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Slice of Life Challenge/ Poetry Friday

March 3, 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.

I love to go for a walk in the morning. Getting out of the house is my problem. First, I have coffee. Then I check email and these days, write a Slice and read some Slices. Comment. I get sucked in. Even with this problem of getting out of the door, once I’m out, I’m never sorry. Most days when I get back home, there’s a mad rush to get ready for school. Somewhere in this morning routine, I try to get in some writing. Sometimes the writing happens while I am walking. Notes app, microphone on.

My grandson Leo visited this past weekend. He is highly creative. He draws with amazing design, unlike most scribblings of a 4-year old. Last week we ran into my cousin Andrew, the architect, during Mardi Gras. I showed Andrew Leo’s drawings. My daughter started a shared album about a year ago, so I have them on my phone.

Andrew told me a story about his second grade teacher. He loved to build things, and his mother, my aunt, would throw out things like paper towel tubes, boxes, and magazines, etc.. But not Andrew’s teacher. She had a box of trash just for him. An Andrew box full of scraps to build with. He has never forgotten this and may be the artist he is today because of it.

Being Mamere I collected toilet paper tubes, gumballs, and a box. Early on Saturday morning (Leo woke up at 5:30 AM), I showed him the stuff. “You can make whatever you want.” I gave him a plastic container with glue and a paintbrush and left him alone. He created something. When his mother saw it, she noticed that he had even found a wad of cat hair to add to the top of one of the towers. I placed the sculpture in my new butterfly garden to hopefully attract insects and caterpillars.

Leo’s sculpture
Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Tanita at {fiction, instead of lies} for Roundup.

For Poetry Friday, it is the first Friday, so the Inklings (my writing group) have a new challenge. And it came from me. I asked my friends to toy with the use of anaphora (repetition) in a poem using the mentor text from Jericho Brown, Crossing. I wrote one last week that I ended up putting in the trash, so I didn’t have anything to share. Remember the walk I took? I spoke a poem into my Notes app that is my poem offering today.

To see other Inklings poems:

Linda @A Word Edgewise
Heidi @my juicy little universe
Molly @Nix the Comfort Zone
Catherine @Reading to the Core
Mary Lee Hahn @Another Year of Reading

Click here to sign up for the National Poetry Month Progressive Poem

Posted in being mamére, Creativity, Poetry Friday, Progressive poem, Writing | Tagged , , | 11 Comments »

April Progressive Poem Sign Up

March 2, 2023 by margaretsmn

It’s time to sign up for the 2023 progressive poem. Each year during National Poetry Month, our Poetry Friday community creates a poem. If you would like to add a line to the poem, select a date. On that date, you will copy the poem from the previous writer and paste it into your blog post, adding the next line. Select a date and leave this information in a comment:

1. Date selected.

2. Your name.

3. Your blog title.

4. Your blog’s URL.

I will update the list as I am able. The logo at the top may be used for your blog.

