John Gibson | Reflections on the Teche

Posts Tagged ‘John Gibson’

Poetry Friday: My Father’s Drawing

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged Canva video, Illuminate, John Gibson on November 11, 2022| 14 Comments »

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Buffy Silverman.

This post is dedicated to the memory of my father, Dr. John Y Gibson. In 2013 to celebrate his 80th birthday, we created a book together. Illuminate features ten of his Christmas card drawings alongside my poems. Today would be his 89th birthday. He passed away on April 22, 2022.

Patricia Franz offered to teach some of us bloggers how to use Canva to make videos. I forgot all about the Zoom meeting on Monday, but she graciously recorded it and sent me a link. I decided to make a video with some of my father’s drawings and a poem I wrote for him in 2008. It’s my first attempt, but Canva and Patricia’s guidance made it fairly easy to do. Thanks, Patricia.

Light comes out of darkness. As an artist, I want to tell you that in my ink drawings it is the darkest dark that reveals the brightest light. So it seems also in life.
John Y. Gibson

A poem video “My Father’s Drawing” by Margaret Simon

My Father’s Drawing

Dots of ink and graphite rise in tension with paper
to form a likeness of mother and child.
The wild contrast of darks to light
plays in harmony creating a vision of love.

In the meantime, I grew up,
became a mother with children
living away from my father.
His words came to me in thank you notes
and birthday cards, an occasional phone call.

Yet everyday, I look at his drawing–
the dots of pointillism reach out from the wall
and grant me an audience
with his grateful praise.
Margaret Simon, Illuminate

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Poetry Friday: Holiday Card

Posted in Creativity, Photography, Poetry Friday, tagged art collage, Holiday cards, John Gibson, Linda Mitchell, pointillism on December 24, 2021| 10 Comments »

Exchanging Christmas cards is a tradition that I choose to hold on to. There are people in my life I haven’t seen or talked to in years, decades even, yet we still exchange cards every year. It’s a lifeline. A loveline. A way to connect beyond any reason. I don’t fault anyone who opts out. It’s a time consuming commitment.

We don’t send a long letter anymore. The most I can get out is a sticker for the back with the very basic information. But I do enjoy reading the long letters that arrive. I don’t even care if it’s braggy, braggy. I have a friend whose tradition is to open all the holiday cards at once on Christmas morning. I tend to savor each one as it comes.

Art cards express a dedication of time and creativity. This year I received a beautiful collage art card from friend and fellow Inkling, Linda Mitchell. She says she “dabbles” but this card, and other work I’ve seen by her recently, are placing her into a higher artist category. She has talent, and I appreciate and admire her work.

Christmas card collage by Linda Mitchell

My father, John Gibson, is an artist who created art cards for years. In 2013, I created poems to accompany each card and collected them into a small chapbook, Illuminate. Today, I am featuring one of these cards and its poem.

The Pointillist
She laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.
He sits at the drawing table,
taps the paper
as an instrument.
Music comes forth
in tones
dark and light.
Rhythm
from his heart
to his hand beats–
syncopated in time–
drumming out each dot
point by point
Image
emerges in focus
inviting the eye
I go with him
to the stable,
kneel next to the cow,
smell the light scent of hay,
listen to the breath
of a child,
adore with Mary.
Margaret Simon, all rights reserved
from Illuminate

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Slice of Life: A Poem for my Father

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, tagged Artists, Ethical ELA, Generations, John Gibson on June 22, 2021| 6 Comments »

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

Last weekend with grandkids in tow, my daughters and I traveled to Mississippi to see my parents. Mom celebrated her 85th birthday on Friday. We had an amazing dinner together, all four generations.

Pop with great grandchild, Stella, 6 months.

Over at Ethical ELA, it’s Open Write time. Denise Krebs posted a prompt that pushed me to write a poem for my father. Her poem prompt was based on Langston Hughes’s poem I Dream a World.

He Dreams a World
(for my father, John Gibson)
He dreamed a world where hope
would be our North Star guide,
a world where we could care,
embrace each other’s side.
But dreams read daily news
on print as small as stars.
His weathered hands held fast
so futures could be ours.
Today he watches them
and wonders where they’ll go,
more treasures to be found
and promises of hope.
Margaret Simon, after Langston Hughes

John Gibson, Pop, watches toddler artists Leo and Thomas.

