Category Archives: poetry

Writing and Rewriting

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My first activity of the day, if you exclude getting both legs in my trousers and eating breakfast, which are both serious pursuits for a newly retired man, was to call up my folder of moribund haibun. These are the ones that I like, but which seem to lack the final touch. Or the ones that have been rejected several times, but which I still have faith in. Or, to be blunt – the ones that are one press of the button away from the file marked “Storage”, but which could equally be called “Elephant’s Graveyard”. I have dropped a few in there recently and am looking for more.

The one in question was, according to my cunning filing system, started in 2022. The 24th October, to be precise – I can say that with confidence because I just remembered how to find that information – perhaps I am at last becoming computer literate. It has been submitted three times, rejected three times, and left alone for quite a while, as, to be fair to the rejecting editors, it wasn’t very interesting. It is one of those poems that, once the initial attraction wore off, became dull and stale.

Winter trees at Little Gidding

Well, the good news is that I have cut the word count by 25% and replaced or reordered a substantial number of the remaining 75%. I’m actually quite keen to send it out again, and I think I know who it’s going to. He has always rejected my haibun, so it will be a good test.

This poem recycling is going quite well. Earlier in the week, whilst clearing out, I found a few line which had petered out, and realised that some of them would fit in with another poem that was parked in poetic purgatory. That one traces its origins back to  a poem I managed to lose on my last computer. so I don’t know the full history. I know that I mentioned Fotheringhay in 2017, and again in 2021. From the second post I know that I must have started the poem in April or May 2012. It’s been out four times and has not yet been accepted.

Edit: That should read “I must have started the poem in April or May 2021.” 

Once again rewritten, and with a couple of lines dropped in from a poem that never really got going, it’s looking a lot better. It probably needs looking at again, but I am confident it still has some life in it.

Remains of Fotheringhay castle

Sixteen Swimming Swans

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Mute Swan – Rufford Abbey

This morning I thought of several poems whilst I was on the way back from dropping Julia off. This is the same time frame where I used to have all my best ideas. My brain is awake but the task of driving on a fairly clear road is not too demanding. At that point thoughts come into my head. I actually had my first idea before we left home, had a second as I dropped her off and had several more on the way home. No pad, no voice recorder, just me repeating things to myself.

When I reached home I noted the ideas down and wrote the prose sections for five haibun. That’s more than I did in the last months – the ones I’ve submitted have all been written for ages and I have merely worked my way through them without originating anything. They have had a few tweaks, and have needed a haiku or a tanka here and there, but generally all my recent acceptances have been written for months. That, of course, is how it is supposed to be. People who know these things advise leaving work to mature.

Mute Swan at Clumber Park

I just looked back and realise that I have had three months this year when I have submitted nothing and that everything I have had accepted since March has been, and been rejected, at least once.

Since this morning I have had two more ideas, though I have not settled to write them yet. Even poets have to wash up and drink tea. One of the ideas is actually about drinking tea.

Swan at National Arboretum

If you’ve ever followed my creative process you will have noticed that things change and I’m more of an artisan than an artist. I don’t really have a creative process, despite what I just wrote. In three months it’s quite likely that the reflections on drinking tea will have become a poem about eating sandwiches. That’s how it goes. That’s how my poem about two swans flying by became a poem about sixteen swans swimming, and was eventually accepted and published as a poem about a cormorant.

If a poet’s studio is a serene place of beauty where words flow and great thoughts are written in flowing calligraphy, mine is more like a backstreet workshop where power tools scream and where things are bolted together roughly and beaten into shape with hammers.

Eventually I will rewrite the one about the two swans flying by.  I liiked it and it contained an idea that didn’t work with cormorants.

Guess what the theme of today’s photos is . . .

 

The Day the Words Returned

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I was driving back from dropping Julia at work this morning when I found myself composing poetry in my head. This is the first time for months that this has happened. Probably six months. In that time I have been ill, depressed, short of inspiration etc. That’s proof – at school they always used to say etcetera meant you had run out of ideas.

My WP spellchecker does not like etcetera, so I checked et cetera. It doesn’t like that either, although both forms are considered correct by other authorities. It’s OK with etc though, with or without the full stop. This confirms my thoughts about spellcheckers and the people who develop them.  This isn’t another discussion of American spelling, more a comment on the assumptions made by the purveyors of computer software. Why is it assumed that I would want to take the language of Shakespeare and the King James Bible and consign it to the waste paper bin of history, in favour of a language which has no concept of the existence of a full length word for etc and thinks that favour is a mis-spelling?

