This morning I am writing in a little house in Hattiesburg, MS with my friend and fellow Ethical ELA writer, Kim Johnson. We are here for the Fay B. Kaigler Children’s Book Festival. Yesterday we presented together about the power of poetry to heal. We shared writing prompts from 90 Ways of Community and led a group of teacher-librarians to discover themselves as writers. The room was vibrating with their energy. We just don’t often take the time to write just for ourselves. It was a wonderful way to begin the 3 day festival.
Today’s prompt for #Verselove comes from Joanne Emery who shared a model poem from Joy Harjo, “Red Bird Love.” I used a striking line from Joy’s poem to write about my friend Mary’s butterfly garden.
Mary’s Invitation
In her garden, there’s salvia, swamp milkweed, that purple one I forgot the name of: you watch a swallowtail circle tall parsley flowers, back around to orange pincushion pistils on a coneflower for a taste of home.
Linda is hosting today with a mashup of songs and poems. This reminded me that we did a similar activity in my class. I asked the class what song about friendship do they like. Kailyn said, “Count on Me” by Bruno Mars.
I stole the line “I’ll sail the world to find you.” to create a golden shovel.
My friend, I’ll tell you again that I will sail through a turbulent storm, the end of the world as we know it to rescue you, comfort you, to find safety in this place with you. Margaret Simon, draft
Happy November! This is the first day and first Friday, so it’s time for a new challenge from the Inklings. This month Linda, who is also hosting Spiritual Thursday, selected a poem by Joy Harjo Fall Song. She asked us to respond in some way to the poem. I collected words that pleased me for their sounds: blue, you, divine, mind, behind. I was thinking of my mother’s blue eyes.
Her Eyes Blue like the Sky
(after Joy Harjo “Fall Song”)
All you leave behind is blue– blue lace wings–
tinted with night sky. Your divine sign forever will be a blue bird.
I cry for more– more of your soft touch,
the gleam of love lighting
from your crystal blue eyes. Margaret Simon, draft
Linda's One Little Word for 2024 is "World". She has been writing poems all year on a padlet using her word. I admire her dedication to this daily writing. Since she sent out the prompt for Spiritual Journey, I have been noticing that poets often use the word "world".
I recently read Evie Shockley’s poem “job prescription ” and striked a line for a golden shovel: “poetry may not change the world, but might change you.” I believe in poetry. I want to believe that it could change the world, but I’m satisfied knowing that it has changed me. I am a better person, a better teacher, a better child of God because I breathe in poems every day.
What is poetry? An acorn that may or may not become an oak, change leaves for the next season of the world. We read & write, but are never sure which words might sprout to change and inspire the deepest you. Margaret Simon, draft
Golden Orb Weaver Spider (aka banana spider) by Maggie Simon
I was looking at the photos on my daughter Maggie’s phone and came across this spider. She had taken the photo on a nature walk along the bayou with her children while attending a birthday party. It is commonly known as a banana spider. Can you see its web? I featured a golden orb weaver in my yet-to-be-published book Swamp Song. I wrote the poem as a golden shovel for the golden orb weaver.
A golden shovel is a poem that uses the text of a line from another poem or text. Align the words of the quote down the right hand margin. Use these words to create a poem written around the words of the quote. The poem may or may not be of the same topic of the quote.
Today you can choose to find a quote you like to write about in a golden shovel or write your own ekphrastic poem about the photo. Please post your poems in the comments and give encouraging feedback to other writers.
“Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space”
A Noiseless Patient Spider by Walt Whitman
Golden threads surrounded her throne, detached from her banana-abdomen, woven in curious ways, measureless vibrations like waves of oceans swallowing flying insects of space. Margaret Simon, all rights reserved
Spider Lily among cypress knees on Bayou Teche, Louisiana
I wanted this swamp lily to be a star lily, but research is telling me it’s a variety of spider lily. On Ethical ELA, the prompt by Wendy Everard asks us to explore the place of a favorite poet. I chose Mary Oliver and a striking line from her poem Fall: “what is spring all that tender/ green stuff”
I’m not sure what heaven is but amazement like spring when all green that was hiding in tender seed fills green bridal bouquets blossoming beautiful stuff.
Margaret Simon, draft
I’m also writing a word poem each day. Today’s word is vernal which means of, in, or appropriate to spring. Today’s form is an acrostic.
Variety of colors eagerly popping- resurrection- nature’s recital. April, I Love you.
Photo credit by Kevin Nusser, “I took the photo while visiting Elijah Bond’s grave in the green mount cemetery in Baltimore MD”
I saw this photo on Facebook in The Stafford Challenge group. I was struck by the way Kevin Nusser caught the sun atop a steeple. This photo mused him to write on an old typewriter. Here is a photo of his poem.
I often think about how poetry begets more poetry. Billy Collins points this out in his poem “The Trouble with Poetry”. Can you find inspiration in the photo, the words? Perhaps steal a line and write a golden shovel. I believe the world can never have too much poetry.
How many times will we face death, wonder who are the ones we’ll lose? If I’m lucky, I won’t lose all my people before I go. As long as living keeps you here, I won’t have to carry our losses alone. I can live a wild life.
Margaret Simon, draft
Please join me and write. If you choose, share your draft in the comments. Please leave encouraging responses to others.
