Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘free verse poem’

This Photo Wants to Be Grateful

Posted in Blogging, Photography, Poetry, Poetry Friday, This Photo Wants to be a Poem, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on November 27, 2025| 19 Comments »

Crocheted tree wrap on the streets of Denver

I am happily home and cozy after being in Denver for a week of busy (NCTE) and, after Jeff came, walking. We clocked over 20,000 steps on Monday.

Today I am taking a day off before my family comes for Friday Thanksgiving. I wanted to take this opportunity to thank the poetry community, so wonderfully kind and generous. Some of you I hugged and talked to at NCTE. Others of you stop by this blog and give support through comments. Reflections on the Teche (pronounced Tesh) is my happy place because of you, my readers.

Today’s photo is a crochet-wrapped tree. I’m using a free verse form today following a prompt from Joyce Sidman after her book Dear Acorn, Love, Oak: a compliment, a question, and a wish.

A Tree that Grows in Denver
Single crochet,
double crochet,
cluster-hills & valleys,
green, pink, purple
blooming round
a tree that juts from concrete.
Your colors give warmth
when times are tough.
Will you twirl with me?
I hope your dancing colors
fill the gloom with bright
like a vine that’s lost control
and only seeks the light.
(Margaret Simon, draft)

Poetry Friday will be gathered at Buffy Silverman’s blog.

If you are feeling the muse of this photo, leave a poem draft in the comments. Support other writers with your responses.

Read Full Post »

Slice of Life Day 20: 1,000 Words

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Teaching, Writing, tagged , , , , , on March 20, 2025| 6 Comments »

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

How many words do you write in a blog post? Have you ever counted?

My students write on a blog site, Fanschool. (Some are doing the daily Classroom Slice of Life Challenge.) One of the cool features on Fanschool is the word count. I usually tell my students that 200-300 words are the best for blog posts. I use word count to encourage my young ones to elaborate on their topics. I also tell them that no one really wants to read more than 300 or so words at one time. Without my priming them, students will sometimes get competitive with themselves and others over word count. I’ve learned that while word count doesn’t really matter, it is something I can leverage if I need to. “Let’s set a goal for at least 100 words today.”

Chance didn’t need a word count limit or a competition; he was ready to pour out his heart and soul on the blog in the first quarter he landed in my class. He had things he wanted to share. At 4th grade, he’s not real adept at punctuating complex sentences, but when he writes, words flow. I was thinking of him when I wrote this poem.

The Space He Needed

On the blog space,
he wrote
and wrote.
I asked him “What are you writing?”
He said, “1000 words about my brothers.”

So many words, like a dam had been opened
to his life, his words.

A space to write
away from the constraints
of a paragraph about the Declaration
of Independence. The blog
opened his independence,
his need to tell the world
all he had been through.

For ten long years, he held
inside who he was, all his secrets,
waiting for this space
to declare his freedom. 
Margaret Simon, draft

Read Full Post »

Slice of Life 2: Walking Meditation

Posted in Slice of Life, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , on March 2, 2025| 13 Comments »

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

Kim Johnson, fellow slicer, has made a plan for her daily musings. I’m not one to make a plan. I like to be more open to what the universe is giving me to write about; however, I read Denise Krebs’ post yesterday. She sliced about the early morning. She reminded me of my daily walk.

I usually start out around 6:15, buckle up puppy Albert (who is now a year old and much better about the leash). On this particular morning, I went to my Insight Timer app for a walking meditation. I selected the first one in the queue. A soothing female voice guided me to be present in my body, to feel the breeze, to listen to the sounds around me, and to let my thoughts float in and out without giving them much notice.

Ah, yes. A walking meditation is the just right way to start my day. Sometimes my walk inspires a poem.

Notes from a Walk

I want to pick up a pile of oak leaves
the pile of leaves blown from the curb,
rejected into the street. 

I want to hold
a gathering of leaves in my hands,
carry them home, make mulch.
Mulch that will feed the soil.

I want to pick up all the gumballs
those countless gumballs that fall
from the sweetgum tree. We could
create art together. 

I could give you
supplies:
leaves and gumballs, 
a cardboard tube.
You can make it yourself.
You can make a masterpiece.

We can be a masterpiece, you and me.
Margaret Simon, from 90 Ways of Community: Nurturing Safe & Inclusive Classrooms Writing One Poem at a Time (available for free download here.)

Photo by Vladimir Srajber on Pexels.com



Read Full Post »

Poetry Friday: You Must Know

Posted in Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , , , , on July 12, 2024| 15 Comments »

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge.

July came in with a poem from Grateful Living. A poem I know and love. One I’ve carried in my pocket often for Poem in your Pocket Day. It’s likely one that you know as well, Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye. In my notebook I wrote a riff on the line “You must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.”

