This is VerseLove. We write poems together every day during April. Glad you are here.
Our Host
Margaret Simon lives on the Bayou Teche in New Iberia, Louisiana. Margaret has been an elementary school teacher for 38 years, most recently retired and teaching periodically as a teaching artist in the schools. Her first book of children’s poetry was published in 2018 by UL Press, Bayou Song: Creative Explorations of the South Louisiana Landscape. In April 2025, she released 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. Her latest book is a baby board book What’s That Sound? Birds of the Bayou. Margaret’s poems have appeared in anthologies including The Poetry of US by National Geographic and Rhyme & Rhythm: Poems for Student Athletes. Margaret writes a blog regularly athttp://reflectionsontheteche.com.
Inspiration
When I was writing What’s That Sound? Birds of the Bayou, I knew that onomatopoeia was an essential element to include. I love to teach kids how to spell onomatopoeia without spell check. Chunk it in thirds and say it with rhythm: “ONO-MAT-OPO-EIA” It’s also a really fun word to say out loud.
In my baby board book, I included some familiar sounds, such as the barred owl sound of “Who-cooks-for-you?” I also invented some of the onomatopoeia, such as the sound of the wood duck, “Ooo-eek-ooo-eek”.
Process
Choose an animal you would like to write about. Find a sample of the sound it makes. For bird sounds, I use the Cornell Lab website, https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/how-to-learn-bird-songs-and-calls/
Write a poem that uses onomatopoeia in a creative way. Have fun with it!
Margaret’s Poem
This is a portion of a work in progress for a picture book about the prairie.
Prairie is a Place
Prairie is a place of symphonic sound.
In the spring, when warm air returns,
Prairie comes alive with warbler song,
Carolina wrens, and chickadees…
Oo-ee-oo-ee-oo-ee!
Summer heat raises red coral bean and blazing star,
hides rat snakes and green tree frogs.
Night time’s loud with muddy pond calls…
Rr-beck-rr-beck!
Margaret Simon, draft
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.
Margaret, thank you for hosting us today with this fun prompt with sound effects. I have loved seeing your signing events and so happy for your new board book! My mind went to a humorous moment Sunday morning when we finally had all our birds back after all but a few trees were cut down last year to harvest the pine farm.
Sunday Surprise
Sunday morning we had more birds
than we’d had since cutting down
all our trees for the pine harvest
last year and they’d all come at once
the usual crowd~ chickadee,
woodpecker, titmouse, bluebird
but one took us by surprise~ a
Baltimore Oriole
right here in little old Pike County, Georgia
a cheeb-a-dub, a cheeb-a-dub, a cheeb-a-dee?
sharing the same tree like we’re the
Hampton Inn of traveling birds
Merlin said so, so we checked and rechecked
and crept out to see
discovering all the birds were
not only in the
same tree but the same branch
a symphony of song
all from the same set of bird lungs
cheeseburger, cheeseburger, please?
A lone Mockingbird – ugh!
with all her invisible friends
Kim, you had me for a minute listening to the Oriole. Don’t you love the Merlin app? I love “cheeseburger, cheeseburger, please?” How funny! And that end “all her invisible friends.” At my book release party, there was an inquisitive child who asked “Why does the mockingbird copy the sounds of other birds?” I made up an answer.
