Remembering a Childhood Game_PoetryFriday/SOLCS 27

Digging deep into my childhood, I found a fond memory that I had forgotten. My early elementary grade years were filled with game playing. Those were the days when my friends and I used our imagination to create playful times. "Stone Teacher" was one of our favorite outside summer pastimes.

On a clear summer night

before stars fill the sky,

a little teacher gathers

one flat stone. Why?

"Come, children, please

sit on the steps. Guess

which hand has a stone

before our first recess."

Giggles float through

the summer breeze.

"Stone teacher,

pick me please." 

Students guess 

one by one

hoping to have

some summer fun.

Winner takes all,

stones and fame-

becomes the next

teacher of the game.

©CV, 2020

The above poem is offered to Michelle H. Barnes for the Ditty of the Month Challenge created by poet Tabatha Yeatts, host of Poetry Friday this week. Tabatha asked those interested in the challenge to write a poem about people and a game.

Each year since March 2015, I have engaged in Two Writing Teacher's Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge. Slicing allows me to ponder life, literacy, and learning, capturing small moments poetically through writing, photography, and digital art. Welcome to Day 27 of 31 days of writing with Two Writing Teachers. 

SPECIAL POETRY MONTH INVITATION:

I am planning a kickoff to National Poetry Month celebration on April 6, 2020 #NYEDChat Twitter chat from 8-8:30pmEST. It is a fast chat with 3 questions and 1 Reflaction (reflection with action steps). If you are interested in being 1 of 4 poets to guest moderate with me, please let me know as soon as possible. The topic, Poetry Nurtures the Soul, may be one that brings a ray of sunshine during trying times. 

Gratitude Days

Days are getting shorter and there is an early autumn feel to the last days of summer. I am grateful for the beauty of life and its transitions. Thinking about the #21daysofgratitude challenge and Michelle H. Barnes' Ditty Challenge offered by Jane Whittingham, I created an all-about-me acrostic poem.

Recently, I created a definito poem, Within the Silence and a tribute, We Remember 9/11  to the people in my hometown who perished in that horrific tragedy. As I ready to facilitate a regional meeting for literacy leaders, I take a few minutes to meet with my Poetry Friday friends who are gathering at the gracious Linda Baie's blog. I am grateful for all these opportunities.

Instructions For My Digital Notebook

When Michelle Heidenrich Barnes invited Liz Steinglass to Today's Little Ditty, an intriguing ditty challenge evolved. One of Liz's favorite poems, "Instructions for the Field", in her new book, Soccerverse, became the mentor text for the project.  For the writing challenge, each writer was asked to write a poem giving instructions to an inanimate object about how to do its job.

Since I am designing several digital galleries of artistic expressions, I decided to write a poem about an interactive digital notebook. My digital notebook in Google Docs is a companion piece to my poetry journals. It is my sacred space to record thoughts, add images, and create digital inspirations as a risk taker of thought. It is the place where I ponder, reflect, and "find my voice". Because it is an important part of my writing life, I have created templates for other writers to hone their writing skills during professional development.

Stage 1: Create the poem after many drafts in my digital notebook. 

Stage 2: Create a digital inspiration, an image poem, to add a different perspective.  I decided to change the name of the title and add one of my nature photos as a signature logo.

Digital Tools Used: 
Google Docs-Interactive Digital Notebook, Blogger, FotoJet, PicMonkey, iPhone, iPhotos, Preview

Question:
Do I keep the simple design in pink or the swirled background digital inspiration with the signature logo to submit to the challenge?

✎

Not only will I offer this post and poem to Michelle Heidenrich Barnes' challenge at her May 2019 Padlet but add it to the Tuesday Slice of Life at Two Writing Teachers.

My other blogs on digital design that I referred to when writing this post:

https://beyondliteracylink.blogspot.com/2015/05/digital-design.html

https://beyondliteracylink.blogspot.com/2015/08/digital-poetry-in-classroom.html

https://beyondliteracylink.blogspot.com/2015/08/digital-expressions.html

https://beyondliteracylink.blogspot.com/2016/08/crafting-digital-media_18.html

https://beyondliteracylink.blogspot.com/2016/09/play-think-write-digitally.html

https://beyondliteracylink.blogspot.com/2017/04/digioetry-is.html

Window Poems

I wake each day, look out my window, and wonder what will be. Do you do this?

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At the beginning of the month, Michelle Heidenrich Barnes invited Julie Fogliano to  Today's Little Ditty. During the interview, Michelle asked Julie to create a Ditty Challenge for May: stare out the window and write what you see. In response, I have penned three poems.

