Lyrical Ballads, a collection of poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge first published in 1798, changed the course of British poetry. Growing up in the Lake District, Wordsworth set out to use the everyday language he heard around him in his poems in order to make them accessible to a wider audience. Both poets drew inspiration from seeing a return to the original state of nature, in which people led a purer and more innocent existence The word Lyrical linked their poems to ancient rustic bards, while Ballad refers to an oral storytelling tradition. Both poets used rural life and country people as the subject of their poetry which was a marked shift from what had come before.
To mark the 250 anniversary of Wordsworth’s birth, four leading poets Zaffar Kunial, Kim Moore, Helen Mort and Jacob Polley read new lyrical ballads inspired by the ideas in the original collection. Each of the contemporary poets have strong links to Cumbria and the Lake District and their poems give us a glimpse into life in the county now.
Produced by Lorna Newman and Susan Roberts
A BBC North production.
It is nearly time for NaPoWriMo, an annual flurry of poetry writing. Find out more here.
They have a few starter activities just for fun. The silly test mentioned in this post gives you a chance to choose Bot or Not. I had a 70% success rate. A great party game for the self isolating at this time.
If, like me you enjoy this writing month you will just be pleased to see the site back up and running and the new banners and buttons for 2020.
The Two Days to Gopost invites us to go and look at Patrick Stewart’s twitter account where he is reading Shakespeare’s sonnets, I have happily already discovered this already (and retweeted) but it serves to remind me that one of the things I LOVE about NaPo is discovering resources and new to me poets and poems. Also the participants sites can be a great find too.
Here on AWF I am always a participating site but never (or rarely ever) post a NaPo poem as this affects the copyright and means I may not be able to publish them. You will write a lot of rubbish over the next few weeks – give yourself that permission, nothing is wasted. It’s all worth it for those few poems that do work, that do go on to grow up and get published, for the ones you include in your next collection, for the ones that speak to your heart.
The day before NaPo starts there is always an Early Bird post to get you warmed up and started. So this is not a drill – take a deep breath and get ready to dive in with us!
Hello, all! Tomorrow is April 1, and the first day of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo 2020! But since April 1 arrives a bit earlier in some parts of the globe than the east coast of the United States, we have an early-bird resource and prompt for you.
Today’s resource is The Slowdown, a daily poetry podcast hosted by former U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith. Podcasts are a nice way to add some poetry to your life. They also give you a chance to hear the rhythm of poetry out loud. Sometimes it can be very surprising, if you’ve been reading a poet on the page for many years, to hear their voice out loud, and realize it’s much different than the voice you’ve been giving that same poet in your head.
And now, in the spirit of an early-bird prompt, I’d like to invite you to write a poem about your favorite bird. As this collection of snippets from longer poems suggests, birds have been inspiring poets for a very long time indeed!
If you don’t have a favorite bird, or are having trouble picking one, perhaps I might interest you in myfavorite bird, the American Woodcock? These softball-sized guys are exactly the color of the leaves on the floor of a Maine forest, and they turn up each spring to make buzzy peent noises, fly up over meadows in elaborate courtship displays, and to do little rocking dances that YouTube jokesters delight in setting to music.
They are also quite odd looking, as every part of their body appears to be totally out of proportion with the rest. For a poetic bonus, they also have many regional nicknames. In Maine, they’re often called “timberdoodles,” but other regionalisms for them include “night partridge,” “mudbat,” “prairie turtle,” Labrador twister,” “bogsucker,” “wafflebird,” “billdad,” and “hokumpoke.”
Tomorrow we’ll be back with another resource, prompt, and our first featured participant.
During the podcast, Tracy recites Interesting Times by Mark Jarman. Bedlam right now during the Coronavirus, for sure. The words resonate with double meaning right now. An echo of the//for the global crisis.
Choking on these lines;
Everything’s happening on the cusp of tragedy,
We’ve been at this historical site before, but not in any history we remember.