My Orange Parker Pen

Did you find that last sentence understandable. I recall that sentences of up to 20 words are considered best. At 30 or 35 you get to a length where people have difficulty grasping it. That one has just run on to 55 words. I counted them after i found I couldn’t see an easy way of trimming it.

You are a poor sample to ask, as you are all clearly of above average intelligence (and above average in many other areas too), but I was curious to see if I got away with it and produced a readable 55 word sentence. That one is only 43 words long. Until I started looking I always thought I wrote short sentences. I’m clearly going to have to start looking at my readability indexes again.

And so, in a short opening paragraph, I tell you the poetry has returned, and in the rest of it, I ramble on. Sorry about that. However, I can’t stay chatting, I have poetry to write, and probably a second blog post to compose.

Orange Parker Pen

A Pause, Some Thoughts and a Conclusion

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I just finished making three submissions. I wavered between six submissions and two, so three is a compromise.  The three I sent off involved five poems, which were more or less complete when I started looking for poems earlier in the week. The three I didn’t make would involve fifteen tanka, and I have none written, apart from a few that have already been rejected several times. When I was in this position a few months ago I rushed some into existence and got two rejections from the three. It doesn’t seem worth rushing to submit something that makes it look like you can’t write decent poetry. I will wait and apply myself to gradually getting back up to speed.

The truth is that I prefer writing about collectables, even if the results are only seen by a few members of the Numismatic Society on Facebook.

We had breakfast out yesterday. It was partly to avoid doing something else and partly to establish a pattern of me going out. Julia thinks that I need to go out more. I don’t.

Breakfast at Harvester is not the all you can eat blowout it used to be.  I’d been looking forward to a touch of fruit and cereal, a moderate Full English and several slices of  toast with honey. They don’t do it like that now. The big breakfast option (three sausages, three rashers of bacon, two eggs, half a poorly cooked tomato, one watery mushroom, beans, three hash browns, one tiny slice of black pudding  and a couple of slices of toast, was big and, at £9.99 was reasonable value by today’s standards.

In terms of quality it wasn’t as good as it could have been. Same goes for the experience – it used to be quite a leisurely and relaxing way to eat breakfast but now, wit6h no honey or marmalade and the other changes, it isn’t so relaxing.

I could have done with the smaller breakfast option but the only way to get black pudding was to order the larger breakfast. To pay £2 for an extra sausage, extra rasher of bacon, tiny black pudding slice and, I think, an extra hash brown. I just checked – yes you do get an extra hash brown. You are supposed to get two tomatoes and two mushrooms, which I didn’t get. Cheapskates. Though considering the poor cooking of the mushroom and tomato I may not have wanted more.

The moral of the story is that as prices rise quality,  whether of food or service or relaxation, seems to go down.

Note too how they say the toast is free, as if it is a special bonus offer. Sorely it is a normal part of breakfast, as are the preserves to put on it.

Anyway, there you go. Went to Harvester. had a late breakfast, didn’t need to eat again until we had soup and a sandwich in the evening. Probably good value by modern standards but too much food for me as I try to lose weight, and deficient in far too many ways. Will be giving it a miss in future, unless I am seized by a sudden desire for boiled mushrooms and half a lightly warmed tomato.

I just looked at my emails – I already have an acceptance. It took 34 minutes and is a new record. I am now officially feeling more enthusiastic about writing poetry.

This is Julia’s breakfast – I had scrambled eggs. It is, however, my elbow that you can see across the table.

Returning to Writing

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Sorry, I’ve become a bit hit and miss recently. Yesterday it occurred to me that it’s a good thing I’m not still at work,  because I’d have been off for most of the last month. It’s a lot more relaxing being retired than it was when i was simply off work. One day I may examine the difference, but for now I will just say that as a pensioner, the pay is better than when you are merely ill, and for some reason the time passes more easily.

The sun is going down as I type, though there is plenty of time to go before the sky takes on any colour. At the moment it is merely sinking and the light is shining off the various leaves in the garden. Holly, privet, roses, bamboo, conifers are all reacting differently to the light – some reflecting it, others allowing it to shine through, and it is quite an interesting garden view, considering that it is mainly green.

