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Cover Reveal: Bayou Song

Posted in Bayou Song, Poetry, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged Anna Cantrell, bayou, Bayou Song, UL Press on April 27, 2018| 20 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Irene at Live Your Poem.

The time has come to let you all in on a very exciting adventure, my first poetry book for children, Bayou Song: Creative Explorations of the South Louisiana Landscape.

This unique book that combines poetry, nonfiction text, photographs, and illustrations with invitations to write and draw will be published by UL Press on June 18, 2018.

This week I wrote an anticipatory poem prompted by Amy VanDerwater’s exercise in writing striking words.

Publication Day

I’m flabbergasted
by anticipation,
dizzy with expectation,
nauseous
with nervousness.

I’m sidestepping
assumption,
antsy for predictions,
impatient
for beliefpower
to hurtle into
my psyche.

I’m dancing
with my destiny
with heebie-jeebies
and butterflies
splitting me into
a hive of many bees.

The day of publication is near.

–Margaret Simon, (c) 2018

I am so pleased with my illustrator, Anna Cantrell. She was a delight to work with. She is young and enthusiastic. Follow her on Instagram at jarofpencils.

I’ve received a few awesome blurbs. Love this one from Ava Leavell Haymon, former Louisiana poet laureate. It’s probably too long for the back cover, but I want to savor every word regardless.

A love-song to the Bayou Teche, this inviting book creates its own universe. I suspect there are multiple paths for us to enter that universe, but I am drawn in immediately by Anna Cantrell’s luminous watercolor illustrations, a gift to us from her precise observation and quiet love for her subjects. And then Henry Cancienne’s photographs add another layer of beauty and understanding. Then I come to brief paragraphs of information, enough to arouse curiosity but press me with too many facts. Then — what a treasure box this little book is! — Margaret Simon’s poems, each one born of minute observation and winsome appreciation of this Bayou universe. And nestled into all of this are Simon’s suggestions for writing a poem of our own in the manner of the one we’ve just read, and a little space right there to do so. Experienced teacher, she suggests with a light touch and offers inviting tricks to make our writing easy.

This is a generous, generative book that gives and gives and does not make demands. My fingers were itching to hold a pencil, a canoe paddle, a watercolor set, a camera. I leave its universe a little sad to go, but refreshed in my love of the Louisiana bayous and with my own creativity restored. Ava Leavell Haymon

If you would like to participate in a blog tour, please fill out the form below. Select a date that works for you (between June 18-August 18) In the comments, let me know your ideas for your post as well as your snail mail address. I will make a schedule and send you a pdf of the book.

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨

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Slice of Life: How Poetry Enters the Social Studies Door

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Teaching, Writing, tagged Nonfiction poetry on April 24, 2018| 10 Comments »

See more posts at Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life .

Social Studies is not my area of expertise, so last week I found a way to let poetry come in the door. I pull a group of gifted students for their Social Studies class. I needed to teach these kids about the Civil Rights Movement. Equipped with website links, videos, and articles, we explored three major events: Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-in, March on Washington, and the Montgomery bus boycott. As a way to synthesize the information, we wrote poems together. Our discussion about these events included what important information to include and how to make it into a poem.

In the Woolworth’s store,
four brave students,
as brave as can be
sat at the lunch counter
and would not leave.

Several more the next day
sat with those brave boys
they took Mr. Woolworth’s
breath away.

News spread, far and wide.
Three hundred more stood by their side.

To get their minds straight
and stop segregation,
they worked hard, stood strong.
It’s not time to have fun.
There is still work to be done.

–Mrs. Simon’s class

Dear Rosa Parks,

You are a hero for all of America.
I really appreciate
that everyone can ride together.
You refused to give up your seat.
You inspire us to fight
for what we believe in.

Because of you,
segregation on buses ended.
You befriended yourself in my eyes
through your bravery in the Montgomery Bus Boycott
sewing together minds for integration.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Simon’s Sea

Another group of my kiddos was featured on Today’s Little Ditty with their dinosaur poems.

If you would like to participate in a round up of poetry about photos, join the photo/poem exchange on my blog, More than Meets the Eye.

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#NPM2018: 13 Ways of Looking at a Heron

Posted in Poetry, Writing, tagged ekphrastic poetry, John Gibson art, Wallace Stevens on April 23, 2018| 2 Comments »

National Poetry Month 2018

Heron in Flight by John Gibson

After Wallace Stevens, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.

