Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Teaching, Writing, tagged haiku, inspirational quotes, Mr. Brown's precepts, simile on March 22, 2022| 7 Comments »
Quote-of-the-day from Matthew, age 11, in 365 Days of Wonder:
This precept gave me the opportunity to teach about simile. Avalyn understood immediately and created her own simile. When the syllable count emerged as 5, then 7, I saw a haiku in the making. Avalyn completed it with a dazzling 5-syllable line.
Hope is the rainbow
Avalyn, 2nd grade
sparkling in the sunshine rain
dazzling air with Joy!
Posted in Slice of Life, Writing, tagged #poemsofpresence, #smallpoems, Clover, haiku, This Photo Wants to be a Poem on March 9, 2022| 32 Comments »
March is the season for clover. It’s popping up on lawns, in fields, everywhere. I love remembering my childhood in clover, sitting with friends and weaving long chains of clover flowers into crowns, necklaces, veils, anything a princess may need. Clover enhanced my play as a child growing up in Mississippi. I can still smell the freshly mown clover.
Kim Douillard wrote on her blog recently that a colleague of hers described haiku as “in one breath.” I love that thought and encourage you to try a breath of a haiku about clover, spring, childhood, whatever comes to mind. Leave a small poem in the comments and write encouraging responses to other writers.
Breath of fresh clover
Margaret Simon, draft
becomes a princess crown in
a field of wonder
Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged being grandmother, haiku, monarch caterpillars on January 25, 2022| 15 Comments »
I try not to complain. I try to see the good in each day. Really, there is good in each day. But yesterday I got this haiku from a friend in Facebook Messenger.
It made me laugh, and I couldn’t resist playing along.
Haiku of my life at 5:00 on Monday.
My ribs are bruised
Margaret Simon
Coffee has lost its sweetness
Raindrops in my hair.
This photo gives a clue to my injury. See that rather thick siding on the slide, just thick enough to bruise a rib on the way down. Can’t a Mamère have any fun!?
But I will not leave this post without hope. I am currently nurturing about 20 monarch caterpillars in my kitchen. Last week before a hard freeze, I got a text from Jennie who tends the garden at a local school: “There’s a bunch of monarchs at Sugarland. Do you have any desire to bring them in from cold? Thank you, Caterpillar hero!” On my way home I stopped by the school, found an open gate, and cut lots of milkweed with caterpillars feasting. I’m posting updates periodically on Instragram.
My January Kitchen
A net enclosure
Margaret Simon, (c) January 2022
holds milkweed to feed
future beauty-wings
Posted in Photography, Poetry, Writing, tagged haiku, hurricane lilies, naked ladies, This Photo Wants to be a Poem on September 29, 2021| 24 Comments »
Flowers are fascinating, and their names can be entertaining. I took a drive out to the country on Sunday to visit a friend. She had naked ladies growing in her yard. As I was leaving, she said, “Can I cut you some hurricane lilies?”
“I thought they were naked ladies.”
She may have blushed. “Yes some people call them that.”
When I put “naked ladies” into Google, more name possibilities popped up: Belladonna Lily, Bareroot Red Surprise Lily, Resurrection Lily, August Lily, Red Spider Lily, Lycoris Raidanti.
Let’s have a little fun today with these names. Play with one of them in a small poem. Post in the comments. Reply with encouraging comments to others. Happy Hump Day!
red stamens reach up
Margaret Simon, haiku
resurrected from bare earth
radiant surprise
Posted in Photography, Poetry, Writing, tagged haiku, hummingbirds, Molly Hogan 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.
Peach-sweet zinnia
Haiku draft, Margaret Simon
fanned by wingbeats 200
times per second: Zest!
Please write a small poem in the comments and reply to other writers with encouraging words. Thanks for being here.
Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged haiku, Leslea Newman, Orange County Museum of Art on April 24, 2020| 13 Comments »
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
Lesléa Newman, October Mourning
one red swollen blood-caked face
this is someone’s child
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.
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 hummersWalks 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
Margaret Simon, draft 4/22/20
when the viral storm calms down
I hope for a hug.
Posted in Digital Learning, Gifted Education, Poetry, Poetry Friday, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged Ethical ELA, haiku, Japanese characters on March 20, 2020| 24 Comments »
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.)
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
Margaret Simon, draft
glows like any other, yet
gleam lingers longer.
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
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
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
Posted in Poetry Friday, tagged haiku, image poems, Jone MacCulloch, Summer Poetry Swap on August 9, 2019| 24 Comments »
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”.
reflective water
Kaylie Bonin ( a former student, now college freshman)
meets the blinding summer’s jewel
they kiss in between
day’s ending
Linda Baie
water ignites
one final moment
yellow and white light
Evelyn Migues
drawn together by nature
reflects the divine
my eyes catch the light
Gloria McKenzie
bright reflection from above
I need sunglasses
If you want to play along, leave a haiku response in the comments.
Posted in Poetry, Writing, tagged #playwithpoetrynpm, haiku, magnetic poetry, metaphor dice 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
Posted in Poetry, Writing, tagged Earth Day, haiku, nature 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.
April 1 Irene at Live Your Poem
2 Donna Smith at Mainly Write
3 Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core
4 Mary Lee at A(nother) Year of Reading
5 Buffy at Buffy Silverman
6 Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone
7 Kim Johnson at Common Threads
8 Rose Cappelli at Imagine the Possibilities
9 Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link
10 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
11 Janet Fagel at Reflections on the Teche
12 Jone at Jone Rush MacCulloch
13 Karin Fisher-Golton at Still in Awe
14 Denise Krebs at Dare to Care
15 Carol Labuzzetta @ The Apples in my Orchard
16 Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe
17 Ruth at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken Town
18 Patricia at Reverie
19 Christie at Wondering and Wandering
20 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge
21 Kevin at Dog Trax
22 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
23 Leigh Anne at A Day in the Life
24 Marcie Atkins
25 Marilyn Garcia
26 JoAnn Early Macken
27 Janice at Salt City Verse
28 Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference
29 Karen Eastlund at Karen’s Got a Blog
30 Michelle Kogan Painting, Illustration, & Writing
Our address on the Bayou Teche
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Reflections on the Teche 