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Posts Tagged ‘poetry postcard’

Ramona has the roundup this month at Pleasures from the Page.

For September’s Spiritual Journey posts, Ramona asked us to consider her One Little Word, rhythm.

When I think of rhythm, I hear whatever anthem our choir sang on Sunday. This week the earworm is How Can I Keep from Singing, which wasn’t a hymn or anthem, but Zi, our director, played it as an instrumental on the piano. It has stayed with me.

I love these videos made during Covid when whole music was made in isolation.

I love to listen to sacred music when I am playing with collage. I have a discarded hymnal that I tear pages from. Sometimes the lines show through. Playing with collage has given me a feeling of freedom in creativity. I don’t worry about perfection at all. I select elements that please me.

I’ve made junk journal pages and postcards for poetry exchanges. I made the postcards by recycling canned drink boxes. I don’t feel precious about them. They will go into the mail and may get eaten or bent by the journey, and it doesn’t matter to me. I think there is a lesson in this kind of creating. Something sacred I am drawn to, a rhythm of peaceful dreaming.

Postcard collage

Peace is an impractical word
playing well with others
like love
lingering in nature’s golden hours—
sunsets, rainbows…

Peace doesn’t always tell the truth.
Hang on to its tail
dangling like moss on Crepe Myrtle trees
in summer.

Wishing can make it so.

Margaret Simon, draft

How do you feel sacred rhythm? Peace? Creativity?

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Poetry Friday is being hosted by Jill. She offers an instructional video on making zines.

A few months ago I joined a poetry postcard exchange group. I’ve received creative handmade postcards and poems from people I’ve never met. It is so much fun to find one tucked into my mailbox, a bit of sunshine on a cloudy day. I need to figure out a way to keep them so that I can enjoy both sides. Any ideas?

Poetry Postcards

This month I sent out a photo card I made on Canva using a photo of passion flower.

The poet
finds a prayer
on the passion vine
resting on yellow anther
sprinkling pollen
on bumblebees.

The hope is in the bee’s
instinct to stick around.
Margaret Simon


I’m also participating in the Summer Poem Swap that Tabatha organizes. I received a Little Golden Book handmade book from Linda Mitchell. I love that she kept all the pages from the original book.

Little Golden Book journal made by Linda Mitchell.

I’m using it to do collage journaling about my summer. Here is a page spread I made about birds. The watercolor goldfinch is from an Emily Lex Studio watercolor painting book.

In what ways are you embracing poetry and creativity this summer?

I want to thank Joyce Uglow for featuring me and my book “What’s That Sound? Birds of the Bayou” on her uGroNews series this week.

I have moved “This Photo Wants to be a Poem” to my Substack. Please consider subscribing so that it will show up in your inbox.

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Find more celebration posts at Ruth’s blog.

I love that we have a whole month of celebrating poetry.  My students walk into class each day and ask, “What kind of poem are we writing today?”  or “I have been thinking about writing a poem about wind.”

I’ve read articles, listened to podcast, and read lots of daily poetry this month.  I don’t want it to end!  Check on the progress of the Progressive Poem.  Listen to Laura Shovan on All the Wonders.  Find a selection of daily poem writers on Jama’s Alphabet Soup.  

Yesterday I got a postcard poem from Jone MacCulloch’s kids poetry group, an ode to cheating.  We will be trying out odes next week, so I’ll share this one with my students.  I love the irony of flying hearts and pencils around this topic of cheating.

 

Here’s my poem for today, a little haiku about our state flower Magnolia.  They are blooming!

magnolia haiku 4

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