April 1 Mary Lee Hahn, Another Year of Reading

April 2 Heidi Mordhorst, My Juicy Little Universe

April 3 Tabatha, The Opposite of Indifference

April 4 Buffy Silverman

April 5 Rose Cappelli, Imagine the Possibilities

April 6 Donna Smith, Mainely Write

April 7 Margaret Simon, Reflections on the Teche

April 8 Leigh Anne, A Day in the Life

April 9 Linda Mitchell, A Word Edgewise

April 10 Denise Krebs, Dare to Care

April 11 Emma Roller, Penguins and Poems

April 12 Dave Roller, Leap Of Dave 

April 13 Irene Latham Live You Poem 

April 14 Janice Scully, Salt City Verse

April 15 Jone Rush MacCulloch

April 16 Linda Baie TeacherDance

April 17 Carol Varsalona, Beyond Literacy Link

April 18 Marcie Atkins

April 19 Carol Labuzzetta at The Apples in My Orchard 

April 20 Cathy Hutter, Poeturescapes

April 21 Sarah Grace Tuttle at Sarah Grace Tuttle’s Blog, 

April 22 Marilyn Garcia

April 23 Catherine at Reading to the Core

April 24 Janet Fagal, hosted by Tabatha, The Opposite of Indifference

April 25 Ruth, There is no Such Thing as a God-Forsaken Town

April 26 Patricia J. Franz, Reverie

April 27 Theresa Gaughan, Theresa’s Teaching Tidbits

April 28 Karin Fisher-Golton, Still in Awe Blog

April 29 Karen Eastlund, Karen’s Got a Blog

April 30 Michelle Kogan Illustration, Painting, and Writing

Posted in Progressive poem | 55 Comments »

Spiritual Journey & Slice of Life: Meaningful Words

March 2, 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.

Some time ago a blogging friend suggested subscribing to The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad. At the time I didn’t know who she was, how amazing, how she has written a book, married Jon Batiste, and that she battles leukemia every day. All I knew was her writing felt like a letter from a friend. Her prompts compelling.

Prompt 230 came from The Renunciations by Donika Kelly. I wrote from the line “Let this be a moment of remembering”

photo by Henry Cancienne

“Let this be a moment of remembering” Donika Kelly

Let us be bird and nest. Let
me curl my toes around this
threshold to flight. You’ll be
waiting with your net of comfort, a
reason or two why this moment
shouldn’t crush me. Eyes of
love, we’ve been here before–remembering.

Margaret Simon, Golden Shovel for Jeff, my nest for 40+ years

This post is also the first Thursday of the month Spiritual Thursday gathering. Today Karen Eastlund is hosting. She suggested we write about “words to fall back on.”

Over and over I fall back on Mary Oliver’s words. The line “You do not have to be good” from Wild Geese gives me the confidence I need to plow through. There will be days that I mess up, say the wrong thing, write something shitty. But we don’t have to “walk on (our) knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.” We can embrace our soft animal body and let it love what it loves.

This Lent I have started writing in my journal using a line from the Bible as a jumping off place. This morning the verse I turned the page to was “You were blameless in your ways from the day that you were created.” Ezekiel 28.15.

My response:

Guilt lives in my backpack.
I carry it with me wherever I go.
I’ve never done enough according to Guilt.
I’ve been selfish and without purpose.
Guilt is heavy and wants to break me.
Some will say, “You’ve done everything you could.”
I wish I believed them.
Where weeds grow, more will come
until you decide
their simple beauty
is within their blamelessness.

Free stock photo from Pixabay

Posted in Slice of Life, Spiritual Growth, Writing | 13 Comments »

This Photo Wants to be a Poem: Graveside

March 1, 2023 by margaretsmn

Here in South Louisiana along the coastline (disappearing coastline), the water table is high. If you dig too deep, you reach water. Or rainwater will wash the coffin out of its place. So graves are not usually dug into the ground; they are placed in mausoleums above ground. This photo was taken from the parking lot of my school in Coteau next to a Roman Catholic church. I was drawn by the stark white with the background of yellow wild flowers. As always, you are welcome to write whatever this conjures for you in a small poem in the comments. Please support other writers with encouraging comments.

Coteau (Country) grave, by Margaret Simon

My poem came after choosing words from Laura Purdie Salas’s newsletter, “Small Reads for Brighter Days.” I chose the words time, wave, float, if. It’s sad. I spoke with a friend who said that it’s good for poets to share their sadness. They become a vessel for holding the sadness in the world.

More Time

If time
were captured
in a bottle
like Jim Croce wrote
in 1970
before his tragic death
in 1973,
I could open a bottle
of you, Dad, and talk
more about the stuff of life.

Today, I look at a tomb
floating above water,
a boat of bones,
and secretly wish
a wave would come
and wash away the remains.
Would you stay?

Margaret Simon, draft

Posted in This Photo Wants to be a Poem | Tagged , , , , , | 23 Comments »

Slice of Life Challenge ’23: Azalea Lane

March 1, 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.

