I've Seen Berets

I’ve seen berets

I’ve seen berets

Everywhere I’ve looked this month

I’ve seen them on the covers

Of poetry books of old

The books I’ve read to remind me

Of how I started writing.

Berets of wool, of cotton and of celluloid

On heads young and old

Male and female

I saw a young man with a beard

A leather jacket and denim vest

Tortoiseshell glasses on his nose

Wear a red wool beret

At a very jaunty angle

Walking into a big box store

The sight stole my breath away

It was a vision from the young ‘70s

A memory of the past

Everywhere I looked I saw berets

With matching coats

Sophisticated or street chic

They just popped out at me

I bought a new one of cotton

In lacy black

There were so many colors to choose from

It was tempting to try orange or yellow

But I knew I’d never wear them

The black one felt just right

I wore it and people commented

Asked if I was an artist

And I knew not what to say

My new beret

Of lacy cotton

Helped me to finally conquer

The beret

This month I wrote a great deal of poetry. I started out posting something each day. Some days I had to write quite a few poems before I could find one to post. Some were just too far away from being ready for the light of day.

Many days I jotted poems down on scraps of paper. I hope I can find them all to add to my notebook. It was enough to be writing them – good or bad, shared or saved until they are more presentable.

Some poems I shared with my students. They roared with laughter. Sometimes they told me the truth as they saw it – “That’s just boring Ms. Shoup.” We wrote many poems together this month, my students and I. We tried writing concrete poetry, acrostic poems (my favorite were the group acrostics of Sponge Bob Square Pants), and I have plans to use some lesson plans I discovered to help them write Triante poems. I tried quite a few myself with varying success. 

Many days I found, however, that though I set out to write a verse for children, the recalcitrant poem turned my intentions on it’s head and out spewed a poem that only adults would appreciate. Clearly, I have a long way to go before I can call myself a children’s poet. I'm on my way, though.