Poetry Friday - Celebrating #MarvelousMaryLee

 Thanks to Christie Wyman, hosting this Poetry Friday, at her blog, Wondering and Wandering

        And, it's Christie's birthday, time for celebrating. Happy Birthday!

 

AND - It's an especially huge celebration for Mary Lee Hahn's retirement! After thirty-seven years, Mary Lee is leaving the classroom, ready for her next adventure(s)! #PoemsforMaryLee   #MarvelousMaryLee

          Here's my poem of celebration for your retirement and gratitude for the teacher that is you, Mary Lee.

 

for Mrs. Hahn, My Teacher

 

From the flower to the gardener

(this student to my teacher),

thanks for caring that I flourish,

for knowledge I will cherish,

I’m grateful for the way you helped me grow.

 

I’ll try that thing called “listen”

before I rush to judgment.

I’ve learned that words do matter;

they’re rarely mindless chatter.

That is a thing that I’ll be sure to show.

 

When you venture from our classroom,

your presence leaving imprints,

the kindnesses will linger in the air.

Parts of you will always remain there.

You’ve taken care of much I need to know.

 

Linda Baie ©

 

Grunge Stock photos by Vecteezy

Poetry Friday - Birthday Special

   Karen Edmisten hosts our Poetry Friday today HERE at her blog, also sharing about birthdays!  Thank you, Karen! 

         

 At this time of year, those born under the sign of Pisces are reigning, celebrating birthdays, so many that it's hard to keep up! I won't list them, but I imagine as you read through the Poetry Friday posts today, you will find quite a few writing about or reflecting upon their special days.

                 Just adding a note! It is NOT my birthday. I'm only celebrating for so many who do have them during this month and into March - those Pisces!

           I've discovered many birthday poems in my Google search, chose one from Lucille Clifton for this celebration. With brief words, a little humor, and some serious thought, the poem is my wish for all the birthday people. I suspect this year those celebrating and all the rest of us are indeed "aching" to know what our future will bring. Happy Birthday to Each One of You!

This is my piece of 'tuxedo cake', wish I could share some with all of you!
I didn't make it, but have discovered it at my grocery! And I managed to
find one birthday candle!

birth-Day by Lucille Clifton

today we are possible.

the morning, green and laundry-sweet,

opens itself and we enter

blind and mewling.

everything waits for us:

the snow kingdom

sparkling and silent

in its glacial cap,

the rest is HERE.

April Poetry Month - Day Eleven - A New Kind of Celebration

It's April. It's Poetry Month! 

         Remember to check out the list of what everyone is doing at Jama Rattigan's blog: Jama's Alphabet Soup.

          And check on the Water Poem Project where every day, a poet is sharing a prompt connected to water, hosted and created by Laura Shovan!

Plus! Check each day for the added line to the Progressive Poem, created by Irene Latham, now hosted by Margaret Simon! The link is above and the graphic to the right!           A leap with the theme of CIRCLES for poetry month, poems & small sketches. I am looking forward to reading everyone's posts. I'm sure I will love each one, knowing they're done during a time we've not lived before. I am worried about so many, those close and those far, my community, too. 


April 1 - haiku
April 2 - cinquain
April 3 - a couplet
April 4 - limerick
April 5 - a kyrielle
April 6 - a skinny
April 7 - quatrain

April 8 - tanka

April 9 - a prose poem

April 10 - free verse

Best wishes for continuing good health to you all!

Poetry Friday - Celebrating

                This week, Poetry Friday is hosted by Jone MacCulloch at her blog, DeoWriter.  Be sure to visit to see what Tabatha  at The Opposite of Indifference sent her for the Poetry Swap. You may want to stay a while!
        This past Monday, I shared I Am Someone Else, Poems About Pretending, created with poems by many poets you know by Lee Bennett Hopkins and illustrated by Chris Hsu. It's another recent book of poetry you will love.           
         Celebrating anything gives a lovely feeling, but celebrating winning the Women's World Cup has to be extraordinary, right? What an exciting time on Sunday morning (US time) and since then, too. In the midst of this celebration, I'd like to add one more, celebrating Elizabeth Steinglass' poetry book, recently out, Soccerverse! 

         My grandchildren have not chosen to be soccer players and have chosen other sports. However, I've spent many hours at soccer practice and games watching my son learn, then improve in the game, celebrating his first goal, watching the team itself get better and better. I enjoyed the poems Liz has written about things I remember during those years as a 'soccer mom'!

         I cannot share the whole book, but I want to. It's no surprise that it begins with "The Ball", a marvel we know is not always available to kids in need around the world, though coveted in its ability for "trapping, tapping, and spinning. Perfect for kicking, bending, and winning." as Liz writes. She manages to bring the field to life in "Instructions For The Field"  which ends with a nice reminder to "catch us when we fall". Other poems include topics like shin guards talking, one of its use and one left behind takes us to memorable goals in our minds, as "A shark,/slipping/through/ the sea,/until/she smells/opportunity." Poems fill up the book with SOCCER and I've filled this ball with a few favorite lines! 

