Posted in Photography, Poetry, Slice of Life, Spiritual Growth, Writing, tagged bridal wreath flowers, nature poem on March 10, 2019| 17 Comments »
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It doesn’t take much to bloom–
a space in the yard
tucked away from plain view
safe from weeds and snakes.
Just stretch out your branches,
bend to the light,
open your eyes
and be white lace, clouds of lace
woven on air
swept up in a tangle of wind
waiting for hope.
That’s all it takes to bloom.
(c) Margaret Simon
Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Spiritual Growth, Writing, tagged balance, Spiritual poetry on March 7, 2019| 12 Comments »
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See more Spiritual Thursday posts with Doraine at Yoga Inspired.
This is the first Thursday of the month, so the Spiritual Journey gathering is happening at Dori’s site today around the topic Balance.
photo by Danne from pexels.com
Balance is a levitated word
held between my fingers
with no space for doubt.Balance doesn’t lean or lose;
it’s always in control.
Gravity is its guide.Balance grows on solid ground,
strengthens while it weighs nothing,
suspension in space and time.So how is it, then, that balance
eludes the seeker? Here for a second,
then gone, out of reach.We request balance in our lives
of diet
of things-to-do lists
of spinning plates.But balance is only of God,
of true peace
of kindness
of mercy.Balance can not be achieved alone.
(c) Margaret Simon
Posted in Slice of Life, Spiritual Growth, Writing, tagged Enneagram, forgiveness, Monday, self-love on March 4, 2019| 12 Comments »
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EnneaThought® for the DayType Two EnneaThought® for March 4th Everyone has positive qualities that they usually do not recognize in themselves. Today, can you see your own strength which is at the center of your love for others—and for yourself? |
photo from Pixabay.com
I subscribe to EnneaThought for the Day from the Enneagram Institute. The small messages come daily to my inbox. It’s usually the first email I open expecting it to inform my day. I’ve used the messages for writing prompts in my notebook, and today when a little stuck about what to write, I copied and pasted the message into the blank page in WordPress.
I know that everyone has positive qualities, and especially in teaching, I look for those in others. But how often do I focus on my own positive qualities? This message reminds me that my strength is at the center of my love for others. Without it, I am useless.
Finding a sense of peace through forgiveness of myself is a daily exercise. Nobody is perfect, but I tend to stew on stuff, especially if I feel I have hurt someone or given a false impression of myself. Stewing is not productive. It keeps me from moving forward. It weakens rather than strengthens.
Writing helps me sort through the muck of my mind. I feel strong and productive when I write. When I wasn’t sure what to write this morning, I jumped into the page and just.did.it. Is this the best I’ve got? No. But here it is and that’s enough.
Monday should be Forgive Yourself Day because we all need to start our week off with a positive outlook, a show of strength, and a sense of self-love. Give that to yourself today.
Posted in Slice of Life, Writing, tagged Mardi Gras haiku, New Orleans Carnival on March 3, 2019| 6 Comments »
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Carnival season in New Orleans is unique. Like other celebrations, families gather, food is abundant, and happiness abounds. But in New Orleans at Carnival time, there is something else in the air. Not something I can name exactly. It’s a mixture of decadence and absurdity. Sometimes the more absurd, the better. There is definitely too much drinking, especially from the “frat boys,” as my children call them. And the costumes run the gamut. But it’s the complete regard for absurdity that fascinates me.
I didn’t get a picture of myself, but I wore a pair of purple, gold, and green sparkly swirly sunglasses. I pinned a tiny top hat to my hair. My son-in-law had a pair of whacky sunglasses that he tried on Leo, my grandson.
Leo’s Mardi Gras shades. (photo by Katherine Simon Andry)
Here’s a picture of another baby we saw walking about. She didn’t seem to mind the wig.
Mardi Gras baby
You don’t quite know what you will see on the streets. Most people are kind and full of cheer. In my many years of attending New Orleans parades, I have never seen any violence. There are rampant rumors about it, but from my experience, Carnival is about having fun and the more absurd, the better.
Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Travel, Writing, tagged food poetry, King Cake, Laura Shovan, Mardi Gras, New Orleans on March 2, 2019| 11 Comments »
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In addition to the Slice of Life Challenge, I am writing a poem each day with a Facebook group for Laura Shovan’s annual birthday project. This year we are writing about food. The prompt yesterday from Laura herself was sourdough bread. Not having much experience in sourdough bread, the baking or the eating of it, I took the option to write about any bread.
