join with your own singing
and open your whole mouth to the world of nature,
a day when dew drops cool grass, and the garden roses popping
with red reflect the sun, so much light that you feel like breathing,
releasing the grief you’ve held in and cry real tears at the beauty
of it all, walk with light pink and orange rising before
you, welcoming you with open arms of rose and green and sky.
Today is that kind of day.
Margaret Simon, draft
As we head into spring, Avalyn and some other students are still dreaming about the amazing snow we had this winter. She asked if she could write about a winter day. “Of course, it’s your poem.”
If there were a winter day so perfect so cold with icy air
Could I pretend to hunt ghosts while drinking a warm cup of hot chocolate
Could I put on layers of clothes and roll in the snow
Could I sit in my warm bed watching TV and “being productive”
Could I play outside bands performing plays
Could I read a book my best days
Dreaming of presents can you imagine? Well you can because today is that day.
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.
I have been reading aloud Kate DiCamillo’s new book Ferris. I’m a huge fan of Kate’s books. I stood in a long line to get a copy signed by her at the Mississippi Book Festival in the fall.
Pinky, Ferris’s sister, is an outlaw.
I’m reading the book to my combination 5th and 6th grade gifted class. Two of my girls got together and decided to create a sort of classroom game.
First Kailyn drew a poster of Pinky, Ferris’s crazy younger sister.
Marifaye made a wanted poster.
Together they made “aura” bucks.
They put me in charge of hiding her.
There is a list of rules, of course.
So far this game has been going on for two days. They’ve had to make a new rule that if you find Pinky, you can’t tell anyone (or even make gestures).
Pinky hid behind a photograph.
Today I put her in between books on the shelf.
So far no harm has come from this game and most of my students are playing along.
I don’t think I could have single-handedly come up with a better plan for engaging my class in a read aloud. I highly recommend Ferris. The basic theme that repeats throughout is “every good story is a love story.” With a sprinkle of Kate DiCamillo magic, my students are falling in love with this book.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Cat in the Window, Kilcullen, Ireland by Jone MacCulloch
When I choose a photo to feature as a poem prompt, I choose what pleases me. Sometimes it’s a picture I’ve taken during the week, but this week it’s a photo that caught my eye on an Instagram post from Jone MacCulloch. I asked her if I could use it this week, and she sent me the photo and the collage she had made with it.
Collage by Jone MacCulloch
Jone wrote, “The piece you like is a mixed media piece. I have been playing with landscape scene. This was a cat in Kilcullin, Ireland, 2022. This has some pieces of my grandmother’s journal(copied). It’s part of a new exhibit in April.” Congratulations to Jone on her upcoming exhibit.
I love how blogging has opened windows and doors for me to creative people. Jone and I have not met in person, but we’ve been on multiple Zoom meetings together. We’ve had conversations through blogging and email. She featured this same photo on her blog for “Wordless Wednesday.” But I think the photo invites words.
Please join me in the comments by writing a small poem today inspired by Jone’s photo or art collage. Encourage other writers with comments.
“A cat’s eyes are windows enabling us to see into another world.” Irish proverb
Behind a lace curtain on a warm windowsill, a nonchalant cat holds a light until her people come home.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
A few weeks ago I attended a writing workshop with one of my mentors Darrell Bourque, former poet laureate of the state of Louisiana. He asked us to look at common language to explore in a poem form. He suggested a pantoum. I wrote one there, but there were parts that didn’t work for me, some rhymes that seemed forced. Was my heart in it? I knew what I wanted to say. Sometimes a form is the just right thing to contain all that your poem wants to say.
This workshop, Darrell’s gentle guidance, have stayed with me. Last week I copied into my Notes app a billboard catch phrase, “I triple-dog-dare you.”
Yesterday I read Fran Haley’s post, a beautiful pantoum about a rainbow. I looked up the form again and took another shot. This one satisfies me.
On Sunday I texted my neighbor to go for a walk with our doodle dogs. Her husband passed away last Sunday. I didn’t know if she would be up for it, so I was pleased when she agreed to go. Even though she thanked me profusely for reaching out, I felt it was my honor to be with her. Grief can be a weird time, and we are often not sure of the “right” thing to do to help someone through it. The dog walk was the right thing for both of us.
Dog Walk Pantoum
Split in a million heart pieces, I triple-dog-dare you to go. We walk our dogs on their leashes connecting puzzle pieces as we go.
I triple-dog-dare you to go to the place where grief hides in shadows. Connecting our puzzle pieces as we go. Comfort in our walk-talk grows.
The place where grief hides in shadows; Listen close to the sound of the wind. Comfort in our walk-talk grows. Each of us finds a good friend.
Listen close to the sound of the wind chimes, like a million heart pieces. Each of us finds a good friend. We walk our dogs on their leashes.
Margaret Simon lives on the Bayou Teche in New Iberia, Louisiana. She teaches gifted elementary students, writes poetry and children's books. Welcome to a space of peace, poetry, and personal reflection. Walk in kindness.
Reflections on the Teche 