Tag Archives: poetry

A Good Day in which Bad Things Happened

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Crocus at Nottingham

Now, where was I?  I’ve had a message from NHS on my phone telling me that I have  new appointment with Urology for the end of April and can expect a letter shortly. I’ve had a letter, which tells me something completely different and which answers none of the questions I asked have been answered but there are a few phrases thrown in which appear to be fudging round the issue. I would say, looking at it, that they have had the letter, decided not to treat it seriously, throw in a few phrases like “administrative error” (without actually admitting one).

The letter, which arrived next day, tells me I must ring them to arrange a further appointment or they will remove me from the list.

It appears that the letter mentioned in the phone message is not the one that arrived. So yet again, I have two contradictory letters. Fortunately, though uncomfortable, I am not in poor health as a result. However, if this carries on much longer I might be.

Daffodils

I’ve also had two other phone calls. One told me that a recent urine sample shows signs of an infection and in view of my recent medical history I should probably have antibiotics. That might explain why I have been feeling under the weather recently, but apart from that vague feeling I have had no sign of illness. The other wanted me to make an appointment for a face to face discussion of my recent blood tests. This is driving Julia mad, as she suspects it means something bad is about to happen.

I assume that if something bad was about to happen they wouldn’t leave it for two weeks. However, I won’t make too many predictions because if it does turn out to be bad I don’t want to look like an idiot.

Tulips

Despite all this, the actual big news of the day is a rejection. It’s probably  good thing, as it has given me something to moan about instead of the NHS. It was a submission I nearly didn’t make at the end of last month. It features a guest editor, a submission limit of three tanka (rather than the usual 10), and a theme.

I have not had a lot of luck with guest editors over the years, though there is no sensible reason why they should be more difficult to satisfy than regular editors. Three poems, which is a standard number for anthologies and competitions, always seems to give you a lower chance of acceptance than magazines allowing ten, though again, if they are good enough, one would be plenty. And finally, the theme. I hate themes and often avoid submitting when they are required. I write poems. Themes are more like writing exercises.

Early irises at Harlow Carr

It’s always annoying to get a rejection, particularly in the middle of a good run, but these things happen. It’s also annoying to get rejected when I didn’t hold out high hopes in the first place. It is too easy, as I used to do as a beginner, to blame circumstances and develop a myth about certain things. There is no reason why a guest editor should be difficult, or why just submitting three should reduce my chances of acceptance.

The prejudice against themes, I will retain. They are fair enough in anthologies but I see little use for them in other publications.

It’s tempting to go off on a rant about other things i don’t like in making submissions, but I will resist the temptation. If poems are good enough they will be accepted.

Celandines

However, as I was told today, acceptance is subjective and another editor may have made a different choice. That’s meant to be encouraging, and implies that my submission is good enough to be selected by a different editor. Unfortunately, read another way, it implies that no matter how brilliant the poem, the spectre of rejection is always there if an editor take as against it.

The day, despite the NHS and rejection, was excellent, but that will have to wait for another post, as this is heading for 700 words and I need to get to bed.

The pictures will be spring flowers from various years. The crocuses, and even a few daffodils are appearing and this is one of my favourite times of year.

Japanese Quince – Arnot Hill Park

More Good News and Some Trivia

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This is the Sunday post I prepared then forgot to load.

The news so far is that I had a tanka accepted on Saturday and a Haibun accepted tonight (by an editors who has been known to reject me, repeatedly, in the past). That is four acceptances from eleven submissions and I am feeling happy. Editors in Japanese style poetry are far more industrious than regular poetry editors, though I suspect that they aren’t hit by the same avalanche of hopeful poets. I’m still feeling slightly comatose after the efforts of getting all eleven submissions out, so sorry I haven’t been reading other blogs.

Talking of editors, one replied within the day and the other three averaged about four days. This is good, even by the standards of the genre. I expect they will all be in within two weeks, leaving just the two traditional magazines to reply. One will take a couple of months if they run to form and the other tells me that if I don’t hear from them after 12 weeks I can assume I have been rejected.

You can see why I am more enthusiastic about writing Japanese style poetry, can’t you?

Meanwhile, in pursuit of other things I have been adding to my store of general knowledge. The body of Napoleon II, son of Napoleon I and cousin of Napoleon III was originally buried in Austria, where he had lived in exile with his mother since the defeat of his father. He reigned twice, once for two days after his father’s initial defeat and once for 15 days after Waterloo. To be fair, his father’s wish for him to succeed was never going to be granted by the allies, and at the age of three he wan’t in much of a position to dispute the decision to depose the House of Bonaparte. He died young, in 1832 and remained in peace until 1940 when Adolf Hitler stepped in and ordered that the remains should be sent to Paris to be interred in the tomb of his father. His heart and viscera remain in Vienna, which is a tradition of the Hapsburgs.

At least the treatment of his body parts has been more dignified than that of some of his father’s parts.

A Poem from Drifting Sands

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This is from Drifting Sands Issue 24. If you use the link you can view me in situ by scrolling down to Simon Wilson, or look on page 53. I’m fairly sure I haven’t posted this one before, though as we have noted, my memory is not all it used to be.

Young and old . . . and gone
Saturday afternoon. We are having a garage clear out. Two kid’s bicycles, sports kit and a
child-sized tent are piled on the ground. Garden tools, not used for years, are lined up against
the house—the leaf blower with the intermittent electrical fault, a long-handled wire brush for
weeding the gaps between paving slabs, a tool with three hooked tines . . .