To know the stars will one day fly apart so far they can’t be seen
Is almost a relief. For the future flies in one direction—toward us.
This is where the madness began (NaPo madness is normal – it starts with the research/ search engines then pages later leads you someplace else and (hopefully) back again)!
I read the snippets and then watched the videos of Maureen’s chosen bird and it hit me, WA – and the magnificent birds of Perth – as it fits my current project. That’s another NaPo GOLD-DUST tip: if you can bend the prompts to fit creative projects you are trying to fulfil – this isn’t always possible but when it is – it is GOLDEN – as often we are forced to write beyond ourselves.
I then watched a series of videos before I decided on the one. It has been made from photographs rather than footage but the pictures have magically captured the music of the birds. I am yet to pen a poem as I am getting a set ready for this evening. But I will… (the NaPo promise to yourself).
I watched the video and made a list of over 10 Australian birds, then chose one by looking for images of the species. I then searched for facts and went back to my research document to highlighted key fact on appearance and movement. I harvested a few images to study & wrote a short 5 line poem about the Royal Spoonbill.
By the summer I had secured a project I could work on (even in the state I was in) and I started to think about new writing. It had been a while, my Stanza meeting efforts were old poems saved in files on the laptop. I wanted to write again, the urge came a long while before the possibility – and like any writer I know one of the best ways to guarantee work is to find a deadline and write to it.
So I started looking for opportunities and found a call out for the Asking For It project curated byChloë Clarke and Gabby Ellison.
We are the ‘Asking for it’ exhibition. Our aim is to create a place for people to share and feel and come together over adversity. Through expression of art – in a variety of mediums such as film, photography, poetry, art and sound – the exhibition will take the viewer on a journey from the beginning to recovery and survival.
The exhibition not only looks at the experiences of the survivor but the societal judgements and miseducation around the topic of sexual abuse/violence. We believe that art is a powerful tool to express and empower artists and viewers, while educating those who have not experienced this.
I made a poetry film and submitted some poems. My poetry was accepted.
Unfortunately I was not able to read at the gallery opening as my physical health made it impossible to travel to London.
Private Gallery Exhibition Opening and Performances 23rd October.
It was a brave and successful exhibition. Here are some more photos from the opening night.
Sometimes it is easy to forget where our writing has come from. I realised by reading the list of poems that a good few are appearing in my next pamphlet. I used them in a Poetry Project last summer and forgot that they actually came from April and a mad month of writing.
There is a lot of comment and speculation about writing this many poems in a month and the calibre of the outcome. You only need to read some of the participating sites to see the standard of poetry which can rise from these daily prompts.
So for now I wouldn’t even worry about what the poem may become or where it may take you…
just enjoy the process of writing and have fun!
For the full post click on Day Three.
There is also an extra link to an interview with longtime participant Vince Gotera, who has published The Coolest Month, a book featuring poems written during past Na/GloPoWriMos.
Hello, everyone! We’re now three days into Na/GloPoWriMo. Hopefully, you’re starting to get into the swing of things.
Our featured participant today is A Reading Writer, where the interrogatory prompt for Day Two gave rise to a very slithery metaphor!
Today’s video resource is this animated version of Erin Mouré’s “Homage to the Mineral of Cabbage.” The English text of the poem is cleverly incorporated into the video, but the narration is in Galician, a language spoken in Northwest Spain. My Spanish is pretty rusty, but for me that adds to the audible mystery and delight of this video – I can almost understand it. For even more multi-lingual flavor, you can also see the video with French-language text here.
And now for today’s prompt. Today’s prompt is based in a poem by Larry Levis called “The Two Trees.” It is a poem that seems to meander, full of little digressions, odd bits of information, but fundamentally, it is a poem that takes time. It takes its time getting where it’s going, and the action of the poem itself takes place over months. Today, I’d like to challenge you to similarly write something that involves a story or action that unfolds over an appreciable length of time. Perhaps, as you do, you can focus on imagery, or sound, or emotional content (or all three!)
