Clunes Booktown Festival

I was recently able to attend the Clunes Booktown Festival in my capacity as a publisher/bookseller, with a number of my titles available for sale. It was a fantastic weekend and I met a lot of people, and sold and signed a lot of books.

Our stall at Clunes

Creatures – there were many!

I didn’t have a lot of time for taking pictures, but there were a few new locals in the area.

The Bob McKinnon Memorial Poetry Slam

Once again, there was a Poetry Slam event held on the Saturday night. I was lucky enough to be a co-winner of this event last year and it is a wonderful evening to attend and listen, let alone participate.

I wasn’t so fortunate as to win this year – the prize going to a very classy lady of 92 years of age who was having a crack at this format for the very first time. The whole evening was a real treat.

My poem on the Theme of ‘Adaptation‘

The requirements of the Slam competition were for the theme of ‘adaptation’ to be incorproated or referenced, and for the poem to take less than 2 minutes to deliver (+/- 15 seconds).

I taped my own reading on my phone recorder so I could play it back to review afterwards, and thought you might enjoy listening, as well.

I have not edited the poem and if it’s a bit tinny, that is why. Hope you enjoy.

The Soldier – Adapting to Afghanistan

I found myself in contemplation this morning over my own experience of the ways in which a poem comes about.

While I think the answer to this contemplation might well be a movable feast, this morning’s conclusion was that much of the process comes down to two things: inspiration and structure.

Inspiration

It goes without saying, I think, that inspiration has to be involved in any artistic creation – visual, textual, or written. So, exactly what served today as an inspiration for a poem?

In recent times, I have been very focused on clouds and the sky as subjects for written work. In photographing clouds and subsequently writing poems arising from studying the pictures I have come to associate the sky with images in my mind of an ocean. Sometimes it has been impossible for me to recognise clouds because the image I ‘saw’ was of ocean and waves.

One of the first places I look now for inspiration is up at the sky.

Nothing but clear blue and a fierce sun. By way of background, at the time of writing, we are in the deeps of Summer where I live. Our daily temperatures have been in the area of 45 degrees Celsius. Our nights have been in the mid 20s until the wee hours of morning.

Still. It is what it is.

My mind took me once again to thoughts of the ocean, up in the sky. An unbroken blue ocean.

My first attempt to capture something of what I could see and feel went like this:

this ocean
is the sky above

I …

adrift
I am
no boat
no oar

just my hand
trailing
in the blue

Structure

I’m not a great one for poetic structures. Those who have read my work know that it’s rare for me to stray from free-verse. I get itchy and irritable if rhyme and form come too close to my writing place.

However.

One experiment with structure that I have much enjoyed over a period of perhaps two years has been to to write with a restriction. Seventeen syllables, to be precise.

Not haiku or haibun or or any variant of eastern poetry, simply my free verse with a seventeen syllable restriction.

The above piece of work has 25 syllables and is, to my mind, neither fish nor fowl. Too short to be a long piece. Too long to be a short.

The task then became one of iteration and reiteration to try to achieve the gist of the first take, above, in a seventeen syllable frame, and with an image that would enhance the words, while reflecting the inspiration.

The result is below. I can’t place a judgement on the adequacy of the work, but I find it helpful to unravel the thinking that led to the end point.

I hope you enjoy the process, too.

I trail blue

ocean

sky

adrift
I am

no boat
no oar

one hand
trailing
in blue

~

don’t look
down

watch
the horizon line

the ground may seem
a long way
away

and vertigo
can make you
fall

so
don’t look down

no
don’t you look down
at all

~

A little peek inside the covers of the Small Town Kid e-book on Amazon. This poem – I can hardly wait to show you – is the preface piece for the collection.

Some very lovely things have been said about the Small Town Kid memoir, but they look a little lonely. Some more reviews posted to the places you visit for such things, or where you bought your copy would be a great boon for the book.

Don’t hold back. Tell us all what you think.

Happy Reading.