And here is today’s new line from poet Janet Clare Fagal, a blogless soul who posts on Facebook as Janet Clare and whose poems can be found in a variety of anthologies (pictured below), and online at nlapw.org. If you are not a Facebook friend, please send Janet a request if you would like to connect!
I am happy to be participating once again in the Poetry Friday Progressive Poem! Thanks to Margaret for hosting me this year.
Such an adventure we have begun. I tried a little formatting to get a feel for the bones of our poem, but please feel free to try your own version as we move along down the path! For my line, I found one from Neil Gaiman, and using my poetic license, I adapted/edited the line to make it work a bit better for the poem. I am eager to pass the poem to my friend Jone Rush MacCulloch!
Don’t we all love the adventure of April in this wonderfully creative Blogosphere of Kidlitosphere poets and writers! I am so glad you started this Progressive Poem, Irene, I look forward to it every April.
Where they were going, there were no maps.
Sorry! I don’t want any adventures, thank you. Not Today.
Take the adventure, heed the call, now ere the irrevocable moment passes!
We have to go back. I forgot something.
But it’s spring, and the world is puddle-wonderful, so we’ll whistle and dance and set off on our way.
Come with me, and you’ll be in a land of pure imagination.
Wherever you go, take your hopes, pack your dreams, and never forget – it is on our journeys that discoveries are made.
And then it was time for singing.
Can you sing with all the voices of the mountain, paint with all the colors of the wind, freewheeling through an endless diamond sky?
Suddenly, they stopped and realized they weren’t the only ones singing.
(Now for my addition! An adapted line from Cinnamon by Neil Gaiman.)
Listen, a chattering of monkeys! Let’s smell the dawn and taste the moonlight, we’ll watch it all spread out before us.
Lines 1 -11, poet and where they are from:
Irene (The Imaginaries)
Donna (The Hobbit)
Catherine F. (The Wind in The Willows)
Mary Lee (Walk Two Moons)
Buffy Silverman (a bit from e.e. cummings)
Linda Mitchell (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory)
Kim Johnson (from Maybe by Kobi Yamada)
Rose Cappelli (Sarah, Plain and Tall)
Carol Varsalona (Disney Songs)
Linda Baie (The Other Way to Listen.)
Janet Clare Fagal (line adaptation from Cinnamon by Neil Gaiman)
It’s festival season and most of them are back from a long Covid break. All week I introduced different poetry forms to my students. They could choose their own topics. Coincidentally two chose to write about upcoming festivals using the dodoitsu form. Dodoitsu is a Japanese form that uses the syllable count of 7,7,7,5. Avalyn, 2nd grade, wrote about the Lao New Year Festival. Avalyn’s family belongs to the Buddhist Temple located in Coteau, a suburb of New Iberia. In the 70’s Laotian immigrants were aided by Catholic Services to purchase land to build a temple. Every year around Easter, the community celebrates the Lao New Year. Avalyn is looking forward to it with enthusiasm. She wrote a cherita here. I’m sharing her dodoitsu.
The Spanish Festival queen is a substitute teacher at our school, so she and her cohort visited the school to promote the Spanish Festival happening this weekend in New Iberia. This beautiful crocheted canopy is on display downtown.
Crochet Canopy in downtown New Iberia
Chloe was prompted by the queen’s visit to write her dodoitsu about the Spanish festival.
I met Allan Wolf years ago when he visited and presented in our area. He’s incredibly entertaining in real life. He is also one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. So when an opportunity appeared to get an ARC of his latest book of poems, along with an interview, I jumped at it.
Behold our Magical Garden is full of poems that take us into a school garden. You can jump in without getting dirty. The poems are lyrical, funny, and informative. They beg to be read aloud. Behold Our Magical Garden was released on March 8. Please enjoy this delightful interview with Allan.
Allan Wolf is a member of the species Poemo sapien. He often vocalizes in verse from atop chairs. He spends many hours alone sitting at his nest using his imagination to make things. Although he is 59 years old and 5’8” in height, he imagines himself much younger and much taller. He is a writer of poetry, novels, and picture books, and a serious believer in the healing powers of poetry. His latest collection of poems is Behold Our Magical Garden: Poems Fresh from a School Garden, illustrated by Daniel Duncan.
What inspires your writing?
Reading is a big inspiration. Listening to music. Watching performances of all kinds. Observing and experiencing any creative expression that resonates and moves me. While I certainly am a writer, I am more specifically a creator. I have an urge to create. We all have these urges to create life from the clay of our imaginations. And in that respect, we are all amateur gods. Writing and poetry is my default medium.
Why poetry?
