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Posts Tagged ‘winter poem swap’

Poetry Friday: Winter Swap

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Spiritual Growth, Writing, tagged , , , on December 13, 2019| 13 Comments »

A gathering of poetry can be found at Liz Steinglass’s site.

The Winter Poetry Swap has arrived. Our friend Tabatha Yeatts matches us up for a rich exchange of poetry inspired gifts. This year I was paired with Tricia Stohr-Hunt. This week I received her gift.

Tricia spent some time on my gift. That impresses me because these days, especially in December, time is precious and small. She cross-stitched my favorite line of poetry from Naomi Shihab Nye. Now to know this, she had to read my blog posts. Then design and stitch.

And to top it all off, she wrote a wonderful golden shovel using the line.

Golden Shovel for Advent

It is not the season of me or I.
nor the season of greed and want.
It is time for reflection, time to
prepare for the guest. We must be
ready to reach out to someone,
anyone who needs, anyone who
asks. Let us draw nearer to what makes
us whole. As the year crowns, it is music
that fills the air and our hearts with
expectation. Stars keep watch. My,
how they shine! Rejoice, for the Lord is coming.

Tricia Stohr-Hunt, 2019

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Poetry Friday: Word Wandering

Posted in Poetry Friday, tagged , , , , , on December 14, 2018| 11 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Laura Shovan.

One of the best parts of this Poetry Friday community is the Winter poem swap managed by Tabatha Yeats.  My recipient this year was Matt Forrest Esenwine.  He posted my gift and poem on his site today along with a virtual Christmas party.

I received a handmade journal and a poem from Linda Mitchell.  She is in my writing group. How serendipitous!  She explained that she had gathered words and phrases from one of our Zoom meetings and weaved them together into this amazing reverso poem.  She also hand made the little snowman from cutting paper from an old discarded picture book.

 

 

With my students this week, we explored word wandering.  I remembered first seeing this idea on Today’s Little Ditty when Michelle featured Nikki Grimes.  Some great examples are included in the Best of Today’s Little Ditty, 2014-2105.  Breighlynn wandered with the word bell.

Bell

by Breighlynn

Bell is a shiny word,
the music in my ears
Ding! Ding!
The bell rings for school
for lunch
even playtime
Bells help us learn
just like music.

 

I played around with a few words in my notebook, and each one seemed to lead me to babies.  (Wonder why?)

Small is a tiny word
rolling on the page
where nothing is too small
to be noticed.

Small is my baby boy.
His lips circle and stretch
as he tastes the world.

Whenever you feel small,
think of this tiny miracle
and you will know
the truth
of pure love.

(draft) Margaret Simon

Grandbaby Leo with the blanket I made for him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Season for Giving

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Slice of Life, tagged , , , on December 20, 2016| 12 Comments »

Join the Two Writing Teachers blog for the Slice of Life Challenge.

Join the Two Writing Teachers blog for the Slice of Life Challenge.

 

Click to purchase on Amazon

Click to purchase on Amazon

If you haven’t already heard about this wonderful little book of poems, I am here to offer another shameless promotion.  I was one of the readers who selected poems to be included; I have 2 poems included; and I wrote a blurb for the back cover.  Michelle Heidenrich Barnes is a person I know I love even though I’ve never met her face to face.  She is incredibly generous.  Each month she features a wonderful poet and asks us out in the Poetry Friday cyberspace to write ditties.  When we do, we understand that the fame is short lived on a blog post gallery at the end of the month.  However, now we have an anthology!  So many great challenges from cinquain to zeno, from haiku and beyond.  This collection is a must for any classroom poetry library.

 

winter-poetry-swapAlso in this sphere of poets, I’ve virtually met Tabatha Yeatts who mixes us up and organizes a Winter Poem Swap.  This week I received my poem gift from Matt Forest Esenwine.  Matt managed to find time to read my Christmas blog posts and create a found poem from them.  He printed his poem on one of my Christmas tree images.  So thoughtful.  So meaningful.  So special.  Thanks, Matt.

 

found-christmas-poem

 

We are in our last few days before winter break.  I invited our art teacher to lead the students in an activity during their party on Monday.  She taught them about shading in a snowman image.  It’s funny when we talk about snowmen because few of my students have ever seen snow, much less made a snowman.  But all kids love drawing them.  We ended up with a rainbow of snowmen, grey, blue, teal, and even purple.

 

waterlogue-2016-12-19-19-41-46

 

I hope you are finding gifts everywhere, under your tree, in your mailbox, and in the smiles of children.  Happy Holidays!

 

Haiku-a-day #20 #haikuforhealing

Haiku-a-day #20
#haikuforhealing

 

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