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Sunday Solace: Week 22

5/29/2022

Calibrachoa million bells

Poetry Friday, Week 21: May Poetry Challenge

5/27/2022

Linda at A Word Edgewise has an unexpected post today as she hosts Poetry Friday
It was not the week anyone expected with the tragedy in Texas. Another shooting. Another elementary school. It hits hard. I've checked in with my teacher friends this week. There are no words. And yet I hunker down into poetry. I was thankful for Amanda Gorman's book, Call Us What We Carry. I am working on a project and am using her book.
This line resonated with me after Tuesday:

So on this meaningful morn, we mourn and we mend ~ “The Miracle of Morning”
I wonder how many more shootings will it take, how many more times do we need to mourn and mend?

The Poetry Sisters suggested for May's challenge to write a poem using the words string, thread, rope and/or chain. I immediately thought of William Stafford's poem, “The Way It Is".
I wrote one earlier in the month. But in response to Tuesday's news, I wrote another.

Earlier in May
There’s a thread you follow
~ William Stafford ~

In the middle of the night, there’s
a moment in a dream a
startling discovery, as you pull a red thread
unraveling at the bed’s edge you
watch the floor vanish into your past and you follow

©jone rush macculloch, 2022

In response to the Texas tragedy.
There’s a thread you follow
~ William Stafford ~

In the middle of the day, there’s
a moment in which a
classroom doesn’t know their threads
of life will unravel. And again, you
yell out in anger, asking, when gun safety reform will follow

©jone rush macculloch, 2022

Wordless Wednesday: Week 21

5/25/2022

Woodland Fairy-Bells, Disporum

Sunday Solace: Week 21

5/22/2022

Blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium bellum)

Poetry Friday, Week 20: Fifth Grade Student Work

5/19/2022

It's Poetry Friday and Carmela at Teaching Authors has all the details for today's fabulous poems. At Teaching Authors, there's a sneak peak of a very cool poetry STEAM project and a poem from Imperfect II.

I have been able to sub in the fifth grade classes at my former school. These students are pretty special as they were first graders when I retired. Some of them were in my "Poetry Rocks" afterschool club. And when I've subbed during the last four years, they have had poetry lessons. I have watched them grow as poets.
These two classes did the Color Poem and Art project with a 4 x4 square of a monochromatic collage. It's been fun to bring in some of the papers I use in my art for the students to choose from for their project.

Wordless Wednesday: Week 20

5/18/2022

Sunday Solace: Week 20

5/15/2022

Wordless Wednesday, Week 19

5/11/2022

Sunday Solace: Week 19

5/8/2022

Poetry Friday, Week 18: Skinny Poems Inspired by the book, Things We Do

5/6/2022

Welcome to Poetry Friday, hosted by Jama at Jama's Alphabet Soup. She has a fabulous post with Mom filled poems and remembering her mom is photos.
I love this: "What we wouldn’t give for just one more sip of our mothers’ unconditional love." Absolutely, Jama.

Last Friday, I had the pleasure of subbing in a library and the teacher librarian asked if I would do poetry with the fourth and fifth grade classes. Who's going to turn that down? I've been thinking about ways to use Sylvia Vardell's and Janet Wong's, Things We Do, as mentor text. When you have to teach in a thirty minute class, it's almost like a poetry slam.
I created a quick presentation of four slides, share a couple of poems from the book. (I really love Jack Prelutsky's "Eat"), introduced and guided the students through writing a skinny poem. One thing about these poems is flexibility. Technically, a skinny poem only allows for one word in lines 3, 4,5 and 7, 8, 9 but we flex that rule little.

Congrats to Karen Edmisten. She won a copy of Imperfect II. Please email me your address.

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Congrats to Karen Edmisten. She won a copy of Imperfect II. Please email me your address.

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