Category Archives: Exercises on the Inspiration for Writing

Writing exercises and prompts

Writing Perspective using two voices

Writing Perspective

For some time now, I have been contemplating changes of writing perspective that c0me from using multiple voices. The usual approach, in poetry at least, is to write in a single voice and reflect a single perspective.

For example, I might write in my own voice and use my own thoughts and feelings on an issue or whatever the subject of the poem may be. Alternatively, I might adopt a character to represent a different, or chosen perspective on the subject that I wish to explore.

Both these approaches are completely valid.

Let us all sit in a circle . . .

I have always been attracted by a different notion, however. I believe that the phrase ‘what you see depends on where you sit’ contains an underlying truth, and it has often been my wish to explore the different writing perspective from using two voices in my work. Imagine six artists, with their easels, seated in a circle around a model. Each artist is looking upon the same model, adopting a single pose.

The result? Six different pieces of art. No two exactly alike. The effect on writing perspective of using two voices to describe the same situation produces a similar result. Alternative, but valid, perspectives.

Artist and Author

The Premise of the Poem

Some time ago, while exploring this theme for myself I wrote a poem that I imagined being read by two voices. Perhaps a male voice and a female. Perhaps an artist and an author.

I was interested in bringing out the differences in perspective of the two characters and their orientations, while reconciling the fact that the subject is identical for both.

Artist and Author poem – first voice (author)

he makes a line
a word
upon the paper

he is writing
all of his life
into an opus

in the most important part
he tries to capture
what she has meant

in words . . .

the true statements

and even as his hand
pushes the pen along
to write more
he can hear
her laughter

rising
from what is
already expressed
upon the page

as he writes
her image flows
from the ink
of his pen
onto the paper

every detail brings her
more to life

he doesn’t need her
to stand
before
his eyes

the vision
he is writing
lives
within his mind.

and
as he approaches
a conclusion

he feels himself
right there
on the page

and beside her

pen
placed down

the only sound
is her laughter –
risen up to surround him
from a paragraph –

and strolling
on a blue-sky day
beneath
the sun

Artist and Author poem – second voice (artist)

the paper on the easel
has a tooth
or
so they say

in pastel
she is painting
a portrait

he emerges
in strokes
and shades

in the particular
of smudges
and even though
the face is not captured
completely
yet

already she can see
his mouth
attempt to smile

as her subject
takes a shape –
pastel
on toothed paper –

she is not aware
of the man
but
her picture has come
almost
to life

he is there
entire

funny mannerisms
quirky smiles
and twinkling eyes

everything about him
captured
upon the paper

he could not be more
real
for her

nor
more present

pastels down

the only life
is smiling at her
on the painted picture

strolling
hand in hand
beneath a blue sky
and the sun

How can two perspectives be brought together?

Presentation of these perspectives , in the form of a poem, can be difficult.

My attempt to deal with Artist and Author saw me using columns to present each of the sections matched beside each other, and with coloured text to distinguish each voice.

In a live reading to an audience, I would seek one (or two) audience members to join me in reading a part – first one, then the other.

In theory, the two parts could be read by the two voices at the same time. Difficult to distinguish, but essentially each part reflecting the same or parallel subject.

Phew.

Writing Perspective Using Two Voices – recording

Below is a recorded attempt to capture the above poem and the sense I have of two perspectives on essentially the same subject. The reading was done a little while before this post, and some minor editing of the poem has not been incorporated.

What do you think?

Exercises On The Inspiration for Writing

Exercises on the Inspiration for Writing is a phrase I use to group occasional thoughts I am interested in exploring and sharing.

More Exercises on The Inspiration for Writing can be found here.

How to read short poetry

How to read short poetry – an introduction (of sorts)

Have you ever tried to listen to someone struggling over how to read short poetry? It can be an aggravating experience. In any case, I’ll try to explain why I find it so, in a moment, but first I should acknowledge that short poetry – such as haiku and similar short forms – haibun, tanka and so on, are wonderful, disciplined writing forms, designed to pack a big conceptual and meaningful impact in just a handful of words. I like that concept very much.

I don’t enjoy the strictures and discipline that the forms demand.

For the most part, I also don’t enjoy listening to them being read aloud to an audience.

How to read to an audience – a brief refresher

Many, if not most authors have little idea of how to read to an audience or how to present their work to best advantage in a reading. This is the case whether for live or recorded readings.

