Reflections on the Teche

Ten Ways of Looking at a Candle

March 10, 2013 by margaretsmn

Slice of Life Challenge Day 10

The candle

At the Acadiana Wordlab yesterday, Kelly Clayton put ordinary objects on the table. Actually, some of the objects were quite weird, like the two orange plastic Neanderthal men. She called this prompt “Object Lesson.” I think she got it from Writing Alone and with Others by Pat Schneider. We had to select an object and write 10 stanzas of three lines each. It reminded me of Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens. My photo above is not the greatest, but you can see some of the other objects in the background.

I. Candle on a string
once you were two
and dipped.

II. White wax
nondescript
unscented
waiting to be lit.

III. Standing in a circle
side by side
sisters pass you around,
an ancient ritual.

IV. Set in a wreath,
counting the days
until a Savior’s birth.

V. Darkness is not dark
unless the light
knows it.

VI. Melted and scripted
with a kistka* and a steady hand,
dying reveals patterns.

VII. I will tuck you away
in my purse
in case the lights go out.

VIII. Tasting with a lick,
smooth and waxy,
reminds me of waxed lips.

IX. Wedged in a bottle
adorned with drippings,
you light our Italian meal.

X. The slight wind
created by your flame
can lift a whole balloon.

Pysanky making

*After the wordlab, I attended Art Walk and met a Slavic woman who had a show of her Pysanky eggs. Her husband was demonstrating the process using a stylus called a kistka. I had to add that to my poem. Pysanky is the ancient Eastern European art of egg decorating. The name comes from the verb to write, as you use a stylus (called a kistka) to write with wax on the egg shell. The process is similar to batik.

Pysanky egg by Nicole Holcombe

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life | Tagged Acadiana Wordlab, candle, pysanky making | 12 Comments »

Walking together, alone

March 9, 2013 by margaretsmn

Sunrise at Bay St. Louis

The Slice of Life Challenge is just that…a challenge. We must pay attention every day to our lives. We have to listen and think. We have to compose in our heads. We even dream about what we will write next. I use the proverbial we here because I’m sure all of the Slicers are experiencing this. Today is Day 9, and I was running low on the muse. I have been keeping up a day ahead, but yesterday was Friday, which translates to “I’m fried day.” I had just enough energy to take on the commenting challenge, but I wasn’t up to writing.

This morning early I texted a friend to check in. We haven’t been able to work out a get together in a while. She was, low and behold, on the beach. She sent me the picture above. She also sent me a recording of the sounds she heard, the swishing of waves and the calls of the gulls. Here is our conversation. Walking together, alone.

I’m on the beach
walking with the laughing gulls
calls and caws.

Tell them hello in gull speak.

Thanks for lighting up my cell this morning.

Missing my friend!

Missing you, yet happy to be in touch again.

What beauty you walk in. I will hold
this gift for those days when
I need a calm friend.

Sweet.

I walked outside to the sounds of mockingbirds, woodpeckers, and robins. This is my scenery, our grandmother oak standing tall and proud over the bayou. Not bad for a quiet Saturday morning.

Grandmother oak on Bayou Teche

Slice of Life Challenge Day 9

Posted in Slice of Life | Tagged Bay St. Louis, Bayou Teche, Grandmother Oak, writing muse | 14 Comments »

Butterfly Haiku

March 8, 2013 by margaretsmn

Hop on over to My Juicy Little Universe for more Poetry Friday delights.

My students are participating in the Classroom Slice of Life Challenge at Two Writing Teachers. They are writing like crazy. It makes this writing teacher so happy.

For 6 years, I have been teaching gifted elementary students. To be able to teach them all in a day, I have to mix grade levels. I have always enjoyed the richness this adds to my class. Sometimes I feel like a juggler when I have 3 different spelling tests to give, but, for the most part, the students mix well and learn a lot from each other. The class is fluid, too, because as the year goes on, I may get new students as they are identified. This year, Vannisa joined one of my groups. She is in third grade and had never written a haiku. What better time to try than in the SOLC. This week she wrote her first haiku. A few weeks ago my students did name research, and Vannisa discovered her name means “flighty.” I told her that was perfect because she flits like a butterfly all over the classroom. Not surprising her haiku is a butterfly haiku.

