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Slice of Life: Joining the Challenge

Posted in Slice of Life, Writing, tagged on March 15, 2020| 18 Comments »

See more posts at Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life

The Two Writing Teachers blog opens up a writing challenge each year in March, the Slice of Life Challenge. I’ve participated for 8 years, but decided this year to opt out and focus on other writing projects. Alas, the coronavirus has changed so much of our lives and our thinking. Our Louisiana schools are closed for 4 weeks. I’ve been reading other Slicers’ writing and feel it’s time for me to jump in.

Life has changed so rapidly. On Wednesday of last week, I traveled to our state capital to attend the BESE board meeting where I was honored with about 50 others for National Boards Certification renewal. It was nice to be recognized. Everyone was being cautious about shaking hands, yet we were passing around a common pen and trading phones around to take pictures. No one was really taking coronavirus very seriously.

And then by Friday, our governor had closed all public schools for 4 weeks.

The announcement was so sudden that few of us had time to process what this would mean for us and for our students.

Last night my husband had a long talk with his brother who is a medical doctor in Seattle. He is not the type to panic or overreact to anything medical. However, he is serious about the spread of COVID-19. It’s an exponential growth pattern, and I’m sure most of you have read about this.

The feeling is like the days prior to a major hurricane. We are watching the news expectantly. The stores are running out of essentials. But when will the hurricane come and will it ever pass? The weather is actually beautiful which is what it strangely does before a hurricane when all the bad clouds are being pulled into the storm. I feel the ominous calm.

At this point my plan is to post on our class blog daily. I sent my students home with extra books to read. I’m in touch with parents. We will meet as a faculty on Tuesday. This is a weird time. I’m trying to stay calm and stay close to home.

How are you faring?

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This Photo Wants to be a Poem

Posted in Photography, Poetry, Writing, tagged , , on March 12, 2020| 32 Comments »

Welcome to This Photo Wants to be a Poem, a way to wake up your poetry brain. Please write a short poem (15 words or fewer) in the comments. Try to comment on other poems as well. Spread the word through sharing the link on social media.

Supermoon by Paula Bourque, used by permission.

This week’s full moon was known as the Full Worm Moon. Other names for March’s full moon are the Crow Moon, the Crust Moon, the Sap Moon, and the Lenten Moon.

This week’s moon was also a supermoon, meaning the fullness coincided with the moon at its closest point to Earth making it appear larger.

Moon, moon,
as you draw closer
I feel safer
knowing you’re
watching over me.

Margaret Simon, draft

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Poetry Friday: Questions

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , on March 6, 2020| 17 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is Rebecca at Sloth Reads

It’s another month, so that means a new challenge for the Sunday Night Poetry Swaggers. This month I posed the challenge of writing a question poem.

I had some pretty feeble starts at this one, but one day last week I was inspired by the very thing happening in our wood duck house. Last year we put up a wood duck house around this time of year, but the first clutch never hatched. We are watching through a Ring doorbell camera attached to the roof of the nest box.

We have another hen. She’s been sitting since February 24th, so projected hatch date is somewhere between March 16th and 18th. I have a good feeling about this hen. Even though we’ve had some cool nights, she sits all night and leaves once in the morning and once in the evening to feed. When she leaves, she completely covers the clutch with down, so we really have no idea how many eggs she is sitting on. We learned our lesson last year, so we will Not be going out there to check.

Stay tuned. In the meantime, my question poem.

Will She Come Again?

It’s February and we wonder
will she come again,
this wood duck mother hen?

Will she find the house we’ve built?
a box, like a cypress quilt,
waiting to be a home.

In the morning we look and see.
Papa wood duck, where is she?
Where’s your mate? Is she about?

Connected to our house WiFi,
we keep a daily eye,
a camera on the nestbox roof.

She’s in, then out, then in again,
this mother wood duck hen.
Will she lay a clutch?