It is something of an absent art which I don’t want to address in detail here, but will mention a couple of the more obvious “do’s and don’t’s“. My personal context is poetry reading, but the general principles apply regardless.

Quick Refresher Points

Pace of reading

Speaking too quickly. The golden rule is to read slowly. If you think you are reading slowly enough – go a little slower still. The audience needs time to take the material in and to extract a little meaning from it. Give them that time.

Love the microphone

Develop a love affair with the microphone. The mic needs to be part of an intimate relationship with the reader. It takes time and a little practice, but failure to develop this skill makes for a very dull experience for the listening audience.

Engage the audience

Failure to engage with the audience. The reader needs to look out at the audience from time to time during reading, to let them know that he or she is reading to them and for them. Catching the eye of one or more audience members at different points in the reading adds meaning and engagement with the audience. It can be tricky to achieve initially but needs to be practiced.

Select your material

A failure to select material for reading. This is more a problem for long-form writers – novelists and short stories. I’ve been in many audiences where the writer faces the page and reads – everything. No stopping until the end of page five, at least, of the reading. By this time the audience is all fidgets and is hearing little beyond a constant droning.
A reading goes much better with a selection, perhaps a few paragraphs to introduce a character, perhaps another few paragraphs to highlight an aspect of him or her, in the context of the story.
The audience wants to engage and the author can do worse than to share an anecdote that illuminates character development, rather than chapter and verse. They should buy the book to get that!

Pace of Reading

Read slower. Just because you thought you were reading slowly doesn’t mean that you were. Learning the pace to read at is a key part of the craft.

So, enough of that more general discussion. What I was really meaning to focus on was how to read short poetry. I’ll move on.

Reading poetry, in general, and in short

My experience of reading poetry in general is that it is a short form of writing. In my own work it is rare for a poem to span two minutes in reading time from start to finish. This most likely developed as a result of my early experience with open mic readings where the poet puts his or her name on a chalkboard to have their turn at reading three poems in five minutes (or less). If any one poem was too long, the poet had less time available to read more pieces on the day.

Focusing my mind on getting as much meaning as I could into relatively short pieces of writing shaped my writing. Most of my work, now, requires about one minute (more or less) to read to an audience.

That is a very short period of time in which to communicate what you want a listener or reader to take away with them. Imagine how much more difficult it must be to successfully master how to read short poetry.

Drawing again on my experience from open mic readings, it is very difficult and few master it (myself included).

Also from my experience from open mic readings, it is very difficult and few master it (myself included).

So, how should short poetry be read

After such a big build-up, I have to fudge my answer a little bit. I’m not aware of any one ‘right‘ way to do it. How to read short poetry remains in the domain of the writer, but I do have a couple of small ideas that perhaps serve as clues.

Back on the open mic stage, from time to time a short-form (usually haiku) poet would mount the podium in a way that held audience attention. This was difficult enough to achieve for the best of readers, because the sessions were always held in bar rooms, with a room full of self-centered poets all waiting their own turn at the mic, and not necessarily interested in other self-centered poets having their moment on the stage.

These few occasions caught my attention because I was interested in my craft and wanted to know everything.

What I learned at Open Mic

Engage the audience. Speak to them, catch their attention, perhaps give a little context for the reading. If the audience is listening before the poem is read, there is a good chance they will hear it as it is spoken.
Read the poem, the first time, slowly. A haiku can be read in about 5 seconds flat, or less. What is the point of that? Go slow.
Read it through a second time, equally slowly. The first time through, with a short poem, the listener is being asked to hear the structure and flow, the rhythm. A second reading allows the content and meaning to be taken in. If the reading is introduced in this way, and the audience invited to listen in that way, the reading becomes a very much richer experience.
Perhaps allow a moment of silence at the conclusion of the poem and before launching into the following poem.

That, I think, is how to read short poetry.

Some examples

Now that I have your attention . . .

No, I’m only jesting as, for all I know, I have already lost my audience by dragging this discussion out too long. Such things happen, but I have scoured through my Seventeen Syllable Poetry blog for some examples to read, just to see if the views I’ve expressed hold up in practice (I don’t get to open mic readings any more).