I have also included a group of questions Mrs. Heinisch’s class asked her in a comment on her blog. I especially love her response. Notice she mentions I Haiku You, a book I learned about on Two Writing Teachers.

Little Butterfly

Fluttering past a flower

Too small to be seen
–Vannisa

Thoughts from Mrs. Heinisch’s 6th grade class:

Why did you pick to write about butterflies?

Why did you chose to write it as a Haiku?

Do you think the word butterfly comes from flies sitting on butter?

How big was the butterfly?

Who made up the word butterfly?

Thank you for posting your Haiku today! We all enjoyed it!

Vannisa’s response:

Well it is nice to know that sixth graders are reading one of my post because I’m only in third grade.

First and second question:
I read a book called “I Haiku You” by Betsy Snyder and I decided to write a haiku. I thought it was going to be hard because a haiku is five syllables and then seven then five. It turns out it wasn’t that hard because my gifted teacher said haikus usually are making the reader put a picture in their head and that they’re usually about nature.

question three:
Actually sometimes, but my name means flighty. Like I’ll do something and then another thing.

question four:
I would say… as big an average human palm.
number five:
I don’t know, and like I said I’m only in third grade.

Slice of Life Challenge Day 8

Posted in Poetry Friday, Slice of Life | Tagged haiku | 15 Comments »

An Author Visits

March 7, 2013 by margaretsmn

Slice of Life Challenge Day 7

Yesterday our sixth grade gifted students met the author of a book they have been reading for our enrichment Wednesdays. We’ve been using project based learning while meeting monthly focusing on the theme of water. We selected the book Flood on the Rio Teche by Diane Marquart Moore for a number of reasons. One, this historical fiction novel would help the students learn about the history of New Iberia’s discovery and settlement, and Two, water is important to the story. Also, the author lives locally part of the year. We were lucky to catch her before she moves back to Sewanee, TN for the spring and summer.

Our students were interested in how she came to write the book, her inspiration and her research. But I saw the lights go on when she talked about being an author. She didn’t candy-coat it, either. Being an author is hard work. She gave advice that she had gotten from Ernest Gaines when she had the privilege of taking a class with him. He said, “Revise, revise, revise,” and “The first sentence is the most important one of the whole novel.” She talked about how once she figured out that the rain on a palmetto roof would hiss like the snake for which the Teche was named, her book was ready to be written.

Opening sentence for Flood on the Rio Teche: Rain hissed on the palmetto roof, and Antonio felt like hissing back at the downpour.

Diane writes a blog at A Word’s Worth.

The Slice of Life Challenge has been revealing to me as I participate with my students. There is an immediacy about it. They rush to the computer and often compose right there. Then they hit the publish button. I am amazed how fresh and fun some of the writing is. However, the teacher in me wants them to be conscious of their reader and use correct grammar. I want to think about how I can continue the momentum while showing them the value of revision and editing.

Posted in Slice of Life, Teaching | Tagged Diane Moore, Flood on the Rio Teche, project based learning | 4 Comments »

Moonlit Rondelet

March 6, 2013 by margaretsmn

Serendipity from the Slice of Life Challenge is learning about new poetry forms. At Birds and Trees of the Mind, Paul is trying different poetry forms. He posted a rondelet recently. Rondelet is a French poetry form derived from a word meaning small circle. The poem circles. The syllable pattern is 4A /8b /repeat line 1/8a/8b/8b/repeat line 1.

From Creative Commons

Into the night
Crescent moon rises up singing
into the night
reflections through the leaves alight
wind swept silences, chimes ringing
Tomcat prowls, his proud catch bringing
into the night.

