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Posts Tagged ‘#Poetrypals’

Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Poetry Friday is hosted today by Mary Lee at A(nother) Year of Writing

Whew! We made it to the last day of March. I wrote on this blog space for 31 straight days. I’m feeling a little bit proud that I made this commitment and accomplished it for the 10th year. If you read any of my posts, thank you. My readers and responders keep me going, keep me writing.

National Poetry Month begins tomorrow (no April Fools). The Progressive Poem calendar is full and lives in the side bar. Mary Lee will start us off tomorrow with the first line. She is also hosting today, so pop over and bookmark her site, A(nother) Year of Reading.

Molly Hogan and I have collaborated on a calendar-chart of choices for our National Poetry Month writing. We intentionally did not include dates so we can see how the spirit moves and have some choice about the poems we write. If you wish to play along, we made a Canva calendar (not calendar).

The Poetry Sisters challenge this month was an etheree poem. An etheree is a poetry form that begins with one syllable in the first line and continues growing each line by a syllable until the tenth line has ten syllables. I looked back into my notebook to find this found etheree from an Ash Wednesday sermon from my priest, Annie Etheredge. (I just noticed how close her last name is to etheree.) Her sermon began with a poetic description of a blue bird nesting.

Nesting Box


soul
nesting
we could watch
mama bluebird
being a bluebird
collecting tiny twigs
flashing her royal colors
you see a fragile little frame
she pushed an egg out of her body
with a great flourish of her azure wings

Margaret Simon, found poem from Annie Etheredge’s Ash Wednesday sermon

If you have special plans for National Poetry Month, let me know. I’d love to follow along.

Photo by Hal Moran on Pexels.com

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Poetry Friday is hosted today by Tabatha at
The Opposite of Indifference.

I have been off this week and joyfully participating in two writing challenges. I truly wish I could do this every day. Writing to prompts makes my creative juices flow. If I write a poem each day, I feel a certain satisfaction that I’ve accomplished something.

This week the Poetry Sisters challenge was to write an ekphrastic poem, which is a poem written to art. Their theme this year is transformation. In the February Project with Laura Shovan, Molly Hogan used photographs of abandoned buildings to prompt us to think about their story. I went to a mysterious place with this image.

Photo by Molly Hogan

I’ve always enjoyed writing about a mystery. In high school, I had a short story published in the school’s literary journal about a portrait in an abandoned house that ended with a question, a mystery. Many in the Facebook group wanted to know more. Mystery is like that. We want to know. I recently heard on a podcast “surrender to the mystery.” I believe that we don’t know all the answers, and we are not supposed to. So let this poem sit with you in all its unknown.

Shattered

She left the curtains
hanging,
the window open,
the cat in the yard.
She left when the air
was warm and damp
fearing her shame
would shatter her dream. 

Margaret Simon, draft

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Poetry Friday is with Jan at BookSeed Studio

This month’s #poetrypals challenge was a new form to me: the cascade poem. I was mesmerized by Molly Hogan’s Slice of Life post on Tuesday. She posted amazing photos of a beach in Maine at sunrise on a very cold morning. I borrowed some words from her post to create a cascade poem about this photo by Molly.

Photo by Molly Hogan

Cascade Golden Morning

Cold. Cold. Single digit cold.
Walking the rhythm of the morning,
Day breaks to molten gold.

Experience moves me. Bold
ripples through me, lifts me.
Cold. Cold. Single digit cold.

Still lost in glory dawning,
toes throb in rebuke,
Walking the rhythm of the morning.

Miniature forests of fairies hold
a treasure chest of sparkling jewels.
Day breaks to molten gold.

Margaret Simon, with words from Molly Hogan

Find more Cascade poems at these poetry blog sites: Molly, Heidi, Mary Lee, Laura, and Michelle.

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Poetry Friday is hosted by Ruth at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town.

The Poetry Sisters put out a challenge that fits well with this Thanksgiving season, a recipe poem. Thanks for the challenge  Laura,  Tanita,  Mary Lee,  Liz,  Kelly,  Tricia,  Sara,  and Andi!  Find more of these poems tagged with #PoetryPals.

A Recipe for Dressing and Love (a haibun)

My mother made the dressing, the whole meal actually, but especially the dressing. Only Ballard cornbread mix would do, baked in a cast iron skillet to the perfect shade of brown. Sauté the trinity–onions, celery, bell pepper–in pure, smooth butter. Mix crumbled cornbread with vegetables, a sprinkle of sage, soak in chicken broth. I used vegetable broth instead the year I was vegan, but my children vetoed the change. Nostalgia for Dot’s dressing, an original recipe. Today I ask my mom if she remembers the recipe. She doesn’t. Whether evidence of memory loss or just the passage of time, I tell her,”It’s OK.” I open my recipe book, find the handwritten sheet of paper and begin, again.

Her cornbread dressing
mixed with a heart of kindness–
Recipe for love

Margaret Simon, draft

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Poetry Friday round-up is with Ruth at There is No Such Thing as a Godforsaken Town.

Happy Black Friday, a day I am celebrating with another family gathering around our newest grandchild Stella. She is turning one on Tuesday. There will be the traditional day after Thanksgiving gumbo as well as cake and presents and lots of wildness from her toddler brother and cousin. The best kind of Black Friday ever.

In the meantime, I wrote a quick ode to join the Poetry Sisters challenge for this month.

Ode to Autumn

Something in the way you move
attracts the wandering eyes
of this watcher–
a tapestry of yellow and red
settles my wild mind.

Something in the way you move
blows a soft whisper 
to my weathered cheek
not warm like a kiss
but tickles just the same.

Something in the way you move
stirs my soul to memory,
opens the stored-away box
of photos releasing a scent
of amber and wood.

