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Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category

Fractals in Nature and in Poetry

Posted in Creativity, Gifted Education, Poetry, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , , on May 18, 2018| 12 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Rebecca at Sloth Reads.

As school winds down, I keep teaching.  I haven’t pulled out a movie yet.  I haven’t started packing (not significantly, anyway).  I want to savor every moment with my kiddos and want them to enjoy every moment left with me.

On Wednesday, we held our annual Gifted by Nature Day when all the gifted kids in the parish elementary schools gather in City Park for a day of nature, learning, and play.  This year our theme focused on fractals.  Do you know what a fractal is? Here’s a collage of fractals in nature:

Fractals in Nature

 

To follow up on the learning from our day in the park, I reviewed fractals and provided art supplies for students to paint a chosen fractal from nature.  Did you know that the Fibonacci series is a fractal?  Of course, we had to write fib poems.  I used this post by Catherine Flynn as a model text.  I wrote a model fib poem based on a fractal in nature.  Then sent them out to create.  Here’s a gallery of art and poems.

 

Lightning

by Jasmine, 6th grade

Boom
Clap
The sound
Lightning makes
Spreading through the sky
Sharing its color with the world
Fascinating us with its beauty, but deadliness

Peacock Feather by Lynzee

Fib
Bird
Feather
Natural
Beautifully swirls
Fractal stares from a peacock’s wing

by Lynzee, 3rd grade

 

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Silent Sunday Mother’s Day

Posted in Writing on May 13, 2018| Leave a Comment »

A rose among thorns

Mother’s heart and hands

Love most complete

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Poetry Friday: Sharing Poetry Love with Amy VanDerwater

Posted in Digital Learning, Gifted Education, Poetry, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged on May 12, 2018| 12 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Jama at Jama’s Alphabet Soup.

 

Students proudly read their poems to Amy VanDerwater.

My students and I spent the month of April glued to The Poem Farm.  What would Orion’s adventure be today?  What technique was Ms. Amy VanDerwater teaching us?

After a month of writing poems, we couldn’t wait to meet Amy in person, virtually. Before any question was asked, Amy asked my students to share poems that they had written.  The pride! The joy! And her amazing responses!

Amy talked about her writing process, showed us her messy notebook pages, and gave us wonderful advice for writing.

Mason asked her how to write rhyming poems.  She gave us all a wonderful lesson on rhyming.  You can use rhymezone or a rhyming dictionary, she explained.  Then she showed us a notebook page where she had written the alphabet.  She works through the alphabet to try to find a rhyming word with the meaning she wants to convey.  She emphasized that the meaning is most important, so if you can’t find a word to rhyme, try a synonym.  After our Skype visit, Mason immediately wrote a poem using the techniques she had taught.

I am holding onto Amy’s advice for my own writing as well.  She talked about how she wrote a sonnet, a form that I have yet to try.  But now I think I will.  Somehow, Amy makes me feel more brave about writing poetry.

One of her last pieces of wisdom came from a poem she read aloud to us.  Her reading was as if she were cavemom and we were here cavechildren whom she was telling to write so our writing will live on.

 

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Silent Sunday

Posted in Writing on May 6, 2018| 2 Comments »

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Cover Reveal: Bayou Song

Posted in Bayou Song, Poetry, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , , , 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 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 , , 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. 

 

I.

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.

V.

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.

X.

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.

–Margaret Simon (c) 2018

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 , , , 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.

–Margaret Simon, (c) 2018

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 , , 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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