Play the Game - Board Games

If you noticed me grinning a bit more than usual the other day, it’s because something went right. I managed to download ‘Tetris’ on to my new mobile phone all by myself. I’ve had the phone for a few weeks now and I’m still finding my way round it. I’m not one for electronic games but Level 1 Tetris fills a gap if I’m hanging about waiting and I’ve exhausted Facebook, Googled the things I’ve remembered to look up and checked my inbox. It’s fun trying to beat my own points.

When I was a child, my Nan taught me dominoes and a couple of card games. I got to stay up past bedtime because we were in the middle of Gin Rummy and couldn’t just stop. She always knew when I was tired or bored and I could never persuade her otherwise.

I’ve always enjoyed board games. Every Christmas, a Compendium of Games would be left by Santa. Ludo, Draughts, Snakes & Ladders, Tiddly Winks, Blow Football and more besides. I’d pester the family for someone to play with. Grandad was good for Tiddly Winks and Draughts. I didn’t have enough puff for Blow Football, so it was mainly ignored.

I was twelve years old when I was given my first Monopoly. I loved it more and more as I learnt how to play. For me and my parents, it became our regular Sunday evening thing and stopped me worrying about Monday morning and dreaded school. Times were tough for me then.

Monopoly is still a firm favourite, though alas, seldom played since our children grew up and left home and had babies. I wonder how friends might react to me hosting a Monopoly and supper evening? Just an idea.

We’ve got Trivial Pursuit and various levels of general knowledge games. We still have the small box of ‘Kids Trivia’ that our children and I would take to visiting times when my husband was in hospital long term. He would provide a box of Maltesers to share. So many times we walked from home, up East Park Drive to Victoria Hospital, with the game, juice and other things for the children. We saw snowdrops, then crocuses, and then daffodils as winter turned to spring. The conversation was always the same.

“Is Dad coming home soon, Mum?”

“I don’t know, love. We have to wait and see.”

Maltesers remind me of those visits and the fond memories of the lovely family times we shared in a side ward. Eventually, he could come home and all was well. My anxious times, when the children were in bed and I was alone with my thoughts, began to evaporate as life returned to normal.

As the children got older they had Game Boy, PlayStation and later Xbox, all beyond me though I managed a couple of levels of Super Mario. We still kept playing family games as often as we could and certainly round Christmastime and school holidays.

Scrabble must be the best word game ever and I’m always up for the challenge. I bought a travel version thinking it would be perfect to take away with us on our breaks to Scotland. I hadn’t considered how tiny the letter tiles are and how hard to read, when I’m short-sighted to begin with and my husband has glasses for reading that he wears all the time.

Recently, a work colleague told me what a fun-filled evening she’d had at home with her husband and adult sons playing board games and enjoying a takeaway meal. I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who would like that.

Meanwhile, let’s see if I can exceed 200,00 points on Tetris.

This poem is written by Morgan, on hellopoetry.com. I'd forgotten the fun we had playing Operation, until the game mirrored life too much.

 

Board Games

 

February nights rip me into pieces
So when I'm scattered randomly
across your bedroom floor,
I hope you look down
at my knee caps
and collar bones
& think about how much you
enjoyed doing puzzles at
the small, cherry wood
coffee table in your parents'
living room when you were ten
And I hope you put my tongue
back in my mouth
and my eyes back in my skull
And you breathe your
cinnamon & whiskey
breath all down my throat
until I remember how to
find air on my own.

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

 

 

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Springs

Drooling from stone lips
a cold trickle emerged, cleansed
by layers of dirt

Slither of sapwood

silk string wrenches nock to nock

breath waits while head wanders

Basboosa's barrow
tumbled: 'No permit, no work.'
He burned in the street.

Vernal equinox

crocuses in purple pools

that warm day in March

Draw a circle in
the air.  Move your hand forward.
Slowly.  Close enough.

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It sits in the middle and knows

On Saturday, we Dead Good Poets met for our monthly workshop.  After a fun word game which involved coming up with the most inventive similes (I failed but not miserably as I now have lots of stolen similes - mwah ha ha), David Riley read an excerpt from Seamus Heaney's Seeing Things (XVIII).  The excerpt was written in tercets with a little internal rhyme and, if memory serves, contained ten syllables per line.  The aspect of the poetry which we all observed was the way Heaney managed to allude to magic throughout his narrative of a visiting rope seller without ever overtly naming it.  The devil was very much in the details. 

For our main writing exercise, we set about trying to write short poems in a similar style to Heaney's, i.e. we would have a list of things to include but we should never name them, rather use the details to allude to their existence.  To this end we started by making lists.  I asked everyone to give me one fictional character, location, object and type of magic.  Here are the results:

Fictional characters

• Mr Pickwick
• Batman
• James Bond
• Raffles (the gentleman thief)
• Willy Wonka
• Mr Rochester
• Madame Bovary
• Heathcliffe
• Miss Marple

Locations

• Blackpool
• Hogwarts
• Hawaii
• Andromeda
• Canada
• Glasgow
• The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
• Coney Island
• London

Object

• Chainsaw
• Blue John Stone
• Paintbrush
• Dagger
• Football
• Cigarette Lighter
• Fish Tank
• Book
• Quill

Type of Magic

• Witchcraft
• Black Magic
• Close Up Magic
• Numerology
• Necromancy
• Conjuring
• Wizardry
• Kaballah
• Tarot

As I then distributed these in order this meant that someone had to write a poem about a gentleman thief with a dagger on Andromeda using numerology.  Someone else was forced to write a poem about James Bond in Hawaii with a paint brush and close up magic.  Everyone rose to the challenge magnificently, weaving the details in with humour (references to the insertion of a three inch Harris had us in stitches) and beauty (the blood red maple leaves in the Willy Wonka necromancy poem were especially vivid).

