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Posts Tagged ‘haiku’

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Michelle Kogan

For the Christmas season, I have decorated my classroom doors (I service 2 schools) with a Christmas tree, but they’re not typical Christmas trees. They’re Grati-ku Poet-trees. Each day since Thanksgiving break, my students and I write a gratitude poem on a paper ornament.

Our Grati-ku Poet-Tree

We are reading daily Santa Clauses (a book of haiku written by the man himself) by Bob Raczka. These poems are inspirational to us and help us see the different ways to create a haiku poem. A complete sentence, a metaphor, a moment in time.

Japanese poems
Santa Claus inspiration
I write haiku, too.

by Avalyn, 3rd grade

Avalyn wanted to invite some teachers to write poems, too, so she asked the speech therapist whose classroom is adjacent to ours to play along. (She calls it a “haiku party”.) Kim wrote:

A burnt string of lights
one bulb out, they all go out.
To the store I go!

By Kim Degeyter

School spirit is everywhere this season as students and teachers participate in dress-up days. I wrote a grati-ku about this:

Reindeer headbands on
little girls’ heads bouncing down
Holiday hallway

Margaret Simon
Other teachers join in the fun!

You should join the fun. Write a grati-ku holiday inspired poem in the comments. I’d love to share them with my students.

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In most parts of the northern hemisphere, fall is a time when leaves change hue and fall getting ready for the dormancy of winter. But here in the deep south of Cajun country, the prairie goes to seed. My friend and neighbor James Edmunds recently photographed fields of prairie grasses. I was attracted to the starlike seed pods of this one.

On Instagram, James wrote, “The Cajun Prairie project in Eunice right now is in a beautiful post-flowering, going-to-seed stage. The perimeter can be walked on nice sidewalks and gives views into a wide variety of native grasses!” To see more, I found a website for Cajun Prairie Habitat Preservation. It does my nature-loving heart good to see there are organizations dedicated to preservation and restoration of natural land.

Cajun Prairie Grass by James Edmunds

Prairie grass sashays
replanting, replenishing
starlike seedlings soar

Margaret Simon, haiku draft

Write your own small poem in the comments and support other writers with comments. Thanks!

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

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
sparkling in the sunshine rain
dazzling air with Joy!

Avalyn, 2nd grade

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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.

Clover by Margaret Simon

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
becomes a princess crown in
a field of wonder

Margaret Simon, draft

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

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
Coffee has lost its sweetness
Raindrops in my hair.

Margaret Simon
Sliding with “Tuffy”, age 60 and age 28 months.

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
holds milkweed to feed
future beauty-wings

Margaret Simon, (c) January 2022
Monarch caterpillars, January 2022

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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!

Naked Ladies in the country, Margaret Simon

red stamens reach up
resurrected from bare earth
radiant surprise

Margaret Simon, haiku

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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 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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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 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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