I’ve done these poems with a blank image background for the first read through, and the words superimposed for the second read through.

must be

must be is a short poem from a collection I worked on called ‘From NASA with Love’. The series came about in a period of delight after I discovered that the NASA Image and Video Library had been made available for access by the public.

must be – How To Read Short Poetry

worshipful

worshipful comes from a short series of poems written to celebrate a number of images I took – photographs – of mornings. I had in mind, and still am interested in pursuing, a book of morning poems (and a book of cloud poems, and a book of flying birds poems . . .).

worshipful – How To Read Short Poetry

bee sweet for me

bee sweet for me is a poem that comes from simple delight, and the desire to join with the image and the moment in some way.

bee sweet for me – How To Read Short Poetry

at the last

at the last comes as the final poem in a series I wrote on a walk. Just a random walk, in this case, taking photographs and later trying to match some words to them.

at the last– How To Read Short Poetry

Conclusion – thank you

That concludes my attempt to discuss and describe a few thoughts on how to read short poetry. I hope you found it interesting, amusing, provocative or outrageous. If so, please feel free to let me know.

If you’d like to read more of my thoughts on writing and poetry, you might enjoy these articles, or perhaps these.

What’s in a picture? What’s in a poem?

What’s in a Picture?

So, what is in the picture? What ends up in the poem?

I recently penned a few thoughts about using writing prompts, both written and in picture/image form. In the time since, I’ve found myself interested in breaking down what goes into the contemplation – in some cases, at least – of an image that is meant to become the focus of the muse.

Below, I have pasted an image of a children’s playground that is fairly widely distributed around the internet, and which I understand to be a free-for-commercial-use image, most likely originating on somewhere like Pixabay. Among other sightings, I know it to have featured on book covers – most likely used in order to keep cover design costs low.

In my own case the image was used as a writing prompt for speculative fiction (sci-fi, fantasy and similar writing genres). I ended up writing two quite different poems using the image as prompt.

Take a look at the image. What do you see?

Full image used for the George poem

One of the poems I used this prompt for was called George, and you’ll find it here. In looking back at the poem and image together, I have identified a number of elements – pictorial and non-pictorial that seem involved.

Seen Elements

1. There is a mist of some sort in the air; and

Mist in the playground for the George poem.

2. There is a child’s rider-rocker playground object.

A playground teeter-totter for the George poem.

Unseen Elements

Unseen elements have to be established in the narrative to enable the reader to visualise them as though they were in the picture – the picture in the mind.

A foul reek in the mist; and
A suit of armour; and
A sword; and
A dragon!

What’s in a poem?

Unfolding the story

The poem, George, attempts to take the visual elements I have detailed above (what’s in the picture), and to intertwine them with the monologue of a protagonist who is approaching. He is not approaching a rather misty children’s playground filled with swings and playthings. No. He is approaching a foul-breathed, smoggy dragon. A Wyrm!

He intends to deal with this dragon . . .

How? How will he deal with the Wyrm (which we can clearly see now in playground left)? Why, with his sword of course. We all know that he must has a sword. We can visualise it.

How will he be protected? A suit of armour. We know by now that he will be wearing a suit of armour. Again, we can visualise it.

As for identity. I think we all know who our hero is, as well, don’t we? He is GEORGE! and there can only be one person named George who might be involved in in sneaking up on an unsuspecting dragon.

Can’t there?

How does the invisible become material and visible?

There is magic involved in storytelling. That is my belief, in any case. A requirement to persuade a reader to suspend rational belief and to see, as the writer wishes them to see.

A mist becomes a reek. A playground toy becomes a dragon. An image assumes an atmosphere.

The suspension of rational belief allows the reader to enter into the vision and the sensations being experienced by the protagonist.

Tension.
Adjustment of protective equipment.
The use of smell to identify the foe.
A sense of destiny.
A dragon.

Every reader wants to be taken away on a journey within the story. Using visuals to prompt further feats of imagination by the reader is the completion of a kind of alchemic reaction that accumulates the initial image, the imagination of the writer, the imagination of the reader.

Your Story

Here is another element from the original image. I wonder if you can imagine a story that starts from such a detail?

Try.

Detail from children’s playground photograph used for the George poem.

The second poem that I wrote using this playground image – called Only the Wind is Free can be read here.

Use of Writing Prompts: Selflessness in Contemplation

Use of Writing Prompts

Following on from previous thoughts about inspirations for writing, I have been contemplating a little, as I edit, on the role and use of writing prompts as inspiration.

