Paddleboard Power

This week, a human interest story on paddle patrols was highlighted in Newsday, Long Island's newspaper. It caught my eye as a unique effort to keep the beautiful Long Island waters pristine for residents and future Long Islanders.

rise and shine boarders

once the sun is up explore
local waterways

mission to clean up
canals, creeks, local waters
weather permitting

paddleboard power
help collect garbage, debris-
rid the floating trash

Long Island reward
feels good to do something good
for environment

©Carol Varsalona, 2019

Long Island paddleboarders help collect garbage.

-Newsday, Paddle power by Nicole Allegrezza Fuentes, July 26, 2019
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I am sliding into Michelle H. Barnes' July Wrap-up Celebration at Today's Little Ditty with my found haiku poem series inspired by the article listed above.  At the beginning of the month in the Reader Spotlight of Today's Little Ditty, my friend from Virginia, Linda Mitchell, asked that we create a found haiku. 

Find an interesting article on a topic that fascinates you. As you read the article highlight phrases with the right syllable counts for traditional haiku (5-7-5). It’s true that haiku is not strictly 5-7-5. However, for this exercise, keep to the “rule.” Once you have found several phrases, place them into the form of a haiku. I’ve shared several of these on my blog, A Word Edgewise. (See examples here, here, and here.)

Admire

In life, there are many people that we come to admire for their own special talents, unique gifts, and connections to our lives. Among these are the passionate teachers who give of their hearts and the poets who give of their souls. This week I received a gift from a poet friend that made me smile and lightened my stress from all of the tech issues that have engulfed me. 

A brief look backward:
After days of constant computer glitches and undue tension, a package was delivered on Tuesday. My husband called my attention to it and wondering what was inside waited until I opened the envelope. I was delighted to find two beautiful books of poetry, Fresh Delicious and When the Suns Shines on Antarctica by Irene Latham, plus bookmarks and a handwritten note. 

I admired the shiny covers of both books before I looked inside at pages of vivid images and lively words that danced off the page. A clever one about punctuation from Fresh Delicious caught my eye. Perhaps you will admire it as much as I. The books were a very pleasant diversion.

If you visit Jama's Alphabet Soup here you can find a highly visual review of Fresh Delicious, that includes poems and recipes from Irene's book. Then, visit Today's Little Ditty where Michelle H. Barnes also dishes the scoop on the book with additional peeks inside.

While reading Irene's books, I found a beautifully designed video, For the Beauty (Images of Peaceful Nature), that allowed me to continue my admiration for life and those around me. I hope you enjoy the awe-inspiring photos of the earth and the soothing music as much as I. There is a quiet silence to nature when viewing it through the lens of a Master Artist. 

Continuing my examination of the one little word, admire, chosen by a fellow slicer, Julieanne Harmatz, led me to a beautiful scripture reading from Song of Solomon 5. I broke the text into a poetic format to pause and reflect on each set of words. 

My beloved is dazzling and ruddy,
Outstanding among ten thousand.
His head is like gold, pure gold;
His locks are like clusters of dates
And black as a raven.
His eyes are like doves
Beside streams of water, 
Bathed in milk,
And reposed in their setting.

This song, filled with admiration of a bride for her prospective husband, led me to another thought. In my daily walk, I need to appreciate the small moments more often and truly appreciate what I see before me.

Today is Spiritual Journey Thursday, beside Day 4 of the March Slice of Life Story Challenge, hosted by Two Writing Teachers. The SJT community of writers under the leadership of Holly Mueller, another slicer, are honoring the one little words that guide our journeys. The goal is to incorporate thoughts about Julieanne Harmatz's OLW, admire into our post. Please visit SJT here.

This post marks the third one of the Clearing a Path series for the March SOLSC. You can follow the slicers this month at Two Writing Teachers here. 

In closing, today's task is to reflect on the word admire as it will me help me clear a path to positivity. In doing so, I will look closely at the possibilities life holds and appreciate them more rather than dwelling on the to do lists that pile up.

My Little Ditty

Created by Michelle Hendenrich Barnes

Do you know what a ditty is? My colleague, Michelle Heidenrich Barnes, does for sure. Her blog site is called Today's Little Ditty and it is always filled with wonderful author interviews, poetry, and monthly creative challenges. This month, Michelle asked everyone to create "inspired ditties" based on the word ditty that was chosen by award winning children's author and poet, David L. Harrison. You can read the interview with David and the invitation to write here. 

