Poem-ish Pieces #PoetryFriday #NatureNurtures2020 #PoemsOfPresence

Happy Poetry Friday, everyone! Carol Varsalona is hosting this week’s gathering on her blog, Beyond Literacy Link. Won’t you join us there? Carol has been very busy collecting wonderful #NatureNurtures2020 poems this spring from many contributors. You may find them here and it’s not too late to add your own!

If you are new to Poetry Friday (I’m looking at you, Teach Write friends!) and are ever wondering where to find the weekly host of the roundup, you’ll find a list of hosts and their blog links here.

In between ZOOM calls with students and colleagues, I’ve been trying to find time to step outside and experience what is turning into a most glorious spring here in New England. So much to hear and see, and what a relief from staring at the computer screen! I’ve had a chance to cobble together several #PoemsOfPresence this week, and hopefully there are more to come.  

On Wednesday afternoon I managed to squeeze in (MORE SCREEN TIME!) a wonderful webinar, Nature as Inspiration and Transformation: An Intro to Nature Poetry with poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil. Oh, was that balm for the soul! If you missed it, here’s the recording. Curl up with your notebook, something to write with, and a glass of refreshing ice tea or lemonade. It will be an hour well spent. I promise. 

One of the writing invitations Aimee provided was to take an interesting animal fact and use it as the first line in a poem. The fact that hummingbirds fly backwards immediately jumped (or is that flew?) out at me and this is what I came up with.

And lastly, our Teach Write “Time to Write” group has begun to play around with common prompts, sharing our work with one another, and providing feedback from the heart, mind, and writers within us. This week we are using “the blank page.” That’s it. Just “the blank page,” and we were asked to use a blank page. I knew I wanted to go in the nature notebooking direction because I’ve been enjoying Amy Ludwig VanDerwater’s nature writing and keeping a notebooking videos and Paula Bourque’s nature notebooking video, too — as have so many of you! It ended up being poem-ish. 

I’m longing for more time outdoors with my notebook. How about you? 

Many thanks to Carol for hosting the roundup this week. Be well, friends!

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Clouds Billow #PoetryFriday #PoemsOfPresence

Happy Poetry Friday, everyone! Jama Rattigan is hosting this week’s gathering on her blog, Jama’s Alphabet Soup. Won’t you join us there? Today is National Chocolate Chip Day and you know how much Jama loves to bake. You might need a big glass of milk to drink while reading Jama’s deliciously delightful post. If you are new to Poetry Friday and are ever wondering where to find the weekly host of the roundup, you’ll find a list of hosts and their blog links here.

As we inch closer to summer and warmer weather, I find myself dreaming of the ocean. My parents are both from Maine, so growing up I spent a part of most summers at one aunt’s home on Peaks Island or another aunt’s on Chebeague Island. My family also, for many years, rented a cottage in Boothbay Harbor. In all three locations, I loved — and still do! — to walk along the shore collecting time- and tide-smoothed stones, sea glass, and picking wild blueberries. It was also fun to just sit and watch all the action on the water. Boats, bobbing birds, and the odd harbor seal provide hours of entertainment and a sense of peace.

Many members of my Tuesday night #TeachWrite writing accountability group have purchased the Write the Poem journal and are writing from “the ocean” prompt. Word associations provided include billows, deep, brine, offing, wave, flux, tide, and current. As I began to write my poem, I had one particular afternoon on Peaks last August in mind. Today’s poem, Clouds Billow, is my second offering to the #PoemsOfPresence collection.

To learn more about Margaret Simon’s wonderful #PoemsOfPresence challenge, click here. Many thanks to Jama for hosting the roundup this week. Be well, friends!

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What were we thinking? #SOL19 #writeout

My husband and I love to hike. Our vacation time is often spent in locations with access to trails. A few weeks ago he suggested we climb Mt. Monadnock in southern New Hampshire, just over an hour from us. The foliage in our area is pretty spectacular at the moment, so the timing was perfect. How hard could it be? Monadnock is one of the most hiked mountains in the world with over 125,000 people climbing it every year, according to All Trails. The guide states, “The hiking trails are very steep in places and can be rocky.” Please note steep in places and can be rocky. Steep I can handle. I’ve done steep before. And hikes often have rocky scrambles near the summit and even at the bottom to get started.

Um…HELLO! It was 2 hours of solid rock all the way up one trail and 3 hours of solid rock all the way down. And these weren’t rocks obediently laying down flat to step onto easily with your boots. No, they were upright, jutting out of the mountain’s bedrock, forcing you to use all the brainpower you could muster to make constant decisions. Which rock to land on? Which foot to lead with? Should I use my poles or disassemble them and stow them away in my backpack? Should I put my hand down onto the rocks to climb up? Nose over toes! Exhausting!

