Even though I’m not teaching daily, I still subscribe to Teach This Poem. This week I used the lesson to prompt my own writing. The model poem was Ok, Let’s Go by Maureen McLane and included a painting by Claude Monet, “Impression, Sunrise.” I usually write as the sun is rising, so the artwork echoed for me the sun rising over the bayou. I also used two of the words from my Wordle guess.
Impression, Sunrise by Claude Monet
Dawn School
After Maureen McLane
Dawn school begins without me as it settles sun rays upon still water.
Let’s be here where the teachers are cypress knees and squawking herons.
Sunrise impression is a silhouette hovering over tainted tin of a resting Joe boat
This beautiful bleeding heart vine was a small single branch when I took it inside for the winter. Last summer it didn’t bloom, but I saved it anyway. I’m learning this about gardening; As long as you see green, don’t give up on a plant. I didn’t give up, but I also didn’t have much hope. And now look! Not only is it thriving, it’s blooming. The blossoms seem to be hiding shamefully under the big leaves.
Google told me the symbolism of the bleeding heart flower is compassion. I think about the simple compassion I gave to this plant. It wasn’t difficult. Compassion should not be hard to give to others. I think it should come naturally.
Write a small poem inspired by the bleeding heart flower. Where are you needing compassion? How is your heart bleeding today?
You Belong
You belong among white flowers where stillness grows heartwings holding you in compassion, acceptance, and love.
Margaret Simon, draft
My poem today is prompted by Georgia Heard’s calendar “Where you belong” and is written in the Shadorma form (3, 5, 3, 3, 7, 5)
Write a small poem in the comments and give encouraging feedback to other writers.
This painting by my friend, artist Melissa Bonin, was exhibited at the Acadian World Congress in 2019 in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. When Melissa posted this photo of her art on Instagram, I was inspired to ask permission for our ekphrastic poetry this week.
Did you experience the eclipse? The experience was exciting for everyone. Although there were clouds and rain, a few times the sun peeked out and we were able to view it. My students were fascinated.
Every day we Come closer to Learning our lesson. I stand in awe Pretending to feel Safe on our fragile Earth.
Margaret Simon, draft
Please write a small poem in the comments. Encourage other writers with your responses.
Yesterday afternoon I went to a workshop at the Acadiana Center for the Arts led by my mentor and friend Darrell Bourque. In the large gallery space was the show In Medias Res: How One Story Becomes Another, a collection of paintings from his collection accompanied by the poems he wrote to them. Darrell first introduced me to eckphrastic poetry years ago. This piece of painted canvas was among a pile of canvases in a writing station within the gallery.
The instructions read “Mystory: Turn no to yes”.
I love how the smashing of my and story looks like the word mystery. What mystery is hiding your true story? What story in your life turned a no into a yes?
During the workshop, I received an enticing text invitation to an Argentinian dinner complete with tango lessons. I said yes without even asking my husband. I knew yes would be his answer, too.
Today we imagine an eager sunrise spinning a new story Tango
daily elfchen, Margaret Simon
What mystery/mystory do you have waiting to expose? What emotions does the abstract painting stir for you? Please leave a small poem in the comments. Remember to write encouraging responses to other writers.
Winter solstice is a day to look forward to, the ending of a school semester, the joy of decorating for Christmas, and our baby JuneBug’s birthday. And yet, almost as soon as I get home from school, the sky darkens and the world feels hushed and harsh and cold. Life is full of these bittersweet moments.
In 2013, I published a book with my poems and my father’s art, Illuminate. (Still available on Amazon.) I wrote poems for each of my father’s Christmas cards. He had done them for 10 years. It was also the year of his 80th birthday. On Novemeber 11th this year, he would have been 90. I miss him everyday. At this time of year, his presence is near as I thumb through his yearly cards and place one of his drawings on my wall. Art has become his legacy.
Artwork by John Gibson
The Star Still Leads
The light shines in the darkness, and darkness did not overcome it.
Wise men traveled a great distance with a will strong enough to carry them over hills and dunes, through nights of wind, storms, and cold. All in search of a person.
We travel a great distance recorded in scrapbooks, dated photographs, no east, no south, west, or north, but names, people we love, people who sustain us in hope.
We are revealed to God, our calloused hands curled in prayer, warmed by fervent asking for relationship, for strength, for understanding. Asking for a star.