I am currently in New Orleans with my girls celebrating Mardi Gras. A staple pastry during the Mardi Gras season is King cake. King Cake is symbolic of Epiphany, the season of the church year following Christmas. On Epiphany, the three kings arrived to worship Jesus. The dough is baked in a circle symbolizing unity of faith. The frosting is colored sugar in purple, gold, and green. Gold represents power, green is associated with faith, and purple illustrates justice. (Southern Living)
Of the many Mardi Gras traditions, this is one of my favorite. In our small town of New Iberia, there is a donut bakery that makes King Cakes like a donut. My son-in-law brought one yesterday that he swears weighs more than his 2 month old. It’s infused with cream cheese and strawberry jam. There are two more on the kitchen counter each with its own flavoring and pastry recipe. The tradition is that a plastic baby is placed inside the King Cake to symbolize the search for baby Jesus. Whomever gets the baby in their piece is obligated to buy the next King Cake for the next celebration.
I’ve decided to forego my no carb diet just for this weekend. Let the good times roll!
Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged Jen Vincent, place-based writing, Story Exploratory on March 1, 2019| 17 Comments »
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Poetry Friday round-up is with Linda at Teacher Dance.Today is the first day of March, so you know what that means: The annual March Slice of Life Challenge at the Two Writing Teachers! I will be writing a blog post every day and linking it up to Two Writing Teachers. What’s the point?
I first met Jen Vincent through Kate Messner’s Teachers Write, a virtual summer camp for teachers who want to write. If I remember correctly, we did a Google Hangout with other writers and read a section of our work. I further connected with Jen through blogging and Twitter and met up with her at NCTE in 2014. These connections are invaluable to me as a teacher and a writer.
One day I saw that Jen was teaching a workshop. Silly me, I thought it was virtual, so I replied to her message on Facebook, “I want to come.” Since Chicago and South Louisiana are pretty far apart, that was not feasible, but Jen thought of a way. She created a virtual workshop.
We met one Saturday morning by Zoom meeting. She led me through an exercise from Teachers Write by Tracey Baptiste. We made a graphic organizer in our notebooks and labeled three places we had been recently. We then divided each column into two columns. On one side we wrote descriptions about the places and the other side we wrote emotions we felt about the places.
I chose school, dance lessons, and a restaurant where we go dancing. I decided to connect the three places with the thread of dancing.
Dancing Days
I dance through my days…
Halls of smiling teachers
greet my wobbly walk
weighed down with backpack,
lunch bag and Yeti cup.
Miss Marie says, Show me that grandbaby!
After we view the latest pic on my phone,
I dance down the hall to my classroom.At Dance Around the World studio,
bright purple walls of mirror on mirror
reflect my partner and me.
Miss Lou says, Right. Left. Back step.
We follow along,
find our balance–
weightless in a jitterbug twirl.I dance my way to Friday night,
Nouveau String Band at Joie de Vivre,
wooden floors echo the sounds
of greetings, giggles, and two-steps.
Buck says, This waltz is for you.
The weight of the week disappears
to the beat of fiddle, mandolin, and drum.
(c) Margaret Simon
This workshop was a test run for Jen for her new Patreon page, Story Exploratory. If you’d like to find more ways to write, I highly recommend Jen as an instructor. You can view this workshop and others by visiting Jen’s patreon page, Story Exploratory.
Posted in Slice of Life, tagged Bayou Teche, The T.E.C.H.E. Project, wood duck house on February 26, 2019| 10 Comments »
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Living on the Bayou Teche has many benefits. In the fall we joined the T.E.C.H.E. Project, a nonprofit dedicated to the preservation of the Bayou Teche. In January, my husband Jeff attended one of their workshops on wood duck houses. When he came home and started talking about it, I knew this was something we needed to do. But the idea brewed for a while until I got a text from a friend who lives downstream. She had set up a Ring camera in her wood duck house and a hen had come in. She sent me the video, and I was sold.
The next day we toured her wood duck set up, and Jeff said, “We can do this!” He found the wood he needed and got to work. We took a trip to Costco to buy the Ring device. It’s intended for use as a doorbell. So genius! It connects through your Wifi and sends motion detection with video to your phone. What will they think of next?!
This weekend Jeff finished the house and got the pole in the ground. We set up the Ring device and had it all ready by 4:00 PM on Sunday.
