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Archive for the ‘Slice of Life’ Category

Slice of Life: On Becoming a Grandmother

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, tagged on October 30, 2018| 24 Comments »

See more posts at Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life .

 

 

Six more weeks until I become a grandmother!  Last week I shared a Billy Collins poem with my students, On Turning 10.  After reading and discussing the poem, I invited my students to write.  What would I write about? “I don’t want to write about turning 57,” I said.

Chloe said, “Then write about being a grandmother.”

Aha!  Thanks!

On Becoming a Grandmother
          (after Billy Collins’ “On Turning 10”)

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like a little girl at Halloween
dressed up in a new costume
that itches at the seams
and yet sends her off in a thrill of confidence.

How a costume can transform you
into a different version of yourself– a witch,
Wonder Woman, or Cinderella–invincible
and transformative!

When I think of that little boy calling me
something grand or made-up– Mimi,
Gran Gran, Nanny–I feel wonder and joy.

I want to memorize the names of constellations
so I can tell him. I need to find that just right
picture book he’ll want to read again and again.
I will learn a lullaby he’ll sing in his mind
whenever he is lonely or sad.

Wasn’t it just yesterday
I was the new mom?
Worries over enough milk
and enough love. I know now
there’s always enough love.

–Margaret Simon, (c) 2018

 

 

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Slice of Life: Shake Your Trail Feather Festival

Posted in Bayou Song, Slice of Life, Teaching, Writing, tagged , , , on October 23, 2018| 9 Comments »

See more posts at Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life .

This was my first time to attend the T.E.C.H.E. Project’s Shake Your Trail Feather Festival in Breaux Bridge, LA on the shores of Bayou Teche, the same bayou that runs behind my home in New Iberia.  When researching for Bayou Song, I found their website and began to take more interest in learning about their mission.  I even discovered that some of our friends are involved.  When I got an email from the tourist commission about this event, I wrote to the organizers and asked if I could sell books and give proceeds to the project.  I didn’t know how much fun I would have!

I set up my book table inside a gazebo with the children’s activities.  The women here welcomed me, and I enjoyed chatting with them all throughout the day.  One of the kids’ activities was a bird scavenger hunt. The children were given a booklet of common bayou birds.  The children decorated “binoculars” made with paper towel tubes and Mardi Gras beads.  Then they searched for pictures with facts placed around the event area.  The kids were charged with writing one fact about each bird and returning for a prize.  The prizes included a bookmark, a sticker, and a turtle puzzle.

Ava came back from her scavenger hunt excited to turn her facts into a poem.  But how?  I showed her the poem “Barred Owl” written with two to three word lines in rhyming couplets, such as “soulful eyes/From hollow spies.”  I talked with Ava about how her facts could become a poem.

“Which bird is your favorite?”

“The belted kingfisher.”

“What did you learn about the kingfisher?”

Ava reads, “He hovers…”

“What rhymes with hovers?”

Ava shouts, “covers!”

“What covers the kingfisher?”

“Feathers!”

I scribed each line as we discussed her ideas.

At one point, Ava turned and ran. I realized she was going back to the fact sheet to find more facts to use.  When we finished writing, she excitedly shared her poem with whomever would listen.  She felt like a poet!

Her grandfather bought her a book, so she copied her poem into her book.  Later when an art teacher happened by, I asked her to help Ava draw a picture of a kingfisher to go with her poem.  Then she not only felt like a poet, she was an artist too.

Ava, 3rd grade, copied her poem into her Bayou Song book.

Me with Ava and her little sister celebrating writing poetry and art at the Shake Your Trail Feather Festival.

Huge kingfisher sculptures adorn a party barge that led the canoe paddle on Bayou Teche.

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Slice of Life: Advocate like a Mother!

Posted in Slice of Life, Writing, tagged , on October 16, 2018| 15 Comments »

See more posts at Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life .

Mug Shot

My sister is seven years younger than me.  Yes, she is a grown woman, and the mother of two children, but even so, she will always be my younger sister, and I will always advocate for her like a mother.

I wish we lived closer to each other, and never so much as I did last week when I got this text from her.

That was Wednesday.  On Thursday, I checked in and she had spent 4 hours in the ER on Wednesday night getting fluids and nausea medicine. Did they check for appendicitis?  I asked.  She wasn’t sure.  My gut was telling me something, but I live in South Louisiana, and she is in Austin, TX.  How could I tell her that the ER had been wrong?

