Jama at Jama's Alphabet Soup has Poetry Friday hosting duties. She shares a couple of fun poems from Scottish poet Helena Nelson.
Last week, I had the pleasure of guest teaching in a fifth grade class. The beginning of the year is a great opportunity to write "I Come From" poems. I tried something I came across during the #SealeyChallenge. I read Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words by Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge. Great book in which she talks about creating "word tickets". So I adapted the idea and passed out little papers for students to "prime the pump" by coming up with words for the poem:
Are You Ready for Spooky Season?
Stay tuned! Did you have fun with Spring's Classic Found Poem Palooza? Next week, I have an invitation for another found poem spectacular palooza, spooky version. Do you have a favorite horror or scary book, poem or story? Maybe a Poe, a HP Lovecraft, Dracula or Frankenstein?
On October 27, 2023, I will feature a Padlet with a Spooky Season Found Poem. Stay Tuned. Carol at Beyond LiteracyLink has hosting duties this week. She invites readers to reflect on the changes of the seasons. She also invites us to share our summer poetry gems with her on her Padlet. Today I'm keeping short this week. A visual haiku inspired by hearing the first geese overhead this week. I know the changes of the seasons by the geese and by where the sun hits on our windows Are You Ready for Spooky Season?Stay tuned! Did you have fun with Spring's Classic Found Poem Palooza? Next week, I have an invitation for another found poem spectacular palooza, spooky version. Do you have a favorite horror or scary book, poem or story? Maybe a Poe, a HP Lovecraft, Dracula or Frankenstein?
On October 27, 2023, I will feature a Padlet with a Spooky Season Found Poem. Stay Tuned. Today's Poetry Friday host is Rose at Imagine the Possibilities is sharing the Nevermores" poetry challenge a reverse poem. I am in the middle of Washington state with my longtime college friends (ones I met my freshman year). We have bee gathering for a weekend since 2003. What is Hope? edited by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong arrived on August 18, 2023.Sylvia and Janet hosted another fantastic class, Think Poetry this summer. The challenge? Photos for ekphrastic poems on the theme of HOPE. This photo, a visit in a hospital was one that spoke to me. This tanka (five lines; 5-7-5-7-7) arrived with little fuss. What does I-LOVE-YOU look in Morse code?
Computer gremlins were at play yesterday as I attempted writing this post. Was it as Patricia's SJT"ps title says: "Life at the speed of grace?" Wednesday night I hadn't slept well. Grace was telling me Go. To. Bed. Plus, I was all over the map with this prompt. How does grace meet me and how is it in my life? One quote I lean on is "For the grace of God, there go I". If you and I were sitting together, sipping tea or coffee, and if we were talking about our teen and young adult years, you would learn that grace protected me over some really dumb choices. (So GLAD there were no cell phones with the capability to record that period of my life!) Thanks to Ramona, I was lead to this poem, "Everyday Grace." at The Poetry Foundation. This line resonated with me: "...Suddenly an ordinary day becomes holy ground..." ~"Everyday Grace" by Stella Nesanovich. Late August, I had my blood drawn. I walked into the little room, greeted by 'Aloha", the room decorated in a Hawaiian theme. The lab technician was from the Big Island. As she drew my blood, I asked if she was affected by the Lahaina fire. She nodded, a great auntie perished. In that moment, I felt a shiver in my body, the shift, the day becoming holy. we honor, welcome in a hug her new ancestor This is the photo from this week's Wordless Wednesday, Week 35. A secret heart, evidence of grace A stranger feels safe sharing her grief The bushtits have returned to the suet feeder A friend confides about her struggles Morning's coolness sends messages that autumn is arriving soon Blood tests reveal I am in great health Grace abides Please head over to Amy at The Poem Farm who is dishing up poetry advice. I love her photo of the stones, having just played with some myself.