Happy Easter! I gave myself permission to not post today, to take a day off after writing 31 Slices of Life in March and 7 poems-a-day, but inspiration comes as inspiration will. On Facebook, I was tagged by a friend who knows I love birds, Louisiana wildlife, and photography. This photo by Gary Meyers is an amazing photo of roseate spoonbills in flight. I remembered that I wrote a poem once about the bird. One of the ideas Molly and I had for our poetry project was to revise an old poem, so what better exercise to do when I don’t want to write. I borrowed the photo and created a Canva to include the poem.
The Progressive Poem is with my friend, Inkling, best librarian poet I know, Linda Mitchell. Hope to this link to see her Easter bunny gift of a line.
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.
This month’s #poetrypals challenge was a new form to me: the cascade poem. I was mesmerized by Molly Hogan’s Slice of Life post on Tuesday. She posted amazing photos of a beach in Maine at sunrise on a very cold morning. I borrowed some words from her post to create a cascade poem about this photo by Molly.
Photo by Molly Hogan
Cascade Golden Morning
Cold. Cold. Single digit cold. Walking the rhythm of the morning, Day breaks to molten gold.
Experience moves me. Bold ripples through me, lifts me. Cold. Cold. Single digit cold.
Still lost in glory dawning, toes throb in rebuke, Walking the rhythm of the morning.
Miniature forests of fairies hold a treasure chest of sparkling jewels. Day breaks to molten gold.
My writing group is here this week with a new name and a new challenge. Formerly, the Sunday Swaggers, we are now the Inklings. Catherine Flynn challenged us this month to write an Ekphrastic Poem.
From the Poetry Foundation:
Ekphrasis
“Description” in Greek. An ekphrastic poem is a vivid description of a scene or, more commonly, a work of art. Through the imaginative act of narrating and reflecting on the “action” of a painting or sculpture, the poet may amplify and expand its meaning.
A few weeks ago I was participating in #WriteOut, a virtual writing marathon from the National Writing Project. On this visit, we were in San Antonio, Tx. One of the prompts was a work of art by Georgia O’Keefe that is housed at the McNay Art Museum.
Evening Star V by Georgia O’Keefe, from the McNay Art Museum
Evening Star
Texas sky blooms into star-gaze red glare haze across blue waves–
And there– a point of light opens a minor C– insignificant note like a dust-speck glistening then gone.
For #TheSealyChallenge, I have read 5 poetry books. This week I wrote blog posts about Before the Ever After, a verse novel by Jacqueline Woodson, and Ilya Kaminsky’s Deaf Republic, a totally different novel in verse. I also blogged about The Bridge Between Us, a collection of poems about teaching through the Covid-19 pandemic. I’ve read Robert Bly’s Morning Poems and Naomi Shihab Nye’s Cast Away, but haven’t blogged about them yet. I am enjoying this challenge. It’s making me pick up poetry books that I have had on my shelves and never read through. I only heard about this challenge this year, but it’s been around for a few years. Is anyone else doing it? How are you handling and processing?
I have been following #verselove on Ethical ELA. On Tuesday, teacher-poet Gayle Sands posted a selection of photographs to use for prompts for ekphrasis, poetry about art. I love how looking at art or photography can lead you to a poem, and many times to something unexpected.
Linda Mitchell and I are writing partners in a Sunday night critique group. After I wrote my poem to an image of Alice Paul, I found her poem, a golden shovel about the same photo. I asked Linda’s permission to post her poem along with mine. I think it shows how poets can take a different perspective.
The photo reminded me of my great grandmother who died just shy of her 100th birthday. While mine was more descriptive of the photo, Linda included historical information about Alice Paul and the Sewall-Belmont House.
I always feel the movement is a sort of mosaic.
~Alice Paul to Woodrow Wilson May 2019
The gentlemen from Illinois and Texas, I am certain, have lost their minds. Women have always made way for men. It’s 1968. We feel strength in Sewall-Belmont House since 1929. The National Women’s Party movement headquarters is a landmark, it is not simply ground to lay gravel for a new Senate driveway on Capitol Hill. What sort of message does that send to the daughters of our work? It would destroy the heart of our mosaic
“There will never be a new world order until women are a part of it.” Alice Paul (1885-1977) Alice Paul at Belmont House, 1972.
Alice Paul
Small but fierce they’d say about this woman who wouldn’t be dared. Hands on hips, head held high as a carved marble statue on a pedestal.
Like my great grandmother, Alice Paul stood in white eyelet eyes set straight, focused on the photographer’s lens like a beam of light daring him to say, “Smile!”
Margaret Simon lives on the Bayou Teche in New Iberia, Louisiana. She is a retired elementary gifted teacher who writes poetry and children's books. Welcome to a space of peace, poetry, and personal reflection. Walk in kindness.
Reflections on the Teche 