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Slice of Life: Weather Report

Posted in Slice of Life, Writing, tagged Ethical ELA, John Gibson, parents, retirement home on August 18, 2020| 6 Comments »

Temperatures are high in these parts, and the virus doesn’t care. I haven’t seen my parents in person since Christmas. My mother sent me a Portal that works like Facetime through Facebook Messenger. The screen props up on the counter in the kitchen. Every time Leo (20 months) comes over, he points to it and says “Pop!” That’s my dad. That’s how he knows them, through the Portal.

My father has not been big on social media, but in the last month, he’s posting almost daily reports, “Reports from an independent retirement home.” They have been on lockdown for two weeks and were finally released on Saturday (Covid tests negative) to go downstairs for meals again. Here is one of my dad’s posts.

What does one look forward to when you are in quarantine? It’s different I imagine for everyone. As days go by, the options diminish. It gets down to such things as the next nap, the next meal, the next unexpected package, even the mail. Then there’s TV, which ends up being a search for the never found good program. My solace is a good book, which often ends up being the next nap. And so the circle goes on and on. The challenge becomes the acknowledgment that where you are is where you are and you’d better adjust to it. Part of the adjustment is to occasionally posting my thoughts. I hope you don’t mind.
John Gibson

Dad doesn’t know it, but I’m collecting his posts. I started doing this thinking I’d make a found poem, but now I like the way they speak themselves, full of his unique voice.

Andy Schoenborn posted the #OpenWrite prompt on Monday’s Ethical ELA. (Click the link to see the full prompt and read some amazing poetic responses.) Here is my poem draft:

Weather Report
The dog lies at my feet
on the cold floor because
Heat is unbearable at 91
in dog years, the age of Mac
in human years, when the virus
took him.
Heat doesn’t care
if you are young or old
or if you have people
who love you. I see my parents
through a screen.
Their weather changes daily
with temperature checks, sticks up the nose.
(It was reported that my dad yelled from the pain.)
Funny
if we didn’t care so much
about isolation, the comfort
of a friend to eat ice cream with.
Hurricanes come in late summer
when we’ve let our guard down,
when masks fall to our chins,
when we just want to hug
because another person, human,
grandmother, friend has died.
The weather channel
broadcasts
24 hours
a map covered in red.
Margaret Simon, draft

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#NPM2018: Afternoon Light

Posted in Poetry, Writing, tagged ekphrastic poetry, John Gibson, National Poetry Month on April 10, 2018| 13 Comments »

National Poetry Month 2018

See more posts at Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life .

Afternoon Light by John Gibson

Sometimes it’s in the details of the day,
these spokes of wheel, pattern of brick, leaf fall.

Sometimes it’s the conversation you hear,
standing by, eavesdropping, that gossip-talk.

Sometimes it’s the way you walk to and fro,
wandering through tall grass and stepping into light.

“A poet needs to keep his wilderness alive inside him.” Stanley Kunitz

As I write a poem every day to my father’s incredible art, I feel unworthy, like a child waiting for a parent’s approval. When I wrote the poem above and many of the ones I’ve done this month, I hear the echo of a first line in my head. I go with it and follow it through the path to a poem. Sometimes I don’t think it’s really me writing. More like scribing. The Stanley Kunitz quote above speaks to this wilderness inside me where poems live. I’ve decided to trust this voice even when I don’t really understand her.

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#NPM2018: Raven

Posted in Poetry, Writing, tagged John Gibson, National Poetry Month, raven mythology, tanka on April 9, 2018| 1 Comment »

National Poetry Month 2018

Raven by John Gibson

Raven lights a fire
before dawning of sunrise,
forewarning of death,

calms darkness before released
hatred causes senseless grief.

Tanka: The Japanese tanka is a thirty-one-syllable poem, traditionally written in a single unbroken line. A form of waka, Japanese song or verse, tanka translates as “short song,” and is better known in its five-line, 5/7/5/7/7 syllable count form. From Poets.org

“The Irish goddess, Morrighan, had a number of different guises. In her aspect as bloodthirsty goddess of war, she was thought to be present on the battlefield in the form of a raven.” From Trees for Life, Mythology and Folklore.

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#NPM2018: Walking to the Barn

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, tagged ekphrastic poetry, John Gibson on April 6, 2018| 28 Comments »

National Poetry Month 2018

Poetry Friday round-up is with Amy at The Poem Farm.

Welcome to my National Poetry Month Day 5. I’m writing ekphrastic poetry about my father’s art.

Country Barn by John Gibson

Here
we take our time,
climb through barnwood
and tell secrets.

Here
we find ourselves
wrapped in fieldgrass
and speak whispers.

Here
we lower our masks
stay safely sunfree
and hum memories.