You Must Know

Sorrow buries itself
in the marrow of your bones,
zaps your energy
so all you can do is stop, rest, breathe
slow and steady.

Then you emerge, shedding
a former skin
to feel Love
as the deepest thing,
how sorrow lights on a fence post
to show you
what is true.
All a part of you.

Margaret Simon, draft

Dragonfly by Julie Burchstead

Read Full Post »

Poetry Friday: These Poems

Posted in Poetry Friday, tagged , , , on June 21, 2024| 21 Comments »

Poetry Friday gathering is with Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference.

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.)

I Ask

(Duplex after Jericho Brown after Kay Ulanday Barrett)

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.

Read Full Post »

Poetry Friday: Monster Truck

Posted in Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , , , on June 7, 2024| 12 Comments »

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Tracey Kiff-Judson at Tangles & Tails.

Here we are again with a monthly Inkling challenge. This month Molly challenged us with a prompt from Pádraig Ó Tuama who said “A poem is a word-event going in many directions at once. Sometimes the “you” of a poem is a specific person, at other times it’s the poet, or a general audience, and at times there’s no you at all so the poem addresses itself to the world.”

Molly asked us to write a narrative poem that includes observations about the world and explores the craft of address, the you of a poem. On a recent morning walk, I spoke two observations into my notes app. I felt invaded upon when a truck high up on oversized wheels revved its engine at me as it passed. The other observation was not connected at all. I saw oak tree arms leaning on electric wires. We’ve had a number of sudden storms this summer, and each one is frightening. That’s all to say that poetry is a place where I can vent; I can let steam rise and fall. I address this poem to the you of a random monster truck.

Grandmother Oak Sunrise
June 6, 2024

You disturb my peace.

You! with your hot wheels
rumbling down the road,
motor revving, disrupt
this peace of mind I’m in
writing a poem
in my head
about birds singing.

Birds sing as you pass,
your rolled-up windows
beat-boxing,
shaking a rhythm

of my walking, heart pumping
brow sweating. I’m in this groove
you move your hard edge
against. 

My poem wants
to be kind, but I cannot wash
away your harsh sound
that erases the wind
heaving a heavy sigh

like the old oak arms
leaning on electric wires
holding heavy vibration–
a lightning bolt I cry

to be saved from. 

Margaret Simon, draft

Take a look at how my Inkling friends approached this challenge:

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

Read Full Post »

Slice of Life: In the Midst of Butterflies

Posted in Slice of Life, Writing, tagged , , , on May 21, 2024| 8 Comments »

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

When something bad happens,
something that brings you harshly back to reality,
letting you know one day
you will lose the life you have now,
look for butterflies.

Two weeks before,
when all was blooming
and life was full of daily walks
among wildflowers,
we took into our classroom
black swallowtail larvae.

This is a dependable cycle,
metamorphosis, changing,
eating itself into a chrysalis,
camouflaged, unrecognizable.

Then like a miracle,
beauty breaks free
out of nature’s cage
reminding us
we long for flight.

Black Swallowtail Butterfly released into our school garden. photo by Margaret Simon

Read Full Post »

NPM23 Day 10: Easter Morning

Posted in Poetry, tagged , , , on April 10, 2023| 6 Comments »

I traveled north to Mississippi to be with my mother for Easter. Since I don’t see her every day, it’s hard to know what to expect. She was surprised and overjoyed to see me. She knew my name. It was like old times, except when she’d start a sentence, she would pause because something was lost. I got her dressed for Easter services and discovered she had pajama pants on underneath her jeans. She misinterpreted my directions to the caretaker and said, “Now look what you did. I have to take all these pills.”

Church was the balm! We arrived early and were able to hear the brass ensemble and the choir practice. Mom sang along. She used to be an alto in the church choir. She can still read all the words and the notes. Alzheimer’s is a puzzling disease. She could call out names I had forgotten in my years away, and then tell me that Dad would be the usher today. Dad’s been gone almost a year. One lucid moment, she said, “I wish John (my father) was here. I’m doing OK, but I just think he would love this service.” Both of my parents passed down to me a love a good Episcopal ceremony with incense, bells, and trumpets!

In her book, Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer speaks about ceremony and its importance in our traditions, in our souls. I felt this strong connection sitting next to Mom on Easter Sunday. I will hold onto this moment when things get harder.

Ceremony

breathes life into an ordinary day.
My mother next to me laughs and remembers
all the words, even the alto part.
We sing in ceremony together,
closing a circle of love around us–
the two of us mother daughter
incense,
gerber daisies,
brass bugling,
a woman preaching,
“It is not raining!
New life is the path beyond the empty tomb.”
We look at each other
with glowing tears.
I see her love.
We celebrate life on an extraordinary day.

Margaret Simon, draft

Read Full Post »