My ditty for the challenge was sparked by a new digital tool that I found called Ditty. The app uses short bites of familiar tunes and allows you to add words. The end result is a ditty tune. Since the word ditty is defined as a short, simple song, I lifted that to create my lyrics. (Be mindful that I am not musically inclined so this is pure fun for me.)

Still feeling the love emanating from Valentine's Day, I wanted to swoon to music like my mother use to do in her time. I started our with four lines and then realized the app would only allow a shortened number of words. Below is what I settled on for lyrics. What follows is my little ditty video created via the free app, Ditty.

My Little Ditty

A short simple song

lingering tune

that makes my heart swoon.

I hope my little ditty made you smile because it brightened my day. 

This would be a fun exercise in writing for students. If you use the app in your classroom, please let me know how your students react to this app. The end result should be an engaging experience writing a short tune.

A View Through the Lens

The camera lens is a window to the world. It is receptive to creative sparks and often provides a source of inspiration when you least expect it. Yesterday, my camera and I set out on a new digital adventure after being invited by Michelle Barnes to a ditty challenge (that was provided by the popular New York City artist and author Douglas Florian). I must admit when I first read the creative prompt I had to pause to think what does this mean for me.

My ditty challenge is to write a poem about nothing.~Douglas Florian

Michelle did provide a model, a wonderful poem, The Story of Nothing, she wrote for her daughter's birthday. You can read it here.

Since I was undressing my Christmas tree yesterday, I decided that my bare tree could be my model. It cooperated. I took the photo, cropped it, and then looked at what was left-a big nothing of green branches. Because the notion of being a connected educator is looming in my mind (#NYEDChat is having a convo, Be the Digital Change, on Monday night as a warm-up for #DigCitSummitUK on January 23rd), I envisioned a poem that would incorporate those events. In order to capture the feeling I needed to bring my photo into PicMonkey, my go-to digital tool. After a few minutes of digitalizing the photo from the original nothing, I came up with something-a globe that would connect my ideas. Next, I needed connectors to overlay the globe. Voila, I found the branch image to signify the starkness of winter (an idea stemming from a virtual winter gallery that I will be designing). Next, came the word weaving. Ideas were swirling. I liked the word expanse that popped up and I wanted to use the word nothing so I continued to play with these ideas. Revision is an important phase of my process so that took some time. A micropoem emerged from the original nothing to something for Michelle's ditty challenge and DigiLit Sunday's post. All it took was a bit of imagination, a wonderful model, the camera on my iPhone, a digital tool, and the creative sparks to pull everything together. 

Here is my finished view through another lens. I hope you see some of the fir branches peeking through the globe. What is your thought on nothing?

Today's digital inspiration and post are being offered to the following:

Today's Little Ditty~Michelle H. Barnes

DigiLit Sunday hosted by Margaret Simon

Halloween Fun!

Beastie Ready for Lunch-

Invited to feast at Today's Little Ditty.

Hunger unleashed!

Toothless grin.

Chomp!

CVarsalona © 2015

*****

Autumn's Bounty

Digital Collage for Nic Hahn's Artist Trading Cards' Challenge

#k12artchallenge

I continue to find fall wherever I go.

Please join me! 

Invitation to the creative challenge here.

Please visit Jama Rattigan's delightful site, Jama's Alphabet Soup, for the Poetry Friday Round-up. She is featuring a poem by Penny Parker Klostermann and a delicious looking batch of cookies. 

May Blossom

Nature sings each spring

its tune of renewal and hope.

(May Blossom is an antique postcard dated 1912

that is part of my ephemera collection. I designed the

layout as an advertisement for Spring's Symphony Gallery)

Spring appears to have made its full seasonal debut on Long Island this week with sunshine, warmth, and gentle breezes. To honor the season of renewal, I invite all to join the global, online gallery that I am designing. Your offering of a poem and accompanying photo will grace the collection titled Spring's Symphony. You can read more about the invitation here and here.

Spring blossoms, delicate and bright,

bloom with cheerful delight

against a backdrop of green. 

What a magnificent sight!

Leaf

Leaf is spring's shaped word,
a bold background of green-
framing delicate petals word,

a silhouetted tribute of spring word,
a gentle rustling in the breeze word,
pointing toward the sun word,
a fancy-edged,
vividly proclaiming renewal word.
Leaf is a silent spring word
anxiously awaiting its blossoms.
Hush! Wait! Blossoms blooming!