How many eggs? It’s hard to tell.
She covers them all so well.
Plucks her down, soft and warm.

How does she know how?
Waiting, watching, wondering now
for twenty-eight more days.

Will wood duck chicks hatch from this downy haze? 

Margaret Simon, (c) 2020
Wood duck from Public Domain

Read more question poems from my writing pals:

Heidi Mordhorst
Catherine Flynn
Linda Mitchell
Molly Hogan

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Spiritual Thursday: Balance

Posted in Spiritual Growth, Writing, tagged on March 5, 2020| 6 Comments »

graphic created by Carol Varsalona
Round up of Spiritual Thursday posts are with Fran Haley at lit bits and pieces.

Fran Haley is hosting today, and she proposed the theme of Balance.

Balance is something I search for in my daily life. Being an introvert, I crave alone time. I think that’s why I enjoy writing so much. Writing is a quiet alone-time activity, like walking my dog or meditating or taking a long bath. ( My husband jokingly said I would love a quarantine.)

One of my students gave me this beautiful journal for Christmas. I had it in my car until on Ash Wednesday, I had an idea to carry it with me into the service. I wrote during the sermon. I wrote again this past Sunday and will try to keep this going during Lent. The writing helped me listen in a different way. Kind of like taking notes, but I also allowed my own thoughts to enter in.

I also achieve balance through yoga and meditation. There are so many ways life can get in the way of living. Taking time for myself and clearing my busy brain helps me be a better me.

For my yoga instructor and friend Susan

This weekend we were babysitting my 14-month-old grandson. By 5 in the afternoon, he was so tired that he could no longer keep his balance when walking. At first it was funny to him to walk quickly and fall, but it happened one time too many, and he ended up in tears. In a similar way, when I am exhausted, overstretched, and too busy, I get out of balance.

What ways do you use to keep your life in balance?

Helping Leo balance

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Poetry Friday: Gratitude

Posted in Gratitude, Photography, Poetry, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , on February 28, 2020| 10 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Karen Edmisten.

Linda Baie shared a video on Facebook that I immediately took up as a writing prompt. It’s a beautiful short film by Louie Schwartzberg. (See link below to watch the video)

I took a quote from the young girl at the beginning and made a golden shovel. “The path could lead to a beach or something.”

Cultivate a response to the
day; open your eyes and a path
could be there, weather could
change, and lead
to water, to
a new way to see, a
gift as joyful as a beach,
waves blessing you or
moving you to touch something.

Margaret Simon, draft response
Photo by Margaret Simon, Santa Rosa Beach Florida

Kathy Mazurowski is the winner of the book giveaway for After Dark: Poems About Nocturnal Animals by David L. Harrison, illustrated by Stephanie Laberis. Click the link to read how I used the book with my students and wrote nonfiction poems.

Take a minute to write a quick 15 word poem to this week’s This Photo Wants to be a Poem. This week is a beautiful photo by Molly Hogan.

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This Photo Wants to be a Poem:

Posted in Photography, Poetry, Writing, tagged , on February 27, 2020| 45 Comments »

Welcome to This Photo Wants to be a Poem, a low stress weekly poetic writing prompt. This week’s photo is courtesy of Molly Hogan, who is an amazing photographer/ poet/ teacher in Maine. She has sent me a few photos for this weekly prompt. (If you would like to offer any photos, please send me an email. You will get credit, but the photos will be free for reuse.)

In keeping with Laura Purdie Salas’s 15 Words or Less prompts, I encourage you to write a quick short poem. To help build a supportive community, please comment on three poems with an encouraging response.

photo by Molly Hogan

A soul in solitary
silence seeks
a soft whisper
of solace.

Margaret Simon, draft

Your turn. Leave your poem draft in the comments. Thanks!

