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Posts Tagged ‘Poetry Postcard Exchange’

Find more celebration posts at Ruth's blog.

Find more celebration posts at Ruth’s blog.

There are those weeks that seem to go on and on, yet offer nothing to be celebrated. Sometimes I have to look harder to find the bright spots. I am actually ashamed that I felt this way yesterday because this morning I looked through my mail and found so much to celebrate.

I signed up for a poetry postcard exchange. I thought the giving and receiving was over, but this week I got three more poetry postcards.

New Year poem cards from Sylvia Vardell with a Wonder Woman stamp.

New Year poem cards from Sylvia Vardell with a Wonder Woman stamp.

Poem from Donna Smith: Listen to the sounds crunching, munching, lunch a foot Leaves nourishing earth

Poem from Donna Smith:
Listen to the sounds
crunching, munching, lunch a foot
Leaves nourishing earth

Handwritten poem and card from Kim Urband:

Summer Storm
Stone-gray clouds steal azure sky
Lightning stabs, singes
Liquid silver glazes hills
Relinquishes to Rhapsody

–Kim Urband

This sweet, uplifting message from Joy Acey:

My body feels electric like new years fireworks
blazing in starlight.
I want to raise my arms
to twirl and dance in the moonlight.
Poetry fills me
and runs out of my pen.
May the force be with your poetry.
–Joy Acey

And an invitation to my daughter’s wedding in March. Here we go again!

maggie-wedding-invitation

preaching-interior-2-1000x647
This week I read aloud Preaching to the Chickens about John Lewis’s childhood. I wanted my students to know his name and to have a better understanding of the fight for civil rights. This book is beautifully illustrated. One of my students, Madison, was inspired by the paintings to draw her own yard of chickens. I love the personalities of each of her chickens.

Chickens by Madison, 3rd grade.

Chickens by Madison, 3rd grade.

I didn’t have to look very hard to find these celebrations today. What are you celebrating?

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Poetry Friday is at Linda's site: Teacher Dance

Poetry Friday is at Linda’s site: Teacher Dance

 

Sometimes I sign up for things and then forget about them.  So I was pleasantly surprised when I got some poetry mail this week.  A while back, Jone MacCulloch asked us blogging poets to sign up for a new year postcard exchange.  I signed up and ordered my postcards.

I was so pleasantly surprised this week when I received 3 postcards.  I hope there are more coming.

My postcards from VistaPrint haven’t arrived yet, so if you’d like to receive one, send me your address (margaretsmn at gmail).  I have the list of 10 that Jone sent me, but I’m happy to send more.

Diane Mayr does a new year postcard every year in the tradition of Nengajo, a Japanese tradition of sending a postcard including a haiku.  She writes that this year’s card includes the Year of the Rooster, a reference to fire, and the word first.  The background is “Yawning Apprentice” by Mihaly Munkacsy (circa 1869).  She will be posting the digital version on her blog today.  Here is my camera image.

dmayr-postcard

 

In the same batch of mail, all the way from Hawaii, Joy Acey blessed me with a lovely original painting and poem.  She is such a dear person whom I have never met.  Some day I will fly to Hawaii to see her in her garden. Even her sweet note is poetic.

Margaret,

I was lying in bed this morning listening to the blasting rain hit the exterior of my bedroom wall and windows–these are the windows that face east so I could watch the cloud covered Sleeping Giant and the sunrise.

I’m thinking about selecting one word for a guide in the new year and I’m thinking about our poetry postcard exchange for the new year and this haiku appeared with your name written all over it.

joy-acey-card

painting and poem by Joy Acey

The third card of joyful words came from Irene Latham.  She tweeted recently that she had her postcards ready, and I was secretly crossing my fingers that I would get one.  The card looks like an old postcard from Germany, a gift in itself, but it was accompanied by this beautiful verse:

The Coming of Light

And here is the secret
to everything:
when you let the light it,
a river
you thought dried up
or frozen
will begin to sing.

–Irene Latham

irene-latham-card

Bruckmanns Bildkarte NR

 

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