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Poetry Postcard Fest Follow Up Post 3

September 11, 2023September 11, 2023humanist55

The Poetry Postcard Fest is a challenge which encourages poets to write an unedited poem on a postcard and send it to a stranger. Organised by the Cascadia Poetics Lab, who organise the participants into lists of 31 + yourself for you to address your offerings to. This was my first year and hearing about it just in time to register, I was on List 15. The lists are sent out in early July and you have until the end of August to send out your missives – to date I have received 20 of 31 possibles and now that we are into September, it is allowable to share the cards and poems you sent and the cards but not the poems you received. I will share these in the order of sending and I will miss out those which I have not yet received in case they arrive soon…
Although the original poem is to be sent as written – crossings out, blots and all, I have typed them out for people who can’t read my writing and I am allowing myself to edit if I feel like it…

Dear Alexandria

My lovely sister
late of last year
was a large woman
though she didn’t like
the word fat. She had
an enormous appetite
for life, battling on
for three years when they
gave her six months.
One experience
that never tempted her
was to get a tattoo.
A woman tattoo artist told me
when asked about the process
“Ideally,
we like jolly, fat girls!”
Missing her most days…

And below is the card I received from Alexandria…

I am not allowed to show you Alexandria’s poem but I am intrigued to know more about it if she sees this post… Like many of the PoPoFest writers, Alexandria is from Seattle where the Fest originates from.

Poetry Postcard Fest Follow Up Post 2

September 9, 2023September 9, 2023humanist55

Tiny Forests of the Imagination

Dear Jill
You live on a coast
renowned for great trees
and whilst we also have
forests, our trees
are smaller though
no less great.

Sometimes I lie down
on the forest floor
and see towering trees
in the mossy landscape
and carry my imaginings
away in camera
and in mind…

And below is the card I received from Jill…

The idea of the poems is generally that they should be epistolary, relate to the image on the front of the card, and – if your card has been received already by the sender (not possible with the first few obviously) – then it might relate to your poem too. I am not allowed to show you Jill’s poem but I can say that it was a lovely poem about Seattle…

Poetry Postcard Fest Follow Up Post 1

September 8, 2023September 9, 2023humanist55

Aliens
Are these alien plants
their blue-green colours
against a permanently pink
Mars-like sky?
No, they are standard pallette
for a contemporary Creatan
landscape gardener
planted against a bold
and untraditional pink
on the gable end of a
lockdown vacant let
between the beach
and the capacious cave where
villagers celebrate fiestas
in normal times.
Evading unlikely police
we are the aliens here…

And below is the card that I received from Alison…

The idea of the poems is generally that they should be epistolary, relate to the image on the front of the card, and – if your card has been received already by the sender (not possible with the first few obviously) – then it might relate to your poem too. I am not allowed to show you Alison’s poem but I can say that she probably had received mine and she does reference “a new palette of colours”.

Time Shelter

September 7, 2023September 9, 2023humanist55

I try to ration myself for prompts, perturbed by the idea that I will be swallowed in an endless cycle of call and response, but one that I will not miss each month, is 6 Degrees of Separation. Starting from a given title, each reader of books – no matter when they read them, summons six links to form a chain that finally links from and back to the beginning book.

I confess I do not make enough time for reading books, words bound between covers on paper as opposed to screens, though I always have one novel and at least one non-fiction on the go – however slow. I confess that the Poets Pub is often the guilty party in keeping me from the books though I do not blame or object because beautiful, moving or informative as books are, the pleasure of company and connection are better still.

I’m afraid my To Be Read list rarely coincides with the 6 Degrees prompt and only sometimes am I moved to purchase the recommendation, but recently I fell hook line and sinker for Time Shelter. The book is a metaphorical creation of memory clinics where sufferers from certain kinds of memory loss may steep themselves – full-immersion – in a room recreating an era from their past and get the backroads to their lost memories cleared of debris. A few weeks or months in which a loved one comes to life again is worth so much to relatives grieving the loss of someone who is still alive…

Dear Readers – I bought the book! I have no regrets and I recommend it even to poets – no! especially to poets so they may dive into a novel length metaphorical fiction that explores memory and loss, health and sickness and if that sounds depressing, I assure you that Time Shelter, by Georgi Gospodinov is most entertainingly told – and now your turn to confess – when is the last time you read a fiction by a Bulgarian?