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Slice of Life: A Swarm of Bees

Posted in Slice of Life, Writing, tagged on February 25, 2020| 5 Comments »

See more posts at Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life

On Saturday morning I was doing Saturday chores, i.e. cleaning the cat litter box. Spraying the hose into the box outside the back door, I heard a loud buzzing sound and looked up. The nearest tree is a sweet olive and when blooming, it often attracts bees. But the tree was not in bloom, and the bees were flying beyond it.

My husband, back from his morning run, thought perhaps they were in the shrubs. He walked around the carport to investigate.

“The bees are on the move!” he exclaimed.

It was an amazing sight. Bees flying everywhere and a huge cluster buzzing up high in the tree.

I took a video, of course. (I couldn’t get it to play in the blog.) I texted a few friends who keep bees, but the swarm was too high to be reached.

“They are God’s bees,” Jeff said.

God’s bees are God knows where now, but I was curious about what a swarm means.

From this source, thanks to a Google search, I learned that bee swarms occur when a colony has outgrown its space. It is a normal, natural occurrence that should not be disturbed. The bees in a swarm are not as defensive and will not sting as readily. My friend, Jim, said they are docile and fairly easy to catch and move to a container hive.

We have been experiencing an early spring this year. The temperatures are not significantly higher, but my azaleas are already blooming and the wood ducks are laying eggs in the wood duck house. We set up the Ring camera again this year and have been watching.

Nature seems to know something I don’t know.

Azaleas in my front yard blooming early in February.

Please visit my blog post from yesterday about David Harrison’s book After Dark that releases today. The publisher is offering a book giveaway.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B84hwfrF7h_GbG_05HSsEdiO-3gmgdg2AIa5iE0/
https://www.instagram.com/p/B84hwfrF7h_GbG_05HSsEdiO-3gmgdg2AIa5iE0/
https://www.instagram.com/p/B84hwfrF7h_GbG_05HSsEdiO-3gmgdg2AIa5iE0/

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After Dark Blog Tour

Posted in Blogging, Books, Poetry, Writing, tagged , on February 24, 2020| 22 Comments »

What a pleasure to take part in the After Dark blog tour. After Dark is a picture book of amazing illustrations by Stephanie Laberis and intriguing poems by David Harrison. Publication date is tomorrow, Feb. 25th. Read more about David and his many books here.

David L. Harrison

David’s poems explore the lives of nocturnal animals. In the end pages you can find more information about each animal. With my students, I started with the end pages. I asked them to select two animals they were interested in. We read the facts and then the poem. “Look for ways the poet wove the facts in with poetic language.” We noticed elements like rhyming, slant rhyme, alliteration, repetition, and others.

This reading and talking piqued our interest in finding out more. I gave students the option to select the same animal or another one to research using Wonderopolis.

Breighlynn wanted to learn more about songbirds. Earlier in the week we had discussed allusion and at the beginning of the month, we read about Maya Angelou. I love seeing all of these lessons come together in Breighlynn’s poem.

The song of a songbird
the morning alarm.
Their vibrant colors
just like a rainbow.
The smallest of birds
 make the loudest of songs.
Now,
I know why the caged bird sings.

Breighlynn, 4th grade

After reading this David Harrison poem about the gray wolf, A.J. wrote a poem contrasting wolves to dogs.

Wolves,
never tamed,
they can’t be blamed.

Dogs,
youngly trained,
though restrained.

Wolves,
running free,
free as can be.

Dogs,
fun won’t end,
with man’s best friend.

A. J. , 6th grade

One of my students asked what was the word for animals who are awake during the day. On a Wonderopolis page, we discovered the word diurnal. In the poem, No Fooling (about the raccoon), David uses assonance, creating slant rhyme. I decided to try out this element in my own poem: Where do Birds Go at Night?

Where Do Birds Go at Night?

At first light, I hear their chatter
flitting about our courtyard feeder.

But once the air of dawn is gone,
I wonder where the birds have flown.

Most birds are diurnal
living their life all day,
but where do they go
once the sun goes down?
Only nocturnal birds hang around.

