Saturday 25 April 2015

Junk Folder


We need your help.
We look forward to hearing from you.
We understand it may be frustrating.

This is not a dating proposition.
This offer is not retroactive.
This address is not monitored.

Our company wants to congratulate you.
Our company is very interested in your fruit juice.
Our company wants to know more about it.

Please see attachment.
Please order RayBan sunglasses at 90% off.
Please do not reply.

We hope you are doing well.
We want to work with you.
We just need a little more information.

There are women within 13 miles of your location.
There is 720,000 US dollars waiting for you.
There are issues with your account.

Contact Mr Larry Moore to collect your prize.
Contact Mr Lee Jack in Chengdu.
Contact us by clicking on the link.

Your prize is waiting to be collected.
Your fruit juice is highly appreciated.
Your account has been limited.

We want to know more about your fruit juice.
We want to work with you.
We need your help.

Do not miss this opportunity.
Do not worry.
Do not delay.



Today's prompt from The Poetry School/Mslexia: Go into your email spam or junk folder and find an interesting communication to convert into poetry. What is the narrative behind the million dollar bank transfer promise? Who are the hot singles in your area, really? What will that fake degree qualify you for? 

I collected phrases and words from the various emails in my junk folder and combined them to form a poem. I focused on creating a generic junk-mail experience with its bizarre combination of the problem you didn't know you had and the promise you didn't know was yours.

The Bazaars



There were bazaars
laden with enormous bunches
of white grapes,
almost too intensely sweet
for folk of the early centuries,
and so these oases
became sand-buried,
washed down 
from the Kunlun Mountains
by time.


Source text: Silk Road Cooking by Najmieh Batmanglij.

Friday 24 April 2015

The River of Stars


I lived beside a river of stars.
One day I saw a bird
fly into the water
and thought him dead. 

Then: a knock 
at the door, a place 
by the fire, three days 
without a word.

I fed him porridge oats 
and pumpkin seeds.
He sat by the window, 
looked up at clouds

with his black eyes.
Where are you from?
What can I give you?
No reply.

On the third night he set 
the moon in my hands,
wrapped in a tea-towel 
like a porcelain plate.

He opened his wings
and flew into the sky.
In dreams I followed him
along the blue road.

The stars lit my way,
shone with a gentle light.
I did not feel the cold.
And with me, the moon.




From NaPoWriMo: Today, I challenge you to take a chance, literally. Find a deck of cards (regular playing cards, tarot cards, uno cards, cards from your “Cards Against Humanity” deck – whatever), shuffle it, and take a card – any card! Now, begin free-writing based on the card you’ve chosen. Keep going without stopping for five minutes. Then take what you’ve written and make a poem from it.

Gypsy Wine


Life can be hard. 
We know that more than most.
We live with this
like we live with everything –
dancing.
You are waiting 
for your troubles to be over
before you dance,
play music and sing.
You have forgotten
the dance is inside.
It's not about how 
you move your feet.
But don't worry.
You can stop 
and find what you need 
right here by the road. 
Even this road
that seems like the wrong one.

There is a bottle of wine
in your hand. It says:
I am the one they drink 
at all the celebrations.
I get up and dance 
no matter what. I am 
that crazy love that dances 
on the tables, I am 
those drunken Cossacks 
at the bar, that spinning 
wild beauty. I am
joy and sorrow 
and a heart bursting
and the violin playing so fast
I have forgotten 
my own name. I am 
what you have been missing. 
I am your own wild heart.

Let's open the bottle.
Let's drink the one we were saving
for the special occasion.
There is no tomorrow.
There is only now.
But we aren't going to give it away.
When you retrieve something 
you have forgotten,
when you purchase something 
you were careless enough to lose,
it is expensive.
There is a price for being alive,
for creating a spark 
in the vast darkness.

Thursday 23 April 2015

You will remember this night


Driving down a long suburban road,
travelling alone in the blue dusk,
you know you cannot go back.

Every road is leading somewhere,
even this one with its rows of identical boxes,
doors shut to the evening.

Everything that happens is your road:
the houses and the people,
the lights and the dark.