You move quickly, Autumn,
dropping by with a basketful
of acorns and satsumas,
sweet sugarcane cigar,
then leave on a storm cloud.

Take my grief with your wind 
and turn my heart to joy. 

Margaret Simon, draft
For Molly, who lost her dear father on Thanksgiving Day
Satsuma Tree by Margaret Simon

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Poetry Friday round-up is with Laura Purdie Salas at Small Reads for Brighter Days.

When I was growing up, I wanted to be an Olympic swimmer. As an introvert, swimming was a sport I could do. But the flip turn alluded me. I gave up when competitions required a flip turn.

My oldest daughter swam competitively from 7th to 12th grade. Our lives were consumed with practice and meets.

When Sarah Donovan of Ethical ELA put out a call for sports poems, I drew on these experiences and wrote a duplex poem about swimming, First Heat. The poem was accepted and is now published alongside Inklings Heidi Mordhorst and Linda Mitchell, as well as admired authors like Nikki Grimes, Laura Shovan, and Padma Venkatraman. You can purchase a copy of Rhyme & Rhythm: Poems for Student Athletes at Archer Publishing’s website.

The Poetry Sisters challenge this month was to write a tanka in conversation with another sister’s poem. I chose Heidi’s poem from Rhyme & Rhythm, Cleatless about dancing.

My feet didn’t beat
until they stepped in time with
yours, right-together-

right, left-together-left two
step, twirl face-to-face with you.

Margaret Simon, draft

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Poetry Friday round-up is with Elisabeth at Unexpected Intersections

For the end of the month Poetry Sisters challenge, Mary Lee posted this call to write deeper wisdom poems in the form of Jane Yolen’s What the Bear Knows. I recall a similar challenge from Michelle Barnes’ interview with Joyce Sidman on Today’s Little Ditty. I used this form in my book Bayou Song to write about the black-crowned night-heron.

(c) Margaret Simon, Bayou Song

photo by Henry Cancienne

To order a copy of Bayou Song: Creative Explorations of the South Louisiana Landscape, go to UL Press website.

On this anniversary of Hurricane Laura that devastated Lake Charles, Louisiana last year, we are once again bracing for a storm, Tropical Storm Ida that is predicted to come in around New Orleans as a Category 3 hurricane. We are preparing and watching news closely. Please keep us in your prayers. We know how to do this. I’ll post updates as I am able on Instagram/ Facebook. Thanks!

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Poetry Friday round-up is with Becky at Sloth Reads.

Two weeks in covid times is a lifetime, time enough for the Delta variant to quickly invade my territory. It has taken a few weeks for the CDC to catch up to this invasion and to adjust guidelines. From our own family’s experience we knew a few things before they did. The virus Can infect someone who is vaccinated. The virus Can be spread by vaccinated people. And the vaccine Does protect from grave illness. My 90 year-old mother-in-law was vaccinated in January and February. Two weeks ago she started coughing. She took a rapid antigen test that showed she was positive for Covid-19. Today she is fine. She’s back to swimming daily and has only an occasional cough lingering. No hospitalization was necessary. We aren’t even sure if her case was counted in the long run; however, in these last two weeks, CDC has taken an about-face. And we are glad they have.

In my anger over this viral outbreak, I wrote a villanelle for an Ethical ELA Open Write prompt. The Seven Poetry Sisters put out a villanelle challenge for this month, so I asked for critique from my writing group and revised. A villanelle is a challenging form. I used Rita Dove’s Testimony, 1968 as a jumping off place.

This poem is a jeremiad. (prolonged lamentation or complaint, originating from Jeremiah whose Biblical book is lamentations)

Delta Invasion

Who comforts me now that the virus has broken?
Numbers mean nothing now that you’re ill.
Anger invades my trust, hope lost or stolen.

We thought our lives safe to reopen,
but Delta arrived with its own stubborn will.
Who comforts me now? The virus has broken

through the vaccine’s promised protection.
Credence is shattered on CDC’s sill.
Anger invades my trust in hope; lost or stolen.

Safe, unsafe rules are misspoken
as dispersed droplets aim to kill.
Who comforts me now that the virus has broken?

Our lines of defense should be woken
to what we now know is out there still.
Anger crumbles trust as hope is lost or stolen.

Some still reject life-saving vaccination
yet your nagging cough didn’t kill
what comforts me now is the virus has broken
and relief restores trust. Hope not lost or stolen. 

Margaret Simon, 2021
Don’t trash those masks. Time to wear them again.

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Poetry Friday round-up is with Linda at A Word Edgewise.

    Today I am posting with the “Poetry Sisters” (Tricia Stohr-Hunt, Sara Lewis Holmes, Kelly Ramsdell, Laura Purdie-Salas, Liz Garton Scanlon, and Andi Sibley) who challenged the Poetry Friday community to write zentangle poems. If you are unfamiliar with this form, check out this post by Kat Apel.

I have done zentangle before but I’ve never been satisfied with the results. I got a card in the mail from Jone MacCulloch along with a plaque print of her amazing collage response for our Spark exchange. Jone’s card inspired me to try again with a mentor to emulate.

Zentangle by Jone MacCulloch
From Preservation, Spring 2021
Object Lesson
dig
over
enslaved
pieces
a tea bowl
lives
on

This week I received a wonderful summer poem swap gift from Michelle Kogan. Michelle is a watercolor artist in Chicago. She saw posts from me about our wood duck nest boxes and “Jump Day.” I admit to teary eyes when I saw her painting and poem. So special. She sent me a print as well as a homemade notebook with the painting on the cover and poem on the back. I have been writing poems about the wood duck experience and now I have a special place to write them. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks!

I love how Michelle’s poem captures the essence of Joy we feel when we see the ducks jump from their nest box.

Summer Poem Swap is organized by Tabatha Yeatts

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