Reflections on the Teche

This Photo Wants to be a Poem: Mossy Sunrise

October 11, 2023 by margaretsmn

Most mornings I take a walk in my neighborhood. As the days get shorter, I am usually headed home by the time the sun begins to rise. The neighbor’s oak tree drapes over the street and I was drawn to the mossy tendrils hanging. It’s getting close to Halloween, so spooky is on the brain. But maybe this image isn’t spooky at all. Maybe it’s comforting, a sign of almost home, a signature of southern oaks.

My students and I have been writing short poems, haiku and six-word stories, the first two days of Write Out. What I’ve realized and shared with them is that short forms mean every word has to count. On the Write Out poetry page, I found a video by Rich Novack about found poetry. He suggests using nonfiction text from National Park trails to collect words for poetry. For my poem, I googled Spanish Moss and collected a list of words to use in a haiku.

Mother nature braids
her harmless silver ghost–
Sunrise silken shade
Margaret Simon, draft

Consider joining me and my students in writing outside today, observing nature. Perhaps you will find a text to build a poem from. Have fun! Leave your poems in the comments. Encourage other writers with your comments.

Posted in Photography, Poetry, This Photo Wants to be a Poem | Tagged #poemsofpresence, #writeout, haiku, small poems, Spanish moss | 25 Comments »

Slice of Life: #WriteOut

October 10, 2023 by margaretsmn

Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.

My students and I have been looking forward to the National Writing Project’s Write Out, a writing event that takes place in October. NWP partners with the National Parks to create videos and writing prompts designed to get kids outside to write. Last Friday, I handed each student a 5×7 blank book and told them it would be their Write-Out notebook. What is it about having a new clean colorful book that makes you want to write?

After watching a short video from Ranger Chris from the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, we went outside to the playground to observe nature and write haiku poems. I wrote alongside them. I shared how I sketch in my notebook. Sketching is low-stakes art. Sketching helps to motivate and enhance writing while making their notebooks a safe place to explore.

Back inside, students were enthusiastic about sharing their poems. Because I teach multiple groups at two different schools, we use Fanschool for sharing our writing.

If you have a minute, it would be exciting to my students if you wrote comments on their first ever haiku poems:

Max wrote “The Daytime”

Kailyn wrote about a butterfly in the grass.

We found moth caterpillars near the trees. Adelyn and Sadie wrote about them.

Carson wrote about the sugarcane field.

John-Robert’s poem.

Give yourself some time today to be outside and observe nature. Share your haiku with us.

I am sharing my poems on Instagram.

Posted in Gifted Education, Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing | Tagged #writeout, Fanschool, Nature poems, student writing | 11 Comments »

Poetry Friday: Juggling

October 6, 2023 by margaretsmn

Poetry Friday is hosted by Matt at Radio, Rhythm, and Rhyme celebrating a new book.

The first Friday of the month is reserved for the Inkling challenge. This month Mary Lee fascinated us with Visual Frameworks as a prompt for writing. You can see all the choices here.

With school, teaching, volunteering all get fully underway, I feel the sense of juggling lots of balls in the air. And at any time, one or more may fall, and mess with the balance I am currently trying to hold onto. I taught the zeno form to my students last week and featured it on This Photo, so I chose the form to juggle this challenge. I like how the rhythm of it creates the sense of juggling.

Juggling Zeno

A system complex and controlled
keeps all balls up–
motions
bold.
Ability
to thrust/
hold–
a blink of eye
plunges my
load.
Margaret Simon, draft

Other Inklings:
Mary Lee
Linda
Catherine
Molly
(Heidi is taking a blogging break.)

Posted in Poetry Friday | Tagged Inklings challenge, juggling, visual frameworks, zeno poem | 20 Comments »

Spiritual Journey: October Gladness

October 5, 2023 by margaretsmn

Ramona Behnke is hosting the Spiritual Journey Thursday posts today at her blog, Pleasures from the Page. She asked us to write about “A Glad Heart.”

Open-hearted gladness
comes after illness,
where once was a window–
blinds pulled up
enough to see the white egret
fly over water, stand and dip, stand and dip.
A morning dance, or mourning dance
for me, listless and weak?
Strength in wings of white,
angel of life or death.