Since I first discovered rhythm when I was four years old (I remember it as if it was yesterday!), my thought process has lent itself well to poetry, metaphorical thought, rhythms, rhymes, music, story. And most importantly, my brain is something of a non-linear array of constellations of thought bubbles, with observations flying in and out, unbidden as birds.
Words give a poem sense, while the space between the words give it resonance. Poets can arrange words based on craft, style, and clarity, just as prose writers do. But poets don’t have to stop there. Poets can arrange words based on prescribed patterns . . . or not. Poets can even arrange words wherever the words instruct them too. Space is key. Space between words. Space between lines. You can even remove a word, like you would remove a superfluous wisdom tooth. Line-breaks can be purposefully clunky or smooth. When a line breaks, the words turn. The poem’s rhythm may also turn. The poem’s pace may turn as well. The reader’s eyes, heartbeat, and attention all turn. (Bonus Fact: The word “verse” comes from the Latin, verso, to turn.)
The poet chooses
where
the lines break.
Three things you love?
One) I love juggling (just juggling balls, not clubs, or rubber chickens, or chainsaws! Well, maybe I would love to juggle rubber chickens. That would be really funny!)
Two) I love making music, playing the guitar and the drums, singing, and making up songs.
Three) I love being an author of books! There is such a feeling of closure to have your thoughts and ideas and words and revelations enshrined within a book that is widely available to all. It is a sense of relief, that my words will continue to live and to speak, long after I’ve stopped doing either one.
Oh and, Four) Puppets! Let’s not forget puppets. I love puppets.
During the pandemic, how did you keep creating?
Like many of my writing colleagues, I was surprised how hard it was to keep creating new work, even with two years of mandatory “free time.” I had already been reassessing my work, even before the pandemic. At that time the Black Lives Matter and Me Too movements were already in full swing. As a white male writer, I felt like it was more a time to listen than to speak. Then the pandemic, with its forced stay-at-home quarantine, provided the necessary Petri dish to amplify the whole conversation. During that time, I temporarily set aside my most pressing novel, the one I’m back at work on now. It has taken me all this time away from it to reassess what I was trying to say. So much has changed. Meanwhile, throughout my writer’s block, I was actually writing poetry and picture books, which can be a little easier to carry around in your head without going nuts. I also made a lot of videos and I organized my private journals (which I’ve been keeping since I was 12 years old).
What are you most proud of?
I’m most proud of my wife and my children, Simon, Ethan, and James. As for writing, it’s hard to say. I’m proud of the Iceberg character/narrator in The Watch that Ends the Night. That character’s voice is written in iambic pentameter that gradually melts to tetrameter, trimeter, dimeter, and finally, monometer. The Iceberg’s last two spoken words, “I am,” are actually an iamb!
Do you have a writing activity to pass along? (I’d like to challenge my readers and my students to respond.)
What’s In a Name?
ONE) Begin by generating a list of all the “names” you are known by. General Names, like son, daughter, best friend, hero, helper, athlete, or alchemist. And Specific Names like Elizabeth, LaQuesha, Darius, or David. And Nicknames like Doodle, Tutu, Junior, or Jack.
TWO) Choose one example from your list. Using informal prose write “the story of your name.”
THREE) After you’re done, circle (or highlight) five to ten words or phrases that seem integral to your story. Next, use those chosen words or phrases as the building blocks of a poem.
Note to readers: If you do Allan’s challenge, add your poem to this padlet.
In a tiny seedling, the size of a mustard seed, God’s love is hiding, germinating, taking time. I will come back to myself. I know this. But maybe not today.
I need to give myself grace.
Yesterday I got an email from a friend who knows that my One Little Word is Enough. She shared Seth Godin’s blog.
And maybe it’s enough To feel sufficient, to be satisfied with what we have: Chisoku in Japanese.
Of course, by some measures, there’s never enough. We can always come up with a reason why more is better, or better is better, or new is better or different is better.
Enough becomes a choice, not a measure of science.
The essence of choice is that it belongs to each of us. And if you decide you have enough, then you do.
And with that choice comes a remarkable sort of freedom. The freedom to be still, to become aware and to stop hiding from the living that’s yet to be done.
This concept of enough challenges me to make a choice. A choice to be OK when things are not.
The words from the hymn “I Bind Unto Myself Today” are words of commitment, traditionally sung at ordinations and on All Saints Day. The chorus can be like a chant, a meditation:
Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.
I pray this day that I can claim this comforting chant, resolve to accept what things I cannot change, and be ready to move forward in peace.
What a full weekend! The Books along the Teche Literary Festival was held in New Iberia. On Saturday, my friend, artist Paul Schexnayder and I led a children’s workshop. He taught the art part and I led the poem part: Poem Portraits. The kids wrote a bio-poem and decorated a cardboard face with Picasso-esque facial designs.