What I did tell her was to get in touch with her regular doctor.  She did.  They gave her an appointment for Friday morning.  Are you kidding me?! The mother in me was yelling inside my head.  I asked, “Did you tell them your symptoms? Promise me if the pain gets more severe, you will insist on an appointment today!”

Friday came.  Her husband and son packed up to leave for Louisiana to go to the LSU football game.  Their daughter, my niece, attends LSU.  Beth told him to go ahead with his plans, and she would let him know what the doctor said.

Her appointment was mid-morning.  I got a text at 12:10 PM:

The CT scan took forever.  I didn’t hear from her again until after school around 4 PM.  The diagnosis was appendicitis.  I broke down.  I wanted to get on the next flight to Austin, but I knew that was unrealistic. Instead, I got in touch with her best friend. She assured me she was going to be able to help. I talked to my people (my husband, daughter, and mother).  They all advised that she was in good hands, and there was nothing more I could do.

My brother-in-law turned around and headed back home.  She was alone, but he would be there when she woke up.

My worry turned to anger. I’m still trying to deal with that side of it.  Beth is home and feeling sore, but she will recover.  She told me that I “advocate like a mother,” a slogan a friend of hers uses in her advocacy for her trisomy 18 child.

My sister will be fine, but I’ve realized with this incident how fiercely I care about her, as if she were my own daughter.  And I will always “Fight like a Mother!”

 

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Slice of Life: Don’t Let Fear be a Road Block

Posted in Slice of Life, Teachers Write, Teaching, Writing, tagged on October 3, 2018| 11 Comments »

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Last night was the #TeachWrite Twitter chat on “Facing our writing fears.” Turns out, we all have them.   I’ve heard Kate Dicamillo say multiple times (I’m not a groupie, really!) that she faces the fear of writing every day.  Every. Day.

Writing fear is a real thing.  It creeps into our lives at the worst of times and the best of times.  And publishing a book is no shield from it.  In fact, it may increase it.  Self talk, “Oh, this publication was a fluke.  No one will ever want to read another poem I’ve written ever again.”

Do you get messages from the universe?  I do. And if you pay attention, you’ll understand that everyone lives with fear every day.  What separates us is the way we deal with it.  I am trying hard to get better at holding myself up and away from the fear.  I love what Eleanor Roosevelt had to say about fear. “Do something every day that scares you.”  We must do this because, otherwise, fear is the winner.  But I also believe that if you are not writing in fear, then you are not writing.  The act itself is brave!

 

Here are two of my favorite Tweets from the chat.

 

I told my students today, truthfully, that writing is hard work, and if it’s not hard, you are not doing it right.  It’s important for us to keep writing (facing the writing fears) so that we can tell our students the truth.  That nothing worth doing well is easy.  Not even the greatest of authors have had it easy.  Take heart, though, because once you have written something good, you know how that feels, so you are more willing and ready to do it again.

 

What are your writing fears?  How do you overcome them?

 

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Slice of Life: Readers’ Heart Maps

Posted in Books, Slice of Life, Teaching, Writing, tagged , on September 26, 2018| 7 Comments »

See more posts at Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life .

 

I’ve been a fan of using heart maps in my classroom for a while.  At the beginning of the year, we made name heart maps.  Later in the year, we may use a heart map to identify an interest area for a research project.  This week, for the first time, I tried out readers’ heart maps.  Georgia Heard’s book about heart maps offers many different styles.  I tend to use the simple design.  Plain white paper. Taco fold. Draw half a heart. Cut it out. Then glue in your journal.

Chloe decided to cut out three hearts.  She made one with white paper.  Then she asked if she could use colored paper.  Then she made a blue one and a pink one.  I suggested that she could layer them one on top of the other.  She loved that idea.  One heart became about her favorite book at home about Ariel.  She’s a Dr. Seuss fan and made her blue heart about Dr. Seuss.  On the big white heart, she chose herself and wrote one of her poems.  Why not choose yourself as your favorite author?

Chloe’s layer of Reader’s Heart Maps.

Madison decided to fill her reader’s heart map with quotes from her favorite books.  Her all time favorite quote comes from Percy Jackson, “I have become one with the plumbing.”  She laughs out loud.

 

Madison’s reading heart map

 

I’ve been reading aloud Kate Dicamillo’s “The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane,” so my reader’s heart map became about this book.  Edward breaks my heart over and over again.

 

My reader’s heart is broken and healed by Edward Tulane.

I think making heart maps is a great way to honor your students’ individual choices in reading.  They can express what they love to read in a reader’s heart map. We will come back to the heart maps to write about ourselves as readers.  What would you make your reader’s heart map about?

