Hermit Crab Poem

This is the Open Write, a place for educators to nurture their writing lives and to advocate for writing poetry in community. We gather every month and daily in April — no sign-ups, no fees, no commitments. Come and go as you please. All that we ask is that if you write, you respond to others to mirror to them your readerly experiences — beautiful lines, phrase that resonate, ideas stirred. Enjoy. (Learn more here.)

Our Hosts

Margaret Simon lives on the Bayou Teche in New Iberia, Louisiana.  Margaret has been an elementary school teacher for 38 years, most recently teaching gifted students in Iberia Parish. Her first book of children’s poetry was published in 2018 by UL Press, Bayou Song: Creative Explorations of the South Louisiana Landscape. Her latest book is Were You There: A Biography of Emma Wakefield Paillet; Margaret wrote poems in Emma’s voice as she worked through trials and tribulations of Reconstruction and a Jim Crow South to become the first African American woman in the state of Louisiana to receive a medical degree. Margaret’s poems have appeared in anthologies including The Poetry of US by National Geographic.  Margaret writes a blog regularly at http://reflectionsontheteche.com.

Molly lives in an old red house, on top of a hill, in a small town in mid-coast Maine. She spends her free time enjoying all Maine has to offer. She loves to wander about, bird watch, hike, take pictures, and most recently, has begun to paddleboard (inland lakes for this cautious soul!). She’s also an avid reader, writer, and baker. Molly and her husband enjoy traveling, especially now that their three children have fully fledged. Late to teaching, she’s been an administrative assistant, a rehabilitation counselor, a natural childbirth instructor and a pastry chef. Currently, she teaches second grade at a nearby pre-K to 8 school. Molly has had personal essays published along with several poems in a variety of anthologies, and also had a gallery show of her nature photographs. She blogs regularly at www.nixthecomfortzone.com.

Inspiration 

In my writing group, each of us takes a month to pose a “challenge” to the group. In March, Molly Hogan introduced me to the idea of hermit crab poems. These are great fun. 

“Hermit crabs are known for creating inventive homes in all sorts of surprising spaces and containers. As writers, we can use the containers of other types of writing to form inventive poetry!” 

A hermit crab poem takes on another existing form, such as recipes, glossaries, quizzes, applications, etc. 

Process

Choose a topic to write about. What form does this poem want to be? Perhaps you already wrote a poem, and taking it one step further would make it stand out or evoke strong emotion.

I had written a poem about the Aurora Borealis, so I decided to make my poem a weather report. The online app Canva.com made it easy to create a visual poem. 

Molly wrote, “I knew I wanted to use a seed catalogue format. I also knew I wanted to write something politically pointed. Finally, I wanted to play with Canva a bit more.

“So, I looked up seed catalogues, got some ideas for the basic format, and started writing. I opted to focus on Democracy, something that appears to need some significant nurturing and grassroots support right now. First, I created a list of common categories (light, water, etc.), and then tried to figure out how to adapt them to my topic. I really enjoyed the mental exercise of trying to find the overlap between my topic and seeds within the form I’d chosen.”

Margaret’s Poem

Molly’s Poem:

Your Turn

Now, scroll to the comment section below to write your own poem. (This is a public space, so you may choose to use only your first name or initials depending on your privacy preferences.) Not ready? That’s okay. Read the poems already posted for more inspiration. Ponder your own throughout the day. Return later. And, if the prompt does not work for you, that is fine. All writing is welcome. Just write something. Oh, and a note about drafting: Since we are writing in short bursts, we all understand (and even welcome) the typos and partial poems that remind us we are human and that writing is always becoming. If you’d like to invite other teachers to write with us, tell them to subscribe. Also, please be sure to respond to at least three writers.