Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
This month’s Ethical ELA Open Write began this weekend. Jennifer Guyor-Jowett led us in writing prompts. On Sunday, she asked us to consider a journey. See the full prompt here. I spent Saturday walking our neighborhood with my 2 year old grandson, Leo. It was a journey of discovery.
A walk with a two year old is a journey of discovery. Take the wagon with you. Pose with your nose in the air like the reindeer on the lawn next door. Pick up sticks, a few gumballs, fall leaves. Stir with a stick–“Cooking bumbo” like Da Da. Smile when Mr. Jim waves through the window. You will never get lost. There’s always a hand to hold.
Margaret Simon, draft
Leo reached up and said, “Hand.” I turned around to see this. My husband, Jeff, known as “Papére” hand in hand with Leo. My heart melted.
At five in the morning, Leo asked to paint. With a set of dot paints and glue stick, he created this masterpiece.
Earlier this week, Sarah Donovan once again invited teacher-writers to join an Open Write. One of her brilliant inspirations came from this poem by Joseph Bruchac. I am so grateful for my daughters, the oldest of whom will soon deliver a daughter of her own. I am pleased with how the simple form worked to express the connection I feel.
Expectant
When I place my fingers on the swell of her womb,
like combing waves in an ocean softly lapping to shore,
her skin gently moves
as our time ebbs & flows mother to daughter to daughter together in our own sea.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
This is the week of five days of open writing with Ethical ELA. Sarah Donovan has created a safe place for teacher-writers to “play” with poetry. One of her prompts this week asked us to consider what we give. Along with many of you, I give instruction for writing every day, but it’s not every day that I witness success. But when I do, I find Joy. This poem celebrates all teachers who wave their wands every day, whether or not there is magic inside.
Magic Bean
How a writer is made some think comes from a magic bean– it just is this writer can’t help but write & write, but I know better.
I know a writer comes from the magic wand of a teacher who told her she was.
A teacher finds magic in the light of a child’s words, rubs the lantern again & again. She knows the power of waiting, of how a seed of an idea can sprout if you give it nourishment & time.
I love most the smile of realization “Wow! I wrote that!” Pride from my wishing which, in the end, is me working magic, still unknown, still a mystery.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Temperatures are high in these parts, and the virus doesn’t care. I haven’t seen my parents in person since Christmas. My mother sent me a Portal that works like Facetime through Facebook Messenger. The screen props up on the counter in the kitchen. Every time Leo (20 months) comes over, he points to it and says “Pop!” That’s my dad. That’s how he knows them, through the Portal.
My father has not been big on social media, but in the last month, he’s posting almost daily reports, “Reports from an independent retirement home.” They have been on lockdown for two weeks and were finally released on Saturday (Covid tests negative) to go downstairs for meals again. Here is one of my dad’s posts.
What does one look forward to when you are in quarantine? It’s different I imagine for everyone. As days go by, the options diminish. It gets down to such things as the next nap, the next meal, the next unexpected package, even the mail. Then there’s TV, which ends up being a search for the never found good program. My solace is a good book, which often ends up being the next nap. And so the circle goes on and on. The challenge becomes the acknowledgment that where you are is where you are and you’d better adjust to it. Part of the adjustment is to occasionally posting my thoughts. I hope you don’t mind.
John Gibson
Dad doesn’t know it, but I’m collecting his posts. I started doing this thinking I’d make a found poem, but now I like the way they speak themselves, full of his unique voice.
Andy Schoenborn posted the #OpenWrite prompt on Monday’s Ethical ELA. (Click the link to see the full prompt and read some amazing poetic responses.) Here is my poem draft:
My dog, Charlie
Weather Report
The dog lies at my feet on the cold floor because Heat is unbearable at 91 in dog years, the age of Mac in human years, when the virus took him.
Heat doesn’t care if you are young or old or if you have people who love you. I see my parents through a screen. Their weather changes daily with temperature checks, sticks up the nose. (It was reported that my dad yelled from the pain.) Funny if we didn’t care so much about isolation, the comfort of a friend to eat ice cream with.
Hurricanes come in late summer when we’ve let our guard down, when masks fall to our chins, when we just want to hug because another person, human, grandmother, friend has died.
The weather channel broadcasts 24 hours a map covered in red.
Summer means the Summer Poetry Swap which is coordinated by Tabatha. I’ve already received two poetry gifts, and it feels like summer just began.
The first poem I received came from Laura Shovan, a dear poet friend and author of The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary and Takedown. Laura sent sourdough starter, a whimsical pen, and this poem.
Bread and Water by Laura Shovan
My second poem came from Buffy Silverman. Buffy and I have never met, but I have enjoyed her poetry for years. What delight to open an email from her with this image and beautiful poem about wild iris, blue flag!
Blue Flag by Buffy Silverman
This week Linda Mitchell and I teamed up to provide prompts for Ethical ELA. This site by Sarah Donovan is a wonderful place for teachers to write and receive positive feedback. I enjoyed being a part of the community this week. The poetic responses were amazing! Here is a link to the 5 Day Open Write.
I wrote two poems in response to Linda’s prompts. The first one was a list poem. I had a receipt marking my notebook page. My oldest daughter is having a girl (Yes!) in November. At a local children’s store, I bought the first thing for this new one, a newborn gown.
For the Little Ones
Shorts Shirt Gown–> NB
white silky soft edged with pink stitching to welcome a sister now growing day by day a girl to embrace a girl to bless a girl to love
Margaret Simon, draft
The second prompt from Linda came from Linda Baie’s prompt in Laura Shovan’s Water Poem Project, to write a fiction poem. I took some quotes from my weekend with my kids and built this scene.