While I was in Ohio for NCTE, my husband sent me this photo of a harvested sugarcane field under an awe-inspiring sunset. He described it to me this morning, “It covered the whole world!” Ethical ELA held its Open Write this week. Kim Johnson prompted us to write a poem using Ada Limón’s poem Give Me This. I wrote a golden shovel about this photo using a striking line: “Why am I not allowed delight?”
So many sunset photos, I wonder why
attraction to orange, pink, purple sky is what I am
with you. Loving this mirror–I
with you, noticing. We are not
the same, yet we’re always allowed
a sunset delight.
Margaret Simon, after Ada Limón
I invite you to write an ekphrastic poem about this photo. Imagine the bigness of the sky, the awe-inspiring sunset, a field of brown…wherever the muse takes you. I hope you take a moment away from your Thanksgiving preparations to write. Come back if you can to comment on others’ poems with encouraging words. Most of all, “Happy Thanksgiving!”
The National Writing Project’s Write Out ended last Friday with the National Day on Writing. All the wonderful content is still available, and my students aren’t ready to stop writing. Yesterday we perused the site and found information about Phillis Wheatley from the Boston National Historic Park. When I was researching to write poems for my forthcoming book Were You There: Biography of Emma Wakefield Piallet, I used a line of Phillis Wheatley to write a golden shovel. I shared the mentor text with my students.
They were fascinated to try writing golden shovels, so we found a poem written by Phillis Wheatley on Poetry Foundation. We read “A Hymn to the Evening.”
Soon as the sun forsook the eastern main The pealing thunder shook the heav’nly plain; Majestic grandeur! From the zephyr’s wing, Exhales the incense of the blooming spring. Soft purl the streams, the birds renew their notes, And through the air their mingled music floats. Through all the heav’ns what beauteous dies are spread! But the west glories in the deepest red:
Thursday was a special day in our small room. The butterfly whose chrysalis lay on the zipper finally emerged. We were excited because it meant we could finally open the enclosure to release them all. We had four that I had been feeding with mandarin oranges from the cafeteria.
We had the privilege of watching their daily antics and marveling at their beauty. The butterflies were Gulf fritillaries. And flit they did. This breed was less tame than the monarchs we have raised before. They did not light easily on a finger. We had some exciting moments trying to catch them all. But we did and together released them into the butterfly garden. Luckily one of them hung around for a photo.
My mind and my golden shovel poem were both on this miracle of Mother Nature.
A Hymn for the Gulf Fritillary after Phillis Wheatley “A Hymn to the Evening”
Fritillary soft petals purl from enclosure to the spread of wings, flitting over streams, freedom like the birds who renew, survive and thrive singing their tender, sweet notes.
Linda Mitchell has the Spiritual Journey on the First Thursday round up at A Word Edgewise.
When Linda chose the topic of turning for our Spiritual Journey writing this month, I thought of turning from the long, free days of summer to the short, frantic days of school. Teachers go back tomorrow. Yes! The earliest we’ve ever gone back. To say I’m not ready is an understatement. I haven’t even been to my classroom all summer. I am grateful that a colleague did my bulletin board and later today some of my former students will help me arrange my classroom. It’ll get done.
But the turning that I am focused on these days is the changing relationship I have with my children. Since the loss of my father and the Alzheimer’s of my mother, I am coming to realize that I’ve lost my advisors. The two people I turned to no matter what, who would talk, share, advise, and love me unconditionally are no longer available to me. I guess I should be praying more. I am trying to meditate more, but I am spinning a top of woeful angst.
My daughters are busy with their difficult jobs, their young children, and generally making a life for themselves. The last thing they need is a mother who needs them. But I need them. They know me the deepest and strongest (next to my husband, of course). They love me unconditionally. They show up when I ask them to. But is it fair that I turn to them for friendship now?
Last weekend I was sitting on my youngest daughter’s couch catching up on emails. Her husband was lying on the floor watching and playing with baby June, and he told her that he knows one day she will argue with him and think he’s uncool, but today she only had eyes for him. He was soaking it all up to prepare himself for the teen years.
I get a poem-of-the-day from the Poetry Foundation. I read the poem The New Speakers by Gloria Anzaldua and took a striking line from her poem to write a golden shovel.
We don’t want to be Stars but parts of constellations.
In the midday light that blinds, we play Paul Simon Radio and don’t follow the tune, fake the words. We want to be stars in the eyes of our children, but they grow, they change, the parts we play become the connecting lines of their constellations.
Margaret Simon, draft
I want to be in a constellation with my daughters. But this new relationship will take time to nurture. As all turning does, we have to move in its direction, in the centrifugal force, and let it take us where we want and need to be.
Do you believe in signs? Rainbows, red birds, messages from our loved ones? I’ve been looking for a sign from my father. Some people say I’m trying too hard. On Tuesday, my brother, his wife, and I were touring assisted living facilities for my mother. She has Alzheimer’s and is living in an independent living facility. It’s getting harder to find good caretakers who understand the disease. Kara, my sister-in-law, told me when we pulled into one of the places we were touring, there was a red bird above the parking lot sign that read, “For future residents.” Whether it was a sign or a coincidence, we don’t know. But humans will human, and we believe Dad was letting us know we were doing the right thing.
Margaret Simon lives on the Bayou Teche in New Iberia, Louisiana. She teaches gifted elementary students, writes poetry and children's books. Welcome to a space of peace, poetry, and personal reflection. Walk in kindness.
Reflections on the Teche 