It feels like I’m returning to writing again, after a lay off of several months. I have not submitted anything since March and missed a couple of significant submission chances last month. Time to get back in the game before I lose the habit. In coaching they used to say it only takes a fortnight to lose a habit, which is awkward, considering that most people take a two week holiday, almost ensuring they they lose all their good habits. This has always given me pause for thought.

Twenty years ago, as I think I told you in a previous post, I did actually stop writing and it took me years to get back into the swing of things, It took me something like two years of constant practice to start producing usable pieces, even though I wrote thousands of words a week. This blog is a result of some of those early practice attempts.

I’m hoping it will be easier this time. I had better give it a serious go tonight, as there’s only a week left until submissions windows close at the end of the month and both the journals in question are ones I would like to be in.

Stone on the Floor

The Meaning of Life in 42 Words

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Derrick challenged me to write a post on the meaning of life in 42 words. In accepting his challenge I have added a new level of difficulty and done it in the style of the well-known poet Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings, reputedly the worst poet in the Universe. I have to say, in her defence, that I’m not sure this fair, but the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was written before internet poetry blogs caught on. Anyway, read my homage before judging who is worse.

A big introduction and . . .
nothing.

A bit like retirement
or clicking the link to see
what the man found in his back garden

At the end,
the bucket list, a dolphin and a dead swan.

On the list
Item number forty two . . . 

Yes, that does it.  Could be better, could be worse.  Anyone else fancy a go?

Sunset, Notts

A Brief Outline of the Day to Come

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It feels like a poetry day today. I have been building up to it and as I only have 17 days until the end of the month, I really need to get a move on.

The last few days have been research days and I am making progress towards (a) an article and (b) the talk for the Numismatic Society. It occurred to me last night that to finish the article I will need some photographs, so that can’t be finished until I next visit Suffolk (not sure when that will be). The talk, on the other hand needs a lot more work and I need to get a move on. Most of the work I did yesterday (plus some I must do today to complete it) went into researching what will end up as a couple of minutes in the talk. That needs photos too. He was a local man so this will include at least one picture of a house he lived in (maybe 2, but I think the rest have been demolished) and  his grave. Possibly the grave of his son-in-law too, depending on how far I spread the research.

That’s another place where I miss Julia. She wouldn’t let me spend hours sitting over a keyboard, she’s make me get up and do something, which is sometimes annoying, but also sometimes a good thing. Last night, after a day tapping away with bad posture, I felt like i was tied in knots.

When I finish this I’m going to have another cup of tea and sit in front of the TV

for a while as I revert to the old ways and make some poetry notes with a pad and a fountain pen.

My Orange Parker Pen

 

Poetry, Proverbs and Poppies

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I’m feeling a bit like the proverbial full bookshelf. It’s the one where you force another book into it and something falls off the end . . .

I’ve been writing more about coins and medals recently – the three short articles for the Numismatic Society’s Facebook page are the thin end of the wedge, I’m preparing others too – and I seem to have stopped writing poetry, as if it just fell off the end of the shelf. One minute it was there, now it’s gone. I have three unopened poetry magazines and nothing in the pipeline.

 

This has coincided with doing more reading again (which is a bit like recharging my batteries after so much poetry writing), more research and more retirement planning.

Little Gidding

I’ve just had three poems published, while I’m on the subject. Not sure if I’ve posted the link before (my memory is getting worse). The magazine is Contemporary Haibun Online, which is always worth a read and I am here, here and here. Sorry, I suppose I could be more subtle or inventive with the links, but I’m not.

 

In themselves, they are a great indicator of time passing. Poetic time is very distorted. One poem actually started five or six years ago. It has changed substantially since I started it, and been rejected four times. Two others were written last autumn after I went to a couple of family funerals. One harks back to a time when I was 16. That is now 50 years ago. That thought is hard to grasp. I have let 50 years slip by and would be hard pressed to tell you anything I have done in that time.

Maybe that’s the theme for my next poem.

It’s poppy time again

Poetry and Puffins

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Puffin at Bempton Cliffs

On a good day, when I’m concentrating and moderately free from distraction, I can do a couple of thousand words a day without thinking. Actually, if you’ve read the blog before, you will know that I don’t think.

Recently I have been having a problem trying to write some factual pieces about medallions and sweetheart brooches and that hasn’t been going so well. It takes a lot more planning and fact checking than just rattling off opinions, and I’ve been going very slowly.

Even writing poetry takes less effort than writing a short article. There is, after all, little fact checking to do when writing from imagination.

