Beyond LiteracyLink: 2018 Progressive Poem

Showing posts with label 2018 Progressive Poem. Show all posts

Friday, May 11, 2018

Springs Brings Hope

Spring unveils itself as a season of hope. It reawakens earth, lifts spirits, and calls all beings back to nature. Spring is filled with hope evidenced by the blossoming of life. We cannot reach out and grasp hope but we can accept the spirit of possibility it offers in springtime.

Hope is needed in this world of change and flux. Finding and spreading it is a call to action.

Tonight, #G2Great offered an inspirational chat, Teaching Hope to the Next Generation. Since it was due time to check in with my one word, hope, I joined the chat to voice my thoughts with my colleagues. My friend, Dr. Mary Howard, opened the conversation with a confirming statement, "We need more HOPE in this world and that begins with our children who will lead the way. We have to make that a priority in our schools and classrooms." Agreeing with this statement, I added that building, cultivating, and sustaining cultures of trust and hope is essential. Classrooms must become havens of joyful learning and educators, as ambassadors of hope, need to bring the spirit of possibilities to all our students. In turn, they need to help students believe in their unique selves in order to find their greatness.

The ending challenge of #G2Great asked us to state how we would become ambassadors of hope this week. What would we do to spread hope to our students or colleagues. Being a change agent is important to me so I said that I would take up the challenge by creating a digital inspiration to spur others to believe in possibilities.

I created the above digital inspiration by appsmashing using PicMonkey and FotoJet.

#G2Great shared this beautiful digital titled,Teaching Hope to the Next Generation. The first stanza of Emily Dickinson's poem is here. You can read the rest of the poem at Poetry Foundation.

You may be interested in listening to these videos.

Today the Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by the amazing Jama Rattigan. Please join me at Jama's Alphabet Soup that offers an eclectic feast of food, fiction, folderol and chewy culinary verse.

I am collecting offerings for my newest gallery, Spring-sational Spring, and hope that my Poetry Friday friends will grace the gallery with their inspirational digitals. I am adding the 2018 Progressive Poem with the names of the 30 contributors to the spring gallery.

Friday, May 4, 2018

Color My World Spring, Digitally

I have been waiting for there to be a full week of warm weather to color my world spring. This week, a mix of spring and summer weather, brought out the best of neighborhood liveliness. Evidence of this was baby stroller sightings, children frolicking in the school playrground, family bikers guiding their children in their new training wheels adventure, and yogis meeting in the yoga studio. I wanted to share the excitement of spring in a vivid, expressive way to bring the effect that weather has on people's psyches.

I decided that digital art and poetry would be the best format to combine what I see, hear, and smell on spring days. I started with taking photos of an early morning view of nature from my window. My ordinary morning shot needed to be enhanced to convey my sentiments so I turned to appsmashing. I tried several platforms to find the right mix. Staring into my new digitized photo (above) allowed me to think of various words to describe what I felt. Attending my yoga class, experimenting with language, and just simply playing with different formats of poetry brought me to the final stages of my color my world spring digital inspiration incorporating the various emotions I felt this week.

"Poetry is the spontaneous flow of powerful feelings:

it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility."

-William Wordsworth

I'm adding my thoughts to the Poetry Friday Roundup. My poet friend, Brenda Harsham is hosting today with her Starry, Starry Spring poetry.

Please see the 2018 Progressive Poem, Poet's Jasmine: Blooming Lovely, that was created by 30 different Poetry Friday poets. You can access it here at Irene Latham's blog site. Irene started the tradition of writing the progressive poem during National Poetry Month in 2012.

I created this digital for the poem. You can see the poem and others at my upcoming newest gallery, Sense-sational Spring.

Thursday, April 12, 2018

My Turn-Progressive Poem Day 12

Welcome to Day 12 of the 2018 Progressive Poem hosted by the wonderful children's author, Irene Latham. Needless to say, I have not only eagerly anticipated this day but felt nervous twitches. It's my turn to take this year's poem one step further.

Initial Thought:
My poetry colleagues have been busy building a delightful tale from Liz Steinglass' opening line, "Nestled in her cozy bed, a seed stretched." Upon my initial read, I thought Liz's words, nestled and cozy, set up the right scene, while the word stretched gave rise to a new movement, the awakening of spring. I started thinking about the first few days of spring on Long Island when #winterinspring was the norm. The hope of spring was tucked inside the layers of snow. Questions arose. Will the poem evolve into a discovery of springtime with the little seed as the main character? What will the seed become as she rises from her earthen bed?

During Reading Thought:
You can imagine my surprise when the seed turned into a beautiful, playful child named Jasmine "who danced with the pulse of a thousand stars." An adventure started and soon new characters were introduced, Moon and Owl. When readto Matt Forrest Esenwine's line on Day 10, "Secure in talons' embrace, Jasmine rose," I stopped to ponder. Matt spoke of moving into unchartered waters. I wondered where Brenda Harsham would take the poem so I studied each line, again and again. I thought about how I might weave my thought not expecting Brenda's very interesting Act II take-off: "and set. She split, twining up Owl's toes, pale."

After Thought:
Where was I to go with the ending word being pale? I started off with Jasmine being "pale but unshaken" about an upcoming flight but scratched that because I didn't think that pale fit when referring to her. Then, I turned to alliteration but could not find the right action word to match moonbeams. I deliberated again, reviewed my notebook ideas on owl movement, flight, and the word "split", I turned to the digital I created for my notebook, Believe in the Magic! I hope I found the magic that makes this poem move one step further.

2018 Progressive Poem

Nestled in her cozy bed, a seed stretched.

Oh, what wonderful dreams she had!

Blooming in midnight moonlight, dancing with

the pulse of a thousand stars, sweet Jasmine

invented a game.

"Moon?" she called across warm, honeyed air.

"I'm sad you're alone; come join Owl and me.

We're feasting on stardrops, we'll share them with you."

"Come find me," Moon called, hiding behind a cloud.

Secure in gentle talons' embrace, Jasmine rose

and set. She split, twining up Owl's toes, pale

moonbeams sliding in between. Whoosh, Jasmine goes.

The poetic journey continues with my friend, Linda Mitchell. Where will she take Jasmine as she wanders through the midnight sky?

NOTE:

You can read more about the Progressive Poem's background here and the conversation Heidi Mordhorst had with Irene Latham and Liz Steinglass on Day 1.

Please follow along to see how the poem develops.

April

1 Liz at Elizabeth Steinglass

2 Jane at Raincity Librarian

3 Laura at Writing the World for Kids

4 Michelle at Today's Little Ditty

5 Jan at bookseedstudio

6 Irene at Live Your Poem

7 Linda at TeacherDance

8 Janet F. at Live Your Poem

9 Ramona at Pleasures from the Page

10 Matt at Radio, Rhythm and Rhyme