Window Poem #1:

Remembering when a week of rainy and damp weather was the norm:

Mother Nature colored the world a shade of grey,

While leisurely planning her artistic play.

Thought again, and repainted the sky

By mixing her favorite bright, blue dye.

Her plan to change the landscape green

Was vividly noticed on my window screen.

©Carol Varsalona, 2018

Window Poem #2:

After the endless rainstorms that I watched each day from my window, I created this image poem / digital inspiration:

Window Poem #3:
My latest digital inspiration recollects what I have seen this week from my window vantage point:

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Thank you Michelle H. Barnes and Julie Fogliano for inspiring me to present my poetic perspective from my daily practice of looking out my window.

⁕

Are you interested in another creative challenge? I am collecting digital inspirations, nature photography, inspirational quotes, image poems, spring songs, and artwork for my Sense-sational Spring Gallery of Artistic Expressions that will be unveiled in June. If interested, the invitation with the guidelines can be accessed here. 

Earth Day Request

On the last day of National Poetry Month, I am finding some humor in a writing challenge conjured up at the beginning of April by the ditty master herself, Michelle Heidenrich Barnes. Being a last-minute slide-into a ditty challenge writer, I decided to give it a try. After all, the challenge was based on Matt Forrest Esenwine and Deborah Bruss' new book. 

Michelle writes:

Don’t Ask a Dinosaur is about a party that goes wildly awry when a pack of dinosaurs with very unique physical attributes attempt to help set up. Watch the book trailer HERE.

At the end of Michelle's interview with Matt and Deborah, the challenge was revealed:

Dinosaur on the loose. 

Poetry to introduce. 

Imagination gone wild.

Fit for a child!

(whose parents are environmentalists)
©CV, 2018

When I started writing, I wasn't sure what I would expect my dinosaur wanted to do. It turned out that he was an environmentalist and an advocist (a person who acts as both an advocate and an activist for a cause that is important to him-Urban Dictionary). I played around with some thoughts, came up with pure fantasy, and posted my offering on Michelle's April 2018 Padlet where you can see all of the ditty challenge poems.   

You can see the enlarged version of my animated Buncee here. 

A little imagination coupled with the Buncee creative platform made for a couple of fun afternoons of writing. 

March Musings #9: Inspired to Write

Another challenge comes my way from my poetry friend, Michelle Heidenrich Barnes at Today's Little Ditty. This month, when Michelle interviewed Nikki Grimes, the master of golden shovels, she asked Nikki to pose a writing challenge. You can see it below.

Take a line from one of the poems included in this post, and turn that line into a golden shovel poem.  That is done by lining up the words of the original line in the right column, one word at a time, and create a new line ending in each word. If the borrowed line, called a striking line, is five words long, you will end up with a five line poem. If it is 7 words long, you would end up with a seven line poem, and so on. Have fun!

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The following March Musings were inspired by both Michelle Barnes and Nikki Grimes.

Line Lifted:

"A poem can strip away fear" from Truth by Tryone Bittings

When issues come a
calling, search for a poem. 
Hidden? Dig deep. It can
soothe the tired soul, strip
the edginess away, 
rid underlying fear.
©CVarsalona, 2018

Line Lifted:
"revealing heart, truth...and, I might add, hope." by Michelle Heidenrich Barnes

My pen writes, revealing
murmurings of my heart.
My mind speaks with truth
spilling forth from thoughts and
actions crusted over as I
reveal life's pages that might
shrink in memory and add
layers of infinite hope. 
©CVarsalona, 2018

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Notice from Michelle H. Barnes:

Leave your golden shovel on our March 2018 padlet. 

While some contributions will be featured as daily ditties this month, all contributions will be included in a wrap-up celebration on March 30th, and one lucky participant will win a copy of Nikki Grimes' new companion novel to Bronx Masquerade.

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Hosted by Michelle H. Barnes

 

Day 9 of Two Writing Teachers' March Slice of Life Story Challenge

Abecedarian Fun

Did you grow up singing the ABC song like I did? Maybe you tried writing an ABC poem in school. This month, Michelle Barnes offers an interesting ditty challenge that stems from an interview with Carole Boston Weatherford-write an abecedarian poem.

What is an abecedarian poem, you may ask? Poetry Foundation says it is "related to an acrostic, a poem in which the first letter of each line or stanza follows sequentially through the alphabet."  

I decided to join the challenge and offered The ABCs of Summer that I  added to Michelle's padlet. Then, I started reading more abecedarian poems and was ready for the next phase of the challenge. Join me as I have some fun finding the right flow for intertwining words.

