Day four of WoPoWriMo has produce this:
I’m inside out and back to front
My mouth feels the sight
My nose tastes the touch
My ears smell the flavour
My hands see the sound
My eyes hear the fragrance
I’m mixed up and upside down
My thoughts, myself
Spin my mind around
Day three of WoPoWriMo had me producing this – I think it still needs work on it so feedback would be appreciated 🙂
It’s from the daily exercise Biscuits.
This flour?
This flour here
So dusty and dry
That was me
The sort of flour that would dry out the skin
Or make you sneeze
This butter?
This butter here
So soft, so oily
That was you
The sort of butter that would run through fingers
Or make you slip
Those hands?
Those hands there
So strong, so tender
They are love
The sort of hands that break eggs
Or spill salt
Those beaters?
Those beaters there
So interlocked, so synched
They are fate
The sort of beaters that bend
And Homogenise
That sugar?
That sugar there
So sweet, so granular
They are memories
The sort of sugar that mixes with with flour
And sops up oily butter
That cake tin?
That cake tin there
So simple, so metallic
That is our life
The sort of cake tin that will hold the mix of us until we rise
And are baked firm
This cake?
This cake here
So good, so firm, so full of wholes?
That is our future
The sort of cake you can decorate
Or leave bare
Day Two of WoPoWriMo – here is today’s effort, it is unedited and raw so feed back would be good 🙂
It has been inspired from the writing exercise on the WoPo website.
I sit beneith the flame tress
Sipping mango juice
Wanting oogarly
In it’s milky sweetness
The sky is odd here
But not as different as I thought
Edges too sharp
The ground glitters
Earth red and orange
With large flat grey stones
Ox pull carts
With solum eyed boys
At their heads
I watch water being pumped
Orange and reeking
Into a truck
Destination – Towns drinking water
I sigh
My once white underwear
Streaked and stained
Because of that water
The too thin man opposite me
Thanks me once more
Bright teeth in dark face
He pushes the question again
Stay – teach our children
I feel the pang
I can not
I am home sick already
Go – he says
Become the geologist I train to be
Come back – he says
Dig wells
I sigh and look
Too equatorial skies
Wondering if I ever will
Come back to this land
He smiles
“You like the flame trees?”
I nod
“The seeds make good earrings”
And he is leaving
Taking the medical supplies with him
I look at my glowing
White hands
With bitten nails
I am 19 years old
I quell the guilt
By filling a press sill bag
Full of dark, round seeds
And dream
Of saving the world
So Day One of WoPoWriMo – here is my first effort, it is unedited and raw so feed back would be good 🙂
It has been inspired from the writing exercise on the WoPo website.
Flaring gutter
Dancing shadows
In waxen pools
Clear Warmth
Consumed
Dying in reaction
Sucked from the centre
Drained into dancing light
Smokey tendrils
A heat shimmer soul
Fragile consuming flame
In living
Time grows short
Smooth yellowed white
Pillar
Soft at the edges
Like bone
It is the end of January already! Arg!!!
And that means February and February means, gulp, World Poetry Writing Month! or WoPoWriMo for short.
So what actually is my plan for WoPoWriMo? I am going to put my efforts up here each day – I am a bit nervous about doing this as they will be unedited.
Wish me luck – this is 28 poems in 28 days. I’ve signed the Pledge, and subscribed to the News Letter and am running the Facebook Group!
Last night at Poetry Cafe one of the main poetry thingys I have been attending we had a blinding headline poet called Adam Horovitz. During his reading I got the chill and the tingle and so actually parted with cash for a pamphlet containing a poem that made me want to cry.
The Great Unlearning.
Know if you know me – you also know that I basically don’t buy poetry – unless there is a contributors copy where I don’t have to pay postage and packaging I don’t even have copies of my own poems – I don’t buy the journals or anything. I am basically a culture thicky, the scientist ingressing and yes I don’t read much poetry – this is because I will only bother reading something where I have heard some of the poems and have had the tingle.
Anyway I am digressing as I always do!
Basically I really liked this guys poems and I got to read too 🙂 In the open mic! I read Alphabet Soup and Summer Sale – though I felt very fatigued yesturday and had trouble not shaking which sucked big time and I felt it reflected in how well I read 🙁
I also got to announce WoPoWriMo (World Poetry Writing Month) which I need to do a whole post about but basically – February is the month of poetry and the month of poetry is February.
It’s a writing challenge – if your intrested do click through to have a butchers 🙂
Also next month I am going to be doing a mini showcase at Poetry Cafe of my work. I am of course excited about this and hope that some peeps might actually want to come and see me 🙂
World Poetry Writing Month – this is a writing drive along the lines of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). The idea is to write a poem a day during February or at least get the ideas for one down 🙂
I’m planing to take part as my poem writing time has been slashed recently and I have ideas and phrases brimming over in my mind. My friend on the other hand wants to take part because her ideas have sort of dried up 🙁 and she’s hoping this will help spark her again!
This does mean that I will be filling this blog with lots of unedited straight from my head to the page poems – I’ll have hopefully sorted out the categories on here by then so you can filter them out if you want 🙂
Anyway I hope that any other budding poets out there are going to consider jumping aboard for this challenge 🙂
It’s a New Year and a New Decade and I am upping the heat on my poetry. Recently I have been reading at The Poetry Cafe and at Earshot both of which happen in Cheltenham. Last year I also started reading at tech events such as the Unconference in Bristol and Tech Adventure (also in Bristol!).
But my poetry thirst is growing and I want to do more readings and the like – the more I consolidate all my work the more this seems achievable – I have an arch-lever file literally full of poetry and I am still typing more up!
I went along to another Cheltenham event recently, one that happens once a month called Buzz Words – these are workshops followed by an open mike session. I was really nervous but read anyway knowing that the key to my nerves is to read the first time or not at all!
I was chuffed to have my name recognised as published as I haven’t sent anything off for about a year 🙂
So basically I am hoping to do more of this sort of thing (hopefully with more invites to events – hint, hint!).
The other thing I came across last year was VisPo (visual poetry) and too my suprise I was already working on the concept myself though I would never have thought to put a name to it. I am currently turning some of my poems into vispo’s for sale on the US market – this has been taking up alot of my poetry time as it were but I believe the imagery and the colour emphasis etc… on the words gives a whole extra depth to the poem.
Also challenges to face this year are World Poetry Writing Month WoPoWriMo) and National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) – the idea being a poem a day! I’m actually really looking forward to these two challenges 🙂
Ok so that’s alot already but am also hoping to sort out one or two little books of poetry – mainly for kids this year – I have the illustrations almost complete and the poems mostly polished.
So I have a busy poetry year ahead of me 🙂
Wish me luck!
Oh and also I might be putting some of my poems to music but this relies on other people so we will have to see!
Just thought I’d mention that I have actually done the drawings for The Little Book of Festive Poetry.
You can see them here and here.
My little girl really loves this ‘book’ even though it is not yet assembled and wont be until next Christmas now!
Merry Christmas Poets and Readers 🙂 See you in the New Year!
In November as part of PiBoIdMo I came up with the idea of A Little Book of Festive Poetry – the idea being simply that I would produce a Christmas version of The Little Book of Spoogy Poetry I made for my little girl at Halloween. So I have been ploughing ahead with writing poems I know she will love 🙂
I have set my self the goal of 10 poems 🙂
Here are the links to the poems 🙂
Poem Eight – yes this one still needs a title!