On Monday morning while I was hurriedly getting ready for school (I always run late on Monday!), I got an alert on my phone, “Movement detected at the wood duck house!” Already!
Sure enough, a hen had come inside and posed for the camera. When we looked outside, though, we noticed Buzz, our outside cat guarding with watchful eye. “On Jump Day, Buzz will be in the shed,” Jeff said. Jump Day happens on the day after the eggs hatch. All the little ducks jump out to the water. I’m so glad we invested in the camera, so we can keep an eye on this whole process.
Buzz keeps an eye on the wood ducks.
Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Teaching, Writing, tagged Charles Ghinga, Love poems, Sanford Lyne, word group poems on February 19, 2019| 16 Comments »
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On Valentine’s Day last Thursday, I challenged my students to write a love poem without using the word love. On Facebook I had read Charles Ghinga’s poem for his wife Debra. I used it as a mentor text.
YOU ARE THE MOON
(for Debra)
You are the moon.
My only one.You bring light
Where there was none.©Charles Ghigna
After we read this poem, we brainstormed a list of things in nature that could serve as a metaphor as moon does in Charles’ poem. I pushed my students to be specific. Some of the more interesting things they listed:
sunflower
lily pads
stars
swans
sea eagle
grass
northern lights
Page of word groups from Writing Poetry From the Inside Out by Sandford Lyne.
I used a poetry resource by Sandford Lyne called Writing Poetry from the Inside Out. In this book, Sandy writes about “Poem Sketching” with word groups. The back is full of pages of word groups. I photocopied one of these pages to give to my students. Each student chose a word group to write from.
Magic happened. Was it writing about love without using the word? the model poem from Charles? the word groups from Sandy? or the magic that happens when writing in a safe community?
We cut out construction paper hearts and wrote our poems on them to give to someone special. I gave mine to Madison because I used a quote of hers. Chloe gave hers to me, probably because I loved it. And Madison gave hers to Chloe. Poetry gifts from the heart.
Love poem gift from Chloe glued into my notebook.
You can read more poems on our kidblog site.
Journey They Will Take
Two dolphins
under the sea
two deer
in the woods
and
the northern lights
watching
the four animals
coming together
On the journey they
will take.I think your feelings for me
are a midnight walk
where it’s easy to get lost.
My feelings for you are as bright as stars
when I’m alone.
I’m a neighborhood of sadness,
a pool of cries,
an ocean of regret.
Our feelings are as wild as animals.
by Jayden, 5th grade
My poem for Madison:
She says, “Did you know the sea eagle
has a wingspan of eight feet?”
I write it down in my notebook
realizing that her knowledge
opens the surface
of our classroom
like the blossom of a tulip.
Digging into depths
of learning
makes everyday
as fascinating
as the sea eagle.
–Margaret Simon
Posted in Slice of Life, Writing, tagged inspirational quotes, writing on February 12, 2019| 8 Comments »
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In my classroom, we pick a quote of the day and write it on a clean notebook page. Sometimes the quote leads to writing, but not always. As I write alongside my students, I find the quotes influencing the flow of my pen. As I gear up for the March Slice of Life Challenge, I like that I can find inspiration for writing in quotes.
From my notebook page:
The opposite is also true, Pablo, that everything real is imagined. All meaning comes from our past experiences. Take this writing pen, for example. I watch the teal blue ink flow onto the page. I know that when I form these motions these letters will be created. The practice of my writing creates the writing before me.
Imagine the tiny seed that lies beneath the earth grows minute by minute into a flower you will notice in spring.
Everything you can imagine is real
as
the
ink
here
as
my
hand
moves
as
real as everything you can imagine.
I can’t stop writing skinny poems. The rhythm of them. The simplicity. See directions and more skinny poems here.
Posted in Creativity, Poetry, Slice of Life, Teaching, Writing, tagged Acadiana Center for the Arts, Bayou Song, teaching teachers on February 5, 2019| 15 Comments »
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Last week I collaborated with artist Marla Kristicevich on a workshop for teachers designed around poetry and art collage. The workshop was part of the Arts in Education professional development series held at the Acadiana Center for the Arts.
After I presented about finding elements of poetry in my poem “I am a Beckoning Brown Bayou,” Marla shared how she had taken words from 3 different poems from my book Bayou Song, and circled words that represented an element of art. She then created a magazine collage to reflect those words and images. While Marla’s complete presentation was in a PowerPoint slide show, the part that touched me were the amazing and beautiful collages she had created from my words.
