My thoughts are the antlers

Sorry it's a late one today.  As the sun sets on another day of salty underarms, burned lawns and panting dogs, here is an exercise (#3 to be precise) from one of my poetry workshops. 

In touch with nature

Stories and poems which include strong visual imagery are more likely to be retained by the reader.  Use visualisation to put yourself in a scene and make it vivid for yourself.  If you can see what you’re describing you’re more likely to be able to make it clear for the readers.

Exercise 3:

Write down an emotion:

 e.g. worry

Think of an animal to represent that emotion:

e.g. sparrow

Think of a scene for that animal to exist in:

e.g. garden path

Think of an action for that animal to carry out:

e.g. watching

Create your example of metaphorical nature-based imagery:

e.g. She paces at the window

       a sparrow on the garden path

       restless

       eyes searching the trees

       for the ill-fitting shadow

        

And here are some examples of superlative nature-based poetry which should inspire you to look at the details around you and capture them for your own nefarious poetic means.  Enjoy!

The moment Echo saw Narcissus

She was in love.  She followed him

Like a starving wolf

Following a stag too strong to be tackled.

And like a cat in winter at a fire

She could not edge close enough

To what singed her, and would burn her.

Ted Hughes, from Tales from Ovid (1997)

You know me as a turbulent ocean

clouded with thunder and drama.

Carolyn Kizer, from In the First Stanza

 

I’ll chatter metaphysics with a chimpanzee, now

                        my thoughts are the antlers of the Irish elk,

                                                the wings of flightless birds, peptides

                                                spelling out the phrase

                                                very like a whale

Brook Emery, from Very like a Whale

No lik the past which lies

Strewn around.  Nor sudden death.

No like a lover we’ll ken

An connect wi forever.

The hem of its goin drags across the sky.

Kathleen Jamie, from Skeins o Geese

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Connecting the dots...

This weeks theme and the theme for Friday's poetry event is connections. On Saturday I attended the monthly workshop run by the Lancashire Dead Good Poets which was around this theme. Taken By Steve and Michelle, we were asked to collaborate in a writing exercise to come up with some words which were loosely connected. Each participant was asked to start with a word and the word was then passed to each of the other participants to contribute a word they felt was connected with the previous word. When our word arrived back with us complete with a list of new ones we were asked to use this word. We repeated the exercise until we each had 5 new words, each indirectly connected to the first and asked to use all five in a piece of writing. There were some great responses to this challenge, and each very unique to the writer's own style. My words were;

Beard
Caravan
Rules
Cover
Alice

It was a challenge but I managed to put together this rough piece, showing that even seemingly unrelated words can be connected to form a piece of poetry or prose;

Old wooden caravans lined the field. Greying grain peeped through the bright paint. Families queued outside each, disinterested. I took my place outside the first wooden box. A list of rules greeted each visitor; "No touching the exhibits, No Smoking, Do not speak to the exhibits." I wrapped my coat tightly against the chill wind. Finally I reached the entrance and its meagre cover. A man with a cigarette and a grin ushered me forward. "Prepare yourself for a sight rarely seen, a wonder that will dazzle and amaze. One of the last wonders of the world. Alice, The Bearded Lady." The door opened with a squeak to show a blonde woman complete with stubble scrolling through Facebook on a mobile phone.

I really enjoyed this exercise and it helped me connect where there were seemingly no connections. Advice from Steve encouraged me to look for ways to put together this piece from where any human connection can be possible, from one person to the next, and to again create a connection to the reader with writing. With these words I have created a connection from my mind to yours as I create a picture with words so that you can also see what I imagine.

Workshops run once a month the Saturday before each poetry even, which is the first Friday of every month. I encourage you to come along and try some new ways of writing and connect with other writers. You never know what you might come up with. :)

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So long lives this and this gives life to thee

Do you see my spectacles with their heavy rims?  Perhaps you noticed my quiet, unassuming nature?  You must be aware of my absence at times of literary intrigue?  Yes, it's true.  I am Olive, the plain-clothed bus conductor of 1970s sitcome fame.  What the writers of the TV series failed to explore was Olive's alter ego, Sunflower, so named for her love of chasing the sun.

So, Sunflower is my alter, alter ego and I'm beginning to think this introduction is a little over-contrived.  Sunflowers follow the sun.  I follow poets, like a dog follows the smell of crotch (to add another helpful layer to this catastrophic conceit).  What I most enjoy at present is gathering an awkwardness of poets into a small, quiet room and throwing short writing exercises at them until they a) throw something heavy in my direction or b) write something amazing.  Fortunately for me the crotches, which is to say poets, that I have followed so far have opted exclusively for option b.  

This Saturday, conjunctivitis allowing, I will be herding the awkward crotches into a small quiet room at Central Library.  If, after two hours, I am still conscious, the world will know a new collection of sonnets.  And that is the real super power.  

It's a power I developed after a hair from Ashley R Lister's beard fell into my coffee.  I'm not complaining.  He can't have the hair back.  Facilitating the creation of poetry is akin to a super power.  It certainly feels supernatural.  I yabber on for two hours and BAM! a curdle of new poetry is born.  A curdle which other poets will take with their own cups of coffee which will, in turn, inspire other more curdled poems until the ultimate miracle happens...Cheese.

So, if you have followed the nonsense above, congratulations on your powers of tolerance.  Please find below a sonnet which I created while testing Saturday's workshop.  I do hope you'll join us at the library and I'm sorry for calling you a crotch.


To the Mourners

In February wet clay clads the day 

Dawn’s meagre prayers wrapped tight in dismal clods 

To you this clinging sadness I convey   

Dug fresh from river bed for you to hold

Exhaustion is a cliff edge slick with mud 

I tremble in tired grass before the drop

Then April’s buds bunch close on ruddy wood   

Late morning’s blood burns tracks through sleepy sods   

You see excitement written in the leaves   

Like secrets burst from lips pressed tight too long

A giddiness of bubbles, scales release 

This trembling, root to tip, I would prolong   

Though sadness fills your pockets up with stones

Attention transforms granite into foam

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