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life | Tagged rondelet | 12 Comments »

Dreams

March 5, 2013 by margaretsmn

Slice of Life Challenge Day 5

On Saturday, I attended the Acadiana Word Lab again. This was my third Saturday to attend. Each week is a new presenter, and each week, different people attend. I am meeting new people and learning to be braver with my writing. The point is to write a rough draft in response to the presenter’s prompts. We usually do 2-3 short writing periods. Then share…it’s all part of it. This weekend I felt intimidated by the confident writers I sat with. But when I read the following response, I heard someone whisper, “Excellent!” Wow! Just what I needed to hear that day. I’m not so sure this poem measures up to her exclamation, but I’ll take it anyway. The prompt was to write about a dream you never had.

The Dream I Never Had

I have never flown in my dreams.
I want to feel this free–
Oh, in the arms of Superman,
or on the magic carpet with Alladin,
on the wings of an eagle,
better yet–be the eagle–
soar, swoop,
slide across the clouds,
circle the moon.
Fly? Me? No!

I dream of children’s voices,
lost keys,
closed locks,
smothering.

My daughter once wrote a dream blog.
Her dreams were like wild fairy tales.
I want to dream like she dreams.

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life | Tagged Acadiana Wordlab, dreams, Poetry prompts | 9 Comments »

Stained Glass

March 4, 2013 by margaretsmn

Every week I get an email from Poets & Writers called “The Time is Now.” You can sign up, too. They send out prompts for writing. A few weeks ago, the poetry prompt suggested collaborating by email or text on a poem with each person adding a line until the poem felt complete. I invited my new poet friend, Clare Martin, to participate with me. We composed it using Facebook messenger. We each revised to create our own poem. I am posting my version.

Stained Glass

Reflection of bare trees
stripe the still bayou.
See into the reflection.
Clouds become water.

Water holds a dark harm–
dangerous depth,
deceiving beauty.
The surface holds the whole sky.

A single tear
breaks the glass.
Slip within the sky.
See your self in the depths.

Slice of Life Challenge Day 4

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life | Tagged Bayou Teche, Clare Martin, collaborative poem, nature poem | 5 Comments »

Anonyponymous

March 3, 2013 by margaretsmn

Slice of Life Challenge Day 3

A mother of one of my students went to a garage sale last weekend. She selected a book to give to me, Anonyponymous, The Forgotten People Behind Everyday Words by John Bemelmans Marciano. She wrote, “I found this little book and I picked it up for you because I thought you would enjoy it.” When she was paying for the book, she struck up a conversation with the woman holding the garage sale. She told her she was buying the book for her child’s teacher. Come to find out! the seller is my husband’s cousin. Two things strike me about this gift: 1) This mother was thinking of me when she saw a book about words, and 2) What a small world!

Fun Facts from Anonyponymous: Anonyponymous refers to those people whose names, eponymous, have become so much a part of our language that the person of origin has become anonymous.

1) Cereal comes from a reference to the goddess Ceres, goddess of crops.

2) Frisbee comes from drunk Yale students playing catch with a leftover tin plate from Mrs. Frisbie’s Pies of Bridgeport.

3) Hooligan (I sometimes call my students this when they are acting up.) Patrick Hooligan was a bouncer at an Irish pub in the slums of London, but his legacy was the mentoring of young hoodlums in the arts of robbery and assault.

4) Blurb was a buxom cartoon character placed on the cover of books Gelett Burgess handed out at the annual American Booksellers Association Dinner in 1907. Burgess defined blurb as “a sound like a publisher.”

On further examination of the book, I realized it is not going on the shelf in my classroom. I’m afraid some of the words are inappropriate for classroom research.

To see what my students are writing for their Slice of Life Challenge, click here.