Poetry Friday with at Ramona at Pleasures From the Page. She has had quite the summer with moving! Today, I share a photo and haiku that I posted this week because it seems to capture the end of August and beginning of September. The photo was taken last Sunday when I was at the Portland Japanese Garden. The Sealey Challenge
Today Linda B. at TeacherDance is hosting Poetry Friday. She is reflecting on the end of summer and the beginning of school and new adventures as some head to college. This time of year is always a new year for those in education. And even when you retire, you feel it. This week, I'm sharing the gifts of summer; the annual Summer Poetry Swap, organized by the fabulous Tabatha Yeatts. My swap partners were from Sarah Grace Tuttle, Marcie Finchum Atkins, Carol Labuzetta, Rose Cappelli, and our host, Linda Baie. For the poems I sent to my partners, I found lines from their poems and wrote golden shovel poems for each. For today, I combined their lines and a line I wrote for their poems for a cento, Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone has a bouquet of haiku beside hosting duties this week. Sealey Challenge Update I have been a bit slow with the challenge. These were the books I read last week. This week have also read:
I read Linda’s post for Spiritual Journey Thursday. I was filled with gratitude that she used the song "Tis A Gift To Be Simple" by Joseph Brackett. It’s one of my favorites. Mary Lee at A(nother) Year of Reading is hosting Poetry Friday and sharing a beautiful textile piece along with a poem. She has been reading Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer and I am reminded that book needs to come with me on a roadtrip. I’ve just returned from four days at the coast with daughter, grandgirl, husband, and husband’s former wife. A tradition that is almost twenty years old. Some of the questions that the 18 YO was asking made me think of ‘turning’; the turning of the seasons, the turning of our lives. Oldest grand has graduated and I am watching her enter adulthood with curiosity. She wanted to know about the “family member “cut off date” (translated how long everyone had lived) and whether she’d have access to the house we have rented all her life when we are no longer able to rent it. These questions show me the importance to her of traditions. It delights me that as the pages are turning in her life story (as are they in ours), that she holds some things close to her soul. I am into writing Golden Shovels for the summer poetry swap this year and thus I took a line from "Tis A Gift To Be Simple". To turn, turn, turn will be our delight. Tis A Gift To Be Simple by Joseph Brackett Criss-cross logs ready to light the match to turn the stack into fiery flames. The sun turns a page by slipping below the horizon. We turn marshmallows on a stick, they’re gooey, golden s'mores. Will we ever be too old, roasting marshmallows on the beach. Our answer is in the moon, full of delight. ©Jone Rush MacCulloch The Sealey Challenge
August 1: field notes poems of the lost and found by Melissa Madenski August 2: Twenty Love Poems and One Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda August 3: Recover by Allison Joseph
Jan at BookSeedStudio has the hosting duties this week and she's curated a variety of sources of where to submit poetry as well as introducing to a wonderful collection.
I'm about to leave for four days at the coast, a yearly event. And yesterday morning I awoke to a post on FB by Naomi Shihab Nye thanking someone for the quote on their car: "There’s a way not to be brokenthat takes brokenness to find it." ~Naomi Shihab Nye I looked it up and found this poem: "Cinco de Mayo" Cinco de Mayo By Naomi Shihab Nye If this is your birthday and you are dead, do we stay silent as the sheet you died under? No. You always talked. Here’s a thick white candle whispering. Pour birdseed into feeders. Speak up, speak up. Tell me where they go, my friend said, in the same pain. I touched her shoulder. Here, right here. You’re closer than you ever were — takes a while to know that. Every scrap of DNA, he’s listening. There’s a way not to be broken that takes brokenness to find it. Those two last lines. And here's the kicker, today would have been the 75th birthday of my former husband who died five years ago, As some of you know, I left over thirty years ago, and have written about him. The universe guides us and yesterday, the poem was gifted to me. I was fortunate to take a weeklong class with Naomi in 1989. I will be visiting her books for the Sealey Challenge. Here is Naomi, reading her poem fro her book, Transfer(2011) :
The Sealey Challenge is a month-long challenge to read poetry and be in community with others. I am going to do my best to immerse myself in the challenge.
Are you participating? I know that Marcie Flinchum Atkins is promoting and getting ready for it. Margaret at Reflections on the Teche is hosting and has an ode to strawberry jam and reflects on the kindness of friends. Yesterday was the 54th anniversary of the first lunar landing. I was sixteen and in France. I pulled out the French papers yesterday, photographed them and that was as far it got as I had lunch with a friend to celebrate our both in Club 70 (she joined in June). Sixteen
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AuthorAll photos and poems in these blog posts are copyrighted to Jone Rush MacCulloch 2006- Present. Please do not copy, reprint or reproduce without written permission from me. Categories
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March 2024
2023 Progressive Poem
April 1 Mary Lee Hahn, Another Year of Reading April 2 Heidi Mordhorst, My Juicy Little Universe April 3 Tabatha, The Opposite of Indifference April 4 Buffy Silverman April 5 Rose Cappelli, Imagine the Possibilities April 6 Donna Smith, Mainely Write April 7 Margaret Simon, Reflections on the Teche April 8 Leigh Anne, A Day in the Life April 9 Linda Mitchell, A Word Edgewise April 10 Denise Krebs, Dare to Care April 11 Emma Roller, Penguins and Poems April 12 Dave Roller, Leap Of Dave April 13 Irene Latham Live You Poem April 14 Janice Scully, Salt City Verse April 15 Jone Rush MacCulloch April 16 Linda Baie, TeacherDance April 17 Carol Varsalona, Beyond Literacy Link April 18 Marcie Atkins April 19 Carol Labuzzetta at The Apples in My Orchard April 20 Cathy Hutter, Poeturescapes April 21 Sarah Grace Tuttle, Sarah Grace Tuttle’s Blog, April 22 Marilyn Garcia April 23 Catherine, Reading to the Core April 24 Janet Fagal, hosted by Tabatha, The Opposite of Indifference April 25 Ruth, There is no Such Thing as a God-Forsaken Town April 26 Patricia J. Franz, Reverie April 27 Theresa Gaughan, Theresa’s Teaching Tidbits April 28 Karin Fisher-Golton, Still in Awe Blog April 29 Karen Eastlund, Karen’s Got a Blog April 30 Michelle Kogan Illustration, Painting, and Writing |