Today I read up on Vince’s new collection. Vince Gotera is a Professor of English at the University of Northern Iowa where he served as Editor of the North American Review (2000-2016). He is now the Editor of Star*Line, the print journal of the international Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association. His collections of poems include Dragonfly, Fighting Kite, and the upcoming Pacific Crossing.
If you are local to there you may be interested in his Launch, the event is free.
A release reading for The Coolest Month will be held on Tuesday, April 9 at 7:00 p.m. in 1017 Bartlett Hall on the UNI campus. This event is free and open to the public.
I also had a look at his website and read his NaPo poems for 2019.
I then read ‘Evening Snake’ by Rose Gonzales (from NaPo Day 2). I wandered around her beautiful blog for a bit.
I love the fact that this year’s additional resources are video. I am currently part of the Worcester Poetry Film Collective, a course run by Elephant’s Footprint, who were featured as Guests in last year’s INKSPILL Writing Retreat. We are working with stop motion animation this month and I have become obsessed!
Poetry Film has always interested me and my first dabble came in 2015. Since then I have created several poetry films including a sequence from my 2016 pamphlet ‘Fragile Houses’ (V. Press). I have created about 12 animated films since our last session and have been researching and watching lots online.
I was excited to watch Erin Mouré’s “Homage to the Mineral of Cabbage”. I thoroughly enjoyed both the poem and the animation. There was I thinking I had a finished one for our next session. I can only aspire.
I then read ‘The Two Trees’ by Larry Levis.
Then I set aside some prompt thinking time for: a story or action that unfolds over an appreciable length of time.
After a long search for ideas (mentally today, no search engine was used in the process of cracking this poem), I sat down to write.
I settled on writing about the 6 months of illness I have just experienced. The start of it. Time passing to 10 days over the course of the poem. But I was only part way through when I realised the metaphor I’d chosen wasn’t fit for purpose, but carried on. I wanted to see where it would take me and how I could write myself out of this. Besides today was a day set aside to work on the manuscript so I had limited time for my NaPo write.
I wrote a poem called Ridge, it has… yes, you guessed it… 7 stanzas. Here’s a snippet.
Over on the official NaPoWriMo site posts start at the beginning of March to get us ready for the epic task of writing a poem a day throughout April. This year I was not online much during March, my post op recovery has been slow (and painful) and I had a manuscript waiting to be edited that the publishers sent shortly before I was in hospital (October), so when my mind was finally back to being creative and medication was minimised, my first port of call was getting the edits back to the publishers.
Now I am still mainly offline and working through edits and preparing for a Festival in the summer – but apart from NaPoWriMo and LitWorld 2 Journal commitments I am not at the desk much, still recovering and still off work. My body needs a chance to heal and get stronger and that takes time. I have 5 physio activities to repeat several times a day, plus lots of medical appointments. I need to manage energy levels after the past 6 months so I missed the countdown/ lead up to NaPo 2019.
It’s March 1, and that means that just one month separates us from the beginning of National/Global Poetry Writing Month!
To get us started, here’s a poetry-related movie scene you might recognize! Take that, stilted approaches to the value of poems!
March 15th
Today is March 15, and that means there’s only half a month to go until the beginning of National/Global Poetry Writing Month!
… while we’re counting down to April, we’ll be giving you occasional bouts of poetry and poetry-related content, as taken from popular films and television!
Today, why not check out this scene from the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral, a romantic comedy starring, alongside Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell , a recitation of W.H. Auden’s “Funeral Blues.”
March 25th
Hello, all! As of today, we have just one week to go until the start of National/Global Poetry Writing Month!
We hope you’re getting your pencils sharpened, your laptops charged, and all your finest glittery pens prepared for a full month of writing verse.
Finally, as we’ll be featuring poetry-related video resources throughout April, we’ll leave you for the time being with this oldie-but-goodie – Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven,” as interpreted by The Simpsons. Fair warning – they may have taken some, er, minor liberties with the text.