You have no sense of what's inside,
but there is light in the window,
a yellow mist,

like the edge of a flame,
that does not change,
that cannot go out.

You will remember this moment 
when you stopped your car
and stood alone in the road.

You will remember this night,
this street, as beautiful,
the houses like lanterns.

Containers of light, it is right 
that the doors are closed.
In the morning they will open once again.

Tuesday 21 April 2015

On The Mat



Today's NaPoWriMo prompt: an old favorite – the erasure! This involves taking a pre-existing text and blacking out or erasing words, while leaving the placement of the remaining words intact … One easy way to get started is just to photocopy a page from a book or magazine, and black out words. Or you can copy a text into Microsoft Word, and turn the words you don’t want white. Erasures can feel almost like a game – carving new poems out of old texts like carving statues from blocks of marble — and so they take some of the anxiety out of writing. They can also lead to surprising new ideas, as the words of the original text are given new contexts.

If I had to take one type of poem away with me to a desert island it would be the blackout/erasure poem. (Although I wouldn't be travelling light. I'd also have to pack a stack of newspapers, magazines and books to use as my source material!) I have "written" several erasure poems already this month, including yesterday's poem. Thinking this was a bit naughty, I resolved that today's poem would not be an erasure poem. So, I had to laugh when I saw the NaPoWriMo prompt! Today's poem is meant to be an erasure poem. Hurrah!

Monday 20 April 2015

The World I Know




Today's NaPoWriMo prompt: Today, I challenge to write a poem that states the things you know. For example, “The sky is blue” or “Pizza is my favorite food” or “The world’s smallest squid is Parateuthis tunicata. Each line can be a separate statement, or you can run them together. The things you “know” of course, might be facts, or they might be a little bit more like beliefs. Hopefully, this prompt will let your poem be grounded in specific facts, while also providing room for more abstract themes and ideas.

Sunday 19 April 2015

Love's Memory


At night, in the old graveyard, we kissed.
By daylight, I looked for your face but found only ghosts.




Today's NaPoWriMo prompt: I’d like to challenge you to write a landay. Landays are 22-syllable couplets, generally rhyming. The form comes from Afghanistan, where women often use it in verses that range from the sly and humorous to the deeply sardonic and melancholy. Check out this long investigative article on landays for a fascinating look into a form of poetry often composed in secret, and rarely written down. You could try to write a single landay – a hard-hitting couplet that shares some secret (or unspoken) truth, or you could try to write a poem that strings multiple landays together like stanzas (maybe something akin to a syllabic ghazal?)

Saturday 18 April 2015

Today


Cakes


Shining and sticky, they sit on the tray, won't be there forever, I know, so they tempt,
embarrassed I even want one, me, I am so, can't bring myself to take one, no
one wants items such as these anymore, say “items” to distance, hope it will cure 
the trauma of longing, “item” sounds tasteless, generic, but we know they are cakes, 
luscious, sugar filled, raisins bursting, covered with cinnamon and deepest darkest 
chocolate. I will have to act soon. Life is slipping from under my fingers. 
And they stretch. They want.



Today's poem is inspired by an exercise from 'The Music of the Line', a chapter in The Poet's Companion by Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux: Take a draft of a poem and rewrite it in the following ways:
very short lines
very long lines
some length in between
in three-line stanzas
in five-line stanzas
You will probably find yourself changing some of the words as you try out the various versions, adding and deleting material.

My favourite version was the one with longer lines. I tend towards shorter lines in my poems, so it was great to break out!


Thursday 16 April 2015

My Body and Me


It seems there are two: my body and me.
Without her sweet nose I would not smell the flowers.
She is my teacup and I am her tea.

Together we walk, we eat, and take showers.
She’s sometimes asleep when I want to go dancing,
Yet without her sweet nose I would not smell the flowers.

With her, each new day becomes a romancing.
We splash in the puddles outside when it's raining.
Though she's sometimes asleep when I want to go dancing,

And when her bones ache, it’s me that’s complaining.
But this is my place to experience life;
We splash in the puddles outside when it's raining. 