          Twenty-two poems in thirteen forms delight in images, further enhanced by Edson Ikê's innovative illustrations, each one focusing on the poem's topic both realistically and creatively. Every player, boy or girl, knows the feeling that Liz shows in this poem's beginning: "I got too mad./I tried too hard." Edson's art of an angry bull on a pointing finger is perfect for the poem "Apology" ending with "I crossed the line./I got a card." I liked this for its brevity and remember well seeing the anger, then often the embarrassment, of getting carded. Every poem will touch soccer players' hearts. They will KNOW what Liz has written about. It's a terrific addition to poetry for kids.
          Liz writes a note at the back explaining each of the poem forms she used and adds the key to which poem is in which form. Thanks, Liz, for a beautiful book.

Celebrating This Day

    Celebrating with Ruth Ayres at Discover Play Build.  and linking with others who share their celebrations, too. I am grateful to Ruth for helping us celebrate together!  

  It has been a weekend full of busy, and I'm late to share celebrations, finally found a minute to read Ruth's post about true love, and laughed. I do clean my house and keep things fairly straight, promise. My car is a different case. I don't clean it very often, and in the past in my haste to get to work, I would often eat an apple on the way. I appreciate apples a lot, and do believe "an apple a day keeps the doctor away". 

    On one of my shelves sits a dried apple core, found by my husband and wrapped up as a gift years ago. He often would clean out my car for me because he knew how much I disliked doing it. This time, under a seat, as he explained, he found a quite dried core. He often gave me funny gifts, and this is one special one I've kept. True love, as Ruth wrote so eloquently, is to be celebrated every time we can. 

     It is those small things given freely that make our lives worth traveling.

     

Celebrating My Special Someone

  Celebrating with Ruth Ayres at Discover Play Build.  and linking with others who share their celebrations, too. I am grateful to Ruth for starting this meme that offers a place to celebrate together! I hope each of you has a wonderful holiday weekend. It sounds like Ruth and her family are going to!

         This is the right time to share this celebrations, although the real day is tomorrow, September 4th. On Sunday it will be three years since my husband, Arvie, died. It's so hard to try to collect words good enough to show what a wonderful man he was, and son, husband, father, brother and grandfather. We had over fifty years together, forty-eight of them married, and every part, even the hard ones, were blessed because we lived them together. Arvie was kind, respectful of everyone; stubborn, yet often right in his beliefs; smart, figured out just anything he needed to; loving, showed it often with family and friends. I loved him very much, and celebrate his life today while missing him still. A month or so after he died, I wrote a poem that is still the truth in many parts of my day. Now I share with others, and you, but when you read the poem, you'll know that I miss sharing with Arvie the most.

 And I Would Show You

And I would show you autumn is here.

Where once greenest leaves, now falling goodbyes.

Flowers’ last blooms fade by the evening;

Afternoon breezes undress trees with sighs.

And I would show you the sun has changed angles.

It’s no longer glaring, clouds relax in their glide.

Last minute bees taste last minute nectar;

Crickets are chirping, cicadas abide.

And I would show you the clocks appear slower;

it’s time for breath holding, and nothing still grows.

Nature’s preparing stark shadows of winter,

Beginning to paint on its canvas of snow.

 Linda Baie © All Rights Reserved

A favorite beach picture long ago, probably in Mazatlan.

Poetry Friday - Celebrating People

         Donna Smith, at Mainely Write, is hosting this first Poetry Friday of July. Let the fireworks begin!

           Because of the exciting news from the Supreme Court just two weeks ago, I looked for something to share that would celebrate all people, would toast our diversity. Lee Bennett Hopkins' anthology Amazing Faces fits beautifully. I was also delighted to discover that the illustrations were done by Chris Soentpiet, whose presentation I was thrilled to see in February at my state reading conference.  His process for the beautiful realistic acrylic paintings is amazing. He has models audition for He actually has models audition for what he believes are the needs of the work, takes many photos, stages the scenes, then does the layout, drawings, and then paintings. The illustrations in this book are gorgeous, and of course they should be because they are "amazing faces".  I hope that you can find the book if you don't already own it, to read and see how beautifully it celebrates our country.

SOLC # 19/31 - Celebrating Conferences

                Also blogging with my students at Linda & Jonathan's Class Blog

Day Nineteen of the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.  Tweet at #SOL15

                Thanks to Tara, Dana, Anna, Betsy, Beth and Stacey for all the work you're doing to make this month lovely!

Not my classroom, but it's a pretty picture-old times, long ago.

            We have student/teacher/parent conferences the next two days, student led with each presenting a portfolio of work. While I am filled to the brim with information and talk, talk, talk by the end of each day, there are moments of joy and appreciation during this time. Since this is the final formal conference of the year, we need both to look forward and look back. Our time is planned for 30 minutes, but often goes over into the break of 15 minutes. Sometimes I slip away for a bathroom break, or to re-fill the water bottle. But mostly I sit, listening. Here are the things I love about conferences, intense as they are.