NaPoWriMo Day 11 Abstract Observation

Our poet in translation for today is Afghanistan’s Shakila Azizzada. She’s known for her delicate and at the same time passionate love poems – check out the not-exactly-racy-but-still-sizzling poem “Cat Lying in Wait,” along with several others, at the link above.

Today’s prompt encouraged close description of a place or an object with a surprise endline that seemingly doesn’t connect or fit to the object/place description. I’m hoping you’ll achieve. An abstract, philosophical kind of statement closing out a poem that is otherwise intensely focused on physical, sensory details. 

Let’s have a go!

I found this challenging, although using my empty coffee cup was perhaps not the most inspiring object on the desk.

I have chosen to share part of the middle of the poem and the endline – I guess this challenge doesn’t translate without reading the full poem. I am not perfectly happy with it at this stage though.

The base of the glass contains

puddles of condensation

residue of hot waking liquid.

A shallow circle of tan brown moves

when disturbed.

 

 

the day patches duller than swirling bulb.

 

 

NaPoWriMo Day 10 – Strength of a Spine

Day 10 is a third of the way through NaPoWriMo, I am still hoping I can squeeze the next 20 poems into May. Mathematically it is possible, the diary is full and I have my fingers in lots of pies again, so it will be a challenge.

Day 10’s poet in translation is Pakistan’s Faiz Ahmed Faiz. Faiz was known particularly for his ghazals, a traditional Urdu form of poetry. Six of his poems, translated into English, can be found here, and a number of additional poems are available here.

Today’s prompt encouraged book spine poetry.

I am excited about Book Spine Poetry, although I have never attempted it myself. The easiest place to try it out would be a library. I initially thought I would use my poetry shelf, but I have some obstacles in the way of my bookcase at the minute. Mr G has lots of Art books, so that was my next port of call. Then I remembered a pile of ‘self-help’ books I have been sorting through. I added a few plays and a book of quotes and came up with ‘The Guilty Bystander’.

The photo isn’t the clearest, I found stacking the titles in frame an impossible task. Book spine poetry can be harder than you would imagine. That’s what makes it a poem I guess.

The Guilty Bystander

There’s a hole in my chest,

everyday I pray

you can heal your life.

So long desired,

wake up and dream.

Love is like a crayon because it comes

in all colours.

 

NaPoWriMo Day 9 – Be Brave

There’s nothing like a good book launch to get creative juices flowing, that is why I couldn’t get back to sleep at 6 a.m and why the coffee is settling in the cafetière. Poetry time. Of course I emptied the junk mail and scoured inboxes first, but now – an hour later… I am ready.

 Our poet in translation today is India’s Mallika Sengupta. Her poetry has been called “unapologetically political”, but it can also be pretty funny. I particularly like her “Open Letter to Freud,” which can be found, along with three other poems in English translation, at the link above. Further poems translated into English can be found here.

Today’s prompt asks us to write a poem including a line that you’re scared of. How’s that for suddenly emptying your head. All those brave lines ran away scared and I was faced with an empty screen for a while.

First cup from the newly used cafetière….

I started listing brave lines, I knew I had them in me. These are lines that hold emotion or personal secrets, are ugly or strange. I was shocked by some of lines and decided that those brave lines that shocked me should be my focus.

Really my focus should be buckling down with my manuscript… creating new poetry has more of a first thing in the morning appeal.

I use my ‘brave’ line to open the poem;

‘I am still scared of the dark’

throughout the poem I explore recent memory, coping strategies, childhood recollections, rituals and eventually the crux of the matter in the closing stanza, which I will share here.

I do not fear the dark in company,

sometimes I quite enjoy it,

intimacy found in the empty spectrum.

I think it is being left alone I fear.

NaPoWriMo Day 8 Back to the Future

Throughout May I will be posting my belated participation in NaPoWriMo.

We’ve passed the one week mark. I’m so happy to see that so many of you are still going strong!

Our featured participant for Day 8 is Ghazals and more at the bitter wished-for child, which shows how a successful tritina can be built from very simple language and simple words.

Our poet in translation today is Nepal’s Banira Giri. Giri emphasizes the importance of spontaneity in writing poetry, as well as expressing the connection between living things. In this way, her poems navigate between the personal and the political, the lyric “I” and the socially conscious “we.” Some of her poems, translated into English, can be found at the link above, here, and in the online literary journal The Drunken Boat.

Day 8 invited us to write about a flower. My Shakespearean based poetry from Day 5 was heavily floral, but I welcomed the prompt because I know just the sort of flower I wanted to honour today… and I don’t tend to write about flowers, so it is good to increase my bank of floral tributes. The white Plumeria flower of Hawaii.

This is the second poem of NaPoWriMo that I consider to be a finished piece. I enjoyed writing it and taking myself back to Hawaii. I am sharing the 2nd stanza;

As common as an English Rose to these islands,

this flower seeps effortlessly into dream-time.

Reflecting sunlight, the cleanest ke’oke’o

heightened against blue sky. Five petalled star,

overlapping like playing cards spread in a magicians palm.

Scent of beauty with essence of white magic.

 

 © pixabay.com

 

April End of Month Review

April is of course National Poetry Writing Month, NaPoWriMo, reclassified as Global Poetry Writing Month this year, GloPoWriMo. This is the 3rd year I have taken part, although I am on the go slow and as the end of the month is reached I am about to start Week 2. May is an extremely busy month but I will endeavour to complete the challenge by the end of the month too.

I had reached a plateau by the end of March and was mainly offline editing. This continued for most of April, I even missed Wenlock Poetry Festival, a staple event of mine since 2014. As with March I missed a lot of local events including a pop up poetry event in Birmingham, regular open mic/ spoken word nights and a few submission deadlines. I also missed a bid for an arts job that would have been right up my street. And I missed Kate Tempest at Waterstones and Attila the Stockbroker, the entire Stratford Literature Festival, including Shakespeare 400 events. Since January I’ve worked with Action Plans, but didn’t really write one for April and kind of flailed around achieving very little and missing a lot.

I voted for some favourites in this year’s Saboteur Awards and got involved in a new poetry project of my own. I have also been asked to take part in some exciting events over the next few months.

I performed for the first time in weeks at an event organised by Mike Alma, an afternoon of music and spoken word in a church, it was a wonderful afternoon and left me feeling buoyant. All artists involved are hoping he will organise another one soon.

A fortnight later I performed again, this time for a Shakespeare Event the final Mouth & Music, this time really was the last. I had written a sonnet especially for the night (my first ever sonnet) and lost it on a computer file somewhere (I know – back up), so on Tuesday after The Collaborative Arts Network event I attended, which was an interesting event – Arts in Mental Health, I set about writing my set. It was a good night, complete with medieval  musicians. I will write a post about it and link it up soon.

The following night I went to 42 to share a set of ‘Bedevilled’ poetry and was booked for some Worcester LitFest Events.

Following a pile of rejections, I have experienced some success. 5 poems published this month. Dali Clock, from my forthcoming collection, was published by Hobo Review. A poem written especially for Fat Damsel was accepted by Take Ten. Living Emptiness will appear in the next issue. Shabda Press accepted Half Life, Shadows Burnt into Stone and Becquerel Town for the next anthology ‘Nuclear Impact Broken Atoms in Our Hands’.

I am now back on the Poetry Wagon having taken a little unscheduled break. Although I missed stanza for the second month running and a few deadlines scurried past before I could catch them.

We all need a break from time to time. Looking back at how busy last month was, it is no small wonder.