We’ve been married since birth; she’s like my wife.
I do the looking but she has the eyes.
This is my place to experience life.

We sit on the sand dunes and watch the sun rise.
I do the looking but she has the eyes.
It seems there are two: my body and me.
She is my teacup and I am her tea.



Today's NaPoWriMo prompt: I challenge you to write in the form known as the terzanelle. A hybrid of the villanelle and terza rima, terzanelles consist of five three-line stanzas and a concluding quatrain. Lines and rhymes are chained throughout the poem, so that the middle line of each triplet is repeated as the last line of the following triplet (or, for the last triplet, in the concluding quatrain). The pattern goes like this:
ABA
bCB
cDC
dED
eFE
fAFA or fFAA.
You can use any meter or line length, though you may want to try to have all of your lines in the same meter! (And you can always fall back on that old favorite, iambic pentameter). 
So far I have shied away from the prompts that encourage a specific metre or rhyme pattern. But today I surrendered! I'm so glad I did. Without the structure of the terzanelle, this poem would not have emerged in the way that it did. I also surprised myself by having a really good time.

Wednesday 15 April 2015

The Suitcases


All the baggage, 
all the carefully selected 
valuables and practicals, 
packed in a rush, 
hardly breathing.
Our lives 
might depend on it later.
Then we are gone 
and the suitcases 
left in the square,
packed full of stories 
that won't be told.
But don't think about it.
Don't think
about the separation 
from the suitcase.
Soon, a deeper cut. 
No goodbye is possible.
The next time I see you, 
you will be smoke. 

The Brothers


The brothers bomb 
each other to bits
out in the wilderness.
They dig their holes
and make their plans,
knowing full well
there is no escape,

knowing full well it is miles 
to the nearest river.
They call up to the eagle,
each from their own holes,
and beg him: 
Tell us, what is it like
by the water?



Monday 13 April 2015

Ode to My Ten Toes


One-eyed owls 
perched on a branch,
all with turquoise faces,
sisters singing a cappella,
a band of brothers, pacing.

Dancing partners,
long-time companions,
known since I was born,
smooth keys of a piano
on which I play my favourite song.

The end of the old road,
beginning of the new,
a landscape of mountains and valleys,
arrows pointing to the future,
I will travel with you always.

Secret agents
tracking every move,
in love with your disguises,
but when I find you naked,
you are full of strange surprises.

An illegal box 
of Cuban cigars, 
saved for a special occasion,
for that crazy party on the roof,
I won't need much persuasion.




Today's NaPoWriMo prompt: In keeping with the mysterious quality of the number 13, today I challenge you to write a riddle poem. This poem should describe something without ever naming it. Perhaps each line could be a different metaphor for the same object? Maybe the title of the poem can be the “answer” to the riddle. 
My feet seem to be the inspiration for today! 


I am intimate with the bones of my feet


After Charles Simic


I am intimate with the bones of my feet
who gossip like grandmothers,
showing off their furs,
their perfume of decaying flesh.

Seeking a way in, ghosts creep
beneath the soles, whisper
which direction I should take
towards the yellow door of home.

Not another word of advice.
I can only heed these bones;
they tell me all I need to know –
a scripture of everything –

including all our futures.
They have nothing to do with God.
We will live at the heart
of a house made from twigs.

Like a zen monk welcomes 
each drop of rain, we will let them in – 
all the shadow selves.
They won't need to say a word.




Today's poem comes from an exercise I learned from the poet and songwriter, Barbara Marsh. Write a line in response to each line from an existing poem, either your own or someone else's. When you are done, save only your response lines and use these as the basis for a new poem. The poem I chose is My Shoes, by one of my favourite poets, Charles Simic.

Sunday 12 April 2015

The Gooseberry Girl


  I once cracked a glimpse
  of the gooseberry girl,
  lean in her tangle of twigs.
  A wild brambled thing,
  her eyes
  the colour of ponds.
  When I drew close,
  she rusted in my hands.

