Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
For multiple reasons, I had a rough week last week. On Saturday, I woke up early and went to a local farmer’s market to sell books and make “zines” with kids. It was really great fun, but hot! By the time I finished, I had not eaten or had anything to drink, so I went to my daughter’s house to cool off, literally.
Maggie and I started talking about my week and the day at the market. She suggested I pull a card from her oracle deck, “Mysteries of Love” from alenahennessy.com.
The card I pulled could not have been more perfect, literally and figuratively.
Writing in a community of writers has led me to so many wonderful connections with other teacher-writers from all over the world. I discovered the writing community at Ethical ELA in the spring of 2020 when we were all isolated. Being able to find meaningful writing prompts and support from others helped me feel less alone.
Now, four years later, I am honored to be involved in a book project. I have two chapters in a book that gives teachers an understanding of how poetry can be healing in our classrooms and beyond. Words that Mend is here, alongside its sister books 90 Ways of Community and Just YA.
One of my chapters in Words that Mend appears in the section Teacher Healing titled Walking through Grief with Poetry. I wrote about my grief journey after my father’s death and how writing poems helped me process that grief. The comments others left for me on my poems felt authentic and caring. Healing from grief doesn’t happen quickly, if ever, but finding a space for sharing my thoughts in poetry gave me a purpose. And having this book now out in the world gives me purpose.
The second chapter I wrote is titled Write Along with Me, An Invitation Accepted. I wrote about how one of my students used poetry in my class to carry her through grief and how she reached out to me to start a small after school writing group. In that chapter, you can find writing prompts that worked for me as I worked with her. In fact, each chapter includes a section for a prompt for teachers and students.
Penny Kittle wrote this about Words that Mend:
“My time reading Words that Mend was not only worth it, it has multiplied my thinking about teachers as writers in profound ways. These chapters contain the lives and experiences of teachers—written like a colleague who pulls up a chair to sit beside you—and you lean in, listening with intensity and joy. What a gift this book is: it holds so much. Words that Mend is the invitation each of us needs to write in community. In celebration. In support. In discovery of what it means to bring poetry into the lives of all those we know. There is a particular generosity in this book: one of personal experiences, yes, but also the hesitations all writers feel to show their lives in writing. You will find beginnings here (even a notebook page of first thoughts) that will inspire you to write. You will find lesson plans already worn and weathered by use in classrooms. Do not turn from the gift of Words that Mend: you need it more than you might think you do.”
~Penny Kittle, author Write Beside Them, Book Love, and Micro Mentor Texts
Words that Mend is now available for purchase on Amazon (for printing cost only) and a free pdf download on Ethical ELA here.
Sarah Donovan, Oklahoma State University, curator of Ethical ELA tells our story on YouTube:
We will have an online event at 2:00PM CST on September 22nd to celebrate and write together. Stay tuned!
Poetry Friday is gathered today by Laura Purdie Salas who has a new picture book Line Leads the Way. Visit her site for all the poetry goodness.
The first Friday of each month is reserved for the Inklings challenge. This month Catherine tuned us in to Ada Limon’s project You are Here. Her question is What would you write in response to the landscape around you?
Last month I participated in Ethical ELA’s Open Write. Mo Daley prompted us to write a type of found poem called “X Marks the Spot.” The idea was to take any text and draw an x across the page, then use the words to make a new poem.
I look forward to trying this prompt with my students soon. Having a bank of words to use in a poem can be just the push you need. “You are here” is often marked by an X. I used a poem found in the American Scholar magazine titled “The Bougainvillea Line” by Ange Mlinko.
This summer our landscape has been saturated by rain. This is better than drought, to be sure, and my garden has loved it. This poetry exercise stretched me to find a new place to land. The found words are in italics.
Summer Soaked in Rain
Driving the back roads which pass by train tracks which carve ditches of untended weeds, we breathe the familiar lime-lit gravel there swarming with wild volunteers.
Illuminatedporches bark with fervor, tomatoes once sweet, pock-marked by bird beaks.
I think of my own garden full and overgrown, untrained vine of bougainvillea stretching underfoot with poor allegiance to the government of gardens dissolving in rained-on glory.
Margaret Simon, draft
In my butterfly garden, Albert chases a Gulf fritillary. Photo by Margaret Simon
To see how other Inklings responded to this prompt, go to these links:
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 Open Write at Ethical ELA. I love these monthly exercises in writing poetry. They keep my notebook going as a working document, and it’s a wonderful, kind, and inspiring group to be a part of. Earlier in the week, Kim Johnson left me a comment stating she hoped I would write a puppy poem this week. Today’s prompt worked for a puppy poem.
