Reflections on the Teche

Ways of Seeing

March 14, 2013 by margaretsmn

Slice of Life Challenge Day 14

At the wordlab this weekend, our leader used a poetry prompt called “Object Lesson.” I wrote about it here. Today, I tried the prompt with my students. I collected objects from around the classroom. I was amazed at the range of things I had to choose from; a crystal, a sunflower frame, a glass apple paperweight to name a few. The instructions were to write 10 stanzas, three lines each, with each stanza acting as a small picture of your object from a different point of view.
Due to the comment challenge for classroom slices, you may have already read some of these. My class is blogging at kidblogs.

This was such a successful prompt I wanted to share it with you along with a few of the resulting poems.

Ten Ways to Look into a Glass Apple
by Kaylie (6th grade)

Formed in the hottest fires
cooled down in the Nile River
an Egyptian artifact.

Bubbles trapped inside of it
waiting to be belched
into the world.

A paperweight
slightly dusty, from 10 years
sitting on an old scholar’s shelf.

A glass snack
waiting
for a glass automaton.

Slightly nicked
on one side
by the paws of a curious cat.

A fortune teller
looking into the orb
full of voodoo magic.

A gift,
wrapped nicely
in pink tissue paper.

A game of hide-and-seek antique
started by a grandmother
ended by a toddler.

A secret
curled up and hiding
for you to decipher.

A writing prompt
held in a young girl’s hand
who just finished sharing her poem.

10 Ways of Looking at a Crystal
by Emily (2nd grade)

1. Shining
So
Brightly

2. Pointing
Up into
The sky

3. Sparkling
Like a star
At night

4. The prettiest
I’ve ever
Seen

5. Your beautiful
Pointed
Shape

6. So nice
And
Smooth

7.The Beautiful
Marks inside
Of you

8. When you’re
In Light you
Shine like the sun

9.You have
the perfect
Former glory

10.Clear as
Water white
As snow

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Teaching | Tagged 10 ways poem, crystal, glass apple | 5 Comments »

Puppy Watching

March 13, 2013 by margaretsmn

Slice of Life Challenge Day 13

I am a sucker for a cute puppy. It runs in my family. We are all dog and cat lovers. So when a fellow blogger (I can’t remember who) turned me on to the webcam at explore.org, I was hooked. After Christmas, there were new golden lab puppies to watch. I’ve watched them go from squirmy little squids to full-of-energy-and-puppy-badness pups. There are only a few left. I now follow the Warrior Canine Connection on Facebook. I get updates daily about Misty’s pups.

One of Misty’s pups from the Warrior Canine Connection

A few weeks ago, while I was watching Misty’s puppies destroy their puppy lair, I switched over to see what was going on with the Great Dane Service Project and was excited to watch a Great Dane having puppies. That Saturday night I watched a few appear. Then when I got up the next morning, she was still giving birth, so I saw a couple more come into this world. Over the weekend, Olive had 11 puppies. One was stillborn. I knew something wasn’t right when they whisked that one away quickly and the attendants had sad faces. But then she had one more lively puppy. Ten healthy puppies. Wow! That’s a bunch of mouths to feed. I check on Olive’s puppies, lovingly nicknamed Pimentos, daily. Today, their eyes are opening and they can stand on all fours for a few seconds. Mostly they just sleep, but even that is meditative and calming to watch. Be careful, it’s addictive. I put the puppycam on on my Ipad and prop it next to my computer while I write. Obsessive, right?

Posted in Slice of Life | Tagged explore puppy cam, great danes, service dogs | 9 Comments »

Azaleas Popping

March 12, 2013 by margaretsmn

Azaleas in my front yard

Sunday night it rained all night. And I slept poorly between the gutters clanking and my storm-scared dog barking. But when I drove home from school on Monday afteroon, the sun was shining, the breeze was blowing, and the azaleas were bright all over town. I think this calls for a spring haiku.

Azaleas popping
sun-drenched pinkness bounces on
green bushy balloons.

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life | Tagged azaleas, haiku | 5 Comments »

Inner Faces

March 11, 2013 by margaretsmn

Slice of Life Challenge Day 11

A few weeks ago I ran in to an old friend at an art show. She was showing a new body of work. We talked, and I told her of my love of writing ekphrastic poetry. On Saturday, she sent me by email a number of her paintings. Here is my experiment with the first.

Inner Faces by Cathy Mills

Inner Faces

If only I could see you in double,
inside and out,
transformed
like the wings of a butterfly
opening, welcoming,
letting me in.

If only you could know my desire
to be your only mother,
the one who loves you most,
maybe you would honor me
with your presence
and let me in.

If only our lives were connected
by a strong abdomen
we could share more than a name,
a recognition of two faces
mirrored and aware,
letting me in.

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life | Tagged butterfly, Cathy Mills, ekphrasis, poetry | 11 Comments »

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.