Turquoise Monster

I haven’t quite managed an hour a day on songs, mainly due to also working on the illustrations for a Little Book of Easter Poetry for my little girl – but excuses are excuses! On the other hand it is all poetry/words/rhyme/rhythm related so I think I can justify it to myself.

I have been working on several songs, several of which have been written this month – I will not make 30 and over half of them are children’s songs as well :/

So far, song wise, I have:

1. Firey Retribution
2. Splish Splosh Splat (Children’s)
3. My Lovely Babies (Children’s)
4. Flowing
5. Stung to Numbness
6. I Knew a Boy (already on youtube though there is some out of synchness going on :/)
7. Incomprehensible Me
8. My Reflection
9. Little Ghost
10. A Serpent Feathered White
11. A Love Song of the Gutter
12. Bubble of Bone
13. Strange Little Girl
14. Lost Little Ones (Bleeding Out the Joy)
15. Ivy and Mistletoe
16. Lullabye (Childrens and in my Little Book of New Baby Poetry)
17. Icky Sticky Mud (Childrens)
18. Row Your Boat (What Do You See on the Stream) – Childrens
19. My Bones Are a Battle Field (Adaption from a song I wrote at 15)
20. The Merry Intwined (Adaption of a song I wrote at 17)
21. Hey You! (Adaption of another teen song sorry guys!)
22. Don’t Get in a Jam Honey! (yep another teen song by me)
23. Mummy I’ve Got a Grumpy Face (Children’s)
24. Sun is Shining (Children’s – longer version of this)
25. Driving Along (Children’s)

Hmm looking at this list I am now thinking I could easily make it to thirty songs!

I suppose if it gets close enough I could just sing the my Science Is Vital Rap :/ (Also on Youtube if you want a laugh)

The weekend saw the first ever Cheltenham Poetry Festival and it was fantastic – it really was. There were some cracking events, photos of some of it below. I saw one of my favorite singers Men Diamler accompanied by the poet Cliff Yates. I saw a haunting performance of prose and poetry by Jonathan Taylor and Adam Horovitz both dealing with the issues of parental illness and death and the emotions there in.

There was children’s poetry by Angela Topping which had my five year old hooked, the duo of AF Harold and Peter Wyton that had us all in hysterics and many more which hopefully I’ll write up things in a bit more depth at some point!

I myself performed my Piaf Poem which was as always over shadowed by the fantastic singing of Eve Loiseau. I also acted in Murder in the Chapel – along side local poets Sonia Hendy-Isaacs and Adam Horovitz. This was a purely brilliant Poetic Who Dunnit by Sara-Jane Arbury.

My whole family including mum, dad, great aunt, small children and husband all enjoyed though we all spent far too much money on books! And we didn’t even make it to the head line acts!

I am going to be doing another poem a day challenge in April – NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month). I did this last year focusing on Visual Poetry but this year I’m going to use it to focus on music. I want to have 30 songs by the end of the month – some of these are I confess already written but I will be spending an hour a day min working on them and improving them and maybe making you tube videos of me singing them!

Sadly I don’t think that my guitar skills are up to playing the songs but I’ve got to start somewhere. I have always loved music but started a bit behind with not being able to hear much until an operation when I was four. And then of course I can’t actually read music but never mind. I’ve been in various choirs and has resulted in me doing things like singing on the roof of the Royal Festival Hall.

I love the concept of crossing over genres and to me music and poetry are so very close anyway – plus I have just turned 30 and I promised myself I would do musical things in my 30’s 🙂

I am going to be reading my poem Piaf tonight as part of the Poetry and Piaf event at Cafe Rouge Cheltenham as part of the Poetry Festival – event starts at 7 pm and tickets are £10. The singer is fantastic and even if you think you don’t know the songs you will as alot of them where hits during the second world war and so appear in lots of films etc… The singer Eve Loiseau is brilliant and tells the story of Piaf’s tragic life – it’s well worth watching even if I wasn’t going to be there 😉

There are also some other cracking events – I’m hoping to catch [A. F. Harrold]\9http://www.afharrold.com/wordpress/?page_id=32) and Peter Wyton at 6 pm (also at Cafe Rouge!) – tickets for that are £5 each.

And of course there is the opening night party at Slak (also in Cheltenham!) run by Calmer* which is £6. I really want to go to this but need to check my energy levels etc… and also see how Mary is with drinking out of a bottle whilst mummy is socialising!

Cheltenham Poetry Festival is on 31st March to 3rd of April and there are lots of fantastic events that I’m hoping to go to but I am also going to be reading and acting at several events!

I am reading my Edith Piaf poem at the Poetry and Piaf events on the Thursday and the Sunday (I believe there is wine involved!) – tickets cost £10/£7 concession – and then on Saturday I am performing in an interactive play by Sara-Jane Arbury called Murder in the Chapel 🙂

I am really looking forward.

A I’ve mentioned on here before the guy who really got me thinking about Visual Poetry and the cross over between art and poetry sadly died. It was tragic and upsetting and he was only just older than me 🙁 But his family and friends including those like me who only ever met him electronically have kept his fantastic visionary website Escape Into Life running. They have also started putting some of his writing upon the the site here.

One of the things I found so upsetting was the thought that his creations, his art would now fail to get out there – there is nothing that can really be done about the writing he would have done but the stuff that already existed now gets a chance to be read.

I completed the WoPoWriMo challenge and came out of February with a more like 40 poems 🙂

I am thinking that I do now have so many poems that I may well start submitting more – the last few things I’ve submitted have been published which is encouraging. Still not sure if I really want to start doing competitions again but I might – of course I need to get the spellings and things sorted for that!

I am still working on the Poetry Collection too – I sort of want to have some sort of drawing on each page so am hoping to get some down time on that soon!

The next writing challenge is Aprils NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month) which I already have plans for 🙂

From the 31st of March until the 3rd of April you will find me hanging around the Cheltenham Poetry Festival 🙂 There is Poetry with Piaf, a children’s slam, poetry and punk – and that’s just for starters!

I recommend you check it out.

You can get tickets for events at the Cheltenham Town Hall.

Thankyou to everyone who voted for my picture and poem for the ESA Create Your Space Competition. I am a runner up and am awaiting my goody bag 🙂

Purple prose
bruised and dowdy
Awaiting its glory
By bleeding out the joy

White fluffy prose
Of sugar spun lace
Melting on the tongue
Insubstantial and unsatisfying
Making you fat and hungry for more

Green prose
Innocently jealous
Wanting what will smother
The voice
Young and tender sap
Rising to the stars