  Now there's a cabinet  
  filled with jars,        
  labels written by hand,  
  contents the colour 
  of moss and stone.
  Red stains my hands.
  My legs,
  cut with thorns of joy.



Today's NaPoWriMo prompt: Describe in great detail your favorite room, place, meal, day, or person. You can do this in paragraph form. Now cut unnecessary words like articles and determiners (a, the, that) and anything that isn’t really necessary for content; leave mainly nouns, verbs, a few adjectives. Cut the lines where you see fit and, VOILA! A poem!

When I removed the unnecessary words from my descriptive piece, I found a story began to emerge. I ended up re-inserting a few articles and determiners in service of this new story.

The limitations of boyfriend creation




Today's poem was created using the Verses Poetry app. It's a bit like magnetic fridge poetry in that you are provided with a limited number of words with which to create a poem. 


Saturday 11 April 2015

Falling


After balancing 
continually, Derek 
eventually fell 
groundwards,
head inverted, 
jiggling knees, 
lips mouthing 
nonsense orations,
plummeting, quietly 
revolving, sorrowful 
tailspin, unforgiving 
velocity.
Wild.
XOXO youth.
Zounds.




Today's NaPoWriMo prompt: I challenge you to write an abecedarian poem – a poem with a structure derived from the alphabet. There are a couple of ways of doing this. You could write a poem of 26 words, in which each word begins with a successive letter of the alphabet. You could write a poem of 26 lines, where each line begins with a successive letter. Or finally, if you’d prefer to narrow your focus, perhaps you could write a poem which focuses on a few letters, using words that repeat them.

Thursday 9 April 2015

walking slowly



Inspired by today's NaPoWriMo prompt to write a visual poem. I found myself continuing to play around with the space around the words. I'm not sure how visual the result is. It suddenly strikes me that all poetry is visual!

Wednesday 8 April 2015

dream of the daisies


crowding together
climbing together
piling on top 
on top of each other
to get to the sun
to get to the sun
yellow hearts
soft and furry
singing singing
we want to come close to you!
huddling together
white petals flapping
hearts sturdy and strong
climbing climbing
always striving
covering the grass
dreaming of the day 
of reaching the sky
making a chain
leading right to the sun
oldest friend
oldest friend
we want to come close to you!
huddling climbing
dreaming reaching
hearts sturdy and strong
until one day 
eating eating 
the big yellow sponge cake
the sun has been baking
all these years
up up up
inside the blue.



This poem came out of today's wonderful, spring-inspired workshop with Nichola Charalambou of Creative Writes. The writing was prompted by a photo of daisies on a sunny day...


Tuesday 7 April 2015

The money will run out


The phone will ring its last ring –
the sound of the angry man 
come to claim what is now his.

Trinkets will slip from my ears,
teeth fall rotten from my mouth.
My body will sag and hunch.

One by one, the lights 
in my house will go out –
fireflies eaten by a black bird.

In the meantime, I pay the bills
and fix the broken things
and throw the unfixable.

I change the tyres and the oil 
and drive through the town
like I still have somewhere to go.

But a figure moves towards me
who knows what lies in the land
where coins have no meaning.

She comes to greet me from far away.
She will speak of a feast beyond 
appetite, a beauty beyond forms.

On the day the last coin drops 
from my hand, we will meet.
We will meet in the centre of the road.

We will meet in the abandoned market.
We will meet in the alley
where dumpsters rule like fat kings.




The NaPoWriMo prompt for today is to write a poem about money: Wallace Stevens famously wrote that “money is a kind of poetry.” So today, I challenge you to write about money! It could be about not having enough, having too much (a nice kind of problem to have), the smell, or feel, or sensory aspects of money. It could also just be a poem about how we decide what has value or worth.

Monday 6 April 2015

Up High


L
o
o
k
i
n
 g 

d
o
w
 n 


      
 


on         c     l     o     u     d     s








                                                        

               and   f   i   e   l   d   s



            










andmylifesofar











Today's poem is inspired by Kim Addonizio: As you move across the page, the white space comes into play. Any musician will tell you that silence is an important part of the music. Similarly, white space is part of the poem. 
– Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within

Sunday 5 April 2015

Their Slippers Leaped The Town


After Emily Dickinson


I said: I'm going to stand here
and count 

until you get up and dance.
One two three – 

and they were gone.
Their slippers leaped the town.

