Thursday, January 13, 2022

Odes and Couplets

Teaching creates all other professions.
~Unknown


Two possible mentor poems today. Teachers deserve lots of odes, don't you think?

excerpt from
Ode to Teachers
By Pat Mora

...“I'm listening,” you encourage us.
“Come on!
Join our conversation,
let us hear your neon certainties,
thorny doubts, tangled angers”...


Isn't "neon certainties, thorny doubts, tangled angers" a great way to describe what a teacher might elicit? What sort of things would you like to hear from students, teachers, friends, lovers, poets, others? Read the rest of Mora's poem here.

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This second mentor poem by Marilyn Singer is pretty self-explanatory: write a rhyming couplet about an animal. Mine are below.

Porcupines
By Marilyn Singer

Hugging you takes some practice.
So I'll start out with a cactus.


Herons

I like that you are predisposed
To hold still and strike a pose.

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On the other hand, I don't have any photos of the belted kingfisher...

No Photographs, Please

The kingfisher is kind of rough--
He flies away, says to get stuffed.

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A(nother) Year of Reading has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Mary Lee!

12 comments:

Elisabeth said...

Thanks for this smorgasbord of poems today! I particularly love your heron picture - we often see a grey egret on our lunchtime walks and I've become quite fond of watching him. Your lines about the heron inspire me to try to write a poem about our egret.

Anonymous said...

Excellent examples, Tabatha. The porcupine hug made me laugh.

Bridget Magee said...

Great poems, Tabatha. Singer's Porcupines poem is especially pointed. And your opening quote - so true!

Linda B said...

I watch for a heron, my harbinger of spring at the lake where I walk. Yes, he poses as you wrote, Tabatha. That kingfisher, elusive. I haven't seen one for a long time! There is wonderful truth in your observations. As for the teacher, that final stanza, the similes to "I carry your smile/and faith inside like" are wonderful! Thanks for all!

Mary Lee said...

Our Cat Hemingway

Proud of all your pointy parts,
drawing blood is your great art.

Thanks for a great mentor text!

Michelle Kogan said...

Yes to more odes for teachers!
"I raised my hand."
"I carry your smile,"
Love this beautiful reflective exchange between the two, in Pat Mora's poem!
It is considerate when a bird remains still for a minute or two… Not the Kingfisher. I haven't been able to capture one in a photo but I have drawn them, fun play between the fist and second lines, thanks Tabatha!

KatApel - katswhiskers.wordpress.com said...

This is just the post I needed to read today. You've made me smile, giggle and twitch to write. And THAT is a feeling that's escaped me of late. Thank-you wonderful Tabatha. You're a treasure.

Carol Labuzzetta said...

Your post is chock full of goodness, Tabitha! I love using mentor poems and when I asked my students to write color poems or haiku, I always offered mentor poems first. I love the idea of an ode to teachers. I think working on one of those for poem in your pocket day might be something I'll aim for doing!

Jone said...

Love the couplets. Herons are such posers.

Linda Mitchell said...

Oh, my gosh I love your couplet of the heron! There's one in my neighborhood too...and I have so many photos! And, Pat Mora's ode is wonderful. One of my favorites. I love it.

Heidi Mordhorst said...

Smiles all around. Yeah, teachers need all the odes right now.

Ruth said...

A friend with whom we birded recently says that kingfishers sense cameras coming and always fly away. She is a professional photographer and can't get good photos of them, she said.

I like your poems!