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Posts Tagged ‘haiku’

This Photo wants to be a Poem: Hummingbird

Posted in Photography, Poetry, Writing, tagged , , on September 15, 2021| 24 Comments »

Last week when my youngest daughter, Martha, set up her office on the back deck, she watched hummingbirds fighting at the feeder. It was one of those rare high pressure/ low humidity days with an actual breeze. She had to silence the wind chimes for her Zoom calls. Today, Martha’s office is back in New Orleans as power has returned.

Currently I am watching the rain bands of Hurricane Nicholas (now a tropical storm) fill up the bayou. The hummers are still coming. That’s a good sign.

My friend Molly Hogan in Maine has been watching these amazing birds, too, and taking amazing photos of them. She sent me this one.

For my students, since this is a virtual learning day due to the storm, I linked the photo to this Wonderopolis article and used one of the facts in my haiku.

photo by Molly Hogan

Peach-sweet zinnia
fanned by wingbeats 200
times per second: Zest! 

Haiku draft, Margaret Simon

Please write a small poem in the comments and reply to other writers with encouraging words. Thanks for being here.

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Poetry Friday: Pandemic Haiku

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , , on April 24, 2020| 13 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Christie at Wondering and Wandering

On Tuesday evening I participated in a free webinar from Highlights with Lesléa Newman called “Poetry to Soothe the Soul”. During the presentation, I realized I had picked up one of her books at NCTE last fall, October Mourning. I went on a search for it and found it and have been reading. It’s a verse novel about the killing of Matthew Shephard. Her use of short form and repetition is affective in that book.

The Patrol Officer’s Report

two thin white tear tracks
one red swollen blood-caked face
this is someone’s child

Lesléa Newman, October Mourning

With us, she shared her own Pandemic Haiku. Her homework assignment was to write our own. I had written a haiku a few weeks ago and sent in a soundbite of me reading it to Alan Nakagawa’s sound collage commissioned by OCMA, Social Distance, Haiku, and You! This week I received a link to all the creative sound recordings. They had more than 500 entries. My haiku is included in Part B. Posted here if you choose to listen.

Heartbroken world mourns
Loss of who we were before
Waiting for new life
-Margaret Simon

On Wednesday, I collected moments throughout my day in haiku. Here is my collection:

Pandemic Haiku

In a viral time,
let us be grateful for this:
Breath. Green. Life.

Early morning sun
slant of light through cypress shades
welcoming hummers

Walks with Leo
are a wander, meander
See dat, dat, and dat? 

Chalk art on sidewalks
greet passersby with colors
“This too shall pass!”

A new duck tenant
three eggs today lay
in the wood duck house.

Seven green-gold charms
chrysalis-haven for wings
to magically form.

Watching my screen
I see Chloe, Rylee, you
in your own kitchen. 

Don’t know what will be
when the viral storm calms down
I hope for a hug. 

Margaret Simon, draft 4/22/20
Message in sidewalk chalk

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Slice of Life: Poetry Friday: Haiku

Posted in Digital Learning, Gifted Education, Poetry, Poetry Friday, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged , , on March 20, 2020| 24 Comments »

Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Poetry Friday round-up is Michelle Kogan.
Click over to join the round up and to read poems from The Best of Today’s Little Ditty, including one of mine.

Ethical ELA posts a 5 day Poetry Challenge each month. (Next month, there will be a prompt every day for National Poetry Month.) This month I participated in only two days, but I shared one of the activities with my students this week on our Kidblog site.

Click here to see the full prompt from Jennifer Goyer-Jowett.

Her prompt included finding a Japanese character to write a haiku from. I chose river. (There isn’t one for bayou.)

Kawa

In the process of finding this character, I discovered the Japanese word Kawaakari which means the gleam of last light on a river’s surface at dusk.

Last light of first day
glows like any other, yet
gleam lingers longer.

Margaret Simon, draft

Knowing my student Madison would jump on this prompt (she loves all things Japanese), I posted the prompt to my class Kidblog site. I’m sharing their wonderful responses.

Ember’s graceful flight,

Sparks fly, blizzards and tornadoes

of dire fire.

Madison, 6th grade
Image result for water japanese
Mizu means water

Maddox, 5th grade, wrote “The Japanese character I chose is mizu which stands for water. It represents the fluid flowing and the formless things in the world.”

fluid flowing streams

flowing in the wild forest

complete harmony

Maddox, 5th grade
Image result for japanese word character for tree
A.J., 6th grade, chose tree.
image

Standing tall and firm,

Strong arms supporting small twigs,

Uneven Fractal.

A. J., 6th grade

Breighlynn, 4th grade wrote, “My Japanese character is Kaze. Kaze is for wind. It represents Freedom of movement.”

Freedom of Movement

Going here and going there

I love to travel

Breighlynn, 4th grade

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Poetry Friday: Writing to an Image

Posted in Poetry Friday, tagged , , , on August 9, 2019| 24 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone.

One of the joys of summer is participating in Tabatha Yeatts’ Summer Poetry Swap. Tabatha creates the matchups, and we enjoy sending and receiving poetic gifts.

This week I received a gift from Jone MacCulloch. Jone took an amazing trip this summer to Page, Arizona where she took photos in Secret Canyon. She wrote a beautiful poem capturing the feeling of being there. She had the image printed onto a plaque that has a stand, so it all becomes a piece of art to display.