The 3 Day COUNTDOWN
March 29th
Hello, all. There’s just three days left in March, and that means that there are only three days to go until NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo 2019.
To help you countdown, we’ll be posting a poetry-related move/tv clip each day until April 1 (at which point our video links will become a bit more “substantive”), and on March 31, we’ll have a special early-bird prompt for those of you for whom April begins a few hours before it does here at Na/GloPoWriMo headquarters.
The poet William Blake was a visionary, a religious mystic, and pretty much all-around weirdo. He also seems to exert a strange pull on scriptwriters, as you will find him being quoted in both Bull Durham (a pretty good movie about minor league baseball)
as well as being paraphrased in the dystopian sci-fi classic Blade Runner.
March 30th
Hello, all! There’s just two days until we start Na/GloPoWriMo 2019, otherwise known as “that month in which you write a poem a day for 30 days.”
Each day during the month, we’ll be bringing you a featured participant, a video resource, and an optional prompt.
We’ll be back tomorrow with an early-bird prompt and another fun instance of poetry in the movies, but for today, we’ll leave you with this clip from Memphis Belle, a WWII movie in which an airman passes off the work of Y.B. Yeats for his own.
We have an early-bird prompt for those of you located in time zones where April 1 starts a few hours earlier than it does on the east coast of the United States, but first, let’s round out our pre-April set of movie/tv clips involving poetry.
Today, we bring you a clip from that classic Bill Murray comedy, Groundhog’s Day, wherein our hapless hero, who is kind of a self-centered jerk, is forced to repeat a day over and over again until he gets it “right.” In this clip, he mocks his love interest’s college study of French poetry. Bill, that’s no way to get a girl! After a few rounds, though, he’s actually reciting French poetry at her – now, that’s more like it.
Early-bird prompt
Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poetic self-portrait. And specifically, we’d like you to write a poem in which you portray yourself in the guise of a historical or mythical figure. Does that sound a bit strange? Well, take a look at this poem by Mary-Kim Arnold, “Self Portrait as Semiramis,” or Tarfia Farzullah’s, “Self-Portrait as Artemis,” and perhaps you’ll get a sense of the possibilities.
Today’s featured participant is Not Enough Poetry, where the instructional prompt for Day 1 yielded an evocative poem about riding a train in the Andes.
Featured video poetry music video, involving a highly dramatic reading, in German, of a Shakespearean sonnet set to the music of Rufus Wainwright.
As one of the commenters on the video stated, “I didn’t understand anything but I love it with all my heart.” Poetry can be like that, sometimes!
Today’s prompt is based on this poem by Claire Wahmanholm, which transforms the natural world into an unsettled dream-place. One way it does this is by asking questions – literally. The poem not only contains questions, but ends on a question. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that similarly resists closure by ending on a question, inviting the reader to continue the process of reading (and, in some ways, writing) the poem even after the poem ends.
I started with reading the featured poem ‘How to Ride a Train in the Andes’ by Lupita Eyde-Tucker. The first stanzas are beautiful and I found myself re-reading them. Lupita definitely delivers us into the Andes, or transports us there (if you want a train joke). She also adds a note about her experience/ memory/ family history. I had a quick look at her blog.
The featured video was fun, I know the sonnet and Shakespeare (a few years of study), but have never watched it in German, a language I only studied for a year and one in which I have retained just a few phrases so I found myself really entering the performance as a physical piece. Before I was a poet or teacher I was an actor and so I LOVED the drama of this performance.
Then I read today’s featured poem ‘The Meadow, The River’ by Claire Wahmanholm. I panicked when I saw today’s prompt because personally I tend to avoid writing questions in poems. It is something I dislike, although I don’t baulk as much when I read poems which contain questions. So I take an extra deep breath before I begin writing and remind myself that this is what NaPoWriMo is all about. Writing new. Tackling things you avoid. Attacking from a different angle and being open to new resources/poets and changing opinions.
