As I said yesterday, I’m now a third of the way there! It’s felt a bit strange this year, writing after so long away. It’s nice to get a post out before the day properly starts, to feel like I’ve accomplished something for me, but I don’t know…it still feels like a tug in a dangerous direction?
First, find a song with which you are familiar – it could be a favorite song of yours, or one that just evokes memories of your past. Listen to the song and take notes as you do, without overthinking it or worrying about your notes making sense.
Next, rifle through the objects in your junk drawer – or wherever you keep loose odds and ends that don’t have a place otherwise. (Mine contains picture-hanging wire, stamps, rubber bands, and two unfinished wooden spoons I started whittling four years ago after taking a spoon-making class). On a separate page from your song-notes page, write about the objects in the drawer, for as long as you care to.
Now, bring your two pages of notes together and write a poem that weaves together your ideas and observations from both pages. [From napowrimo.net]
Well, I chose “The Beautiful People” by Marylin Manson 😉 because who doesn’t need some industrial/alternative metal to listen to before 7am?! This song was one I was introduced to around the time I decided to go do a University Access Course (at the age of 20). I was hanging around with some 2nd year students that were friends with a flatmate that the letting agency had thrown into my life. They signed me into the student union before I even got my own card, and there were glorious rock nights!
This song brings them all back, and that feeling of being in a bubble from life where we circulated thoughts and theories and dress rules were broken, but it was ok because we were young and intelligent and could write/speak our way out of most things…
It’s weird to me that there are so many milestones that I haven’t recorded about my own life. I really should be my intrepid biographer, using this so-called love I have for writing to document my time on this planet. But it wasn’t until I ‘had a Google’ that I re-learned that my graduation day was the 3rd of July 2003. As I had spent the best part of 5 years prior to that aiming for it (not to mention the 13 years of schooling 1982-95), you would think I would be smiling at that date every time it appeared on my calendar.
But no.
I had an inkling by then that my intended launch from it into High School teaching wasn’t for me, and I kind of slunk through it all in my head, feeling adrift again. Like I had, in reality, failed.
The associations with the groups of friends I had accumulated dulled afterwards because it was as if I had broken the covenant that was between us: that we would talk trash and pretend we could be this way forever, but still emerge with degrees and take our places in society with growing modicums of respectability, etc etc.
But hey, the song also reminds me of the early days with Hubby, whom I met on 27th of March 2005, less than two years after I graduated. We listen to a lot of rock in the car even now. Plus we’ve made two cool little people, and weathered all the ups and downs before and after, so there’s that 😉
Anyway, I have taken a pic of our kitchen junk drawer and I’m sure, if you look hard enough, you can see how heavily my poem is based on its contents!
IT AIN’T JUNK
Let’s cut up a dance floor
with our bag of bands –
from rock, to cheese, and back
we’ll measure out our alcohol trips.
Stick our photos in albums,
string our past along with us
through permanent mistakes
and marked successes.
The best days of our lives
form on us like lint
whenever life tries to brush us off.
We’ve no instructions, but
our memories are beautiful.
It’s getting late and the kids are wanting to watch something with me (I’ve wandered away from this write-up loads and Hubby has returned from his Saturday morning foodshop already) so I’m offsky til tomorrow…take care of yourselves 🙂
Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!
This prompt challenges you to find a poem, and then write a new poem that has the shape of the original, and in which every line starts with the first letter of the corresponding line in the original poem… [from here]
[above should be a picture of Wilder’s poem that starts “some things are left unsaid” from her collection entitled Nocturnal]
I first found this picture on Pinterest, and then followed it back to Instagram. I really love the poet’s style and all the art that goes with her poems. She has notebooks and journals out too, I feel I am going to have to investigate if I can buy some of her merch on the UK Amazon…!
Wilder’s poem has 8 lines and follows a 6,8,7,8,5,5,7,7 syllable pattern. As it was in the prompt to reuse the first letter of each line, I took it as an excuse to incorporate alliterative play 😉
Sequestered suppressed slice
languishes listlessly; leaving
worryful whispers winding
behind baleful banality.
Time tendrils taughten.
Masks, make-up, make-do
leeching lustre, lessening.
Youth yields. Yesteryears yellow.