Posted in Slice of Life, Teaching | Tagged eponymy, word origins, words | 5 Comments »

School’s Out Fib

March 2, 2013 by margaretsmn

Teacher 1, Teacher 2

On Friday, many of the teachers arrived at school wearing their “Teacher 1” or “Teacher 2” shirt in honor of Dr. Seuss’s birthday on March 2nd. We soon figured out that we would not be having school that day. The plumbing was out. Who wants to have school with no plumbing? So after about 20 minutes, the buses returned, parents were called. My students were full of excitement. Before they could leave, though, I asked them to post their Slices for March 1. Together we wrote a Fibonacci poem about the day. Joy at Poetry for Kids Joy posted a Fib poem on her blog on Poetry Friday, so I borrowed the idea. The syllable pattern is 1/1/2/3/5/8/and back again 8/5/3/2/1/1. Read about Fibonacci series here

Fibonacci Spiral

School’s

out

today–

no water–

Dr. Suess would play.

Thing 1 and Thing 2 come out and

help fix this messy problem-o,

clean up and repair

broken pipes,

but we

don’t

want!

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life | Tagged fibonacci poem | 10 Comments »

Lovensky

March 1, 2013 by margaretsmn

Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge

Welcome to March and the month of the Slice of Life Challenge! The Two Writing Teachers have challenged me once again to write every day in March. My students will be participating, too at their blog site, Slice of Life Challenge. Please stop by and make a comment or two. They love visitors.

It is also Poetry Friday. For more of the round-up, go to Julie Larios’ site The Drift Record.

Last weekend I attended a Wordlab writing workshop. My friend and fellow poet, Diane Moore, led the writing prompts. She showed us the painting below. This is Lovensky. She was born with AIDS in Haiti. She died not long after Barbara Hughes visited the orphanage and was moved to paint her portrait. Diane shared her own poem, reprinted here with permission. The poem appears in her collection, Alchemy. I wrote a poem to the painting during Diane’s workshop.

Lovensky by Barbara Hughes

LOVENSKY
(Upon viewing a painting of a child in Haiti, rendered by Barbara Hughes)

My mother passed her AIDS to me,
wishing me to be blind
so I could not see the wretchedness
in the streets of Cite’ Soleil;
my one good eye watches a shadowy face,
a woman smiling at me,
her wide mouth opening and closing,
murmuring like a dove circling my crib,
and my hands close around happiness.
I embrace her.

l cannot perceive the future
although I dream under a pink washcloth
that unburdens my many fevers.
I did not see Haiti’s trees felled
or the disappearance of the Creole pigs,
the hilly streets filled with sewage,
but I can smell the sweetness of orange blossoms
and Sister tells me she placed
a white orchid in my crib.

The wings of invisible forces brush by me,
I see stars I have never seen
on the ceiling of my memory.
I had a mother and a father and lost them,
believed in no one until I came here,
everything through a glass darkened.
Before that, I lived
in the footsteps of dying children
who left their auras behind,
silver dust that shimmers
in the dark air of Port au Prince.

Once I dreamed of kindness,
now I lie in its blue blanket,
listening to the bell of Sister’s laughter
and the echoes of my own,
to stories about my father’s place,
the one of many mansions.
We all know our destiny because we love,
Sister sings to me:
our spirits burn with visions of God
and the brilliance of heaven.
Because we love
we know this place of many mansions,
one of them is yours.

With my toes clasped in my hands,
one eye closed against the suffering,
I long to make my voice speak,
to tell her how deeply I hope
for the liberation of resurrection,
equality and harmony seated at a table
in one small room
filled with unfailing light.
Diane Moore, all rights reserved

My version:

Lovensky

The heat of your soul,
your fever, warms the blue blanket
you have tangled yourself into.
You cannot see me,
yet you cock your head
to hear my lullaby.
I am not your mother.

You grab your toe
as any infant would,
exploring your new world.
I want to hold you,
take away your mother’s curse,
the fever that seeps into your veins.
I want to walk with you in the garden
to smell the sweet olive,
give you a taste of sweet honey.

I cannot tear you
from the page you are painted on.
I can only love the pink towel
on your forehead,
the white diaper hugging your brown legs.
I can love the God who made you
and holds you now..

in your blue wings.

-Margaret Simon, all rights reserved