Taking flight,
one heron, great and blue,
lifts on kite-wings.

II.

At daybreak, he stalks
early risers
stealthily staring
at the water’s surface.

III.

The heron looks long
at his own reflection,
beauty knows beauty.

IV.

Straight as an arrow on a hunt
for its mark, heron’s beak
pierces the sky.

Sun beams dance on waves
winking at heron’s stature,
inviting his participation
in the day.

VI.

My totem, Heron,
teach me
your lessons of grace.

VII.

As evening falls, heron
circles back
to tell me good night.

VIII.

Times with heron
I value silence
and know God.

IX.

Heron’s squawk
scrapes on Goose’s last nerve.
A cacophony on courthouse steps.

At the sight of heron flying,
barely skimming water’s surface,
even playful children
stop and admire.

XI.

Heron lifts his wing
to preen like an awkward teen
crumples over his tall body
to tie his shoelace.

XII.

A storm raged during the night,
heron stood still
never losing his grip
on the fallen log.

XIII.

I haven’t seen Heron for days.
He will return. He may not return.
The light on the lake fades.

If you are interested in joining a photo-poetry exchange I am hosting, click here.

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#NPM2018: Time to Fill the Well

Posted in Writing on April 22, 2018| 6 Comments »

National Poetry Month 2018

I didn’t post yesterday. I needed a day off. The week was long, and my well was dry. I took the day for myself. I started with a much needed yoga class. I’d been away from this practice for too long. I had lunch with my daughter and son-in-law, then ventured over to an art show, The Big Easel. There I saturated myself with art and art talk. After the art show, I had a luxurious massage. I feel a twinge of guilt about this indulgence, but my monthly massages keep me healthy and pain free.

When I arrived back home, I watched hummingbirds at the feeder and other birds around the bayou and just chilled out. My notebook was nearby, so I did write a poem. I was comforted in knowing the muse hadn’t left. I just needed to fill the well back up.

Quilt painting by T. Chase Nelson

One of the artists I talked with painted the painting I am featuring today for ekphrastic poetry, T. Chase Nelson. When I first saw the painting, I thought it was a quilt. He explained to me that his inspiration was the quilts of Gee’s Bend. I am familiar with these quilts through a fellow poet-blogger Irene Latham who wrote Leaving Gee’s Bend.

For my poem, I took a line from Elisabeth Ellington’s Poem “Where do you Come From?” She wrote that each line of her poem was the translated name of a real place. I responded that each line sounded like the title of a poem, so I took one to begin my poem and used it as a title first line.

Land Beside the Silvery River

where Nettie sews pieces
together like a life
of patchy soil, a garden with
a shady oak and a rope swing
for the grandchillen’ coming
for supper.

Across the river, life
rolls onto a highway.
But in Gee’s Bend,
an inlet of fertile soil,
life slows to the rhythm
of the silvery river.

–Margaret Simon (c) 2018

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#NPM2018: Star

Posted in Poetry, Writing, tagged ekphrastic poetry, Jane Yolen, Sarah Hazel, septercet on April 19, 2018| 3 Comments »

Star by Sarah Hazel

In a field of bluebonnets,
cockerpoo smiles for the Sky.
Royal Star of prairie grass.

Joy twinkles in his Star-eyes,
Inspiration for Sarah’s
hand to oil majestic poise.

This pet portrait looks just like my childhood dog, Lucky. I was drawn in immediately, but the poem was elusive. When I struggle with a poem, I often turn to form to guide me. This one became a septercet, stanzas of three lines with seven syllables each. Jane Yolen created the septercet.

Words are another hurdle, so I Googled bluebonnets and collected words. The dog’s name is Star, but I decided to also capitalize Sky as if it is a character in the poem. Sarah is the artist, and Joy is one of her daughters. To see more of Sarah Hazel’s art, click here.

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#NPM2018: After Vespers

Posted in Poetry, Writing, tagged ekphrastic poetry, John Gibson art, St. Joseph's Monastery on April 11, 2018| 5 Comments »

National Poetry Month 2018

After Vespers by John Gibson

The mist calls them forth
from Vespers into evening.

Prayers echo like bells,
rising like incense before them.

Brother Anselm hums Hodie
holding tones with his breath.

Together they pray, again and again
invoking blessings, psalms, forgiveness

for a world in peril, a world outside the mist,
a world released from her sins.