But we made it, and we did it together. After we made it back to the bottom and sat down (very difficult to stand up again!) to our picnic lunch, we both burst out laughing. What were we thinking?

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Many thanks to the crew at Two Writing Teachers, and the extended SOL community, for giving us the time, space, and encouragement to live the writerly life here each Tuesday and every day in March. Won’t you join us?

If I Hadn’t Gone For My Walk #SOL19 #writeout

Columbus Day is always busy at our house — yard work, changeover of seasonal clothes, a few extra moments to catch up on school work. But yesterday’s stunning weather beckoned to me to come outside and go for a walk. I listened!

If I hadn’t gone for my walk, I wouldn’t have see this spectacular foliage, it’s autumnal image echoing across the pond.

If I hadn’t gone for my walk, I wouldn’t have spotted this mud-covered snapper as it left the safety of the pond and headed uphill. Why? I’ll never know! I asked, but it didn’t answer!

If I hadn’t gone for my walk, I wouldn’t have seen this garter snake skitter across my path among the leaf litter. I jumped!

And lastly, if I hadn’t gone for my walk, I wouldn’t have been able to tell my husband that I got lost on the same trail we always get lost on together, despite the fact that I had a map with me!

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Many thanks to the crew at Two Writing Teachers, and the extended SOL community, for giving us the time, space, and encouragement to live the writerly life here each Tuesday and every day in March. Won’t you join us?

My Favorite Ten Minutes #SOL19

What were my ten favorite minutes of the day today? The first ten minutes of independent writing time during my daily Writer’s Workshop in Kindergarten. After the mini lesson has been taught, questions answered, and materials retrieved, my students and I settled in for ten blissful minutes of uninterrupted writing time. Yes, my students and I write, undisturbed for ten minutes. They are building their stamina, and I am mentoring them quietly. Some don’t even know I am, but I believe in my heart I am. At first they stare. Then that stops and they get down to work. Sometimes they whisper, “What are you writing about, Mrs. Wyman?” Often it’s a poem idea, but at times it’s a story.

I’ve heard some question my use of ten minutes, but I believe in my heart it’s the right thing to do. There’s still plenty of time for conferring, coaching, and sharing, but they need to see me living my writerly life, so they might learn to live theirs.

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Many thanks to the crew at Two Writing Teachers, and the extended SOL community, for giving us the time, space, and encouragement to live the writerly life here each Tuesday and every day in March. Won’t you join us?

So let’s get started #SOL19

 

Today’s the day. The first day of #TeachWritetober! I’ve committed to writing something every day. It can be a big something, a little something, or a something in between. Just something. It doesn’t even have to be shared. Just written. Committed to paper, virtual or otherwise.

I needed this. I have been in school now for four weeks and school, as it does every year, bumped everything that got in the way — writing, reading, cleaning, weeding, you name it. Just as the Slice of Life Challenge pushes me to write and publish on Tuesdays and every day in March, #TeachWritetober is going to get me back on track. I’m longing to write just for me — Anytime Pages, poetry, Slices, or even a journal article that’s drifting around in my head like the leaves that dance through the air on cool fall days such as this.

I’m ready, so let’s get started!

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Many thanks to the crew at Two Writing Teachers, and the extended SOL community, for giving us the time, space, and encouragement to live the writerly life here each Tuesday and every day in March. Won’t you join us?

Day 1: Paint Chip Poetry #NaPoWriMo #playwithpoetryNPM

Poetry Month is finally here! My #NaPoWriMo Poem-A-Day project is Playing With Poetry. I am tagging along with Margaret Simon, Jone MacCulloch, and Mary Lee Hahn. We will be playing with Haikubes, Magnetic Poetry, Metaphor Dice, and Paint Chip Poetry (I raided Home Depot).  I’m even throwing in nail polish color names as inspiration, just for fun! Play along, if you’d like! We are using the Twitter hashtag #playwithpoetryNPM to see what poetic mischief everyone is getting into.

A handful of paint chip colors inspired today’s first offering.

Back to nature

Longing for soft buttercups

The garden fairy

And fern canopies

Beyond the garden wall

On this rainy afternoon

Filled with gray mist

From a spring storm

— Christie Wyman, 2019 (draft)

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And introducing….