Margaret, you are singing my birdsong! You are ever the artist, painting word-pictures so vividly that I’m there on the prairie, feeling the warmth, seeing the colors hidden in the grasses. Your musical artistry comes through as well – thank you for this symphony. It’s going to be ab amazing picture book. And thank you for today’s inspiration. I tried to think of another creature to emulate but Poetry would not have it today, and Morning had already given me this sound a few days ago. The mantra in my head of late has been Use what you have…so I try, with a prose poem (it chose itself as soon as I wrote the first line),
The Guest
Morning comes far too early at my house, but she does not intrude. She is patient. She waits in her black silver-lined gown as I step outside on the deck, my little golden-haired dachshund barreling past me and down the steps for his first grassy foray of the day. The April weather has been unseasonably warm, but Morning embraces me like a friend; her breath is cool on my cheeks. She is not the visitor. I am her guest. I am welcome here for as long as either of us can stay. She knows with her every appearing that my time is short. In this moment, enveloped in her robe, I sense expectancy. What is Morning waiting for? What does she mean for me to know? Without words, she bids me to look up. Stars glimmer above the silhouetted pines, bright, beautiful, distant, cold…hard to believe they’re huge orbs of rock and fire, that their constitution and mine are the same…are humans really made of stardust, or are the stars untold stories of human dust? The moon is a radiant slim crescent. When my boys were little, we called this phase a fingernail moon, exactly the shape of their clippings. Something in the dark woods begins crunching around—footsteps—and although I know it’s likely a deer, my mind goes on alert, for these days my own species has gone wild. Anyone could be lurking anywhere with unfathomable intentions. But perhaps it is not such a big creature, for just then comes a song, loud and bright, from the hidden places: whip-poor-WILL, whip-poor-WILL, whip-poor-WILL…I have never heard this night bird’s call so early in the year. It’s a summer song. It’s picked up and echoed from somewhere in the distance. Whip-poor-WILL, whip-poor-WILL, whip-poor-WILL. My golden boy, Jesse, now done with his earthly encounter, has returned to stand by me, his furry warmth against my ankle. We listen to the birds, calling, calling, calling, as the pines begin to rustle. It’s Morning’s silken robes; she is preparing to stand and reveal her full majesty, soon accompanied by a vast choir of birds declaring glory, glory, glory, but in this moment, in the darkness, my soul leaps at the night bird’s song, for all its bright poignance, remembering, for this brief moment, my youth.
Oh, I need to loan you our Dolly dog. She’s just over one year old, and she brings morning in with her wiggly, barky bounce! This onomatopoeia is so fun. What a beautiful description of the morning you write. Maybe someday, my Dolly dog will settle down to this very sweet morning you offer.
Fran, your pen moves and the universe opens up with such magnificence. Morning in a black silver-lined gown. And the foray, and the human species gone wild. This is the part where I caught my breath: are humans really made of stardust, or are the stars untold stories of human dust? An entire anthology could be written with this one theme…..and you can tell these untold tales! I could sit captivated, listening, all day. Absolutely magnificent!
We are soul sisters, indeed! My childhood favorite bird was the whippoorwill (Don’t you love how the sound is its name?) calling from the forest near my home. I only heard it on summer nights when staying out until the mosquitos chased me home. What a loving ode to Morning!
Margaret, this is the perfect prompt as the birds just started their day about the time I woke up and I’m listening to them now, as I write. Looking forward to your new book about the prairie–I can see the illustrations for your beautiful words.
Bird Song
Spring is the sound of birds
their calls, cheerup–cheerily–cheerily,
(says the robin)
wake me up each morning.
An invitation to join the day,
cheer, cheer, cheer
(says the cardinal).
Their gentle entry setting the tone,
peace, peace, peace, all my little children, peace
(says the sparrow).
Nature’s alarm clock
If I could see her
I would seize her
and I would squeeze her
‘til she squirt,
(says the warbling vireo)
There’s always one.
Oh, yes! The Robin does say, “cheer, cheer, cheer.” There’s always one…that just makes me laugh. Great morning poem!
Jennifer, I got to that last line and laughed out loud. I’ve never heard that call before, despite so many warblers here, and now I’ll be listening intently for it….and think of you. Nature’s alarm clock – – I love that line, and would welcome that as my alarm clock anytime. And the invitation to join the day as a party, a chance to get out and be social. I’ll take that most days……others, I’d be just fine staying right here in my own nest. You have a way of making us think about the world as a bird. That last line, though, I’ll be grinning and showing my birdwatching friends today…..
I am noticing so many more birds in the mornings these days. I love how you identified each sound with a parenthetical. I don’t know that I’ve heard the warbling vireo. Hilarious sound!
What a symphony! Lovely, lush and fun. Tree frogs in the prairie? I didn’t know! Thanks for that nugget. Carolina wrens are so sweet. I love them. I hear spring mourning doves outside my window right now. I love their soft coo, coo, coo.
I so look forward to a work about the prairie coming to book life!
Yawn
YAAwwnn
sleepy, sweepy
little mouth opens wide
fluttery tired baby eyes
make me weary too.
Maybe we can sit down here
in this comfy rocking chair
creak forward
rock back
think about
a tiny
nap.
Linda, you not only have onomatopoeia, but you have visual effects like a shape poem going on….I can see the yawn, the mouth opening wide as the poem builds, then the tiny nap sets in. It makes me want to snuggle back in for the day and not get out for meetings and checklists and sharing out stuff. A rocking chair sounds so much better.
Linda, put this in your “poems for children” document. I love its shape and sweetness that makes me think of baby birds but never outright says it.