This Prose Poem was written for Laura Bloomsbury‘s prompt for National Buy a Book day over at dVerse Poets Pub…

Landscapes

September 5, 2023September 9, 2023humanist55

Landscapes were always my preserve
lying in my third-hand bath each night
the water clouded by soap
opaque as certain seas
I raised my knees to tower over
the fjord of water between my legs
I didn’t have my later geographer’s
vocabulary of fjords, rias and alps
the drowned and the truncated
alps – shoulders bulldozed by the ice
flanked by hanging valleys
pouring high waterfalls into space
but what’s in a name
I conjured the landscape anyway
Trapped in bed, off school for weeks
bronchitis, chronic
my dappled woolen blanket
(whatever became of that favourite)
also stood in for the freedom to explore.
Raising my knees again
from foothills to mountains at will
and sometimes with toys to hand
I marshalled my ill-assorted troops
into commanding positions
directing wars in my lap
with my fevered bed-bound brain
Before there was watercolour
before there was travel
before I could drive or even ride a bike
Landscapes were always my preserve…

Posted for lillian in Poetics over on dVerse Poets Pub who set the challenge of taking you on a walk – well not exactly a walk but…

The Insecure Writers Support Group – Worry Beads…

August 31, 2023September 9, 2023humanist55

This year I have plunged into writing more than ever before – the April A to Z Challenge led to a world of poetry, I recently wrote a deep essay on changing our relationship with the motor car, I am re-working the first draft of a novel and of course, a great deal of my day job, two and a half days a week is spent writing. Also in the course of the year, I encountered through other writers, the Insecure Writers Support Group and then yesterday, the group post announced their twelfth anniversary!

Recently I have been reading Margaret Atwood “on”On Writers and Writing” and in an early chapter, she writes about the duality of writers – how there exists “the one who writes and the one who lives” and she explores the inevitable tensions that having such a split induces – the Jekyll and Hyde nature of the beast. I write because I am driven internally to do so, but externally, my partner is going through a difficult time which means that staying close to her, there is a lot of time which I fill with writing.

I have no illusions about publishing work – I once heard the statistic that 4000 novels are written for each one published. That may have changed in a digital age when self-publishing is ever easier – even if it is only on your blog. Still, whilst I am now polishing a second draft of a speculative novel, the act of passing through the stages of the journey towards publishing has a zen of its own. I am not saying that there is no anxiety about whether a piece of writing is “good enough”, or whether people will like my latest poem but for me, travelling hopefully is as important as arriving…

I left Ireland to return to the UK in 2005 but not before my late sister Carol, had rekindled my joy in writing by taking me to an in-person writing group in Sligo. A first novel was started (and is still in progress) and a second more straightforward one is that which I am revising, and so I thank Carol for that gift and I dedicate the following poem – the product of an online and ongoing writing group and I offer it towards the Insecure Writers Support Group and its anniversary since it is appropriately entitled “Worry Beads”. Back in July, it was also the 12th anniversary of dVerse Poets Pub so 2011 must have been an inspired year for poets – anyway, I posted a poem for their celebration here.

Worry beads…

The state of the nation
is held in abeyance
holding it’s breath till the next election
the polls show a twenty point
Labour lead – but I worry
they still might lose
and if they win I worry too
they may not be different enough
having posed in the centre
to avoid alienating anyone.

I worry that my grandchildren
All young adults flown the nest
may not be able to buy a
house of their own, their own nest.
The doctor and his bright partner
will earn enough but will the rapper
find his way high enough
to have financial success
or will he fall like a spent rocket
to a job supporting other’s dreams
I believe he too worries
although it doesn’t slow him down.
The oldest by some years
has already built several businesses
and not anchored by children
only cats and cake-making
he and his girlfriend will
go to America again and again
and one day they won’t come back.