Carol Varsalona ©2015. All Rights Reserved

The above poem, Leaf, is my attempt at Nikki Grimes' wordplay exercise challenge. I am offering this free verse poem as part of my tribute to the season of spring to Michelle Barnes at Today's Little Ditty. Michelle is curating the poems for Nikki Grimes' challenge.

Since it is the end of Teacher Appreciation Week, it is fitting to give thanks to the students who make teachers' days bright and worthwhile. I want to thank Jone Rush MacCulloch for enlisting the students at Silver Star Elementary School in Vancouver, Washington in spreading poetry love during National Poetry Month. Hannah P. sent me this card that shows her love for poetry and wordplay. My family was really excited when the mailman delivered this special treat. Thanks Hannah P.

Silver Star Poetry Project

Please visit the Poetry Friday Roundup where Michelle Barnes is the host at Today's Little Ditty. Today's offerings seem to be filled great delights. See you there. 

Drum Roll Please for Kwame Alexander

When Michelle H. Barnes challenged writers to her Ditty of the Month Challenge, I knew that I would try to write a clerihew on one of my favorite authors who has risen to celebrity fame this year.

Drum Roll please for Kwame Alexander

The story began one fall day in 2007. A tall, young man stood in front of a crowded New York State English Conference session. His smile lit the room and his words swirled like magical stars across the sky. His passion spilled over and drew in the participants. I was there. I was mesmerized by his words. This young man's name rolled like sugar across the tongue. From that serendipitous meeting, I knew that Kwame Alexander would rise to fame so I decided to bring him to Long Island to wow students and adults with his talent for word weaving. 

I enjoy words and enjoy when you can make children and adults have an emotional response to words. -Kwame Alexander

A friendship grew over the years. Kwame enthusiastically filled Long Island classrooms and conference rooms with engaging poetry read-alouds. His infectious love for language made others appreciate his artistry. I have had the pleasure of introducing him as the keynote speaker at the Long Island Language Arts Council/Nassau Reading Council Spring Conference, making him a spaghetti dinner (one of his favorite foods), and calling him friend. I have watched his career grow and soar and have applauded him for the many accolade he has received, the latest being the 2015 John Newbery Medal for the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children, The Crossover.

Over the Years:

2011

2014

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Clerihews were introduced to me by Kwame in 2007 so in honor of my friend, I pen this one for Michelle Barnes' Clerihew Ditty.   

Kwame is the current word weaver king,

spreading "the love" that language will bring.
As poet extraordinaire, family man, and spaghetti lover,
he tells great tales, but from his little one runs for cover.

Please visit this site to read more poetry from a variety of writers.

Lastly, visit Two Writing Teachers where the Tuesday Slice of Life community is meeting after our month long challenge of slicing. 

Listen to Write

Since the beginning of January, I have been allowing my one little word, listen, to guide my learning life. It is surprising how many twists and turns my OLW has taken me on in such a short time. Because I am still designing the Gallery of Winter Whisperings filled with different perspectives of winter, my thoughts have been centered around the positives of the winter season. I have been listening to the sounds of nature to crystalize thoughts into poetic pieces. With this in mind, I decided to challenge myself with a new writing format, the tanka. 

Tanka poems are short, five-line poems that originated almost 1200 years ago in the Japanese culture. The translation of the word tanka is short song. The word listen popped to mind when I read this. Then, I remembered that my blogger/writer friend, Michelle H. Barnes sent out a ditty challenge to write a tanka poem this month. I coupled Michelle's challenge with Heidi Mordhorst's MarCH Poetry challenge of the day on the word sketch. After many attempts to write a tanka, I have an offering. Since I like to reflect, I engaged in a mental checklist to see which parts of the tanka format I achieved. 

✓ five-line poem

✓ kept to the line pattern of short-long-short-long-long 

✓ centered the poem on nature and a season 

?  attempted to create a change in perception from examining an image to examining a               personal response to the scene

I added an image as my personal brand to capture the stillness of the scene both in words and image. A quote from Margarita Engle on Michelle's blog affirmed my desire to capture winter poetically. 

Seek the resonance that enters a poem only when it is touched by the stillness of nature.

To enhance Heidi's challenge, I altered an original photo to give it the feel of an artist's well-developed sketch, using PicMonkey.

Listen to Yuki, a traditional children's song in Japan that tells a story of snowfall.

To round off today's challenges, I am including this post in Day 10 of the Slice of Life Story Challenge at Two Writing Teachers. Stroll over there to read other slices of the day.