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Posts Tagged ‘photo poems’

Poetry Friday: Haiku with Marcie Flinchum Atkins

Posted in Gifted Education, Photography, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged , , , on April 19, 2024| 13 Comments »

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Heidi Mordhorst at my juicy little universe.

For Poem in Your Pocket Day, I invited Marcie Flinchum Atkins to join my students by Zoom. We were able to get a small 30 minute window of time while she could visit. What a treat!

Marcie is a master at haiku, and no wonder, she writes one every day. She usually writes in a small notebook to photos that she has taken. Beautiful photos!

Her easy-going way led to a comfortable, safe environment for writing. My students wrote. I wrote. Like Marcie, I wanted to use a photo and Canva to design my haiku for publication. Maybe one day I’ll send them out on postcards.

At one of my schools, we are rejuvenating the butterfly garden. The purple salvia has come back after winter and is thick and covered with blossoms. We’ve been spending recess time there among these flowers, tilling and planting new feeding plants. Avalyn, my garden partner, wrote a haiku and asked me to put it on Canva like mine.

The Kidlit Progressive Poem is with Catherine Flynn today. Check on our little immigrant hero.

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Poetry Friday: Writing from a Photograph

Posted in Photography, Poetry, Writing, tagged , on October 12, 2018| 9 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Laura at Writing the World for Kids.

I love writing from photographs.  There are many different perspectives to take, as an observer, as someone in the photo, or as description. I shared the National Geographic photo archives with my students.  I asked them to select a photo to write about.  We gathered information first in a T-chart.  “What I see, What I think, What I wonder, What I know, What I feel.”  I found this idea in Amy Ludwig VanDerwater’s book, Poems are Teachers. 

I was attracted to a photo of a lioness in water carrying a cub in her mouth.  Your Shot photographer Connie Bowen said, “We were in awe of her mothering and tolerance.”  I used this as a repeated line in my poem.

Chloe also chose this photo to write about, without knowing I had selected it, too.  Madison is a budding young artist.  She is taking art classes.  She wanted to raise some money to get a laptop so she can do more with her art.  I commissioned her to draw the photograph.

 

Maternal Instincts

We were in awe of her mothering,
how she gently yet firmly
held the cub in her jaws
hanging loosely, trusting.

We were in awe of her grace,
as she swept through the water
knowing her cubs would follow
in her wake, head up, alert to mother’s gait.

We were in awe of her tolerance,
lioness in African grass, patience
in her eyes, confidence in stride.
Mother nature teaches us tolerant, mothering grace.

–Margaret Simon, (c) 2018

A Likely Loving Lioness

by Chloe

A likely loving lioness
loves her cubs with a smile.
And when they’re sad
she makes them glad
by playing with them all day.

Here is a link to Chloe’s poem on Kidblog if you’d like to comment to her directly.

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