It is true, of course, that all writing is in some way ‘prompted‘. What I’m thinking about and want to discuss just a little, is the role and use of specific prompts, like:

. a word
. or a phrase
. or an image
. etc

Politika of the Pipples – capturing an apocalypse

The first poem that made me feel like a true poet/writer was called Politika of the Pipples, written for a spoken word competition away back around year 2000 or 2001. Politika was written in response to a phrase that had to be included entire within the body of the poem. The phrase was outlandish – who will be left to play the post-apocalyptic violin. I now realise it was most likely intended to inspire a speculative fiction (after-the-next-war) type of response.

I went off in a different direction. There are many kinds of apocalypse, and many different ways and needs to cope with them.

We are seeing some of this in the USA as I write, I think, and I truly am amazed at how relevance seems to reinvent itself.

Using Picture Images as Inspiration

The collection that I have been editing this last day or two is The Last of Eden, for which I’ve brought together a range of poems written in response to images used as writing prompts on various online sites I follow, when I have a chance. I’ve been a little amazed at the journey that each image has inspired. Complete stories that relate intimately to the picture that inspired them.

A couple of examples:

. a surprise (I do not like) and we who are mice (will dance) – inspired by a single image (an elephant shaking a tree).
. watery – a girl with a fishing rod is, herself, riding atop a fish.

Contemplating these images and the responses they inspired has led me to think about the process. What is it that allows me to use an image as inspiration for a flight of fancy that becomes a story and a poem?

What is Needed to Use Prompts Creatively?

There is a certain quality required, I think, to optimise the use of writing prompts and (particularly) images creatively. It is a requirement of selflessness. Allowing the image to assume a voice and a life separate from the writer, and that is of the prompt, itself.

I’ll hark back to my first example (above) of politika of the pipples. I struggled initially with the prompt phrase. The writing event was one that I, as a writer, very badly wanted to enter and do well in, but I could find nothing in my life – of me – that might make sense of it. As a writer to that point in my fledgling writing career (and since, largely) I wrote true things, like:

. the things I saw
. or the things I thought
. or things that other people saw or thought

Where did Politika of the Pipples Come From?

The inspiration that came to me was the recollected language, style, and manner of male European emigres – primarily from Croatia (old Yugoslavia) – that I had encountered as a youth in ethnic Social Clubs occasionally visited by my parents. These men were passionately bombastic in their manner, speaking broken English with a great intensity of purpose.

Arguing, always arguing and endlessly plotting insurrection against the old country, from which they had fled. If argument alone could bring about revolution, these men would have won their war, easily.

The fellows that I recalled could speak naturally (and brokenly) of the apocalypse that had subjugated their country and the belated playing of violins. It was the collective voice of these men that spoke to Frenki, the apolitical poet in that poem. It was that voice that won the spoken-word competition.

Selflessness as Writer

Frenki the poet was the listener, the observer and bystander. He was not the subject, in any way. He was my representative on the fringe of someone else’s story.

This is the selflessness that I’m trying to explore a little.

It is why, I believe, I can now read the poems in The Last of Eden collection as though I am a stranger to them and appreciate where they work, where they need to be changed a little. In a few cases, why they don’t work and need to be discarded.

Can You Become Selfless as a Writer?

Every one of us is capable of seeing something within an image, a word or a phrase that is influenced more by their state of mind at a particular moment, than by objective observation of what is before them.

When you look at a picture, are you able to let yourself see into the image? Beyond the outline of what is there and into a possible life, a possible conversation?

What can you see in this image:

Is it most like a landscape, or is it the texture of an alien skin?, or perhaps a slice from a vegetable, seen up close?

Perhaps you can see it, the way I see it, as potential.

How to express an experience

Guest Blogging. Lovely! Let’s Express an Experience!

Recently I had the pleasure of contributing to Mandy Whyman‘s web-site as a guest blogger for her Writing Insights series. It was a wonderful opportunity and I enjoyed being able to contribute to someone else’s pages and audience. The subject for the post evolved into a discussion about ways to express an experience, so that a reader can access what a writer is trying to convey.

So. How can a writer express an experience? And how can it be made over into a written form, so that another person – a reader who is a stranger to the experience – can empathize with it and associated feelings. That was the challenge.

Show, don’t tell. It’s obvious, isn’t it?

Storytelling is dependent, I think, on a process of gradual revelation. To my mind, it is akin to a visual process.

