persona-ble

Greetings, all, and welcome to March (a favored month of mine).  We kick it off, we Inklings, by writing persona poems with Margaret Simon, whose challenge read "A persona poem has a specific audience, conveys a message, is written in the voice of another person, place, or thing, uses direct address. A great sample poem is “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes."

I'm double dipping for this one, because during the recently concluded February Poetry Project hosted by Laura Shovan (the theme this year was Games), we enjoyed a prompt provided by Margaret herself that included cards from a game she plays with students called Picwits. We each selected one of the cards and one of the photos and wrote to that combination. I stepped into the halo of this angel:

Angel to God

Oh Lord—

Every day, seven days a week

(no rest for me on the seventh day),

I put on my wings 

and leave the house.

It’s like any other job–

there are days you look forward to,

and days you’d rather be elsewhere, 

doing something else entirely,

doing nothing.

That’s my aim, my angle–

to earn a sabbath, just one day 

of angel’s rest 

now and then,

a day when I can 

lie barebacked in a hammock  made of angel hair (it really is 

feather-light), saving no one,

doing nothing.

draft ©HM 2024

That was fun, and good practice too, because I hope to be doing a mask and persona poem project with 6th graders in April, at the old middle school of both my kids.

Go here to find the personas inhabited by the other Inklings, and thanks to Linda at TeacherDance for leading the March into Spring. I hope she's not snowed under...

Catherine @ Reading to the Core

Molly Hogan @ Nix the Comfort Zone

Linda Mitchell @ A Word Edgewise

Margaret Simon @ Reflections on the Teche

Mary Lee @ (A)nother Year of Reading