Now, Lord, let your servant depart in peace.

Commentary:
This drawing is set at St. Joseph’s Abbey near Covington, LA. where my father’s best childhood friend, Billy, was a Benedictine monk. Brother Anselm, as he was named in the Abbey, is the short one in the drawing. I remember fondly visiting him there. He was a musician, organist and cantor, so I can imagine him humming after the service. He also had a hilarious, ironic wit that I couldn’t capture in this poem. Brother Anselm died a few years ago, but his spirit lives on in the music of St. Joseph’s Abbey.

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#NPM2018: Afternoon Light

Posted in Poetry, Writing, tagged ekphrastic poetry, John Gibson, National Poetry Month on April 10, 2018| 13 Comments »

National Poetry Month 2018

See more posts at Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life .

Afternoon Light by John Gibson

Sometimes it’s in the details of the day,
these spokes of wheel, pattern of brick, leaf fall.

Sometimes it’s the conversation you hear,
standing by, eavesdropping, that gossip-talk.

Sometimes it’s the way you walk to and fro,
wandering through tall grass and stepping into light.

“A poet needs to keep his wilderness alive inside him.” Stanley Kunitz

As I write a poem every day to my father’s incredible art, I feel unworthy, like a child waiting for a parent’s approval. When I wrote the poem above and many of the ones I’ve done this month, I hear the echo of a first line in my head. I go with it and follow it through the path to a poem. Sometimes I don’t think it’s really me writing. More like scribing. The Stanley Kunitz quote above speaks to this wilderness inside me where poems live. I’ve decided to trust this voice even when I don’t really understand her.

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#NPM2018: Raven

Posted in Poetry, Writing, tagged John Gibson, National Poetry Month, raven mythology, tanka on April 9, 2018| 1 Comment »

National Poetry Month 2018

Raven by John Gibson

Raven lights a fire
before dawning of sunrise,
forewarning of death,

calms darkness before released
hatred causes senseless grief.

Tanka: The Japanese tanka is a thirty-one-syllable poem, traditionally written in a single unbroken line. A form of waka, Japanese song or verse, tanka translates as “short song,” and is better known in its five-line, 5/7/5/7/7 syllable count form. From Poets.org

“The Irish goddess, Morrighan, had a number of different guises. In her aspect as bloodthirsty goddess of war, she was thought to be present on the battlefield in the form of a raven.” From Trees for Life, Mythology and Folklore.

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#NPM2018: Afternoon

Posted in Poetry, Writing, tagged ekphrastic poetry, John Gibson, PoemCrazy on April 4, 2018| 13 Comments »

National Poetry Month 2018

Afternoon by John Gibson

I come from an ocean of afternoons
where the sun hangs
onto the sky
splashing shadows long.

I pedal my bicycle
along the path
racing with the wind,
my hair flying like curly kite ribbons.

I come from this afternoon,
an open endless time
holding onto the handlebars,
then letting go…

Just to test my balance.

From PoemCrazy p.64: “Look for a place in a picture that feels like somewhere you’ve come from. Begin to write about where you feel you come from.”

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#NPM2018: Doves

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged ekphrastic poetry, John Gibson, skinny poem on April 3, 2018| 14 Comments »

National Poetry Month 2018

See more posts at Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life .

For National Poetry Month, I am writing poems to art, ekphrastic poetry. My father has generously offered his art work for my project. He works in pen and ink, using a method called pointillism in which tiny dots create the image. The white spaces are defined by the dark.

Doves by John Gibson

Turtle doves are nesting
in
sanctified
altars,
hovering
in
holy
spaces.
Tranquility
in
nesting turtle doves.

Skinny Poetry Form: A Skinny is a short poem form that consists of eleven lines. The first and eleventh lines can be any length (although shorter lines are favored). The eleventh and last line must be repeated using the same words from the first and opening line (however, they can be rearranged). The second, sixth, and tenth lines must be identical. All the lines in this form, except for the first and last lines, must be comprised of ONLY one word. The Skinny was created by Truth Thomas in the Tony Medina Poetry Workshop at Howard University in 2005.

“Names are powerful. They influence our perception. The Chinese master Confucius believed all wisdom came from learning to call things by the right name.” PoemCrazy by Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge

The name turtle doves originates from the Hebrew word tor meaning twice, which became tur tur, transliterated into English as turtle dove. Thus turtle doves have nothing to do with turtles. They are referred to often in the Bible.

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