A reader will only feel an emotional quickening if they can ‘see’ the experience, and I’m acutely aware that readers have a diverse range of backgrounds and personal experiences – each of them unique. My own upbringing and background was in a small town in Australia, but . . .

But there is more. There is always more.

There is a wide breadth of reader backgrounds.

I was born in Germany. My parents spent a year there in the process of migrating out of old Yugoslavia. The first picture of myself in Australia is a baby in the arms of his grandfather, descending the landing steps of an aeroplane, in the middle of an Australian nowhere.

Someone else might have grown up in a London suburb, or a Zimbabwean farm, or perhaps rustbelt America. There may be another back story, or more, behind these first impressions, as well.

What does a writer want to communicate?

It is not my wish as the writer (as an autobiographer, perhaps) to tell a reader about the kid who grew up in the 1960s and 70s as though that was the only childhood possible. What I hope is that he or she will step back into a time and place with me, yes, but I then want the reader to use my opening of that door as an invitation to re-experience their own childhood and background.

The story of Frank Prem has its moments (did I happen to mention the time when I . . .), but overall is pretty ordinary. It is not the stuff of after dinner talk or sleepless nights.

The story of childhood and of growing up, however, is always filled with adventure and excitement and drama. It is these elements that can (perhaps) inflame the imagination of a reader. My objective is to engage the imagination in just this way.

Details are important, too.

So, what happened in my life back then that a reader might respond to? After all, a memoir or a recollection has to have some actual events to describe or to introduce the reader to.

Here are some of the things that I tried to convey as the experience of a small boy, and I’ve added the kind of questions that I hope my readers might be asking themselves as they read.

The annual town fete is on. There are wood-chopping competitions, Knock-Em-Down stalls, fairy floss on a stick. Carnival sounds fill even in a small town, starting with the garbled spruiking of a loudspeaker mounted on a car that no-one can understand, and don’t need to. People are everywhere, children are running all over the show ground. Excitement that even the adults are feeling. Delight at being among friends and neighbours in the noise and glamour of an EVENT!
What big local social event can you recall from your childhood that was long anticipated every year? A parade? A fete? The Agricultural Show?

For weeks we build a bonfire to light on Guy Fawkes night. Higher and higher, with rubber tyres and a straw man to burn on the top. Kids buy or steal crackers to let off on the night. Fathers hide secret stashes. Will we explode some crackers in the Deputy Headmaster’s letterbox again, this year?
Were there rituals in your local area on the big holidays and occasions? What regular or traditional mischiefs were indulged?

What is a sunset? Can you describe what it look like? Where do you see it – through trees; across a valley; outside your back door?
What is your Sunset memory from childhood? Don’t think hard, just allow an image.

What happened when the town was sewered for the first time? What changed? Did the toilet migrate indoors?
Moving toilets and laundries indoors was a generation-changing event in my community. Changing whole lives and especially, I think, for wives and mothers. Was there something similar that you experienced during your childhood? What effect did it have on your community?

How do you know your story has been effective?

When I first started taking my writing seriously one of the ways I tried to test my work and to get a sense of whether anything I was attempting had merit was to read to an audience. Live reading provides an opportunity to smooth the work, to make it flow well off the tongue. It also provides immediate feedback that goes to both, the content of the work and to the delivery. I learned to trust audience reactions and, over time, to write in a manner that might tilt the balance towards positive reactions. Makes sense, doesn’t it?

You are the author. So write what you want to say, but . . . write (express the experience) in a way that a reader, or listener, might best read or hear it.

My experience of reading the poems in my memoir collection Small Town Kid to an audience has been that there will be a queue of people afterwards with a desire, and need to tell their own version of the same stories, along the lines of those questions that I’ve posed above. It is a high form of flattery to have someone inspired to tell their own story, just through listening to one of mine.

‘. . . that was a good Cracker Night poem, but wait till I tell you about mine . . .’

And there, I think, is the key. To express an experience, the writing needs to be aimed at conveying an experience, but inviting the reader to find or re-visit their own equivalent. To see it dance before them again.