There was some talk that I had rigged this challenge as I ended up writing about Miss Marple in London with a quill and tarot.  It does seem a particularly favourable set when compared to Batman at Hogwarts with a piece of Blue John and black magic but the poem which that latter set instigated was so creative that I think I might have preferred something more challenging. 

As I'm not going to be at the open mic event on Friday, I thought I'd share my effort from the workshop.  If you would like to use this exercise to create some poetry, please do.  We'd love to read your work in the comments box.


Divine Mystery

In Whitechapel, hell clings to brick and stone
Grim residue like smog that never lifts
Blue populace wades, ankle deep in death

Behind a window's bubble-spotted eyes
Bone-handled orphans rest in caskets lined
With velvet.  Feathered pens and vessels, cracked.

A desk, marked deep and faded as the day
Is strewn with cups and wands, lovers and wheels
A form, ancient and present, points to change.

Her fingers at the deck, old woman smiles
Reeking of gin and smoke, wrapped tight in tweed
A body's surfaced and she knows the hand.

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The Legacy.

Earlier on this year, you’d have found me proud as anything of our Olympic games. I was positively gushing on here about how the feel good factor had swept us all away, made us all want to go out and try new things.

As we begin to wind down what has been a mammoth year, we’re told that PE at schools has made no significant gains and the number of kids getting into new sports has begun to actually decrease and slow down. Of course, we knew this was going to happen but to hear it on the radio at the same time as I was reading about the ‘nutritional poverty’ of the nation (nobody really getting 5 a day, unless Alcopops and Lollies count) made me scoff a little. Whatever happened to the legacy.

The theme this week is 'things that make you proud', so I went for a bit of patriotism. 

We’ve had two years of savage cuts and there are more to come. The kids are eating fruit and nuts and sitting on their bums. The Playstation network crashed last year and for a while we moved, but glitches fixed, it has returned and probably improved. There is new COD, no time for God, no time to teach young morals. No time to run, no time for fun they’re having online quarrels. Yes, even the fighting is done online, the fat are getting fatter. But bankers make their money too, so none of that can matter. We march the fit off, in vehicles, when old enough for war- all in the name of keeping nutty bombers from our shores. So here we are, in self-inflate mode, blowing up our own. We’re walking to the sweet shop and then getting buses home. We’re less fit than we’ve ever been, we’re living to an age obscene, the hospitals are never clean but someone’s getting rich. Yes, I’m so proud to be a Brit.

Thanks for reading, S

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Daedalean Exchange

There's been some great advice on the blog this week.  I can get behind everything the smarty-pants on here have shared, especially the merits of enjoying your audience and memorising the words.  In addition, I have a few tips for performance which I have picked up at workshops, from fellow poets and through practice:

• Walk through your poem - pace as you read it in practice.  This will allow you to find the natural breaks and rhythm of the piece. (courtesy of Sarah Hymas)
• Ensure that you are well hydrated (beer works) before you read.  There's nowt worse than spitting feathers and struggling to get the words out.  This happened to me in January and I looked rather strange constantly licking my lips in a vain attempt to lure my salivary glands into action.
• Visualise the images in your poem and make sure those images are clear for the audience.  These will act as hooks for the minds of your audience when they try to understand and remember what you said. (courtesy of Ann the Poet)
• Slow down.  Don't be afraid to be.  When you appear behind the microphone the air is heavy with expectation.   Allow that moment to hang.  Use it to collect yourself, to consider what you are about to perform.  Feel your way into the poem.  Let the emotive thread unfurl naturally.  Deliver every sound from your lips with love.  These are your word, painstakingly crafted, meaningful, exquisite.  Push them out into the room with confidence.  Bring them to life in your voice in the same way they live for you on the page.  
• Love the audience.  Respect the relationship you have with that room full of people in that moment.  They are giving you a small portion of their life in the hope that you will fill it with a little piece of your own filtrations.  This is a valuable gift.  Look into the faces of your fellow poetry lovers and thank them for opening up to your words.  The easiest way to do this is by speaking your truth in your way and unashamedly.  Audiences don't want what's gone before, they want you.  They want your truth.  Respect them.  Give them that truth.

 The theme for this Friday's event at the No 5 cafe in Blackpool is 'Games'.  I am yet to write a word.  It should be noted that the advice above is only useful if you do, in fact, have a poem to read at a poetry event.  In the words of Alice in Wonderland (Disney), "I give myself very good advice but I very seldom follow it." 

Pinch of salt and all that. 

By the by - I'm taking my daughter and her friends to a comic convention on Saturday.  We are all dressing up. Raven will be Lacie from Pandora Hearts. I'll be going as American McGee's Alice. I feel like the proverbial duck waddling into an arena full of Cosplay fans.  If anyone knows of any top tips for surviving at these things I would be most grateful if you'd post them below.  Thank you.

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