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Posts Tagged ‘Joy Harjo’

National Poetry Month Day 10: Mary’s Garden

Posted in nature, Poetry, Writing, tagged , , , on April 10, 2025| 3 Comments »

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.

Photo by Oscar Lopez on Pexels.com

Marcie Atkins has the line today for the Kidlit Progressive Poem.

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Spiritual Journey and Poetry Friday: World and Joy

Posted in Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , , , on November 1, 2024| 20 Comments »

Hosted by Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
Hosted by Patricia Franz at Reverie

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

Photo by Marek Kupiec on Pexels.com

Links to other Inklings:

Catherine Flynn
Mary Lee Hahn
Heidi Mordhorst
Molly Hogan
Linda Mitchell

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Poetry Friday: Road Construction

Posted in Poetry Friday, tagged , on May 24, 2024| 17 Comments »

Poetry Friday gathering is with Michelle Kogan .

I take inspiration for writing from many sources, but one of my favorites is Pádraig Ó Tuama’s Poetry Unbound. A few weeks ago, he featured sections of a poem by Joy Harjo. I listened, then read the whole poem. I was reminded of a conversation I had with my husband when we passed road construction on the way to visit the doctor.

Two weeks ago, my husband was mauled by a German shepherd. He’s going to be okay, but his calves were pretty torn up and he’s had two surgeries so far for repair and debridement. This is the kind of thing that turns your world on its edge, just checking in to see if you’re paying attention.

When I am thrown into a deep hole, I make my way out by writing poetry. Joy Harjo inspired this one. It may help to know that Jeff is a real estate attorney.

Road Construction

As we pass the road construction,
he told me the owners agreed
to the sale if they saved the tree.


The tree is gone; one hundred years
of life gone for a road.

We don’t know how long we have.
How long until a dog escapes its fence
and takes you down to the bone. 

This land does not belong to us to give.
The house on the corner did not own the tree;
it was not theirs to give, but there’s the empty space 
filled with mulch, the former bark
of a tree giving up its life for a road. 

Margaret Simon, (c) 2024

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Poetry Friday: The Writing Table

Posted in Gifted Education, Poetry Friday, tagged , , , on December 18, 2020| 16 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Michelle Kogan.

One of my favorite things about teaching Reading and Writing to elementary gifted students is our weekly poetry reading and writing. We’d gather around the center table and read a poem together, talk about it, annotate, and write “like” the author. While it looks different this year, I have not given up teaching poetry. This week we worked with Teach this Poem and Joy Harjo’s poem Perhaps the World Ends Here. I love this poem, the universality of it, the simple profound language, and its accessibility to young students.

When Jaden suggested we steal a line, I knew exactly which one I wanted to steal: “This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.” After a few false starts, I am pleased with my poem. I am also posting Jaden’s because it shares wisdom beyond his 10 years.

The Writing Table

At this table,
dreams are written
in decorated notebooks.

There’s a pocket for poems
and clean blue lines open
to ideas.

At this table, there are
scraps of paper,
colored pens in a coffee can,
a tube of glitter-glue.

Today, this table is empty.
A screen glows
while children type 
& breathe through cloth.

Words still float onto an empty page.
Poems still light a spark.

This table is a house in the rain,
An umbrella in the sun,
a dawn in the darkness.
Come taste the sweetness.

Margaret Simon, 2020

Why all
the gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. 
So has it been since creation, and it will go on.
The gifts have been laid out through history
traveling through our mind.
The table of gifts has been the energy of life in our heart.
The gifts of the table have been tampered with.
The gifts in our heart have been bruised.
The table is the immune system 
shielding the gifts of the earth.

Jaden, 5th grade

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Poetry Friday: Writing about our Time

Posted in Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , , , on April 10, 2020| 13 Comments »

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

I am writing from my favorite perch on the back deck on Bayou Teche. While I was here, Laura Shovan’s face popped up on my phone inviting me to an Instagram Live. Little did I know that she could actually click me in. Ha! There I was, no make up, saying hi to Laura! She was reading a robot poem. Y’all should check it out!

Photo by Markus Spiske from Pexels

My poem today was inspired by a prompt on Go Poems using Joy Harjo’s poem When the World as We Knew it Ended as a mentor text. I posted on our Kidblog page and a few students wrote their own poems. (We welcome comments.)

When School was Closed

We were writing
every day in colored ink:
100 Days of Notebooking goal.

Sticker charts were filling up
like a calendar of events:
Twenty books, thirty, forty.
We were wild readers 
racking up the highest AR scores.

We had been watching
the President in news conferences
say “This is no big deal, a few weeks,
warmer weather, it’ll all go away.”

We saw it when
our parents stayed home, too,
buying supplies for more than a week,
taking our temperature with their hands.

We heard it
from Governor Edwards,
“Stay at home.”
No more school.
Will I ever see my friends again?
What about the soccer game on Saturday?

But then my dad
took me fishing,
showed me how to bait a hook,
slowly helped me throw out the line.

We waited
side by side
together
for a bite.  

By Margaret Simon

The Spreading Virus

We were getting off the school bus
when he said bye
see you in a month or two

A game of pass the toy
going from here to there.
Until that person has it no more.

We had been watching the passing fields.
stopping every couple of minutes
Barely any cars
driving around
No strangers walking around
outside

still playing games
learning new things
being with the family.

We heard it has claimed lives, many
Must keep everything germ-free
Can’t go see our friends anymore

But then
it is nice being home
this is bringing families together
having to spend
more time
with each
other


by Breighlynn, 4th grade

Follow the progress of this year’s Progressive Poem. We are walking a path to the lake. Matt Forrest Esenwine has today’s line choices.

1 Donna Smith at Mainly Write
2 Irene Latham at Live Your Poem
3 Jone MacCulloch, deowriter
4 Liz Steinglass
5 Buffy Silverman
6 Kay McGriff at A Journey through the Pages
7 Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core
8 Tara Smith at Going to Walden
9 Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link
10 Matt Forrest Esenwine at Radio, Rhythm, and Rhyme
11 Janet Fagel, hosted at Reflections on the Teche
12 Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
13 Kat Apel at Kat Whiskers
14 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
15 Leigh Anne Eck at A Day in the Life
16 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
17 Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe
18 Mary Lee Hahn at A Year of Reading
19 Tabatha at Opposite of Indifference
20 Rose Cappelli at Imagine the Possibilities
21 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
22 Julieanne Harmatz at To Read, To Write, To Be
23 Ruth, thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown.blogspot.com
24 Christie Wyman at Wondering and Wandering
25 Amy at The Poem Farm
26 Dani Burtsfield at Doing the Work That Matters
27 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge
28 Jessica Bigi
29 Fran Haley at lit bits and pieces
30 Michelle Kogan

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