A Small Town Kid example

I’ll finish this visit with one of the poems from Small Town Kid. This is a small moment of childhood exhilaration. I hope you are able to feel a little wind in your hair, and a little racing in your hearts.

sweet maureen

I rode my bike
for sweet maureen
from beechworth to yackandandah

fourteen miles
of love-smit pedalling
down the hill
of the rising sun

a million miles an hour
not fast enough
but my breath
was taken away

I was drawn
down the road
descending like a bullet
from the barrel
of my rifle

drawn to ride
to sweet maureen

Bachelard Interpreted. Creating a book collection

Book Creation in idle moments

In the last few days I’ve made some inroads toward getting the collection of poetry that arose from reading Gaston Bachelard’s writings (which I’m referring to as the Bachelard Interpreted series) into presentable shape. I posted on my poetry blog a little while back that it was a massive undertaking.

I’m delighted with progress.

Table of Contents for Frank Prem's Bachelard Interpreted poetry collection — The Complete *Bachelard Interpreted* – Table of Contents

The image above shows the complete Bachelard Interpreted collection structure. Usually with my books I have listed the poems, just as though they were chapters. I can’t do that here, because there are hundreds of poems.

Index of Individual Poems for Frank Prem's Bachelard Interpreted Poetry Collection — *Bachelard Interpreted* – Index of Individual Poems

I’ve gotten around the issue of the number of poems by creating an Index and alphabetical listing that will sit at the very end of the book.

The printer (Ingram Sparks) can’t accommodate 1,700 pages in a single volume, and that is just as well, because I doubt that I could manage such a big book comfortably.

I’ll take a look at that issue later today and perhaps create several volumes for this purpose. I’ll mock up a cover theme to go with it/them later today as well, I hope.

Why create books that may only ever be for personal use?

I have a number of reasons for wanting to see Bachelard Interpreted (and other collections) in print form. I’ll list a few:

The poems have not been edited for print. I’m arrogant enough to believe that they are all nearly perfect, of course, just as they flowed from the pen, but realistic enough to know that is not true and they each will need attention.

I find the prospect of reviewing so much work on-screen to be quite daunting. A paper copy will allow me more freedom to work, I think (and hope).

The poems in the Bachelard Interpreted collection are laden with imagery. Or should be!

I want to try to experience the work as the reader of my imagination would – book in hand while having a lie-in in bed, or with a coffee.

I feel a sense of urgency to have my work produced in book form.

Much of my life is bound up in what I have written over the journey and, while I still have access to it online, in my computer and blog archives and here and there, computer records are not proof, in the way that a physical book is proof.

I feel that seeing the work in book form, on a library shelf – even if it is only my own library in my own home, represents the practical recognition of the thing that I have been, or tried to be.

Further to the previous point, I’m a bit of a sentimental old fool, at heart. That in itself is a reason.

With each experience of assembling written materials into book form, my skills in this area of black art improve a little. It is necessary, though, to keep practicing to keep improving.

Finally, a reason particular to Bachelard Interpreted. I have a feeling that I may never write better than I did when I was under the spell of Bachelard, through reading his translated books. I want to find out if I still believe that is so by reading them in a book.

What next for Bachelard Interpreted?

Next will come a decision about how many volumes to cut this big assemblage of poetry into. Probably three volumes, I think, but I’ll look at it a little later.

After that, a cover for each volume.

It’s tempting to make a very utilitarian and simple cover for this set of books. Perhaps plain black, with white cover printing, in keeping with their status as ‘working volumes’, but I’m not sure. Cover art is still a mystery to me and I’ll take the opportunity to play a little with a couple of ideas I have.

Store

In the meantime, don’t forget that I have a number of books that can be purchased through the usual online outlets.

If you are resident in Australia, paperback copies of all my work can be purchased through my store. I’m happy to sign or inscribe these on request.

Emmylou Harris Wrecking Ball – music to write fantasy by

Musical Influences

I read recently that it is now twenty-five years since Emmylou Harris best album (arguably) was released – the Wrecking Ball album.

I won’t speak about Harris so much here, other than to say that I was introduced to her work in about 1975 or 1976 and have not wandered in my belief that she is the purest interpreter of other people’s songs, and a superb songwriter to boot. My choice for best Emmylou Harris song harks back to that era, and is Boulder to Birmingham.

Now that is a love song!

She has consistently, my favoured and favourite artist over all those years, and I incorporated my admiration for her as an artist in the poem titled and again in the Walk Away Silver Heart collection, the first part of my A Love Poetry Trilogy.

Walk Away Silver Heart love poetry book cover

How does music inspire? Meet me at the Wrecking Ball . . .

Wrecking Ball, when it was released, came as a mood shift and a mindset change. A resonant confrontation with feeling and emotion.

