Words for You | Reflections on the Teche

Posts Tagged ‘Words for You’

Poetry Friday: Words for You

Posted in Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged Festival of Words, Leopard, sonnet, Sue Schleifer, Words for You on September 17, 2021| 16 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Denise at Dare to Care.

The Festival of Words yearly fundraising event was once again virtual this year. In a way, this is great because more poets from Louisiana and beyond can participate. I volunteered again to write a commissioned poem for Words for You. How this worked was I volunteered, someone donated to have me write a poem, and we all celebrated with a reading event on Zoom. The reading was last night and it’s on Facebook Live.

For some reason, I felt drawn to the sonnet form. What a challenge I gave myself! My person, Sue, answered a question about her spirit animal being a leopard. I did some leopard research and puzzled it into a poem. The problem was it didn’t hold any meaning. So then I wrote a free verse poem. After that I continued to hack away at the sonnet. After more study of the form, a total rewrite was necessary. The process was challenging, at times frustrating, but in the spirit of the leopard, I did not give up.

It may help to know that Sue is a playwright who is tolerant of Louisiana, but she hates the weather.

(c) Margaret Simon, for Sue Schleifer “Words for You” 2021

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Poetry Friday: A Poem for Me

Posted in Poetry, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged Bonny McDonald, duplex form, Festival of Words, Words for You on September 18, 2020| 13 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Matt at Radio, Rhythm, and Rhyme.

Last week I posted a poem I wrote for my mother-in-law, a work commissioned by her for a local writing festival fundraiser. I commissioned a poem for myself and selected Bonny McDonald to write it for me.

Bonny and I have lost touch over the years, so I enjoyed our email exchanges that put us back into that comfortable place of friendship. You know the kind. When you feel like you were never really separated.

Bonny didn’t just take the questionnaire that was given by the Festival of Words organization. No, she emailed me more questions like
What makes you think of your ancestors, and what messages do you get or teachings do you carry in your heart from those who came before you in your family?

My answers to that question and to “Who is your favorite poet lately?” (Jericho Brown) led to this wonderful duplex poem just for me. I cried when she read it at the Zoom event.

Namesake
A duplex for Margaret Simon,
inspired by the portrait of her grandmother, Margaret Shields Liles
The mother of your mother is with you
Margaret, still, a figure in a painting
Margaret’s figure sits still in the painting
Her violin poised to spring up for a tune
A tune fit for a violin springs up
For the child of your child in your lap
Oh child of my child, a song for you
I wrote a few verses to leave with you
Now to leave them is what’s left to do
A note resonates with the lift of the bow
A note resonates a little while
Harmonics hold to a foundation
Your grandchildren hold you to the place where
The mother of your mother is with you
Bonny McDonald, all rights reserved

This portrait of my grandmother Margaret hangs in my dining room.

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Poetry Friday: Desert Rose

Posted in Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged Desert Rose, Festival of Words, Li-Young Lee, Words for You on September 11, 2020| 14 Comments »

Poetry Friday round-up is with Kiesha at Whispers from the Ridge

Last night I participated in a poetry reading Words for You with the Festival of Words. It was a fundraiser event for the festival. We usually find sponsors and read in a day long poetry event in downtown Lafayette, but this year fundraising, as everything, looks different. Louisiana writers volunteered to be commissioned to write a poem. Each poet wrote a special, unique poem for the person who selected them. I was chosen by my mother-in-law, Anne Simon.

I was touched by a poem by Li-Young Lee “From Blossoms” and used it to form a poem for “Minga” (her grandma name my oldest child gave her). Just a few words about this amazing woman. She is a retired district judge. She’s the mother of three, grandmother to six, and great grandmother to 2 with another on the way. She is fond of birds and flowers, tennis and basketball, and foreign travel. She’s taken me along on a trip to Greece when she turned 80 and Africa for her 85th birthday.

I hope that my poem honors who she is in some small way. Writing for someone you know well is not as easy at it may seem.

Desert Rose
for Anne Simon
after Li-Young Lee “From Blossoms”
From a broad-base bonsai trunk,
trumpet-like blossoms pop festival-red,
that desert rose Julie bought at Lowe’s
when Love was a potted plant.
From desert soil “complex, yet refined”
a pearl in an ocean of sand, your hand
taps to test its dampness. You are judicial
even in your watering. The flowers stand up
and notice your kindness. O, to take what we love
inside the porch, a safari, to see
not only the rose, but the whole Serengeti.
There are days we talk
as if death will not separate us;
Your voice, my heartbeat from love
to love to love, from rose
to soil to deepest esteem,
the deepest kind of esteem.
Margaret Simon, all rights reserved, 2020