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.