You may be familiar with the children’s book The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown. Gayle leads us through the prompt to discovery the essence of the thing we choose to write about. As I write this post, my new puppy Albert “Albear” is curled up on my lap after his vaccinations. I’m breathing in the puppy smell. He’s 5 months old. I’m not sure when that scent goes away, but for now, I’m loving it.
The important thing about a new puppy is that he loves you without conditions. He will also jump on you and joyfully chase a tennis ball. Sometimes he poops on the floor, but he’s “just a puppy.” Always cute. Intoxicating smell. Barks at new bowls, trash bins, and the noise of the printer. Curiously nibbles on weeds, follows butterflies, sniffs at kittens. But the most important thing about a new puppy is he loves you, no matter what.
Five month old Albert with his favorite tennis ball.
I have fallen out of a daily writing practice. I don’t have my students to keep me honest. Summer break has seeped into my psyche and everything feels like a pause. Good news I feel rested. I’m sleeping better, and my daily exercise has leveled up. But I feel guilty about the writing. I really thought I would do more of it.
Ethical ELA helped me out this week with daily prompts for June’s Open Write. On Saturday, Sarah Donovan started us out with a prompt from June Jordan’s poem “These Poems.”
These poems after June Jordan
These poems they are sated with sweet wine.
These lips open for words whispered to wind.
These wishes wander in warm sun hoping to find your heart to hold.
I follow these strokes stem by stem scribbles of ink seeking recognition.
Do you see me?
On Sunday, I led the prompt about writing a duplex poem after Kay Ulanday Barrett who wrote after Jericho Brown. The poem I wrote came to me after my husband’s recent dog bite injury. Everyone we talked to wanted to know all the details. He is doing better, but he is wearing a wound vac that is a gismo that continually pumps the bad stuff out of his wound. We are hoping this method works toward faster healing. (Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers.)
the poem what it wants me to hear today. What thread runs through the details?
Everyone wants to know the details. What happened at the corner lot?
What happened at the corner turned his life, his legs inside out.
Turned his life, his legs inside out, details that thread the woven story.
They tell details to thread the woven story. Shout for justice for the finish line.
Say justice is truth; shatters the plan, pulls the thread on the whole thing.
Pull a thread, the whole thing changes to what the poem wants me to know.
Monday’s prompt was from Susan Ahlbrand. She shared clips from Gilmore Girls to prompt us to write about graduation day. I took a quote from Lorelei who said, “I’m not crying.”
On the final day, I was taking care of two of my grandchildren, so I put together a quick book spine poem, prompted by Jessica, from my daughter’s son’s shelf. This week revived my soul and hopefully put me back on a path of daily writing.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Monday was Earth Day and the weather could not have been more perfect. A cool front came through, so our temps were in the 60’s. I took each group of students outside for writing time. I opened the Merlin app and we talked about the birds’ songs we heard. It was a good day for listening, teaching, and writing. State testing starts Wednesday, so I was happy for the opportunity to sit outside and forget our worries.
Kailyn’s notebook page
Earth Day is also my father’s death day. He loved double numbers; his birthday was 11/11/33. He passed away on 4/22/22. Ethical ELA’s prompt gave me the space I needed to write about him and his love of trees.
Dark Clouds by John Gibson
Earth Day Dedication
My father’s compass pointed to the trees, how the branches bent and blocked light shadows dotting landscape.
Once he told me trees grounded him in the present, reliable– long standing safety for Mother Earth’s children.
Yesterday I heard the “kow-kow-kow” of a yellow-billed cuckoo stopping in our tree from its journey across the Gulf.
The journey of life, as the cuckoo calls, is hard and easy. Some days you find rest, take a breath, sigh for Mother Earth and sing loud. (Margaret Simon, draft)
We’ve started getting the school butterfly garden ready for spring. I was a bit overwhelmed and excited to see all the plants that survived the winter. I was particularly taken by the purple salvia which last year was a small percentage of planter box space and now is practically taking over. But it’s so beautiful.
A closeup of purple salvia
Yesterday on Ethical ELA, the prompt from Dave Wooly was a new form to me: Kwansaba, a praise poem based on #7. Seven lines, seven words, seven or fewer letters each word. The letter count stumped me because I wanted to write about the butterfly garden. Butterfly is 9 letters long, off limits. I felt like I was putting together a complicated puzzle where the pieces wouldn’t fit together. I’m sharing my effort, however, along with my garden partner Avalyn’s garden celebration.