Gladness through the window
entered my prayer,
beckoning me to fight
for life, for flight.
To look to the air
through my despair
finding the light
of gratitude.
Margaret Simon, draft

Posted in Spiritual Growth | Tagged gratitude poem, spiritual journey | 6 Comments »

This Photo Wants to be a Poem: Ghosts

October 4, 2023 by margaretsmn

My neighbor’s ghosts are hanging around, over the sidewalk. On my early morning walk, I pass through them like passing through a curtain. The wind pulls them toward me, and I admit a little uneasiness. I saw Melissa in the store yesterday, and she grinned when she talked about them. She said, “I love my ghosts!”

Halloween is around the corner, literally. Follow the ghostly muse to write a small poem today. Post in the comments. Encourage other writers with your response. I wanted to try a cinquain (pronounced “sink-cane”). Syllable count of 2,4,6,8,2. There are other variations you can try. Here is a guide to the form.

Morning Walk in October

Ghostly
shapes in the wind.
Shivers ripple my skin.
I step lightly through the curtain
of gauze.
Margaret Simon, draft

Posted in Photography, Poetry, This Photo Wants to be a Poem | Tagged cinquain, Halloween poems, This Photo Wants to be a Poem | 28 Comments »

Slice of Life: Music Memory

October 3, 2023 by margaretsmn

Music is my mother’s memory. She was a pianist. When I was a teenager, she went back to school to get her masters in piano. She was always teaching and playing piano and singing in the choir at church on Sundays.

Last weekend my sister, my niece, and I drove up to Mississippi to visit her. She recognized us as people she loved dearly. Her conversations were choppy, a thought would begin but derail before she could finish the sentence. But music is still her love language.

Watching the LSU game together in the hotel lobby, we started “bom, bom, ba-bom, ba” the tune for the fight song and she joyfully joined in. At church she popped up from sitting to sing the service music in perfect tune. My sister played a song she knew Mom loved on the radio, so we could all sing along.

NPR did a report recently about a son who plays the guitar and sings for his mother with Alzheimer’s. (A four-minute listen at this link.) My brother is a musician. He plays keyboards with a band, with another artist, or alone. He makes sure Mom gets to as many gigs as she can, especially the ones he does in senior living facilities.

I was a little wary of my visit this time because my brother had reported that she is worse (She had a bout of Covid a month ago.), but her light is still there. It comes on when she hears familiar music. It shines when she sees my face. My sister and I are baffled by how one minute our mother seems far away, out of touch with the world. And the next she will say something completely logical and true. We are blessed that our mother is getting good care, and she is mostly happy. I admit to tearing up, though, when she was singing. It was then that I saw the person I long for, the one I miss.

I follow storytellersgallery on Instagram. He posts a photo and poem daily. This one spoke to me.

Already Gone.

i wish i could understand
how you feel
i wish i could feel
what you’re missing here

i always feel like we’re doing okay
that no matter what
i know it could be worse

but i’m getting the idea
that maybe you don’t agree
i think you know i would give you
anything and everything
but i’m learning that maybe
that’s not enough
and maybe that’s why
it feels like you’re already gone
Brian Fuller
bfullerfoto.com
Kosse, TX
May 2020

Posted in Slice of Life, Writing | Tagged @storytellersgallery, Alzheimer's, music | 10 Comments »

Poetry Friday: Diminishing Verse

September 29, 2023 by margaretsmn

Jama has the roundup at Jama’s Alphabet Soup

Today is the last Friday of September. Time for the Poetry Sisters’ challenge. I was inspired this month to play around with their challenge to write a diminishing verse. The basic idea is to remove a letter from the end word with each line.

Layers
We are only stardust
holding on with unsteady trust
painting layers, repairing rust.
Margaret Simon, draft

My students wrote Zeno poems to This Photo. I was impressed with how well they tackled this difficult form. Kim Johnson wrote one, too, and is featuring it on her blog Common Threads today.

Posted in Poetry Friday | 11 Comments »

This Photo Wants to be a Poem: Fall

September 27, 2023 by margaretsmn

Fall here in South Louisiana doesn’t offer much color change of the trees. The oaks stay green. The cypress turn brown. Crepe myrtles are still blooming. I found this yellow beauty near a sweet-gum tree. I picked it up and pressed it into my notebook.