I remembered a previous NaPo prompt (2018) where the starting point was a poem in a unfamiliar foreign language and you had to write your poem from it. I immediately wanted to do this with the video resource, so I replayed it faced with a blank screen and completed a free write.
I wrote a poem called Tired which explores locked parts of someone else in 7 stanzas. It definitely matched the melancholy of this theatrical scene.
You walk each step with care as if you are unpeeling
your very soul. Even your shuffle carries whispers,
I often find that I produce more than 30 poems in April and have done NaPoWriMo/ GloPoWriMo since I started writing again in 2013 – which was before I returned to poetry (Sept. 2013). The first year I ran it alongside NaNoWriMo Camp too. Madness!
Next came the real challenge… Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that similarly resists closure by ending on a question, inviting the reader to continue the process of reading (and, in some ways, writing) the poem even after the poem ends.
So, as predicted that was hard in conception. My starting point was conversation starter questions, I chose 6 and actually by the time I came to write the poem was able to incorporate my own.
From my question list I decided to write about Australia. I have started to write a sequence of poems around my trip. Fitting NaPo into current projects is a great idea, although not always possible.
My good friend, Amy, emigrated out there a while back and is now a full citizen, we hadn’t seen each other since she was last in the UK (about 6 yrs ago). I wrote about part of the evening we shared in the middle of my trip. It was my birthday and as I was out there as an International Guest Poet for Perth Poetry Festival most of my time was actively on the festival circuit. My birthday was a day/night away and it was wonderful way to spend it reuniting with my friend. Plus we got to retrace our steps through Fremantle from the first time I visited her back in 2006.
12 years of Amy & I (2006- 2018)
I had great fun writing this poem, which has a working title of Forty Conversations, I am sure we had more than that in our non-stop chatting reunion. It is another 7 stanza poem. 7 is my lucky number but it is a bit random that these NaPo poems are coming out the same length. Maybe that is the length of time my brain can manage to hold a thought. I have just had 6 months off where I wrote very little. This one only really works as a whole poem and I have changed the question at the end three times. Here’s a snippet.
When we listened to music on your Echo
and you asked me for my playlist
every band name fell out of my head.
It has been an in depth writing time today, but that is the other pleasure of participating in NaPoWriMo, allowing yourself the time to write, be creative.
Due to health, I have not been actively blogging since October and although there is lots of improvement, I am not fully back to superhero condition, in fact it has been so long WordPress have changed the colours of the buttons and the way posts are edited.
It is April the 1st and that means the start of this year’s NaPoWriMo. Now called GloPoWriMo – as it is GLOBAL, I can’t get used to that so still refer to it as NaPoWriMo.
So here we go, 30 posts at least this month.
In the past I have brought you prompts from sites other than the official one, such as The Poetry School. This year I will just be following the official prompts. Last year I did 3 and ended up writing 99 poems! About 5 were decent and the 3 I submitted were published… so I believe it is a worthwhile exercise.
Due to publishing restrictions I tend to only post a line or so of the poems I create, but will share the prompts/ poems/ articles from the official site and others I may find along the way, as well as posting some tips along the way.
I have not been online much since October when I had an unexpected operation. I have been off work and not able to sit for long periods at the desk. With over 26 tablets a day it has been hard to focus or concentrate.
I am currently working on my next pamphlet which was accepted by V. Press last summer. The latest edits came through in October just before I found myself in hospital so I have been unable to keep up with the schedule. I have also had to pull out of every artistic event/gig/festival since the Autumn too. My last performance was National Poetry Day.
It has been a difficult enforced hiatus and I feel very disconnected.
I had to disconnect myself from social media on the phone as I couldn’t deal emotionally with reading about a world I couldn’t manage to be a part of.
Now it is the New Year and I am growing in health and strength. I have a festival event to organise, poetry from workshops in 2018 to display, a manuscript to work on and I took the role of a Director of Worcester LitFest back in the Autumn, a role which hopefully by next month I can actually manage.