I took a quick trip to the beach in Florida last week with my daughter. I posted an interesting image on Instagram and invited friends to write a haiku to it. I had a few takers. The catch was they couldn’t use the word “sun”.

Beach reflection, photo by Margaret Simon

reflective water
meets the blinding summer’s jewel
they kiss in between

Kaylie Bonin ( a former student, now college freshman)

day’s ending
water ignites
one final moment

Linda Baie

yellow and white light
drawn together by nature
reflects the divine

Evelyn Migues

my eyes catch the light
bright reflection from above
I need sunglasses

Gloria McKenzie

If you want to play along, leave a haiku response in the comments.

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#NPM19 Day 27 Magnets and Metaphors

Posted in Poetry, Writing, tagged , , , on April 27, 2019| 1 Comment »

The more I play with the poetry tools, the less I trust them.  I want to manipulate the words into something, anything that rings true.  Yesterday I combined magnetic word pieces with metaphor dice.  Both of these poems interested me, but I don’t think either is a great poem.  Let’s just live in the moment for a moment.

 

White misty rose
unspoken kiss
of light wine

True summer echoes
as delicate time lost
my bare feet say-shine

 

 

 

 

 

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NPM19 Day 22 Earth Day

Posted in Poetry, Writing, tagged , , on April 22, 2019| 2 Comments »

Over the weekend I bought a new magnetic poetry kit, The Edgar Allan Poe version. Lots of words spread out on a cookie sheet. I created an Earth Day haiku.



A discovery walk near our hotel led to a path along Purple Creek, the very creek that ran behind my childhood home. Along the shore were two Canada Geese with 5 little goslings, an Easter morning miracle.

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Slice of Life: Montana Mountain Haiku

Posted in Gratitude, Photography, Slice of Life, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , on July 10, 2018| 11 Comments »

See more posts at Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life .

St. Mary Falls, Glacier Park

 

Montana mountains
marvel me with rugged peaks
water blue as topaz.

 

 

Bear Grass wildflower
Glacier Park, Montana

 

Bear grass blossoms
a mountain spray of stars
invite travelers in.

 

 

Kayaker on St. Mary Lake, Glacier Park, Montana.

Lone kayak streams
rock mosaic reflection
private piece of heaven

 

I understand why Basho turned to haiku to capture moments in nature.  They are just too big to write big about.  Last week, my husband and I spent July 4th with my friend Dani and her husband, Randy, hiking in Glacier Park.  A note about Dani: We meet through a Voxer group and Twitter chats with #G2Great.  It means so much to me to have a close friend so far away.  What a joy to get our guys together and spend time in a magnificent wonderland! These pictures say it all, beauty and majesty, and all that is good.

 

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Poetry Friday: October Re-ku

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Teaching, tagged , , , , on October 13, 2017| 13 Comments »

Poetry Friday posts are with Irene at Live Your Poem

Last week, my friend, poet, blogger, writing partner Linda Mitchell posted her found haiku along with the inspirational poem Letter in October by Ted Kooser.  See her post here.  I took it all to create a lesson for my students.  After study of and talk about Ted Kooser’s poem, I shared Linda’s haiku and talked about how these haiku could stand separate from the original poem.  I challenged my students to try finding haiku.

Madison created this lovely poem, but first she gave the form a name “re-ku” as in recycled haiku.

A late light dawning
finding a world of darkness.
Silhouettes of the

lost leaves, soaring
on a draft. They have lost
their way. I watch the

darkness, sipping tea.
The night has wrapped the light, sowing
reflections ‘cross
my window. Watch.

Madison, 4th grade

Free image

I’m fascinated by the rhythm and repetition that Noah used to create his artistic expression of A Letter in December.

The icy water
a letter in December
Sowing reflections

The icy writing
a letter in December
in the window pane

The icy fingers
a letter in December
wrapped around the hearth

The icy shingles
a letter in December
frozen in its place.

–Noah, 6th grade

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Celebrate Poetry

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Poetry, Writing, tagged , , on April 22, 2017| 4 Comments »

Find more celebration posts at Ruth’s blog.

I love that we have a whole month of celebrating poetry.  My students walk into class each day and ask, “What kind of poem are we writing today?”  or “I have been thinking about writing a poem about wind.”

I’ve read articles, listened to podcast, and read lots of daily poetry this month.  I don’t want it to end!  Check on the progress of the Progressive Poem.  Listen to Laura Shovan on All the Wonders.  Find a selection of daily poem writers on Jama’s Alphabet Soup.  

Yesterday I got a postcard poem from Jone MacCulloch’s kids poetry group, an ode to cheating.  We will be trying out odes next week, so I’ll share this one with my students.  I love the irony of flying hearts and pencils around this topic of cheating.

 

Here’s my poem for today, a little haiku about our state flower Magnolia.  They are blooming!

magnolia haiku 4

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Celebration Saturday: Good Morning

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Poetry, Writing, tagged , on February 25, 2017| 10 Comments »

Find more celebration posts at Ruth's blog.

Find more celebration posts at Ruth’s blog.

morning-on-the-bayou

Good Morning Haiku

1. Light streams on bayou
wake up trees to stand tall for
perfect reflection.

2. Frothy milk swirling
atop French roast coffee drips,
sweet cafe au lait.

3. Breezy walk with Anne-
dogs sniff, pull, and interrupt
our conversation.

4. Breakfast at Victor’s,
savor sweet potato pancakes,
crispy bacon.

5. A day like today,
watering is not a chore;
Praise gentle morning.

–Margaret Simon

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