The year twenty-twenty is a time made for such confrontation. Truly, no cuckoos, no sycamores. No Harlan to go back to at all, really. We seem to be living through such grim times that it is hard to find good reasons that are strong enough to dominate their counterparts.

Of the songs – stories, in truth – on that Emmylou Harris album, one of them in particular swirled in my mind and became a driving force in a writing project that I did not know I was undertaking (in 2018) until it was almost completed.

Neil Young wrote the title track with great poignancy, and at a time when I – who consider myself to be a private person – was striving for publicity and recognition in order to establish myself as a poet with a public persona and some credibility, the incongruousness and irreconcilable nature of the undertaking resolved as lines in my head, playing over and over:

My life’s an open book
You read it on the radio

Interview after interview, publicity post after publicity post. Public reading after public reading. And, eventually, in poem after poem to invoke an opening mood that ran consistently through each poem, and across an entire collection.

Writing fantasy for the first time

I had an opportunity during 2018 to contribute a poem to an anthology based on the dual themes of rain forest and fantasy, which eventually was oublished as Short Stories of Forest and Fantasy, by OzTales. I’d never deliberately written fantasy prior to this opportunity and set to with enthusiasm, eventually contributing a post-apocalyptic, dystopian themed piece called blue dog.

I kept writing.

The poetry traversed simple fantasy within a forest to encompass life on a mining asteroid, and fighting a war while mounted on the back of a dragonfly named Isosceles. Many miles swept up in dreams of alternative experience, escape from the mundane, explanations for the inexplicable, all driven by the lines from Wrecking Ball that I held in my mind as a guide through the wilds of my imagination.

What happened to the fantasy collection?

Where is that collection, now? Well, the only answer I have for that is to say that it is waiting. It has a name or, more true to say, several names. I have called it Od Ovo and other stories, after a teenaged character who’s name is drawn from a place that is so constraining it can only be that inferior location ‘from here/from this’, even if here is on another place in the cosmos.

It has also been named ‘abacus the stars’ to reflect the limits of calculation, and the pull of home on a journey across the universe.

In truth, though, I don’t know what it may be called, in the end. I’ll publish it one day, whenever its turn comes. Until then, it remains as a small beacon shining in my mind, entwined with the songs of the Wrecking Ball album and Emmylou Harris. A warm place to stumble across from time to time.

A sample from the unpublished fantasy collection

I haven’t published any of the poems from the fantasy collection, to date. They bide quietly. Today, though I thought it might be right to share a poem from that set with you.

storm and the sea (bubbles of foam)

I called to joe
I said

there’s a boat
trying to fly
right out of the water

the wind
had taken a breath
and it was
blowing

even as I spoke
I saw a wave
lift up that vessel

then
crash it down
like a fragile toy
built poor
by some clumsy child

there is no light
to speak of
when you’re staring
at the heart
of the storm

grey-black cloud
green water

the white
maybe
of salt

even a man
is just a pale thing

a dark shape

a nothing at all
but the brilliant
shrieking song

of a wild wind

joe took me
by the arm

said

nothing here

nothing left

there is only
the sea

not even a board
from the decking
made it to shore

not a cry
that didn’t hail
from the wind of hell itself

nothing left
but storm
and the sea

some bubbles
of foam

To Claim a Poetic Form of one’s own

Poetic forms? No, thank you.

I am not a writer who enjoys writing to the old poetic forms. I prefer to claim a poetic form of my own making.

Galloping rhyme, quatrains, couplets, sonnets, haiku – I’m not a big fan of any of them.

Primarily, my perspective on these things suggests to me that:

the mastery of form conquers the creativity of content.

What I mean is that the effort required to achieve mastery of any one form is so great that it risks eroding the capacity to focus on telling the story.

I hold that this statement is true, for myself, at least.

Except . . . just this once, perhaps . . .

Seventeen Syllable Poetry

In a small way, though, I am just as attracted to structuring my stories into a rule framework as anyone. For this reason and as a small test for myself, a little while back I decided that I would see what I could using a syllabic restriction of my own choosing.

To claim a poetic form, I chose to work with seventeen syllables (in a nod to the oriental form of haiku), but with no other restrictions. In effect the challenge was to write a complete story in my usual free verse, but within the syllable count.

How can I write a poetic story in Seventeen Syllables?