After I wrote the above (and walked down to my kitchen to meet reality, etc) I thought that maybe the poem warranted a different level of “play”. So I looked closer, and went on to write:
some creature shirks the light
like yearned dreamscapes maddeningly
waiting out unconsciousness,
but I will hearken back and feel
the world’s cruel folds and
me once razor-edged
like there could be beauty here
you wanted to return to.
I think the second one fits the prompt better? I use the whole words that the poet began with, and the lines are around the same length as Wilder’s, too. I kept the syllables straight for each line, and played a bit with her imagery, but I know there is more I could have done with running the ‘creature’ and ‘dream’ theme through the whole piece. Anyway, with all my word-wrangling, kid-soothing and keyboard-tapping it is now lunchtime, so I’d better go…
Hope you are well, and I’ll meet you here tomorrow!
Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!
Welcome to day three, where the promptasked me to spend quite a bit of time setting up the material for my poem:
Today, I’d like to challenge you to make a “Personal Universal Deck,” and then to write a poem using it. The idea of the “Personal Universal Deck” originated with the poet and playwright Michael McClure, who gave the project of creating such decks to his students in a 1976 lecture at Naropa University. Basically, you will need 50 index cards or small pieces of paper, and on them, you will write 100 words (one on the front and one on the back of each card/paper) using the rules found here.
If you follow the link in the quote above, you will see why the rules necessitated me getting a good chunk of time to myself. Indeed, number 11 even reads:
Select the words in isolation, preferably alone, with no distractions, in candlelight. Approximate a meditative state. Even the cat must not bother you.
Well, I don’t have a cat, but I do have an Eldest son. He could be heard rustling about in his brother’s room at 6.38am this morning. Upon being questioned (and informed of the time), he rolled his eyes and told me in a not-so-inside voice that he was searching for a book. He then proceeded to flounce back into his own room (with a few rumpled pages of a comic), complaining of a sore throat, promising that if some honey was administered, he’d go back to sleep (which he categorically did not do) and generally felt slighted that he couldn’t barge into others’ rooms whenever he chose! My morning only went downhill from there, and so here I am rushing to get my laptop free of my tappings before Youngest commandeers it for his Fortnite forays at 3pm.
How dare I try and carve out some morning quiet time to be creative?!
Having made my deck of words and roped Youngest into drawing me out 9 cards at lunchtime (Eldest was still in no mood to participate) I finally had all I needed to compose my poem.
Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!
Thepromptfor Day 20 was to write about a home/handmade gift I had received:
On an old Christmas tree
That has seen its fair share
Of just-saved almost-topplings
And general wear,
There are treasures all nestled –
They grow every year –
Because one special crafter
Thrives on Christmas cheer!
We are not talking alcohol,
Mince pies or ‘nog;
A mishap with turkey,
Or mistletoe snogs –
No! She gets all a-flutter
With glue, paper and cloth,
And wee jingly bells,
Some pipe cleaners (and fluff)
It’s all just so damn homely
To survey that tree;
Each single decoration
Seems golden, to me 😊
As a bit of a ‘maker’ myself (the poem is about my mum) I really do appreciate the time and effort that goes into any handmade offering. I love that a person must think about you a lot while making you something, so it is already infused with positivity and pleasing memories. The way I see it, crafters have forever imprinted a piece of themselves into the materials they use, because time is something none of us have enough of in this life (no matter how bored you may feel in lockdown…) and yet a ‘maker’ has chosen to encapsulate some of theirs in their art or craft in order to make you feel loved 😊
The kids have great fun decorating our tree every year – and Christmas 2019 they really seemed to take an interest in telling me which deccies they remembered and why. Here you can see not only my mum’s lovely creations peeking out, but also sourdough offerings from the kids’ nursery days, my grumpy fairy I knitted over a decade ago, and various wee knick knacks others have given us over the years. It may look a jumbled mess to many, but I wouldn’t have our tree any other way 😉
Are you crafting in these times of social isolation? Do you have a cherished recipient in mind?
Big hugs, stay safe, and I’ll ‘see’ you for Day 21’s prompt!
Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!