Starting today members of the Poetry Friday family have launched the 7th annual Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem organized by author/poet, Irene Latham. (Click here to learn more.) Many of us have signed up to provide a line for the 2019 poem. Author/poet Matt Forrest Esenwine kicked things off this morning with some familiar “found” phrases merged to get us going. I’m excited to provide the 14th line on Sunday, April 14th. I hope you’ll join us to see what happens! Here’s the itinerary for the poem.

April

1 Matt @Radio, Rhythm and Rhyme

2 Kat @Kathryn Apel

3 Kimberly @KimberlyHutmacherWrites

4 Jone @DeoWriter

5 Linda @TeacherDance

6 Tara @Going to Walden

7 Ruth @thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown

8 Mary Lee @A Year of Reading

9 Rebecca @Rebecca Herzog

10 Janet F. @Live Your Poem

11 Dani @Doing the Work that Matters

12 Margaret @Reflections on the Teche

13 Doraine @Dori Reads

14 Christie @Wondering and Wandering

15 Robyn @Life on the Deckle Edge

16 Carol @Beyond LiteracyLink

17 Amy @The Poem Farm

18 Linda @A Word Edgewise

19 Heidi @my juicy little universe

20 Buffy @Buffy’s Blog

21 Michelle @Michelle Kogan

22 Catherine @Reading to the Core

23 Penny @a penny and her jots

24 Tabatha @The Opposite of Indifference

25 Jan @Bookseestudio

26 Linda @Write Time

27 Sheila @Sheila Renfro

28 Liz @Elizabeth Steinglass

29 Irene @Live Your Poem

30 Donna @Mainely Write

How can this be? #SOLC19

This is the final post in the annual month-long Slice of Life writing challenge organized by Two Writing Teachers. It was my third year of Slicing in the challenge. Gratitude to Beth, Betsy, Deb, Kathleen, Kelsey, Lanny, Melanie, and Stacey for all their organizing and commenting magic. If you want to take a peek at the Padlet of writing ideas I’ve continued to add to throughout the challenge, you’ll find it here. I hope to see you on Tuesdays for the weekly SOL, and daily if you are participating in National Poetry Writing Month (#NaPoWriMo), which launches tomorrow. 

How can this be? 31 days have come and gone in a flash. We’ve been flexing our writing muscles, looking for those small moments each and every day. It’s funny how in the beginning I had to search for them. But now they drift in on the wind, ready to be captured and shared on (virtual) paper with the world — or at least a few of its residents. Let’s continue to share slices on Tuesdays, shall we?

Commenting is writing, too! How easy it is to forget that. Thank you to all of you who wondered and wandered a bit with me this month, and for taking a few moments to “like” and comment. It was wonderful to have you along for the ride. Extra thanks to my TeachWrite Facebook Group family. Confetti for all, especially my Wednesday night writing group pals.

This final #SOLC19 post would not be complete without a poem. Signing off — until Tuesday — with my acrostic poem from last year.

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And introducing….

Tomorrow members of the Poetry Friday family (some of whom are SOLC writers you will recognize) will be launching the 7th annual Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem organized by author/poet, Irene Latham. (Click here to learn more.) Many of us have signed up to provide a line for the 2019 poem. Author/poet Matt Forrest Esenwine kicks things off on Monday. I’m excited to provide the 14th line on Sunday, April 14th. I hope you’ll join us to see what happens! We have no idea what the poem is about yet, so stay tuned! Here’s the itinerary for the poem.

April

1 Matt @Radio, Rhythm and Rhyme

2 Kat @Kathryn Apel

3 Kimberly @KimberlyHutmacherWrites

4 Jone @DeoWriter

5 Linda @TeacherDance

6 Tara @Going to Walden

7 Ruth @thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown

8 Mary Lee @A Year of Reading

9 Rebecca @Rebecca Herzog

10 Janet F. @Live Your Poem

11 Dani @Doing the Work that Matters

12 Margaret @Reflections on the Teche

13 Doraine @Dori Reads

14 Christie @Wondering and Wandering

15 Robyn @Life on the Deckle Edge

16 Carol @Beyond LiteracyLink

17 Amy @The Poem Farm

18 Linda @A Word Edgewise

19 Heidi @my juicy little universe

20 Buffy @Buffy’s Blog

21 Michelle @Michelle Kogan

22 Catherine @Reading to the Core

23 Penny @a penny and her jots

24 Tabatha @The Opposite of Indifference

25 Jan @Bookseestudio

26 Linda @Write Time

27 Sheila @Sheila Renfro

28 Liz @Elizabeth Steinglass

29 Irene @Live Your Poem

30 Donna @Mainely Write