Student portrait
Outside in Blue Dog Park, there was a children’s authors area, but I decided not to sit and sell books this year. I had a good time supporting my SCBWI friends, hanging out at their tables, chatting and selling their books.
It certainly helped that the weather was probably the best we’ve had all year.
Blue Dog Park was the location of the Children’s Author Tents
For Ethical ELA, Gae Polisner and Lori Landau led the prompt with a suggestion to choose a line from another writer’s poem and create your own poem. They called it Collaboration Inspiration and it was probably the most prolific day for writing so far. Pop over to read the amazing poetic responses and to be inspired yourself. I borrowed my first line from Stacy: “Yesterday I wore only a sweater.”
Yesterday I wore only a sweater Cream-colored comfort in the morning chill. I left it on a folding chair in the children’s authors’ tent where we joyfully greeted a couple from Ohio who loved children and storybooks and the craft of illustration.
A book festival can be an inadequate space, sitting for hours no sales in sight pondering imposter syndrome.
Yet on this April day I dropped my sweater, tossed my discomfort to sunshine and a circle of writers who fed my soul and warmed my shoulders– no sweater needed.
I am participating in Ethical ELA VerseLove. On Saturday, the prompt was given by Emily Yamasaki, a teacher in San Diego. She led us to write a poem after things I have memorized by Maria Giesbrecht. To me, scent is a memory maker, so most of my lines center around smell.
Things I have Memorized (randomly ordered)
The smell of coffee and pancakes on Saturday morning How many turns and stop signs in the circle drive from Beechcrest to Sedgewick Hum-buzz of a hummer at the feeder First words Stench of our house after the flood Sparkle of diamond Scent of his cheek on the pillow Honeysuckle, Sweet olive, and Aunt Alabel’s perfume Recipe for cornbread dressing My childhood phone number (956-2526) The Lord’s Prayer, My Country ‘Tis of Thee, and Itsy Bitsy Spider
Margaret Simon, draft
Hummingbird at the feeder in my backyard. Taken August 30th. Photo by Margaret Simon
Today is Poetry Friday and April 1st and the first day of National Poetry Month. My Sunday writing critique group, the Inklings, take on a challenge each first Friday of the month. This month’s challenge comes from Mary Lee Hahn. She suggested that we write a poem like Ellen Bass The Thing Is. Another Inkling, Heidi has the round up this week.
My One Little Word 2022 is Enough. It surprises me how often enough appears in the poems I write. It’s happened again.
The Thing Is
after Ellen Bass
to become yourself, become you more fully even if you don’t like what you see. Even as the river dries, revealing cracks in the surface, displaying a dump of glass bottles as the only thing binding you to this place. You are who you are. You have this one wild life to live, no matter the manifest; That face in the mirror is yours, hold it with affection, send it a kiss like the dew on the womb of the morning*, praising This is Good. This self is enough. You will love her more and more every day.
* Psalm 110:3 Margaret Simon, draft
Azalea morning Pink echoes dawn sky Radiant spring (c) Margaret Simon
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Today is March 31st, and I have successfully written a blog post every day this month. Today, many of us in the Two Writing Teachers community are breathing a little easier knowing we made it. Earlier this year, I received an Emergency Encouragement Writing Kit from Irene Latham. When it came time to make a new journal cover, I cut out this quote and placed it front and center.
I don’t always (actually, rarely do I) believe it to be true. But just in case it is what the world needs from me, I keep at it. I have to thank you, my dear reader, for your dedication to listening. You honor me with your presence.
According to Kate DiCamillo, writing is a “sacred task”. And though I am not and never will be a writer like Kate, I believe that what I do here is sacred.
It matters. Story matters. What we do matters.
I attended a mental health seminar last night. I was pleasantly surprised that there was food and wine. The intention of the evening was to let teachers know their own self-worth. The speaker was a local counselor who talked about ways to take care of ourselves. She repeated a mantra: “I am worthy. I am enough. I am amazing.”
We all have times when we feel like imposters. Writing a blog post each day that friends and strangers can read makes you vulnerable. Often I feel like I don’t know what I am doing. Thank you for reading and appreciating and caring.
Tomorrow begins a new chapter: National Poetry Month. I am committing to writing a poem each day and leading my students to do the same. April is my favorite month of the year. Click here to read a post I wrote for Cardinal Rule Press about National Poetry Month. Happy writing. Happy reading.
Margaret Simon lives on the Bayou Teche in New Iberia, Louisiana. She is a retired elementary gifted teacher who writes poetry and children's books. Welcome to a space of peace, poetry, and personal reflection. Walk in kindness.
Reflections on the Teche 