Welcome to Day One of the 2023 Slice of Life Challenge. This challenge occurs every year during the month of March. Writing every day is good exercise for a writer. This challenge is sponsored by the Two Writing Teachers, a blog site for writing teachers. They post essays about the teaching of writing, but in March, it’s all about the teachers themselves who understand that being a teacher who writes strengthens the teaching of writing. We are a community of peers. Comments are welcome and encouraged. Comments are the sideline cheers for a marathon runner.

I decided for Lent this year I would read a page in the Bible and then write. I’m not committed to sharing each of these journal scribblings, but I’m starting off today with one.

I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you, and I will make for you a great name.

2 Samuel 7:9

Azalea Lane

I have planted you
in the clay soil of Louisiana.
Most of the year, like Persephone,
you are perfect, leafless, waiting.
You look dormant, dead, but
on the first day of March,
you blossom
and shine
like a pink sunrise
opening,
opening,
opening,
saying to the world,
“I’m here!
I’m wonderful!
I’m beautiful!”

I welcome March, a month of transformation from winter to spring, transformation through the daily practice of shared writing. Thanks for reading.

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

Slice of Life: Courir de Mardi Gras

February 28, 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.

I have lived in South Louisiana for 40 years, but had never attended the authentic Courir de Mardi Gras. Courir is a French Cajun word meaning run. In the western parishes north of us, there are multiple small towns that have a chicken run. The basic idea is the krewes are going house to house to get all the ingredients for a gumbo. The final ingredient is a chicken. The chicken run is a crazy, wild drunken race to catch the chicken.

I introduced this cultural tradition to my students, and we did chicken art on the Thursday before our Mardi Gras break. We followed a video created by the Acadiana Center for the Arts linked here. The chickens were created using recycled materials. In Courir de Mardi Gras, the costumes are made with scraps of fabric and masks are made with screen. It is the total opposite of New Orleans Mardi Gras which is all about royalty and elaborate beautiful costumes. Courir de Mardi Gras has a captain rather than a king who leads the krewe.

My husband and I became interested in Courir from a performance we saw at the  Acadiana Center for the Arts. We decided to go to the parade in Eunice when all the krewes come in, some on horse back. My daughter, son-in-law, and grandkids joined us. We had made some costumes by adding fabric patches and fringe to old clothes. I used an old scarf, some sparkling jewel tape, and an old denim shirt. As the parade came through, Leo was poked (in jest) by a couple tricksters; one of them untied my shoelaces. Afterward there was a band we love to hear and dance to, Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys.

I have to admit I was a bit creeped out by the chickens. I refrained from petting one. They walk close to the crowd to allow for petting. The chickens are surprisingly calm. I gasped when I saw a dead one on the ground. And to top it all off, a woman was wearing a taxidermic chicken on her head. While the band was playing, some of the tricksters got on the stage and threw a live chicken into the crowd. Luckily, I was not close by.

Learning more about the culture of my own state is fascinating and fun. I’m also trying to accept some of the craziness of it all. For the most part, it is harmless fun.

Posted in Slice of Life, Writing | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments »

Poetry Friday: Shattered (An Ekphrasis)

February 24, 2023 by margaretsmn

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Tabatha at
The Opposite of Indifference.

I have been off this week and joyfully participating in two writing challenges. I truly wish I could do this every day. Writing to prompts makes my creative juices flow. If I write a poem each day, I feel a certain satisfaction that I’ve accomplished something.

This week the Poetry Sisters challenge was to write an ekphrastic poem, which is a poem written to art. Their theme this year is transformation. In the February Project with Laura Shovan, Molly Hogan used photographs of abandoned buildings to prompt us to think about their story. I went to a mysterious place with this image.

Photo by Molly Hogan

I’ve always enjoyed writing about a mystery. In high school, I had a short story published in the school’s literary journal about a portrait in an abandoned house that ended with a question, a mystery. Many in the Facebook group wanted to know more. Mystery is like that. We want to know. I recently heard on a podcast “surrender to the mystery.” I believe that we don’t know all the answers, and we are not supposed to. So let this poem sit with you in all its unknown.

