Reflections on the Teche

Sunday Stillness: #HaikuforHope

December 23, 2018 by margaretsmn

Posted in Poetry | Tagged #haikuforhope | 5 Comments »

Poetry Friday: A Lemur on the Shelf

December 21, 2018 by margaretsmn

Poetry Friday round-up is with Buffy at Buffy’s Blog.

I have grown-up children and am very grateful for it, especially in light of the new elf-on-the-shelf craze. I think I would fail miserably at being in charge of creative ways to position an elf each night. However, when December was coming, the elf-on-the-shelf became a topic in my students’ writing. One afternoon I left the room for a bit and when I returned, my students had positioned Jack the lemur hanging from a chair. Chloe said, “I think Jack has an elf inside him!”

Since then, Jack has found many creative ways to make mischief in our classroom. This phenomenon led me to respond with a poetic letter to Jack.

Dear Jack-on-the-shelf,

Your personality is showing through
the things you like to do.
Play Bananagrams.
Spell “I Love You.”
Hang with Santa.
Curl up in tissue.
Each day, Chloe looks for you
to see where you’ll be found.
You make our class time
full of joy.
I hope you’ll stick around.

Love,
Mrs. Simon

I’ve been participating in Mary Lee Hahn’s #haikuforhope this month. On Twitter, we are all using this hashtag to share our small poems of hope. I’ve posted mine on this blog daily.

In class every day, we choose a quote to write from. On Monday, I wrote a haiku from this quote by E. S. Bouton, “True wisdom lies in gathering the precious things out of each day as it goes by.” I was talking to a friend about the birth of my grandson, and she told me about a book called Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Even within the happiest of moments, catastrophe lies. We need to use the art of mindfulness to be aware and live fully through these moments.

Gathering moments
of happy catastrophe
into precious life.

Margaret Simon

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Teaching | Tagged #haikuforhope, Elf-on-a-shelf | 12 Comments »

#HaikuforHope: Permission to Play

December 20, 2018 by margaretsmn

Over at Smack Dab in the Middle, the authors are sharing gifts. Nancy Cavanaugh wants to give the gift of wasteful time. Recently, I’ve seen more written about how when we let ourselves play around, be present, waste time, we become more creative and are better able to handle difficult problem solving. As time draws nearer to the holiday break, I am craving this down time.

I want open space
place for wasteful squandering
permission to be…

(c) Margaret Simon

Posted in Poetry | Tagged #haikuforhope, Creativity, Smack Dab in the Middle | 2 Comments »

#haikuforhope: Japanese Maple

December 20, 2018 by margaretsmn

As I perused Instagram, I found this amazing image of a Japanese maple tree posted by Cindy Voorhies Jordan, @sugarmaglafayette. We have these trees around, but I have not seen one with such a full spray of red. Cindy’s comment inspired this haiku: “The Japanese maples are ablaze this morning.”

Posted in Photography, Poetry | Tagged #haikuforhope, Cindy Voorhies Jordan, Instagram, Japanese maple | 1 Comment »

Slice of Life: Santa Clauses

December 18, 2018 by margaretsmn

Yesterday I read aloud the book Santa Clauses to my students. Written by Bob Raczka and illustrated by Chuck Groenink, Santa Clauses is a book of haiku for every day in December up to Christmas Day.

I read the opening author’s note: “Santa is a man of many talents. He’s a toymaker, a reindeer trainer, a sleigh pilot, and a world traveler. But did you know he is a poet?”

Chloe, 3rd grade, said Santa must’ve written the haiku and sent them to Bob Raczka to publish. I agreed that seemed like a reasonable idea. (I love having believers in my classroom.)

Of course, in response, we had to write our own Santa clauses. Here are a few:

So warm at nighttime
I love eating my cookies
with tasty milk cups.

by Breighlynn, 3rd grade

Paper, ribbons, bows
wrapping love in a package
Open carefully.

Margaret Simon

Rudolf is happy
that history is alive
He will tell Santa.

by Chloe, 3rd grade

I am participating in #haikuforhope along with others on Twitter. My poem today was made in Word Swag from an Instagram photo from my friend Jen Gray.

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing | Tagged #haikuforhope, Bob Raczka, Santa Clauses | 5 Comments »

Monday Muses: #HaikuforHope

December 17, 2018 by margaretsmn

Each day, a student selects a quote from the 365 Days of Wonder. Today, the quote for December 17th was the quote above. (We don’t always use the one for the day.) The word wisdom struck me, and I wrote a heart-hopeful haiku.

Wisdom lies inside
the heart, whether or not
we open it up.

(c) Margaret Simon

I also wrote one on my morning walk. In winter, camellias bloom. I thought of how they have to open their blossoms to the chilly air, and how I do not always want to open my heart. There may be chilly air about.

Being inside a bud
feels safe and warm, protected
Blooming can wait.

Posted in Poetry | Tagged #haikuforhope, inspirational quotes | 4 Comments »

Sunday Stillness: #HaikuforHope

December 17, 2018 by margaretsmn

Photo by Molly Hogan.

Can I move beyond
my blindness, blink of darkness
and see His light?
(c) Margaret Simon

Posted in Photography, Poetry | Tagged #haikuforhope, Molly Hogan | 1 Comment »

#HaikuforHope: Approach of Winter

December 15, 2018 by margaretsmn

On Friday, my students and I read a poem by William Carlos Williams, “Approach of Winter.” I subscribe to a lesson email from Poets.org that is designed for middle and high school, but occasionally the lesson works for my kids, too. You can sign up for the weekly emails here.

To get in the right mindset to write about the coming of winter, we walked outside. The plan was to go to the garden, but heavy rain the night before left multiple puddles to navigate, and then it started to misty rain, so we ran back inside. This didn’t lead into much amazing writing, but I later wrote a small poem about that misty rain.

Approach of Winter
after William Carlos Williams

The mist
like wet dust
tickles my nose
while clouds
hover
in grey sadness
dewdrops
of icy speckles
tasting
of coming cold.

(c) Margaret Simon

In keeping with the December haiku-a-day challenge, I turned thoughts to creating a shorter poem about coming winter.

Stratus clouds hover
yellow billows bending
Sweet sugar promise

(c) Margaret Simon

Posted in Poetry | Tagged Teach this Poem | 1 Comment »

Poetry Friday: Word Wandering

December 14, 2018 by margaretsmn

Poetry Friday round-up is with Laura Shovan.

One of the best parts of this Poetry Friday community is the Winter poem swap managed by Tabatha Yeats. My recipient this year was Matt Forrest Esenwine. He posted my gift and poem on his site today along with a virtual Christmas party.

I received a handmade journal and a poem from Linda Mitchell. She is in my writing group. How serendipitous! She explained that she had gathered words and phrases from one of our Zoom meetings and weaved them together into this amazing reverso poem. She also hand made the little snowman from cutting paper from an old discarded picture book.

With my students this week, we explored word wandering. I remembered first seeing this idea on Today’s Little Ditty when Michelle featured Nikki Grimes. Some great examples are included in the Best of Today’s Little Ditty, 2014-2105. Breighlynn wandered with the word bell.

Bell

by Breighlynn

Bell is a shiny word,
the music in my ears
Ding! Ding!
The bell rings for school
for lunch
even playtime
Bells help us learn
just like music.

I played around with a few words in my notebook, and each one seemed to lead me to babies. (Wonder why?)

Small is a tiny word
rolling on the page
where nothing is too small
to be noticed.

Small is my baby boy.
His lips circle and stretch
as he tastes the world.

Whenever you feel small,
think of this tiny miracle
and you will know
the truth
of pure love.

(draft) Margaret Simon