Purple Salvia Kwansaba
In our school garden, spring rises in purple salvia opening with violet nectar.
Beauty abounds here, left after winter’s freeze bidding hummers, bees, moths, pollen seekers come.
I want to plant a home garden– enrich, connect place to place where life, a sense of hope, comes richly back to us.
by Margaret Simon
Avalyn’s Garden Kwansaba
Garden
Such a pretty flower, dancing flowers behold. The wind cannot uproot even in storms. You are such beauty I cannot explain. You are the scent I want to smell. You stand for happy, so much color! Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet A praise poem to all the flowers.
How are the flower gardens doing in your part of the world? Please consider writing a small poem in the comments and encouraging other writers with your comments. Happy Spring!
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
What an amazing month for flowers! They are everywhere. Knockout roses, wild purple salvia, native Louisiana iris. I even say a few poppies in a neutral ground. Jasmine is blooming sending fragrance through the windows. I am finding hope and poetry in the flowers this month. Today I want to offer two poems about flowers. I hope you are watching flowers blooming in your part of the world. Small daily miracles.
Louisiana iris clipped from our bog.
Iris in a Glass Vase
If you want to know hope as the deepest thing, look at each flower blossom. The iris yellow eyes like little candlelight wrapped in a purple gown. Nature plants seeds for us to notice new life to believe that God wants us to rise up and wink at the sun, to hear the sounds of birds as they shout out loud, We are here! We are here! We are here!
Margaret Simon, draft written to my own prompt on Ethical ELA
This next one is after Clint Smith as prompted on Ethical ELA. Pop over to see many wonderful poems.
Today I will write a poem about a small white flower opening overnight to burst into fragrant song–
Jasmine climbs boldly over a picket fence persisting to be here in a place where no one cries, innocently hidden from view.
The scent of it opens over spring breeze announcing its place in the family of things.*
On Saturday in downtown New Iberia, we held the Books along the Teche Literary Festival. I spent most of my time volunteering in the children’s tent, but in the late afternoon, I went to hear Faith Broussard Cade ( @fleurdelisspeaks.) Over the past 6 years, Faith has healed from a traumatic brain injury by writing daily affirmations. These Instagram posts have caught fire and have made her an influencer and entrepreneur. I am so proud of her. She is the daughter of a close friend, and she was in my oldest daughter’s high school class.
Faith told her story. She also taught the audience how to write affirmations. Use an I message. Think about what it is you most need to hear. Keep them close to you. She gifted each of us with cotton deckled paper and a flair pen, her go-to tools. She said that her affirmations come from God. She is just the medium. She promotes self-care for women who tend to care for others without taking care of themselves.
Yesterday I used the lavender pen I got to write a poem for Ethical ELA. James prompted us to write a tanka (5,7,5,77) about a moment when everything seemed possible. I have that feeling when I write.
Writing is a choice, yes, but for me, if I don’t do it, I feel something is missing. Yesterday as I was walking, I spoke into my notes app and wrote this small poem, another one in a stream of words that are processing my experience with Alzheimer’s. I am hopeful that somehow these poems connect with someone while they give me processing time, space for my grief.
I Forgot
when it started and wonder about its end as my pace slows to hear the calls of the Carolina wren that once nested in a begonia pot on her porch.
There are so many things I do not know. There are so many things I have yet to know, but on this day as the birds sing, I do know she will always love me.
Robert selected the topic of everyday miracles for this month’s Spiritual Journey posts. Jennifer Jowett led us at Ethical ELA to explore a letter of the alphabet. Combining both prompts, I wrote about the letter M, my first initial that carries the legacy of my grandmother as well as the letter of my grandmother name, Mamère.
M is for miracle, mountain of twin peaks, how mothers are made, become Mamères watching a boy learning to write his name- “up, down, up, down” ride the pen roller-coaster how calligraphic M wears a fancy dress to the letter party. Maybe M moves mountains, makes miracles, but most of all M glows in the heart when your child mutters, “Mom, I missed you.”
Margaret Simon, draft
I continue to find fascinating words to write about. Today’s word lulu means an outstanding example of a particular type of person or thing. Years ago we rescued a greyhound who came with the name Lulu. I had no idea that the name had this meaning. This poem is sometimes called taking a word for a walk.
Lulu is a luxurious word we say with a lulling lilt calling the lazy dog- a lulu of a greyhound- blond furry wind a blur when she ran. She loved lulu weather. We love our Lulu memory.
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 