Heat
What is it about the 90 degree mark that turns a sunny day into fire burning you through to the bone?
They didn’t speak in the heat; Their brains thirsty, wrung out beyond droplets of sweat, couldn’t fathom anything worthy of saying.
He handed her the phone, clicked play on a video of animal faces, noses in particular, that made her smile, despite herself. She didn’t bother to ask why.
Humor finds its way into the cracks of relationship, beneath the surface of burning skin to release toxins from the crease of a smile.
Poetry Friday round-up is with Carol at beyond Literacy Link.
I follow the Ethical ELA website that is beautifully led by Sarah Donovan. Each month she posts a 5 day Open Write which is a series of writing prompts hosted by teachers of writing. This month’s host was Kim Johnson. Kim drew mentor texts from great writers such as Jason Reynolds and Jericho Brown. I was drawn to a prompt from Jason Reynolds’ book Long Way Down, “The Way I Felt.”
It amazes me how a single prompt can turn out so many different individual responses. Go to the link to read the many touching responses. I am honored to be among them.
The Ultrasound
The way I felt when you showed me the ultrasound.
Never knew love like this.
I held the tiny image in the palm of my hand
cried
feeling a new world opening. I planted. I grew a fertile seed now planted in you.
Fingers, toes, a nose! Small person coming to be my grandchild.
My student Breighlynn in 4th grade was featured this week on Today’s Little Ditty. She took the ditty challenge to write a poem of presence. The Twitter hashtag continues. It’s not too late to jump in the fun!
Today is my prompt day at Ethical ELA. Please stop by and write an analogy acrostic.
On Sunday, Stefani Boutelier prompted on Ethical ELA a “Where I’m From” poem like the ever popular George Ella Lyon poem. I’ve done this exercise many times over the years and have never been happy with my results. The poem seems over-sentimental. I went ahead and tried again. This time, I’m happier with the poem and even shared it aloud with my sister, brother, and our parents on Easter morning over our FaceTime.
I am from piano keys and pot roast, From Charles’ Chips in a can. I am from the pine forests of Mississippi, Beechcrest Drive and Purple Creek, pink azaleas line the red brick house while a concrete “waterfall” waits at the edge of the woods.
I am from writing notes, tucking them into your locker between classes. From shade of a sycamore– broad-leafed Daddy’s pride.
I’m from singing carols around the grand, a gallery of books climbing high as the ceiling. From Liles and Gibson trees, arms of Margaret and Eugene.
I’m from church on Sundays. From hurricanes and a Pearl River flood. From pot-liquor with turnip greens, black-eyed peas, and cornbread.
I’m from war stories, Anglican prayers, and theology over the dinner table set with woven mats, pottery, and cotton napkins.
I’m from home movies, reel to reel, stored in tins that playback Love within.
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!”
For National Poetry Month, I am trying to write a poem each day following whatever muse I can find. Yesterday I tuned in to #verselove on Ethical ELA. Glenda Funk offered a prompt for writing an etheree. I’ve been seeing this form around the Kidlitosphere, so I wanted to try it out. It’s a 10-line form using syllable counts from 1-10.
When I was writing, I looked down to see the bracelet I was wearing. Last summer we cleaned out my parents’ home when they moved to a retirement home. We found all kinds of treasures. One was a box of jewelry from my godmother whom I didn’t know well. She died years ago. My parents had inherited some of her treasures.
In the box was a broken necklace of amber beads. My sister-in-law is talented at making bracelets. She took the beads and other beads from a necklace of my mother’s to create a new bracelet for me. And now I muse over it.
image created by Carol Varsalona Read more Spiritual Journey posts at Donna’ Blog, Mainly Write.
Fear is the opposite of Love, so how do we live through this fearful time with Love?
I read an article from Time magazine that helped. The Bible does not turn away from fear. God’s word embraces the fear in us and replaces it with love. N.T. Wright says that we should turn to Psalms. Within the Psalms, God grieves with us. The psalmist draws us into the lament so that we are comforted by the connection, person to person.
The point of lament, woven thus into the fabric of the biblical tradition, is not just that it’s an outlet for our frustration, sorrow, loneliness and sheer inability to understand what is happening or why. The mystery of the biblical story is that God also laments.
N.T.Wright
I turned to Psalm 22 which typically we read on Maundy Thursday as the altar is stripped. As a congregation, we won’t be reading together this year. Yet, the lament is more real now than ever before.
The poetry prompt from Ethical ELA by Glenda Funk is to write a Blitz poem. I felt this form would work for a psalm-like poem based on Psalm 22.
Forsake me Forsake my words My words roar My words cry Cry in the day Cry at night Night is holy Night I trust Trust our God Trust deliverance Deliverance from evil Deliverance from scorn Scorned people Scorned me I am a worm I am a child A child in my mother’s womb A child on my mother’s breast My mother’s breast comforts My mother’s breast gives hope Hope is a garment Hope is far from me Far as a raging lion Far as help Help my soul Help my darling My darling hears me My darling calls my name My name praises My name vows Vows of worship Vows of my heart My heart loves My heart seeks Seeks food Seeks a seed A seed serves A seed is planted Planted in the soil Planted in praise Praise for a kingdom come Praise for a will be done Done to us Done for us We see salvation We declare righteousness Righteousness of God’s world Righteousness to those born Born of God’s hands Righteous to live and love
I live on the Bayou Teche in New Iberia, Louisiana. I love teaching, poetry, my dog Charlie, my three daughters, and dancing with my husband. This space is where I capture my thoughts, share my insights, and make connections with the world. Welcome! Walk in kindness.