Marla’s collage from interpreting the poem There is Always.
We had 12 dedicated teachers attend, and they enjoyed the time to sit and create with materials from magazines, painted paper, and other scraps. The collages were varied and lent new meaning to the poems we worked with.
Then I led the teachers in writing their own poem by gathering new words from their own collages and selecting a form to use. My hope is these teachers will take what they learned, their joy of playing with words and art, and bring it into their classrooms, but more than that, my poet’s heart was touched by the way my poems from Bayou Song led to more poems.
Collage from “There is Always” by Cissy Whipp.
Cissy’s Poem
Dance/Nature Triptych
I.
My dance is in the way
the leaves calmly curl and crinkle
under my feet.II.
My dance is in the water
rippling, rising, rushing
around my ankles.III.
My dance is in the place
between land and water –
the muddy, mysterious marsh.
Finding the poem inside.
Kay chose the I Am form to use when her collage revealed things about herself.
Kay’s collage from the poem There is Always.
Hands Up High
Kay Couvillon
I am fiery red in summer beach walks,
I become lavender peaceful
with restorative yoga.
I hold my
hands up high
to the lights of
love, trust, dance, and
cold beer.
I am an
E. Broussard eagle
in awe of the
bald eagle’s nest.
I sway in the
wind of the leaves after
hibernating when I feel like
torn cardboard.
I love red, pink, and scented
geraniums in clay pots from
Mother Earth.
April 1 Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference
April 2 Cathy Stenquist at A Little Bit of This and That
April 3 Patricia Franz at Reverie
April 4 Donna Smith at Mainely Write
April 5 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
April 6 Denise Krebs at Dare to Care
April 7 Ruth Hersey at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town
April 8 Rose Cappelli at Imagine the Possibilities
April 9 Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche
April 10 Janet Clare Fagel at Reflections on the Teche
April 11 Diane Davis at Starting Again in Poetry
April 12 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
April 13 Linda Mitchell at Another Word Edgewise
April 14 Jone MacCulloch at Poetry Rocks
April 15 Joyce Uglow at Storied Ink
April 16 Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link
April 17 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge
April 18 Michele Kogan at More Art for All
April 19 Kim Johnson at Common Threads
April 20 Buffy Silverman
April 21 Irene Latham at Live Your Poem
April 22 Karen Edmisten
April 23 Heidi Mordhorst at my juicy little universe
April 24 Mary Lee Hahn at A(nother) Year of Reading
April 25 Tanita Davis at Fiction, instead of Lies
April 26 Sharon Roy at Pedaling Poet
April 27 Tracey Kiff-Judson at Tangles and Tails
April 28
April 29
April 30
Our address on the Bayou Teche
Order on Amazon.
April 1 Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
April 2 Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect
April 3 Robyn at Life on the Deckle Edge
April 4 Donna Smith at Mainely Write
April 5 Denise at https://mrsdkrebs.edublogs.org/
April 6 Buffy at http://www.buffysilverman.com/blog
April 7 Jone at https://www.jonerushmacculloch.com/
April 8 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
April 9 Tabatha at https://tabathayeatts.blogspot.com/
April 10 Marcie at Marcie Flinchum Atkins
April 11 Rose at Imagine the Possibilities | Rose's Blog
April 12 Fran Haley at Lit Bits and Pieces
April 13 Cathy Stenquist
April 14 Janet Fagel at Mainly Write
April 15 Carol Varsalona at Beyond LiteracyLink
April 16 Amy Ludwig VanDerwater at The Poem Farm
April 17 Kim Johnson at Common Threads
April 18 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
April 19 Ramona at Pleasures from the Page
April 20 Mary Lee at A(nother) Year of Reading
April 21 Tanita at TanitasDavis.com
April 22 Patricia Franz
April 23 Ruth at There's No Such Thing as a Godforsaken Town
April 24 Linda Kulp Trout at http://lindakulptrout.blogspot.com
April 25 Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe
April 26 Michelle Kogan at: https://moreart4all.wordpress.com/
April 27 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
April 28 Pamela Ross at Words in Flight
April 29 Diane Davis at Starting Again in Poetry
April 30 April Halprin Wayland at Teaching Authors
Reflections on the Teche 