…our optional prompt challenges you to write a poem based on a “walking archive.” What’s that? Well, it’s when you go on a walk and gather up interesting things – a flower, a strange piece of bark, a rock. This then becomes your “walking archive” – the physical instantiation of your walk. If you’re unable to get out of the house (as many of us now are), you can create a “walking archive” by wandering around your own home and gathering knick-knacks, family photos, maybe a strange spice or kitchen gadget you never use. One you’ve finished your gathering, lay all your materials out on a tray table, like museum specimens. Now, let your group of materials inspire your poem! You can write about just one of the things you’ve gathered, or how all of them are all linked, or even what they say about you, who chose them and brought them together. [From here]
but unfortunately I read it after I was firmly ensconced under my duvet (and laptop)…so I improvised and wrote about what Youngest presented me with after his walk.
Cheat? Yes.
Bovvered? Nah…
A walk with your dad
And a bike with a loose chain.
There, in your hand,
Are flowers. Face a cheeky grin.
3 little weeds but
Enough for a Mother’s smile:
Lost in my thoughts,
Now aware of my glowy child.
Tumbling curls and
Happy for your compliments,
You love the colours, though
Not crazy for the weedy scents.
I swill a trifle tub
And now there’s a ‘vase’
Elevating those sweet offerings
To last a few more days.
I definitely will be storing up the proper poem ponder-fest for another day when I am more ‘free’ and able to actually linger outside of my own garden without feeling like everyone thinks I am flouting regulations 😉 being someone who has been known to hug strangers pretty regularly, and stand chatting for hours, it is still a strange thing to be clock-watching and crossing roads/traversing grass verges so often in order to give people a wide berth and observe the one hour rule.
I’m glad our kids are taking the restrictions seriously, I’m happy to report that they have relinquished their pavement-hogger ways without much protest, bless them.
Anyway, enjoy your walks if and when you manage to get them, and as always: big hugs, stay safe…
Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!
I challenge you to write a poem in which one or more flowers take on specific meanings.
It then gave me a link to a book of flower connotations to peruse. I read up on the meaning and usage of the herb I had settled upon, then wrote a poem trying to incorporate those.
She tended my fevered brow,
Bade me drink from her drafts
Steeped in hushed folklore
And community whispers.
“The herb of angels” she said
Waving the white blooms
Ritualistically
Over my head.
I will paint her in the garden,
While the fairies run and hide
From the wind chime toll.
Not sure if that hit any mark whatsoever, but there we are 😉
Keep on washing those hands and hanging in there, and I’ll ‘see’ you for Day 12…
Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!
“First, make a list of ten words. You can generate this list however you’d like – pull a book off the shelf and find ten words you like, name ten things you can see from where you’re sitting, etc. Now, for each word, use Rhymezone to identify two to four similar-sounding or rhyming words”
I enlisted the help of my old palhttps://randomwordgenerator.com/ to come up with the initial ten words, then found the ‘rhymes’ as tasked. I have put the original random words in bold throughout my poem, and underlined the ones I chose from those presented as ‘rhymes’.
In a revolutionary (but scary) move
The huge human system
Was given licence
To stop.
Like nature’s subterfuge,
Suddenly our meristems
Were allowed to burst from creative soil.
Without the usual toil,
Some perfect thoughts
Pushed past stubborn egos.
And Spring was seen
For the privilege it always is.
Slowing our usual dictation
And engaging in consultation
With this state of homeo…station
Could be the levelling basis
For metamorphosis.
Well, I feel that was a poem firmly pointing to the present and future, not trapped in the past 😉
What do you think we will learn about our usual way of conducting ourselves through this period of social distancing? Do you predict that humankind will build on any knowledge we glean, or do you think this time will just become a “where were you when…” talking point that loses its introspective spin offs down the years?
As always, I hope you all remain safe and well – and I’ll come back with my response to Day 4’s prompt as soon as I can!
Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!
So! I wandered off for a few months again, it would seem!
But I come back to this blog in March 2020 with a rather different world outside my safe little home, a situation that we didn’t know was brewing back in November 2019.
I hope that wherever you are reading this, you and yours are safe and well, and your family has not been hit too devastatingly with this illness sweeping the globe. I send virtual hugs to everybody, and have nothing but admiration for those of you still out working in key positions, keeping your fellow humans as fed, protected and medically cared for as you possibly can <3 thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone out risking their own wellbeing to serve others. You truly are angels.