I invite you to think about fall with all your senses.

One of my favorite forms is the zeno created by J. Patrick Lewis. Based on a mathematical sequence, the syllable count is 8,4,2,1,4,2,1,4,2,1 with all the single syllable lines rhyming. I usually decide on the one syllable rhyming words and write the poem around them.

As sun’s glow fades through purple clouds,
I walk alone
seeking
fall.
A yellow leaf
beneath
sprawls,
beckons to hear
barred owl’s
call.
Margaret Simon

Write your own musings in the comments and leave encouraging comments to others. With my students, today I plan to make Zeno Zines. Here’s a video of me sharing a Zine.

Posted in Photography, Poetry, This Photo Wants to be a Poem, Writing | Tagged #poemsofpresence, #small poems, fall poems, zeno poems | 18 Comments »

Spice of Life: Inspiring Living Poets

September 26, 2023 by margaretsmn

Where did I read that we should be teaching living poets in our classrooms? I try to include poetry every day. This is a goal, but some days, as you well know, don’t go as planned. I’ve made a Google Slide Show for a Poem-a-Day, so I have a place to save poems I want to explore with my students. When I announced yesterday that we had time for poetry, my students were excited. I love this about elementary gifted kids!

First we read the poem through. Then I ask, “What do you notice?” I ask my students to notice 3 things about the poem. Using annotation on the smart board, I underline what they see and if they don’t, I name them.

I presented Danusha Lameris’s Small Kindness. I invited my students to write. They could borrow a line, make a list poem of small kindnesses, or write about their own topic using free verse.

I’ve long held the belief that I should write alongside my students. I also welcome their critique. Usually they just say, “I like it.” Then I know we need to work on how to offer critique with specifics such as “I like the way you used personification or metaphor or rhyme.” Naming the specific poetic elements.

Yesterday I was surprised when a student actually said, “I think it’s too clumped up.” As I questioned him further about what he meant, I realized that I read it like a paragraph, no line breaks. Danusha Lameris’s poem uses enjambment masterfully. She understands line breaks. It is definitely a skill I want to work on, and this student nailed it.

So I worked on it, revised, and will share today the current working draft.

Small Kindness

after Danusha Lameris

I’ve been thinking about the way
when I open a car door, and a little kinder kid jumps out,
how the driver says, “Thank you.”

How on the way to school, a white suburban slowed
to let me merge ahead.
How cinnamon bread, a gift from my neighbor
fills the kitchen with sweetness.

I want to believe everyone
is kind and thoughtful. I want to find grace

in the corner of the parking lot
waiting for me to notice her.
Margaret Simon, draft

https://www.flickr.com/photos/20705353@N00/3565199892

Posted in Gifted Education, Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing | Tagged Danusha Lameris, teaching poetry, writing workshop | 9 Comments »

Poetry Friday: Back in the Classroom

September 22, 2023 by margaretsmn

Poetry Friday is hosted by Carol at Beyond Literacy Link

I’ve had a wonderful week getting back into the classroom. I have some new students as well as the ones I taught last year. I teach gifted ELA pull out for two elementary schools. The hardest part of the job is packing up the cart and moving to the next school. Once I am there, though, all is right with the world. I am meant to be a teacher!

On Wednesday I led my kids through “This Photo Wants to be a Poem.” We use Fanschool and I place the same photo from my blog post to Fanschool. The kids write their own poems in the comment section. Two of my students who signed into gifted this week had never written a poem before. I find joy in the process. I think I spread that passion to them. Their responses were amazing.

This week was Ethical ELA’s Open Write. I wrote about one of my students in response to Barb’s prompt here. A comment from Kim Johnson gave me an idea for the ending metaphor. This is a wonderful community of teacher-writers. Join us in October, 21st-25th.

Volleyball Team

Last year in fourth grade
she would skip recess
awkwardly reading in a corner
of my classroom.

Fifth grade offered a volleyball team.
She arrived with a brightly colored volleyball,
tossed it with confidence,
leaning on it while writing.

“I’m on the volleyball team this year.”
We talked about the serve I could never master.
She showed me how it’s done now–
from the palm-up wrist rather than the thumb.

A flower blooming
through a crack in the concrete,
hoping to find its way
to shine on the court.
Margaret Simon, draft