I missed the Lit Festival in Voiron but from my WPL project there have been poets not known before to the community who are very much involved in the Twinning now. I will have the opportunity to meet them this Spring before (hopefully) going to the festival this year. I won a poetry competition I entered in September and Sarah Leavesley wrote an article for Poetry News (Poetry Society) about Two Cities (ATOTC – A Tale of Two Cities). The USA side of the project also had a reading in September.
So thank you for visiting the Fountain and splashing in all the archived posts. My STATS for 2018 were healthy (the best year yet). Each year the blocks tower upwards with the exception of my Poet Laureate year when I ran a second site.
I promise to work on updating pages and adding new material this year. But my first port of call is that manuscript!
During my time as worcestershire Poet Laureate I created Contour – A Poetry Magazine. The launch of this issue was hoped to be our final post for INKSPILL 2018*. Here I was to invite you to curl up with a warm drink and experience the world of poetry and all things poetical in the latest issue of CONTOUR.
*However, the issue is not ready to go live (in case you missed the post I have had an operation) and this has set me back/time online not possible etc. This issue will go live very soon and I will post on the blog to promote it when it does.
Until then I can share some news and the previous issues of Contour for you to enjoy.
My Laureateship ended in June 2018 but I have decided to continue with Contour.
It will now be an annual publication released as the final event of INKSPILL weekend. Submissions will open in July 2019, keep your eye on A Writers Fountain for more details.
LINKS:
SPECIAL EDITION ISSUE 3 A TALE OF TWO CITIES
Transatlantic Poetry Project as featured in Poetry Society Poetry News.
DAY 2: Welcome back to Day 2 of INKSPILL. Are you feeling a little exhausted after yesterday? If so our gentle Sunday morning is the perfect way to ease you in to another day of all things wordy.
Meditation, Writing Activities, Interviews, Videos, Extracts, Book Promotions, Workshops and the launch of ISSUE 4 of Contour Poetry Magazine.
Enjoy!
9 AM Short Guided Meditation
Join us to focus your mind for another exciting day in INKSPILL.
9:30 AM Writing Activity Picture Prompts
Have a go at this interesting activity. See where your writing takes you.
10 AM Writing Activity Jigsaw Story
Another fun idea to create writing that may otherwise not exist.
10:30 AM Guest Writer Kevin Brooke
Find out more about our 3rd Guest Writer.
10:35 AM Guest Writer Kevin Brooke Interview
Insights into the writing process and daily life as a writer.
11:00 AM Bookshop Open NEW STOCK
Find books by Kevin Brooke stocked on our virtual shelves.
11:15 AM Guest Writer Kevin Brooke – reading an extract from Jimmy Cricket
Sit back, relax and listen to an extract from Kevin’s YA Novel.
11:30 AM INKSPILL ARCHIVE Open
Delve into a workshop from INKSPILL 2015.
Make sure you break for Lunch – we will be back at 1 PM.
1:00 PM Guest Writer Workshop with Kevin Brooke – The Sealed Envelope
Have a go at this Workshop brought to you by our Guest Writer Kevin Brooke.
2:00 PM Featured Writer Alison May All That Was Lost
Alison May was a Guest Writer for INKSPILL in 2015, we are delighted this year she is our featured writer. Find out more about Alison and her latest book.
2:30 PM Interview with Alison May about her latest novel All That Was Lost
Featured Writer Alison May reveals a little about her latest novel and being a writer.
3:00 PM Bookshop Open NEW STOCK
The doors to a fully stocked shop are now open, All That Was Lost has been added to our shelves.
4:00 PM INKSPILL ARCHIVE Open
Delve into posts from previous INKSPILL retreats and more.
8:30 PM Launch Contour Poetry Magazine Issue 4 and plans for 2019
Please note change in programme explained on this post. The launch of Issue 4 has unfortunately been delayed. Here you will find links to the first 3 issues of the magazine and news about future opportunities.
Happy reading!
9 PM Feedback and Thanks
Let us know how you enjoyed the weekend of writing.
