Do you remember a few days ago when I said ” from today I am going to set targets and become a writing machine”. Well I did. I set up my poem factory and set to work. I also found a few places to make more submissions and decided to target haiku. As a result, I had an acceptance today.
It’s part of the power of positive thinking. I was going to get rid of some books last week. They are mainly old sales and marketing books passed on by my Dad, but with some motivational books too.. Many of them are actually still relevant as good sales technique and positive thinking never goes out of fashion. There’s no mystique about it despite all the stuff that’s written. To make sales you ask the decision-maker for the order. To achieve success through positive thinking you do something, and you do it now.
That’s what I did – I wrote poems, I showed them to an editor and one was selected.
No jargon, no mystique, no spirituality, despite the reams of rubbish written on the subject. Just plain common sense.
The poem factory is a similar no nonsense set-up. It is anathema to all the proper, spiritual poets out there. They believe (and this is particularly true with haiku) that you should experience “a moment” and compose the poem there and then. Good on them. I’ve done it sometimes, but it’s not common.
Poems which are stitched together from memory or manufactured from two moments or, heaven forbid, simply made up, are known. scornfully. as desk-ku. It’s becoming slightly more common to admit to them now, but there’s still some snobbery on the subject. Even the old masters did them, but the myth of the haiku moment persists.
Anyway, I write a list of ideas or prompts, or open up file of old photos, or even open a book of poetry and mine it for ideas. As T S Eliot said “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.” I am, I feel, perfectly capable of taking an idea from a poem without copying the idea or the wording of the poem.
This is one I took from life, rather than nature.
I have dustier piles – trust me on this
a pile of books
the dust settles on my
good intentions
(First Published in Failed Haiku – forgot the date.)
This one is from nature, and done in the moment, but it doesn’t really convey the misty morning and the salty wind as we walked and watched seals.
Sea Buckthorn. I promise you there were goldfinches too, but I couldn’t get a good shot.
goldfinches
calling from the sea buckthorn
bright berries
(First Published in Presence 71)
This one was completely made up, but all the bits were true. Robins sing, blackthorn blooms early in the year and at the time, during Covid, we were forced to queue outside shops. I wrote it after queuing for a shop. I needed some props so I added the bird, the song and the blackthorn. Does it make me a bad man?
a robin
sings from the blackthorn
—we queue for the shop
(First published Wales Haiku Journal Spring 2021)
Robin – singing. OK, it’s in holly, but give me a break.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
(Macbeth, William Shakespeare).
I may start stealing from Shakespeare next. Let’s face it, he stole all the time.