Strangely, I had a knock back recently from an editor who said something didn’t make logical sense to him. I’d referred to a fire, and also to something happening later, and he couldn’t square the two ideas as he thought the fire would have burnt out. To me, the two thoughts were not linked, and I wondered why a poem had to make logical sense. I’m not sure, for instance, that Dylan Thomas intended us to believe that his father could speak words that literally caused lightning flashes, or that he actually caught the sun in flight. Logically this is nonsense of a high degree. Not quite as nonsensical as Lear and his mimsy borogoves, but nonsense all the same.

Would the same editor, I wonder, have turned down Do not go gentle into that good night for being illogical, or Jabberwocky for not making sense?

You never know. A different editor making decisions and it’s possible that the poetry in the UK could have developed in a completely different way.

And there you go. Twenty minutes. A idea. And a distinct lack of heavyweight thinking. It will be 300 words by the time I have finished and there are plenty more where they came from.

Calling Puffin – Bempton Cliffs

In fact, have some more. Do you remember my trips to see Puffins? They rely on sand eels to feed their young. They are suffering from the lack of sand eels, as are Kittiwakes, and numbers of birds, already hit by bird flu, are falling seriously. Puffins and Kittiwakes are now on the Red List, which is a list of threatened species. They are classed as Vulnerable, due to rapid population decline. It’s not as bad as being Endangered, but it’s far from comfortable.

So to help them, the British Government has banned sand eel fishing in our waters in the North Sea, The EU and, particularly the Danes, have challenged this, It seems they don’t think we should be able to do what we like within out territorial waters. Despite the picture you may have of Danes, from listening to Sandi Toksvig on TV (and notice how she actually lives in the UK, not in Denmark), and all this talk of hygge, they aren’t as nice as they seem.

Puffin

I don’t just base this on their attitude to our territorial waters and their hatred of Puffins. They have had a poor attitude to our seas for over a thousand years, after all. Remember, today’s smiling Dane in a shell of knitwear is just a Viking in disguise. The sand eels that they catch end up in fish meal which is used in factory farming. I’m not necessarily against the Danes and their intensive pig production, as I do like a bacon sandwich, but it has to be said that the Danish bacon industry is morally ambiguous, as is my consumption of bacon sandwiches. However, I’m not intent on wiping out Puffins, and would give up bacon in an instant if I thought it would help.

That’s 600 words. Sometimes I surprise myself.

Puffins at Bempton

 

The Promised Second Post of the Day

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Several years ago I was a member of the Poetry Society. The poetry in The Poetry Review was a bit highbrow for me, and I’m not very sociable so the constant emails from the local group were a bit irritating. This was particularly so as they circulated my email address to every other member of the group, which resulted in some spam. It wasn’t a massive problem but I could have done without it.

Eventually, after disappearing without trace when I entered the National Competition (members got a second entry free), I sent some submissions to the magazine. Well, you have to try, don’t you? I was rejected. I didn’t mind that, I’ve been rejected plenty of times. I did slightly mind the tone of the rejection, though I’ve been rejected in a patronising manner more than once. I’m sure it will happen again, particularity in a field where many practitioners have two or three degrees.

What I did mind was the suggestion, contained in a link, that I might like to make use of the Poetry Society’s  editing service. I can’t remember how much it used to cost, but it wasn’t the cost that annoyed me – it was the inappropriate nature of rejecting poems and then trying to sell the services of the society.

Much the same thing happened today. A magazine that turned me down a few weeks ago has just written. I can, it seems, send them £3 and they will send me the title of the poem they were interested in. And next month, if I send another £12 they will tell me why it was better than my other poems, give me their thoughts on it and, possibly, advice on developing it. They left the £12 until the end.

It may well be that I need to take advice, but it’s the manner in which it’s offered. Plus, to be honest, I have had some good advice on haibun from various editors, who have done it all free of charge. Some of them are very successful and have multiple collections published, so it’s good advice.

And that’s what I want to moan about.

Sorry if it seems ungracious to editors, but after one from a haibun magazine spent several emails on suggesting improvements (two major and several smaller ones) the other one suggesting that I should pay £3 just to find out which was their preferred poem, followed by £12 more for a few thoughts, hit a raw nerve.

I know they have costs to cover. I’m in three societies, have subscriptions to five magazine regularly buy single issues of others and buy about half a dozen poetry books a year, so I’m trying to spread a little money around. However, I’m sure that haibun magazines have just the same costs as the ones trying to charge for advice.

My Orange Parker Pen