 

 

 

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Slice of Life: Dot Zeno Zines

Posted in Slice of Life, Teaching, Writing, tagged , , on September 18, 2018| 5 Comments »

See more posts at Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life .

 

International Dot Day is one of my favorite days of the year.  For years, I’ve celebrated with my students.  This year I tried out a new activity for Dot Day, a Zeno Zine.  We started by reading The Dot and playing the Emily Arrow Dot Day Song.  Then each student decorated a dot on white art paper using markers. Rainbow dots seemed to be the choice of the day.

After drawing a dot, I asked my students to collect words and phrases about their artwork to use in a zeno poem.  We wrote a zeno together using ideas from the book.  Then they wrote their own zeno about their own dot.  We folded their art work into a zine and copied their poems into their zine.

Zeno form: syllable count 8, 4, 2, 1, 4, 2, 1, 4, 2, 1 (Each one syllable line rhymes. )

Our Group Dot Zeno

I can’t draw a straight line, can you?
May I please see
you draw
dot?
I don’t think so
maybe
not
I bet you can
draw a
lot!

Dot Day Zeno Zine by Chloe

 

 

After the rainstorm has happened
Colors appear
rainbow
light
a beautiful
hopeful
sight
flower petals
amazing
bright 

by Breighlynn

Zine by Breighlynn

 

I draw and write alongside my students, so I made three zeno zines throughout the day.  My student Madison suggested that I post this one because, as she said, “The solar system is full of dots!”

Solar System Dot Zeno Zine

Gravitational central sun
spiral orbit
spinning
round
Solar system
planets
bound
Constant spinning
without
sound.

Margaret Simon, (c) 2018

 

 

Bayou Song Interview on KRVS:

If you are interested in hearing an interview with me on our local public radio station, click this link and go to “Interview.”

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Slice of Life: When Poems Come

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged on September 11, 2018| 7 Comments »

See more posts at Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life .

I am a writer.  I am a poet.  I am also a failure every day.

There is a myth about publishing, that once you get published, the writing becomes easier.  I know that can’t be true.  I’ve read enough blogs from authors to know this, but I’ve had days recently in which I’ve felt like I’ll never write another good poem. Ever.

I think the problem lies in how I am approaching my writing life these days.  I expect to be motivated.  I expect the words to come.  And when they don’t, I feel a flood of failure.  The kind that whispers in my head, “You will never write again.”

I’ve had writing partners go through this and my advice is always, give it time, take a break, go for a walk.  These are all things I give myself permission to do, but when it goes on for days and days, it’s cause for concern.

Early in the morning sitting with my coffee and Charlie on my lap, I looked outside and said to myself, “How is it the cypress trees know that it’s September?”

I didn’t have my notebook.  It was in my school bag in the trunk of my car.  I didn’t want to go outside with bare feet to get it.  And besides, I was worried the muse would escape if I did that.  So I grabbed a nearby pad of paper and wrote a quick poem.  This simple response relieved my writer’s block. Still when I went back to my work in progress, things were no better, but I calmed my disdain with my new poem.  I got up and went to the study where I keep the old typewriter my son-in-law bought me at an estate sale and plinked the September poem, cut it out, and glued it into a beautiful handmade journal I reserve for these private musings.  Ah, there.

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Slice of Life: Sign It!

Posted in Bayou Song, Slice of Life, Travel, Writing, tagged , on September 4, 2018| 5 Comments »

Louisiana booth in the Parade of States.

Bayou Song was featured at the Louisiana booth at the National Book Festival. This was a fun yet humbling experience. Kids crowded our table wanting Mardi Gras beads and a stamp from our state. I stood on the side like a protective mother to my book. Occasionally an adult would take interest and want to talk. I had a number of good conversations about teaching, poetry, and writing. One parent and child asked me to sign the bookmark. I felt like Vashti from The Dot. Really? Yes, sign it.

A man picked up Bayou Song and as I reached out to grab it back, I realized he was reading a poem aloud to his infant son while a taller, school-aged boy clung to him. So heartwarming to see this scene in the midst of the crowd.  He explained that he is a stay-at-home dad and he reads poetry to his children every day.

 

The National Book Festival is a huge free event that promotes literacy on all levels. On the kid level, there were activities and talks by authors like Kate DiCamillo, Dan Santat, and Jason Reynolds.  For grown-up readers, there were some big names like Sonia Sotomayor, Amy Tan, and Roxanne Gay.

Poetry Friday friends Heidi Mordhorst, immediate right of the sign, and Linda Mitchell next to her. Heidi said, “Poetry is the means by which a person knows her place.”