Some birds find a hole big enough to squeeze in.
Others, like the heron, want some mud to wade in.
Flocks of blackbirds roost in bunches
finding their nighttime safety in numbers.

Every time you go to sleep,
wonder where the birds may be.

Margaret Simon, draft 2020

This post is part of a blog tour. The publisher has offered a free book for comments on this post. I will draw at random from commenters and post the winner’s name on Friday, Feb. 28th on my Poetry Friday post. Please leave a comment by Thursday, Feb. 27th. Winner must live in the continental U.S.

Check out other posts to hear more about this book.

Writing and Illustrating
Beyond Literacy Link
Read, Learn, and be Happy
Poetry for Children
Teacher Dance
Michelle Kogan
Salt City Verse

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Poetry Friday: Song of the Sacred

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged on February 21, 2020| 8 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Cheriee at Library Matters.

An Invitation: With Laura Purdie Salas’s blessing, I’ve started a weekly writing prompt for Thursdays in the spirit of 15 words or less. Pop over to read the poems this week about a pretty pink thistle: This Photo Wants to be a Poem.

This week my students and I read Joyce Sidman’s poem in the December issue of Scope magazine: Song of Bravery. There were a few things to notice in her poem, allusion and irony. When one normally thinks of a song, it’s something positive and praising. Joyce Sidman’s poem stated the opposite.


This one’s not a sure thing.
I’m not bound to win.
I don’t think I’ll ace it this time.
I won’t break a leg,
make my own luck,
or reach the stars.

Joyce Sidman, Song of Bravery from What the Heart Knows
read the whole poem here.

After Joyce, I wrote Song of the Sacred.

I am not a barefoot Buddha.
I cannot think and become.
I’m not singing rhyming psalms
in the present moment.

When I fall on my knees, they hurt.
I have no burnt offerings
or holy incense to light.

Maybe I pray with open hands
or maybe someone prays for me.
I’ll never know.

But here I am
stretched in savasana
humming an Om
with my eyes closed tight

Breathing to clear my mind
from the shadows of a cloudy day
to see the holy sun.

Margaret Simon, draft
Photo by David Bartus from Pexels

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Slice of Life: What I Want

Posted in Photography, Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged , on February 18, 2020| 5 Comments »

See more posts at Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life

A painted sign in my daughter’s neighborhood. We had to take a picture, but Leo, having been released from the stroller, wanted to get down and walk.

I’ve been participating in Ethical ELA’s monthly 5 day writing challenge. I love this community of friends. On Sunday, the mentor text was a poem “What I Want Is” by C. G. Hanzlicek. The prompt is here.

On Friday night and Saturday morning, we had Leo who is now 14 months and loves to walk. I took him outside in our backyard and next door to swing. My neighbor has 2 grandsons, too, so she has set up baby swings hanging from a tree. I really could not imagine anywhere else I’d rather be. So the prompt led me to this poem.

What I want is
what I have

when I’m with him
walking hand around finger

down the hill
to the bayou

to wave at the canoers
even though they don’t

see us swinging
from a rope

in the oak tree
laughing just because

there are wildflowers
too many to count

and a cool breeze
to catch our smiles on

a day of only us
pointing at birds

flying overhead
Bird 1 Bird 2

Margaret Simon after C.G. Hanzlicek

On Monday I combined the Ethical ELA prompt to write a This is Just to Say apology poem with the image posted in Laura Shovan’s February poetry project.

photo by Jone MacCulloch.

This is Just to Say

I missed the turn
to school today.
My eyes were on
the clouds

So soft and floating
like giant snowdrifts
above me in bouquets
of white roses.

Forgive me,
I’m late
my head in the clouds
dancing around in their fluff.

Margaret Simon, draft, after William Carlos Williams

Finding daily prompts in my email inbox help me to pick up the pen and notebook and make something. Creativity feeds my soul. The positive loving feedback is fun, too.

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