My approach? Write the story/thought/observation I had in mind to my satisfaction. Then, adjust words by deleting and moving, and replacing, seeking to find or retain the same sense of internal music as I aim for in my more usual writing.

Often I have used an image, or a news headline as a prompt for the writing. The effect is to have the image perform some of the heavy lifting on behalf of the story, with the image drawing attention to the words. The words drawing attention to the image.

Some examples of Seventeen Syllable Poetry

Two examples of Seventeen Syllable work. I find that the need for brevity forces the introduction of a wistful, perhaps spiritual effect – rather like music played in a minor key.

Example #1: the only

To Claim a Poetic Form - Image 1 Moon and Cloud (https://seventeensyllablepoetry.wordpress.com/)

the only cloud
a traveler
through the blue

only witness

the moon

Example #2: bloom burst

To Claim a Poetic Form - Image 2 Allium flower (https://seventeensyllablepoetry.wordpress.com/)

the stamens have begun
rising

an allium
bursting
into bloom

Your view?

What is your view? Do you write to favorite poetic forms?

What is the attraction for you.

Do you favour mastery of form, or the elevation of content?

I’d love to hear, and if you’d like to read more seventeen syllable poetry. Click this link and check it out.

Exercises on the Inspiration for Writing #02 December 4th 2019 – the flight of fancy

In my working life it becomes necessary from time to time for me to attend workshops and to learn or re-learn some aspect of my professional endeavors. I generally find these little retreats quite interesting and engaging, but by the second half of the day, I sometimes find my mind drifting off into contemplation of unrelated ideas and subject matter.

On one such occasion I found myself mentally bringing together the pristine expanse of golf course that I could see through the feature window – the 9th tee and beyond, as I recall – and the exquisite buffet that had been provided for lunch. At that time, some details of the cuisine escaped me – such as the arancini balls, which I hadn’t previously encountered.

For me, that is sufficient stimulus to cause a surreptitious scribbling of poetry onto note paper, when I should have been attending to the lecture.

The poem I wrote that day later became important to me as I used the title to form the basis of my publishing imprint (Wild Arancini Press). Here is the opening to the poem the hunt for the wild arancini:

the wild arancini
gallops
across the driving range

the golf club chef
so close behind him
holds his implements
up high

his cook’s knife

the roasting fork

a sharpening steel
held to his wrist
by a shortened length
of cord

the apron flies
a-flap
around his knees

his moustache
holds beaded sweat
while his jowls
are in full motion
and broad wobble

but he runs
full stretch
as a lion
might

the prey
leaps and bounds
more like
a gazelle . . .

Read the rest of the poem the hunt for the wild arancini, here.

How can you participate? Use my discussion as a prompt to write a poem or some prose on your own blog about a place that has inspired you, then create a pingback to the prompt page or post your link in the comment section – (please check to ensure your link appears in one form or another). Find out more about pingbacks here.

Around the start of each new month (or six months as it has been on this occasion), I’ll list participant links that have appeared as pingbacks or as posted links in the comment section of this post.

If you have any questions, or if you notice that I have messed up something in this process, drop me a line and I’ll probably manage to work it out.

Exercises on the Inspiration for Writing

Welcome to this new writing challenge endeavor!

I’ve recently decided that it would be useful for me to take a look through my poetry archives and contemplate the origins of poems, particularly to think about what might have inspired them at the time they were written.

I wondered also, if this might be something that others could participate in. If I share the inspiration, behind my archival piece, would visitors and writers be interested or willing to share a piece of work – old or new – using the discussion as a prompt, similarly to the way prompts are being used on a number of blog sites, at present.

Interested?

How can you participate? Use my discussion as a prompt to write a poem or some prose on your own blog, then create a pingback to the prompt page or post your link in the comment section – (please check to ensure your link appears in one form or another). Find out more about pingbacks here.

The first exercise is posted here.

Around the start of each new month, I’ll post a list participant links to encourage other bloggers to have a look at what inspires you.

If you have any questions, drop me a line and we’ll probably manage to work it out.

My thanks to and acknowledgement of the folk whose prompts I follow and often respond to. Check out the few I’ve listed below, and join a growing community of folk responding to prompts online.

Fandango’s One Word Challenge (FOWC)

Ragtag Daily Prompt

Reena’s Exploration Challenge

Cee Neuner has a quite comprehensive round up of Challenge or Prompt pages listed at her For the Love of Challenges page.