The highlight of my day was to see two of my writing critique friends face to face. We palled around to a talk with poets laureate Tracy K Smith and Robert Haas. We also heard from a new-to-us author Suzanne Slade who presented about her new book Countdown. It’s written in verse! With amazing photos and illustrations.

Later in the day as I waited for my husband who was listening to Jon Meacham, I saw Suzanne walking by. I waved her down and not only was able to get her to sign her book, but we also had a great chat about writing and publishing. Authors are just regular people who love to talk about their work.

On Sunday, my husband and I worshiped at the National Cathedral and toured the Holocaust Museum. I was moved by both experiences in different ways.  Our nation’s capital is an awe-inspiring place to visit.  My husband agreed and said he’d accompany me on any author trips.  He enjoyed being my “roadie.”

 

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Slice of Life: The Letter You Saved

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged , on August 28, 2018| 14 Comments »

See more posts at Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life .

Take Down the Letters: A play will be presented at Cité des Arts, Lafayette, LA on Sept. 14, 15, 16.

I met Sue Shleifer with a mutual friend a few years ago. She’s a writer, and my friend thought we would enjoy meeting each other. At our lunch together, Sue mentioned a box of letters that she had written to her boyfriend over the course of ten years from age 18-28. The box had been sent to her by his widow. He died young at age 50. Sue wanted to create something from these letters, but at that time, she wasn’t sure what.

Fast forward three years: Sue has written a full length play that will be presented in mid-September. As part of the grant, she had to give a free writing workshop. She contacted me to assist with the poetry writing session. The premise was very similar to the inspiration for her play: Bring in a letter that you would like to use to write a scene or a poem.

After Sue and I met to discuss the workshop plan, I asked Jeff, “Don’t we have some letters from your grandfather to your grandmother in the secret drawer in her desk?” He couldn’t remember, so we looked. The secret drawer is in the top of the desk and can only be opened by pressing a button underneath the drawer in a closed compartment. And sure enough there they were. Letters from the summer of 1925.

According to my mother-in-law, their daughter, they were married in City Hall in New York City. And shortly after, her mother traveled home to Canada to vacation with her family for a month. C was very much in love, and the letters are romantic. “Probably why she kept them,” Jeff said.

Imagine the time period: the only mode of communication was by letter. C wrote pages and pages in fine calligraphy-style handwriting. The one that was most poetic was the last letter of August 8, 1925. In this one, he used a repeated line “Bring back…” I created a poem by finding the poem in his letter.

If you come in on the 7:47, bring the bathing suit with you.
And bring back yourself even if you forget all of the above.

Bring back that dark brown hair I love,
the big wavy curl that hangs
continuously over your left eye.

Bring back the eyes looking into mine
telling me you are mine.
Bring back the nose,
your quivering lips–silent.

Bring back the arms that have hugged me
so tightly–a little tighter still, because–
because they wanted to.

Bring back your heart, that electric spark
thrilling my toes, my body to my head
and down again–and again.

Bring back the mystery, the wonder,
the sweetness that is yours.
I will take it all, put my arms around it
all, and hug, and kiss, and love it
for ages and ages.
Will you?

–Margaret Simon (c) 2018 with words by Cecil Lennan, 1925.

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Slice of Life: Let it Be

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, tagged on August 21, 2018| 13 Comments »

See more posts at Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life .

 

The beginning of school is a tough time.  Learning new routines, establishing a safe space, and getting to know your students takes time.  And then there are the directives, the process of finding the way to fit your teaching philosophy into the constraints of district guidelines.  I feel the strain.  As fun as it is to see those kids you missed over the summer, and to reconnect with faculty friends, the stress can be overwhelming.

Without going into too many details, I had that kind of beginning.  I took all this stress with me to a yoga class out in the open air pavilion downtown.  Susan was playing music and singing while Laurie led us in sun salutations.  Near the end of this invigorating exercise, Susan sang “Let it Be.”  Her voice entered into my soul and the chorus became a mantra, “Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.”

I watched Karaoke Carpool with Paul McCartney.  If you haven’t seen this yet, you should watch it.  Paul tells the story of how he came to write the song.  He had a dream about his deceased mother who told him, “Let it be.”  There are many things that are not in our control.  I am reminded of the serenity prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Using the words in a golden shovel, I wrote this poem:

Someone is speaking.
I can’t hear the words.
I look into the eyes of
love and know wisdom.
It is mine to let
go or choose to let it
get to me. I choose to let it be.

Margaret Simon, (c) draft 2018

Susan painted this mural in the yoga room.

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