Quote from PoemCrazy by Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge: “I feel safe because poems take me to a place out of normal time and thought, dipping me below the surface to where we all meet. The poem speaks in confidence, the reader feels included, honored, and keeps the secret.”

The form beginning with the word “here” borrowed from Janet Wong’s poem Walking to Temple found in Lee Bennett Hopkins collection World Make Way.

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#NPM2018: The Artist

Posted in Poetry, Spiritual Growth, tagged ekphrastic poetry, John Gibson, mask poem, Psalm 22 on April 5, 2018| 13 Comments »

National Poetry Month 2018

Three Trees by John Gibson

I have watched my father draw all my life. He is still doing it in his 80’s. I marvel at how he creates shapes with ink dots. One of his favorite subjects is trees.

I am using Amy Ludwig VanDerwater’s book Poems are Teachers and following her posts on The Poem Farm to prompt my students writing every day. She has opened padlets for each prompt, so my students are posting on these.

Poem number 3 was a mask poem. She tells what a mask poem is here.

I wrote alongside my students, so today’s poem is not ekphrasis but a mask poem from the point of view of the artist.

The Artist

I begin with an image
a photograph, a landscape,
a walk outside.

Drawn to the space
between light and dark,
I trace a line, soft and simple.

As time stands still,
my hand moves, dabbles, dots
until a shape appears.

Art is a way of seeing,
a definition from my eyes,
a miracle of my hands.

Margaret Simon, (c) 2018

For more Spiritual Thursday posts, click over to Carol’s Beyond Literacy Link.

Today is the first Thursday, and a group of fellow bloggers link up and share our spiritual journeys.

The theme for this month is Poetry as a Spiritual Practice. If I were to analyze word choice in my poetry, I would find many words that speak to the spirit, words like miracle, grace, sacred, God, and love. The spirit breathes through these words. I am forever grateful for the gift of writing, for I believe it is a spiritual gift. I am not alone when I write. The Holy Spirit guides my hand. Poetry is a spiritual practice.

On Good Friday last week, I was moved by Psalm 22 to write my own psalm. I am reposting it here as a response to Carol’s call for today’s posts.

Deus, Deus meus

My God, my God, why have you forgiven me?
The toll of the cardinal song
echoes You are my child.

Long ago, I carried a child in my own womb
felt her heart beat with mine,
felt the soft body roll inside.

Is this how you love me, God?

I held the hand of his father
as he passed into your light.
I let go of his quiet strength.

Is this how you love me, God?

When I think on these things,
I can know kindness.
I can hear stillness in the noise.
I can feel love in the bird’s song.

When you are near me, God,
My soul lives for you.

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#NPM2018: Afternoon

Posted in Poetry, Writing, tagged ekphrastic poetry, John Gibson, PoemCrazy on April 4, 2018| 13 Comments »

National Poetry Month 2018

Afternoon by John Gibson

I come from an ocean of afternoons
where the sun hangs
onto the sky
splashing shadows long.

I pedal my bicycle
along the path
racing with the wind,
my hair flying like curly kite ribbons.

I come from this afternoon,
an open endless time
holding onto the handlebars,
then letting go…

Just to test my balance.

From PoemCrazy p.64: “Look for a place in a picture that feels like somewhere you’ve come from. Begin to write about where you feel you come from.”

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#NPM2018: Doves

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged ekphrastic poetry, John Gibson, skinny poem on April 3, 2018| 14 Comments »

National Poetry Month 2018

See more posts at Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life .

For National Poetry Month, I am writing poems to art, ekphrastic poetry. My father has generously offered his art work for my project. He works in pen and ink, using a method called pointillism in which tiny dots create the image. The white spaces are defined by the dark.

Doves by John Gibson

Turtle doves are nesting
in
sanctified
altars,
hovering
in
holy
spaces.
Tranquility
in
nesting turtle doves.

Skinny Poetry Form: A Skinny is a short poem form that consists of eleven lines. The first and eleventh lines can be any length (although shorter lines are favored). The eleventh and last line must be repeated using the same words from the first and opening line (however, they can be rearranged). The second, sixth, and tenth lines must be identical. All the lines in this form, except for the first and last lines, must be comprised of ONLY one word. The Skinny was created by Truth Thomas in the Tony Medina Poetry Workshop at Howard University in 2005.

“Names are powerful. They influence our perception. The Chinese master Confucius believed all wisdom came from learning to call things by the right name.” PoemCrazy by Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge

The name turtle doves originates from the Hebrew word tor meaning twice, which became tur tur, transliterated into English as turtle dove. Thus turtle doves have nothing to do with turtles. They are referred to often in the Bible.

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