I worry that despite all help
my spouse will not
find her way out
of the deep, dark past
where she is lost in the labyrinth
and no breadcrumb trail
to lead her back to the light.
As I keep her shell company
in front of the TV
I do not take enough exercise
already impeded by a lame leg
I know it cannot be wise
and I will shorten my natural span
which after all
is only two years short
of three-score years and ten.

I write to keep a space for me
And to reach out to new friends
across the digital ether
but pushing a pen is not the same
as pushing through the wall and
I do not want to be found
one day slumped across a keyboard
mid-virtual conversation.

Still, on a scale of one to ten
my worries rate quite low
I have made marks both
in the world, in certain hearts
and in minds too
the legacy of things
is not as vital as a lot of love.

And so I write for love
not glory, the oldest profession
is surely to tell a good story
and whilst I love to get good feedback
if I don’t get published,
will I really worry?

Cast in Gold…

August 23, 2023August 26, 2023humanist55

Halfway between Charmouth and Lyme Regis
the tumbled rocks
from the crumbling cliffs above
bring to a close the beach
that you follow
eyes down searching
from Charmouth
they mark the point beyond which
you will be cut off by a rising tide
and face a choice between
pressing on to Lyme Regis
or struggling back over the hump
of sticky Liassic blue-grey clay
and braving falling rocks
to regain the beach.

Though we did not know it as such
back then
this is the so-called Jurassic Coast
one of them at least
because the rocks curve up
through the country
like a spine with scoliosis
to emerge again in Yorkshire
with its counterclaim to
tourists seeking fossils
and imagining a dinosaur-infested past.

But Charmouth was made famous for fossils
by Mary Anning, a glorious amateur
who walked this beach every day
especially after winter storms
threw down hidden treasures
from the cliffs. Mary found
the first complete Ichthyosaur
and too, found fame
clawing it from begrudging
academics of the day.

But back to the rocks
midway along the route
from tiny Charmouth
to bustling Lyme Regis
once graced by royalty.
These rocks entrap in sheltered pockets
miraculous casts of eons dead shells
the gold of iron pyrites
fools gold gleaming
in the dross of sand
and tiny pebbles

Find them if you can
before the next storm
crashes into the rocks
and sweeps the treasure
out to sea.

It was my mother
on childhood holidays
eschewing the search for
larger, showier fossils
despite the joy of splitting rocks
thwacking them just so
with her specially purchased
geologist’s hammer
she settled down
to search among the rocks
and finding the tiny, perfect
overlooked treasures.

The last time I went there
seeking out this secret trove
hoping against hope
that I remembered still
where X marked the spot
this secret trove
which most people pass by
in their search for bigger things
I was summoned away for half-an-hour
whilst a scene for “Ammonite”
about the life of Mary Anning
was filmed a few feet from
my treasure seeking
and when, months later
I watched the finished film
I recognised my absent self
just out of shot.

I have been on that beach
my whole life
just out of shot
in my mind’s eye
a treasured memory
of times past
fossilised in fools gold.

It’s Time to Divorce the Car…

August 18, 2023August 18, 2023humanist55

It’s time to divorce the car!
The car is killing the planet

Cars and ships and planes too
Busses and bikes are healthier alternatives

The health of the planet needs us to be healthier
You can’t walk away from this but you should walk more

Walk, cycle, car-share if you must, help yourself to help the planet
The time for tinkering with changing lightbulbs is in the rear-view mirror

A rear-view mirror magnifies the causes of global warming
but now is the time to look forward and act decisively

It is not just governments that need to act but you!
Changing your relationship with your car will be hard

The solutions are multifaceted but
For you, it’s simply time to divorce the car!

Driving Between Lives…

August 16, 2023August 16, 2023humanist55

For two-point-five days
I still live in the world of work

Driving in the mornings to
morning radio news and views

Listening not for bon mots
to repeat and seem wise

I am ready to engage with the world
of money, power and office politics

I do though, love a good debate
armed with the latest news prompts

Driving home I am immersed
in music snatched from the TV by an app

Songs of life and love and death
wash away work except for the human bits

Softened by music I anticipate
my partner’s day, hoping for the best…

© Andrew Wilson, 2023
Responding to merrildsmith in Poetics over at the dVerse Poets Pub prompting on the theme of transitions.