I took my pencil out
and scribbled a few notes

on the whole experience
as I often do when I'm lonely.

I wrote: who appointed you
dance captain? and decided

to stop being such a prig,
took off my heels,

sunk each of my ten toes
into the soft blue rug

where they squirmed 
like delighted worms and said:

you'll never get us back 
into those shoes again, sister.



Today's NaPoWriMo prompt: Find an Emily Dickinson poem – preferably one you’ve never previously read – and take out all the dashes and line breaks. Make it just one big block of prose. Now, rebreak the lines. Add words where you want. Take out some words. Make your own poem out of it!  

The poem I chose to work with is Dickinson's 'Snow flakes'. The process resembled a game of Chinese Whispers, with each revision morphing the previous one. Except, in this case, I think quite a bit of the original remains intact. And, of course, I couldn't resist leaving in one dash, as a salute to Emily Dickinson. Here is the original poem:

Snow flakes

I counted till they danced so 
Their slippers leaped the town – 
And then I took a pencil 
To note the rebels down – 
And then they grew so jolly 
I did resign the prig – 
And ten of my once stately toes 
Are marshalled for a jig!

Saturday 4 April 2015

Travels with a circus


After Katie Hickman


I can hardly bear to watch
the illusory men
of the old world.
They preside over the dead,
and, beneath the shimmering ocean,
the sun itself.
I should return to Mexico,
examine my hands –
these strange little gestures
are not my own.


A prompt from MslexiaPick up the closest book to you, turn to page 37. Make a poem either inspired by that page or made out of words from that page.
The book I picked up is 'Travels with a Circus' by Katie Hickman.
Note: The 2014 edition is titled, 'Travels with a Mexican Circus' (2014)

Friday 3 April 2015

I don't know how it is




I am inspired by yesterday's foray into the Arabian Nights. The source text for this blackout poem is 'The Twelve Dancing Princesses' from the brothers Grimm. The text is already rich with story. I love how the process of erasure brings out new stories, secret stories, that are hidden beneath the surface.

Thursday 2 April 2015

Sindbad's Compass




Today's prompt is to write a poem about the stars. The source text for this blackout poem is 'The Seven Voyages of Sindbad the Sailor' from Andrew Lang's Arabian Nights.

Wednesday 1 April 2015

I guess it's too late to get a dog


After Bernadette Mayer


I guess it's too late to get a dog.
I haven't been trained 
for the smoky warmth 
of an animal. 
I have never known how 
to inhale that damp, doggy smell,
how to keep my balance
at the friend's door 
when the dog pounces, 
sniffs me, scrambles with his paws 
like I'm the face of a cliff.
I don't know what to do
with all that love.

I guess it's too late to get a dog.
But I was born in The Year of the Dog.
There must be a little bit of dog in me.
I could roll in the grass, 
run round bushes and trees,
rumble with the sky, 
growl low, deep growls.
Then, maybe, I would understand dog 
and dog would understand me.
I'd slap my thighs,
call in a loud, dog-owner voice,
and he'd come running fast.
He'd charge me with his love.

I guess it's too late to get a dog.
But if I did get a dog,
I would gaze into those eyes –
those soggy, loving eyes –
that know me, look for me,
wait for me to come home.
I'd say, 'I've come home, boy,
I'm home.'
If I got a dog,
he would nose his big nose
under the warm duvet, 
sniff my feet, snuffle and huff. 
The silence would not be complete 
without his breath.

I guess it's too late to get a dog.
I haven't been trained
for all that love.   
But still I light the fire, 
we would sit beside –
him and me –
prepare to breathe 
that sweet wood scent,
that damp, doggy smell
and, with it, the rain and the earth.



From yesterday's NaPoWriMo prompt, this poem was inspired by Bernadette Mayer's 'Essay'. Mayer's poem begins, 'I guess it's too late to live on the farm...'