Tag Archives: Blithe Spirit

More Poetry

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My Orange Parker Pen

This is a tanka prose that was first published in Blithe Spirit 36.1, the journal of the British Haiku Society, in February this year. It is different from the original version, which was about eggs and lockdown and parents. This is about writing a poem and cooking eggs. It deviates slightly from reality as I mention coffee, where we always have tea for breakfast. Tea doesn’t really smell so I took the lazy way out and said we had coffee so I could add an extra sense to the poem.

But first, a tanka, from the same issue. It is based on the annual culling of the Christmas card list as my circle of cousins decreases.

old Christmas card
displayed again
fading slightly
sent by a man
who will not send another

I thought that’s what it was about, anyway. Julia reads it as a story about the Christmas card I have been sending her since 1988. It’s a good one and the message is still relevant. Why waste money, I ask, on another?

 

Life, seen in a Frying Pan

In lockdown, I decided to make better scrambled eggs and wrote a poem in my head as I stirred and learned. It spilled onto paper, took shape and, like the eggs, looked good. On the first rejection I checked all the words and moved them into better order. On the second I added an anecdote, on the third an allegory. At the fourth attempt I slimmed it down.

After five attempts I wondered if it might be bad, or if editors might dislike poems about scrambled eggs. When you think about it, it isn’t a subject you ever see. Eventually it faded from my mind, as poems like it often do. Recently, stirring eggs and making breakfast for my wife, I breathed in the toast and coffee smells and remembered the first line.

five eggs
two broken yolks
a speck of shell
things which are not perfect
still turn out well

The pen that Julia made at the wood turning group

Coconuts, Curry and Customer Service

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I thought I’d go for three posts today.

The day continued with coconut macaroons which Julia bought on her way home, plenty of tea and a takeaway curry. Yes, standards are declining. I meant to cook while she was out, but went to sleep in front of TV after lunch (I missed that bit out in the last post, I expect).

After that there was a bit more poetry, some computer games and a bit of TV. All in all the third part of the day was a little bereft of interest.

Apart from the recent issue of Blithe Spirit, the magazine of the British Haiku Society. I’ve had it a couple of days but only started to read it today. I’m not in it because I missed the cut-off date last time. I may, of course, not have been in it anyway, as nothing is guaranteed in these matters. (I’m not in the upcoming issue of The Haibun Journal either – and I did submit to them. I just didn’t make the cut. I report my successes, so it’s only fair I report some of the rejections too.)

Having said that, there are at least five haiku in Blithe Spirit which are familiar, as they are very close to things I have written. That’s good news in a way, as it means I must be on the right track. It’s also bad news, as I can’t submit mine now without looking like I’m plagiarising. This is a danger with a popular form of poetry with a long list of rules and a short list of subjects. And a small number of syllables – you aren’t going to find many elephants or mergansers in haiku – but plenty of frogs and crows. It’s all about the syllables.

More domestic, but still as important, my TESCO shopping order was a disappointment again. I had four things missing including bin bags, apples, toilet roll and something I forget. This is annoying, particularly as I like their toilet roll (it’s one of the reasons I persist with their second -class delivery system) and it was out of stock last month too. On the other hand, I did get four loaves of bread. I don’t know how that happened but it did seem to add things I hadn’t ordered this week. I spotted most of them but obviously didn’t spot the extra bread.

Fortunately, they did have the cheesy footballs so Christmas is safe.

The featured image is of a goat statue in Llandudno. We missed a good photo of one of the wild ones. Again, I really should post on the goats. But I don’t. I just bang on about poetry, customers and sleeping in front of the TV.

Day 140

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I’ve just been looking at a recent haibun, which I had thought I might reprint it in the blog. When I looked at it I found that, despite it being accepted and published, and despite my various edits and improvements before submission, it still has faults. It’s strange how that happens. There are at least two corrections needed in the space of 200 words. I suppose this will always be the problem with written work. It seemed finished when I submitted it, but the faults are clear and jarring.

Looking at it with fresh eyes shows more clearly what an editor may see when looking at my work. They aren’t even complicated faults – one being a fault with rhythm and one being a repeated word.

The piece I have used, could be better, and I have had a couple of thoughts for improvement, but nothing leaps out at me immediately. I’m now wondering about the idea of leaving everything for an extra three months before submitting it.

 

Quiet Corner

As a child, I attended a village school where the playground shared a wall with the churchyard. On one side of the wall we played and shouted. On the other, a line of small mossy memorials marked the graves of babies. Having grown up knowing that I had a sister who had died before I was born, I accepted, as did most people, that babies died. Years later, staring in wonder at my firstborn, I would think about those stones again, the tiny bodies that they covered, and from a new perspective, the parents.

snail shells
the song thrush uses gravestones
for an anvil

First Published Blithe Spirit February 2022