Shattered

She left the curtains
hanging,
the window open,
the cat in the yard.
She left when the air
was warm and damp
fearing her shame
would shatter her dream. 

Margaret Simon, draft

Posted in Photography, Poetry Friday, Writing | Tagged , , , , | 17 Comments »

This Photo Wants to be a Poem: Sunrise Field

February 22, 2023 by margaretsmn

Today, Ash Wednesday, feels like a day for an open field, a sunrise, a few clouds. My body is tired. As they say around here, I Did Mardi Gras. Every day– Saturday to Fat Tuesday. I welcome the rest, the coming down from a party hearty high to a calm cloudy Lent. I invite you to peacefulness, to look to the fallow fields for solace and grace.

Sunrise Field by Margaret Simon (You may use this photo.)

I
am still
staring out
toward the field,
fallow and fertile
whispering to the wind
secrets of stillness and peace
believing that time can heal wounds
believing strong faith starts with good soil.

Margaret Simon, draft

Posted in Photography, Poetry, Spiritual Growth, This Photo Wants to be a Poem | Tagged , | 17 Comments »

Poetry Friday: Gatherings

February 17, 2023 by margaretsmn

My fellow Inkling, writing partner Molly Hogan has the round up today at Nix the Comfort Zone.

I surprise myself. Every day this month there is a new prompt with the theme of “Story” in Laura Shovan’s February project. Every day I am invited to write a poem. Intimidating? Totally. Scary? You bet. Comforting? Always.

I discover over and over again that writing in a community of poets is a safe and accepting place to be. I need to just get over my little ego voice and jump in.

This week Buffy Silverman put up a prompt with these images she’s allowing us to share. She asked us to write about gatherings.

You would think I’d write something about nature. But all that was on my mind was the fact that my brother had texted that he wants to come visit. He has not had a weekend off in a long time, and the last time he visited was for my daughter’s wedding in 2017. My poem written on the spot was about the joy of trying to fit everyone into our house. This is one of those drafts that will likely remain a draft, but I had fun writing it. I forget sometimes that writing should be fun.

Sleeping Arrangements

Add a brother-uncle to the mix
complicates the sleeping arrangements.
He should get the guest room because he’s the guest.
Children can sleep anywhere, except they can’t.
They require a confinement misnomered “Pack & Play”
more like “Stuff and Sleep,” and don’t forget to turn on
the sound machine. There must be a night light,
but nothing too bright.
Cow has to be in the far right corner
while silky covers her face.
Now the 3-year-old has figured out how to climb out,
so he needs an adult in the room nearby.

I tell them “Come! Come!”
We will figure it out
because all my loves in one house
is Everything to me.

Margaret Simon, flash draft

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday | Tagged , , , , | 21 Comments »

This Photo Wants to be a Poem: Collage

February 15, 2023 by margaretsmn

And now, folks, for something different. I’ve been working on a collage that I thought I was going to use as a prompt in Laura Shovan’s February project, but another idea came to me. I decided to offer it to you today as a photo prompt.

Collage work is intriguing to me. I cut out images that evoke some emotion in me and build it like a puzzle. I feel like my response poem will be different from yours because I have spent more time with it. Although, as I type this, I haven’t written a poem yet.

Think about the story that is happening in the collage as though it was a magazine photo. Interview the woman. Who is she? Where is she? Why is she there? Or take a more descriptive stance. Describe the scene using your senses. Whatever you decide, please share a bit with us. Remember this is quick draft writing, so leave only encouraging comments to others.

Magazine collage by Margaret Simon

Fire Girl

My adventures usually begin in my mind.
I wander the savannah, discover beauty,
feel the rush of adrenaline…

Then there is the mountain to climb,
the people I may leave behind,
so I settle in, next to our small fire
and thumb pages to find my bookmark.

Margaret Simon, draft

Posted in Poetry, This Photo Wants to be a Poem | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments »

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