We at the Comfy Restless residence are living up to the name nicely here in Scotland after our first week of lockdown 😉 We are incredibly fortunate in that hubby can easily work from home and I am the chief kid wrangler anyway. Of course it is harder keeping ‘home harmony’ when it kinda feels like a holiday and yet the kids are meant to still be looking at schoolwork – and when there are tight restrictions on how we conduct ourselves outside – but our income is secure, we live in a fab community that cares about us, and none of our household are considered to be in a high-risk category for any symptoms we get turning nasty on us. We know far too many families can’t say the same, and we really hate that.
So: if you’re struggling or grieving, overwhelmed – or anything in between – my heart goes out to you. Feel free to send me a comment, or PM my Facebook page, if you need an ear. I have an energetic 7 and 9 year old here charging about giving me cheek and attitude, so feel free to share any parenting woes, too! 😉
I will be participating in NaPoWriMo again this April, and posting my daily ditties around the chaos of the kids being at home for the foreseeable. I don’t know what frivolous topics may be cast up in my poetry, but please believe that I am watching the news with horror as the global death toll goes up, I am hoping for a swift vaccine and I can’t get over how selfless our medical professionals are for being brave enough to endure the swathes of critically ill people and fight the infection, even when they may succumb themselves.
I am hoping to concentrate on brighter things here in the main, however. I think we may all need it?
So, starting tomorrow, I will write a poem a day for a month, using the prompts from the NaPoWriMo site. I will also aim to actually post my endeavours on the correct day – kids permitting 😉
Catch you in my next post! Take care and please stay safe.
Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!
I am a bit late this week with a post, time has marched ahead of me as usual. I hope you all had a good weekend?
The poems I am going to share today both came from my dabblings with the Randomlists generator on the 21st, in my writing session after my last post. The first poem floated up after listening to some Mindvalley talks on YouTube (especially by Vishen Lakhiani) and the second just popped into my head from the words I was presented with, as often happens.
I hope you enjoy them 😊
Prefer Beg Massive Library Stretch Donkey Guiltless Sisters Story
I prefer to meditate,
Then I feel I do not have to beg
For inspiration.
Instead, I am handed it
From the massive library of human consciousness –
Melded together in a new form
That seems a stretch for my mind.
But it is really the universe
That does the donkey work.
And I can sit here:
Revered and yet guiltless of fraud,
Pulled in the right directions
By a force greater than any of us.
Come, my soul sisters and brothers,
Let my story wash over you
And bid you strive for greater things.
Volleyball Sheet Calm Jam Lush Injure Collect Next Tempt
The smell of the ink
Made me think of long-ago Sundays
With my dad propped against the sun lounger
Hiding from our games of volleyball;
Turning each smudged sheet
While cultivating calm.
I would keep him company sometimes,
Dribbling strawberry jam
Down my t-shirts
While he pointed out the best football players
Or read to me a bit.
Our un-lush grass
Would see me injure myself a lot:
The smallest body
Jumping for the ball.
He would collect up my limbs,
Count them theatrically
And put me down next to him;
Tempt my smiles back
With sweet treats or songs.
It doesn’t matter how old I get,
Those memories keep me whole.
* WordPress seems to be messing about with the size and position of my images today, but hopefully you get the idea…
Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!
Sometimes, I feel the random word generators I use forget about the chaos they are supposed to be subjected to and just push trope offerings directly into my brain instead.
Today I thought I’d share two crime poems I was ‘handed’ over the last week or so:
Sharp Pistol Electric Block Diplomat Circle Tiny Sink Limousine
The sharp pain said:
“Ouch! Pistol-whipped head!!”
I did not attack
Cos the world went black.
Bright electric light
Served to block my sight
When I came back to;
I didn’t see who
The – diplomat – was
Labouring his cause.
That circle of pain
Still my main complaint:
Some tiny, sick breaths
To control my stress…
When that hand came near
I moved through the fear
Felt my teeth sink in
And…
Adrenalin…
Broke the flimsy chair,
Spoilt his gelled up hair,
Untied both my wrists
Let fly with my fists.
Lackeys stood no chance
As my rage advanced.
Then I fled that scene
In their limousine.
I see the first piece as a Jessica Fletcher from Murder She Wrote scenario, and the second more as a Michael Westen from Burn Notice type scrape to get into?!
What TV programmes did they make you think of? Let me know in the comments 😉
Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!
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