6 Degrees of Separation – Romantic Comedy…

August 14, 2023August 14, 2023humanist55

Six Degrees of Separation is an excuse to romp though six favourite books linked to an initial offering by our host KateW and eventually link them back to the beginning…

I must admit, my heart sank when I saw the title of this month’s 6 Degrees because romantic comedy is not a genre I have much acquaintance with but I soon realised that of course, I have read romantic comedies – even if they were written long before Chicklit was a twinkle in some publicist’s eye – so I turned to the nearest bookshelf to my desk…

Curtis Sittenfeld’s Romantic Comedy does what it says on the tin according to our host/challenger KateW who read the book simultaneously with a bestie with whom she was on holiday and who had brought the very same holiday reading – the stars had aligned and much laughter ensued. I don’t think I will be buying this book (as I did with last month’s starting book which I am enjoying immensely) and KateW’s review tells me quite enough to give the flavour and wit of this book!

Looking at my bookshelf, my eye alighted on the plays shelf where Oscar Wilde -Five Major Plays stood proudly alongside The Complete Plays of George Bernard Shaw so for my first and second links I chose The Importance of Being Earnest and Pygmalion respectively – what! It doesn’t say they can’t be plays – they’re in books!

Here in the final lines of Wilde’s evergreen romantic comedy are not one, but three love stories resolved…

GWENDOLEN. I can. For I feel sure that you are sure to change!
JACK. My own one!
CHASUBLE (to Miss Prism). Leetitial (Embraces her.)
MISS PRISM (enthusiastically). Frederick! At last!
ALGERNON. Cecily! (Embraces her.) At last!
JACK. Gwendolen! (Embraces her.) At last!
LADY BRACKNELL. My nephew, you seem to be displaying signs of triviality.
JACK. On the contrary,’ Aunt Augusta, I’ve now realized for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest.

Enough embracing to qualify I think! On to Pygmalion George Bernard Shaw’s modern (for its time) update on the Greek story of the sculptor who fell in love with his creation which in turn, became the musical My Fair Lady. My volume was a gift to my father from his father in 1939 and maybe a first edition since there is no list of reprints. Believe it or not, I did read some of these plays as a teenager and even attempted some of the prefaces in the accompanying volume – and they are reputed to contain more words than the plays themselves. GBS was a socialist and the character of the professor and his life-changing relationship to Eliza is supportive of a change in attitudes towards women…

Sticking with plays – especially ones that have been turned into musicals, we next turn to The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare which went from highbrow(ish) to lowbrow when it was transmogrified into Kiss Me Kate! Katherina is an admirably feisty woman who is contrasted with Bianca, her younger sister “the ideal woman”. One might regard both this and Pygmalion as misogynistic – they certainly portray misogynists, but I side with those who feel that they are poking fun at the misogynists. This play gave rise to several musicals and films and is arguably the origin of some of the most major memes in romantic comedy…

Anne McCaffrey’s The Ship That Sang books, are not exactly romantic comedies and though they might make great plays, they are sci-fi novels but whether hard or soft is hard to say. Suspend your technological disbelief – definitely, but at the heart of these books are the sometimes romantic but wholly intriguing relationship between a girl who is literally enrolled, in fact, installed as the “brain” of a spaceship, and the “brawns” with whom she is paired. Spoiler alert – no sex is possible…

No one would seek to classify The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith as a romantic comedy either, but neither are they your standard detective procedural either and over the course of the books, we do get to see the developing relationship between Mama Ramotswe and her eventual partner – Mr J. L. B. Matekoni and this is definitely part of the oddball charm of this series.

So having stretched the rules with plays as well as novels, my last link is a poem, originally published in a magazine though books are available too… The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock – or Prufrock as it is known – by T.S. Elliot, is the poem credited with starting the Modernist movement in poetry. I link it back to our starting book of Romantic Comedy, because, like that novel, Prufrock is all about the anguish of alienation, self-doubt and creating what-if scenarios in the head – and whilst Prufrock does not give us a “they lived happily ever after” ending, it is gently humourous as it travels hopefully…