February in the Forest of Bones

I turn the heating up full whack

and take my vitamin D.

I wear jumpers knitted with wool 

and love. 

I think I’m safe, 

think I’ve made it through. 

But — 

You come. 

You put the sun in a cage.

You fill the sky with elevator music.

You strip skin from bone. 

You blow ice into eye-holes.

You use my lashes to dust your house.

You make a jacket from my fallen hair.

You chew my liver, slowly, slowly.

You play my heart 

’til every last, sad note is out.

When Spring comes, 

I’m sure I’m dead. 

But —

each bone reaches for the sun

and the sun reaches back, 

like a father, home from the long journey.

And the budding of magnolia is a miracle — 

that pink, that white — 

like glorious bowls filled with promise.

I turn towards the newness of the year,

towards this second chance.

I want to forget.

But —

I met you in the forest of bones, I did. 

There, on the floor beneath the world, 

you showed me the face 

beneath the photographic paper of my skin. 

There, beneath the cover of ice,

you showed me my own dark earth.

Today's NaPoWriMo prompt: In his poem “The Wasteland,” T.S. Eliot famously declared that “April is the cruelest month.” But is it? I’d have thought February. Today I challenge you to write a poem in which you explore what you think is the cruelest month, and why. Perhaps it’s September, because kids have to go back to school. Or January, because the holidays are over and now you’re up to your neck in snow. Or maybe it’s a month most people wouldn’t think of (like April), but which you think of because of something that’s happened in your life. Happy (or, if not happy, not-too-cruel) writing!

Sea Change

A Family Portrait

Today's NaPoWriMo prompt: I challenge you to write a poem that takes the form of a family portrait. You could write, for example, a stanza for each member of your family. You could also find an actual snapshot of your family and write a poem about it, spending a little bit of time on each person in the picture. You don’t need to observe any particular form or meter. Happy writing!

I chose to do a blackout poem - one for each member of the family. (Does that count as 4 poems, I wonder?) For my source text, I used Storytelling & the Art of Imagination by Nancy Mellon (Which, by the way, is a fabulous book!)

She has forgotten

It’s the first day of NaPoWriMo and I decided to launch straight in there with a piece of comics poetry. Inspired by tales of the selkies, I used material from a variety of sources: my own notebooks, the beauty section in Vogue magazine, and the folktales themselves.

Once I had gathered my written material, I got to work on the images while things were still chaotic and incomplete. I wanted the images to be an integral part of the poem rather than an accompaniment to something that already stood on its own. As a result, I found that the poem needed far less words than I had intended.

The end result – which still feels very much like a work in progress – was certainly greater than the sum of its parts. I have to agree here with Bianca Stone: ‘It’s not the poem, it’s not the drawing – it’s a new beast altogether!

Comics Poetry

It’s not the poem, it’s not the drawing – it’s a new beast altogether!

– Bianca Stone, The New York Comics Symposium

I love comics. And I love poetry. Recently, I have been concerned I might have to ditch one in favour of the other at the start of NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month). However, when I look into the realm of comics poetry, I am reminded that these two forms can talk to each other and create something new.

Some time ago, I went to a comics poetry workshop with Chrissy Williams at The Poetry School. It was a wonderful day spent mixing classic poems, internet articles, our own abstract artwork and images from a stack of Iron Man comics. We loosened up our concepts of both poetry and comics and opened the door to the realm of possibility that is “comics poetry”.

The workshop took place at The Poetry Cafe, which at the time housed the exhibition for Over The Line: An Introduction To Poetry Comics. As we worked, we were surrounded by an incredible array of approaches to this exciting new form.

In his comments about Over The Line, Alan Moore describes it as a “breathtaking tango”:

This is that spine-tingling moment when two attractive and sophisticated forms, both admired for their rhythm and sense of timing, eye each other across the cultural dance floor. In Over The Line, at once an insightful introduction and a comprehensive showcase for the emerging phenomenon of Poetry Comics, Chrissy Williams and Tom Humberstone provide the best possible venue for what looks like being a breathtaking tango. I really can’t recommend this venture highly enough, and I’d advise you mark your card immediately.

The morning of the workshop, I got the time wrong and arrived an hour early. I sat in a cafe and made a few notes with a view to using them as material later in the day. When these simple statements were combined with the extraordinary figures and landscapes of the Iron Man comics, they took on deeper, more dramatic meanings.

The visual elements – the format, the images, the panelling or lack of it – transform the words, open them up to different meanings. The words, in turn, transform the images. The result is something greater than the sum of its parts – “a new beast altogether”.

The Symposium of Important Things

Some wonderful online comics poetry resources: Ink Brick is a micro press for comics poetry. They bring out a print journal twice yearly and have a vibrant website. Check out Bianca Stone’s poetry comics site. She also curates comics poetry content for thethepoetry.com. Chrissy Williams has edited 14 issues of Poetry and Comics, the result of collaborations between poets, writers and artists. You can read them all here.

As I read more about comics poetry, I notice that its practitioners are loathe to define it:

Our job as creators is to make work. I don’t really care whether something doesn’t “count” as comics poetry, because it could just be the first push into new territory, and hybrids and liminal things are always more interesting than those that cleave to orthodoxy.

–Alexander Rothman, What is Comics Poetry?

In this spirit, I look forward to pushing into new territory, both within my own work and within the exciting field that is comics poetry. I’ll be writing a poem a day during the month of April and I’ll be experimenting with comics poetry as I go. I hope some of you will join me!

Dancing our way through a month of poetry

April is National Poetry Writing Month, AKA NaPoWriMo. Each April, people from all around the world set out to write a poem a day for 30 days. There is something wonderful about a creative challenge in which so many people from so many countries are involved. All that energy and focus; it’s like being invited to a big party where everyone is celebrating poetry.

Check out the fabulous NaPoWriMo website set up by Maureen Thorson, a poet living in Washington, DC. Each day, Maureen posts an optional prompt and poetry-related links (this year, the focus is on poetry in translation). A different participant is also featured every day. Hundreds of people register their sites so you can check out how other adventuring poets are doing, read their responses to the prompts, and get inspired.

Of course, the crafting of a poem takes time, and there is plenty of time once the month is over to work on all those drafts. But while April is in session, there is a beauty to the fact that you can’t spend ages agonising over each one. A bit like the timed drawings in making comics, something has the opportunity to come through that might not have done if you had longer to think about it.

This is an opportunity to dive in and try out all sorts of different poetic forms, things you wouldn’t normally try or things you haven’t even heard of. Last year – my second year participating – I tried my hand at a terzanelle, a landay, and an abecedarian poem, to name just three of the many forms the NaPoWriMo website threw my way.

April is the perfect month for a poetic challenge. It begins with April Fool’s Day, after all. Perhaps we can dance our way through a month of poetry, carefree as The Fool in the tarot deck, off on a new adventure.

We need more poets, not fewer, as some critics of creative writing programs would have it. We invite you to do what Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy asked: to add your light to the sum of light. Do it with patience, and love, and respect for the depth and difficulty of the task.

– Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux, The Poet’s Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry.

Check out the NaPoWriMo website here. I’ll be posting my poems every day both here and on my blog, Follow the Brush. I look forward to seeing you!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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?)

Today