🌟

Always beaching, 

creating digital delights, 

expressing feelings gratefully
held in joyful keeping-

life living moments

offered, nurtured

presented quietly,

renewing summertime's 

universal, valuable,
watershed eXperiences

yon zen zones.
©CVarsalona, 2017

🌟

Accept boundless

creative diversions

examined faithfully,
gratefully generating-

happy investments in joyous,

kaliedoscope, 
"life living" moments.

Nature offers prospects,

quotable reflective sightings;

encouUrging valuable, 

wished-for eXperiences

beYond zen zones.

©CVarsalona, 2017

🌟

Dreamtime Travel

🌟

at

bedtime

curl-up.

doze.
🌟

dreams

earmarked

for grandeur

unleasH heart's

inspirational

joys.

keep

aLL cLose. 

lovingly linger.

knOwingly observe.

openly pass quiet roads. 

saunter through tall thickets,

under 

verdant-covered vines,

whimsical xystus*, 

gaZebos.

GaZe.

 Zephyrs zip.
©CVarsalona, 2017

*a type of covered walkway or portico

My Dreamtime Travel poem turned out to be in the shape of a candle burning bright.

🌟

Did the words used in my last poem, Dreamtime Travel 

paint a picture in your mind? 

Did the poem take you to a place of rest and serenity?

🌟
I am continuing to enjoy summer-like weather
and sunkissed moments. 
Celebrate summer a bit longer with me.
Stay tuned for the unveiling of my Sunkissed Summer Gallery.

This week Poetry Friday is being hosted by my poet friend Michelle Heidenrich Barnes. You can join Michelle's Five for Friday Peace party at Today's Little Ditty. Here are my contributions.

🌟

Five for Friday Peace Poem

(using only 5 words)

Kindness Dove

Soaring-

a beacon

of peace.

©CVarsalona, 2017

🌟

WANTED

only

peaceful,

quiet,

restful

serenity

©CVarsalona, 2017

March Musings 20: Ode to the Moon

Have you ever had a day when your inner voice wakes you with a long list of tasks? Quick response: drift into a dreamlike state; take a deep breath; write.

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This morning, I am dipping my pen into Michelle H. Barnes' Ditty Challenge that evolved from her interview with poet, Helen Frost. 

Choose an object (a seashell, a hairbrush, a bird nest, a rolling pin). It should not be anything symbolic (such as a doll, a wedding ring, or a flag). Write five lines about the object, using a different sense in each line (sight, sound, touch, taste, smell). Then ask the object a question, listen for its answer, and write the question, the answer, or both.

You can see additional poems and my first ode poem at Michelle Barnes' padlet.

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Ode to the Moon

This post is the 20th in the series titled March Musings for Two Writing Teacher's March Slice of Life Story Challenge.  

March Musings 10: On Long Island

On Long Island, Walt Whitman is revered as a beloved poet. There is a shopping center, road, and high school named after him. The Walt Whitman Birthplace State Historic Site and Interpretive Center is located here also. I have always said that I would visit but never have. Perhaps, this summer will be a good time to see what the site has to offer.

In February, I participated in Laura Shovan's #10FoundWords project and created a poem based on the NY Times article, In a Walt Whitman Novel, Lost for 165 Years, Clues to ‘Leaves of Grass’. As per the guidelines, the following words were to be used to create a poem: tale, lost, transformed, discover, simmering, bright, chanting, complete, magical, bonus word: poet.

Below is my humble offering, a Whitman-like poem that is based on summer in Long Island:

Ah, what can be more magical to a chanting poet than Long Island's south shore?
Sand imprinted footsteps and fluid, rolling tides?
Willowy reeds swaying against cloud-patterned skies?
Baby gulls waddling in a single row,
dodging rollicky waves with mother in tow?
Sand-castle art with muddy moats
brightening the beach until tides take afloat?
Seagulls swerving, sweeping up lunch,
hopping along with a swift, fierce crunch?
Tales of lost flip flops and goggles galore
from simmering bodies at the sandy shore?
The magic of morning's brilliant bright sights
transforming evening to sunset's dusky light?
Ah, what can ever be more lovely to me than Long Island in summer?
©Carol Varsalona, 2017


Fire Island in summer

This post is the tenth in a series titled March Musings 

for Two Writing Teachers' March Slice of Life Challenge.

Venture over to Today's Little Ditty where Michelle Heidenrich Barnes is hosting the Poetry Friday Round-up. She is showcasing the work of a gentle woman, Lily Yeh, and her Barefoot Artists, Inc. project that "brings the transformative power of art to impoverished communities around the world."