Distant shouts drift from a cricket match, an Amazon driver delivers something across the
road, and magpies roam the gutters, searching for water. If they find any they scoop at it
eagerly and hold back their heads to drink. The sunshine brings out the iridescent blues and
greens in the black plumage, and lights up the falling water droplets. I decide that tea would
be a good idea. My wife sits on a camping stool and I balance on the chair with the loose leg as
we sip the hot brew. We find a box of cassette tapes. They seemed so modern at the time. She
picks out one by Ian Dury and asks if I remember that night in Sheffield. Looking at the
growing pile we wonder why we needed it, and why we kept it all this time.

the garden harvest
tomato juice runs down
my chin

 

The pictures come from May 2020 and were selected at random. I really should be more sensitive and use photos that match the poem.

Organising My Writing

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I need 27 tanka and 13 Haibun/Tanka Prose to send off before the end of the month. It seems like a lot, but to be honest, I have a few tanka done and even if I didn’t I can easily knock two dozen off in a couple of days. They won’t be my best work but if I’m honest, I could spend a lifetime writing 24 poems and still not feel they were good enough. Do them, move on, learn, improve.

The Haibun and Tanka Prose, look like more of a problem, though I do actually have about 23 that are complete or nearly complete when I count them up. Again, it’s that old story – I can mess with them for years without them seeming good enough, so I may as well just send them as soon as they seem acceptable. I hope that if I keep writing I will eventually learn to write better.

Next month I need 3 Haibun and 3 Tanka Prose. That will be easy as most editors ask for up to three then return two. I can almost guarantee that if I send the rejects out some will be accepted.

Talking of working on Haibun for years, there are several that have been knocking about for a couple of years now, including some that I’ve never sent out. The truth is that no matter how much you improve the writing, some of the subjects are so dull or so convoluted that they just don’t work.  I will have  Spring Clean next month and send them into storage.

There is a variety in this lot – ducks (one of my favourite subjects), insomnia, age, family stories, religion, funerals, pigs, wheelbarrows, prostate problems . . .

My life is a rich seam of inspiration, though it’s fair to say that my mind does not inhabit the higher planes of human existence.

As for the rest of the day, I slept badly and woke up feeling tired. However, it is Sunday, so I turned over, ignored Julia’s suggestion that I might like to get up and make her breakfast, and woke two hours later with a bad back.

Yes, I too believe that sleep was cursed by my cavalier disregard for my wife’s feelings regarding breakfast.

Unfortunately, one thing goes wrong and everything else follows. I dressed slowly, got my feet stuck in my trousers and struggled to get my slipper socks on. If you put them on before your trousers they get caught, if you put them on after it can be tricky bending your knees enough to reach. And if you don’t put them on, your feet get cold.

It’s not been too bad since then, though the decision to watch Supervized proved to be a bad one. It’s a film with a good central concept, a generally mediocre cast (though I always like to see Clive Russell, and a poor script.

We are having pork and roast veg for tea, and Julia has just walked past with it, so if you will excuse me, I need to go . . .

(It was very good, so good that I ate, watched the Pottery Throw-Down and forgot to post this until I woke, still asleep in my chair.)

Orange Parker Pen

 

Blog, Think, Eat Sausages

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A Seasonal Robin

When I started this blog I was afraid that it would be another one that just fizzled out. However, unlike the previous ones I did have something to write about every day as life at Quercus Community unfolded.

The other thing was that I wasn’t sure that people would want to read about what I was doing. How dare I, I asked myself, expect that people would find my daily activities interesting?

Well, after writing over 3,000 posts, I think we can agree that I managed to keep going. The other thing, I still wonder. I seem to be attracting 30 or 40 people a day to have a look at what I’m writing, and I still can’t understand that. My life is still dull and pointless, probably even more than when I started the blog. However, my modesty and reticence have disappeared. I used to worry about boring people, but these days I couldn’t care less. This is me, I’m happy to blether on about my tedious life and if you are happy to read about it you are welcome.

Today’s main thought is that I wish I’d been braver as a young man and led a more interesting life. I let a lot of adventures and opportunities slip by and, in playing safe, always seemed to end up with something that was second best. That doesn’t apply to Julia, before anyone mentioned it. I did well there and still don’t know how I managed it. I suppose I was quite brave in that case.

I have another brave decision to make now – ASDA or TESCO. ASDA (Walmart for those of you in USA) is cheaper, but the food quality is not always as good.  TESCO is more expensive, the service isn’t quite as good, but it is possible to eat their sausages, where I always feel that I wouldn’t eat ASDA sausages unless they paid me. That’s the false economy zone – you can buy good sausages from ASDA but they cost more. I’m sure supermarkets have quite large departments to make sure this sort of thing happens, so the customer never quite knows what to do.

If I save £10 on shopping I can use it towards an on-line poetry course and learn to write like Carol-Anne Duffy. If I shop at TESCO, on the other hand, I know that I can trust the economy sausages, which means we will have a good meal and can slice the rest for sandwiches. To be honest, I like sausage sandwiches and Carol-Anne Duffy does a decent job without me imitating her, so it looks like sausages win over culture. It won’t be the first time.

Sausages on the farm

Tanka & Tanka Prose

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I’ve covered Haiku. I’ve covered Haibun. “Covered” may be over-stating the case – probably safer to say I’ve added a few random thoughts to the thousands of words of serious debate that goes into the subject. I’m now going to do Tanka and Tanka Prose in one go. They are simpler than the others, so I can do that.

A Tanka is a five line poem, originally with lines of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables. It is now, in English, a five line poem of variable syllable count. You are allowed to use poetic devices in writing it and you don’t have all the rules of a haiku. I avoided it for years, because I was having enough trouble with haiku and Haibun, then I realised it was a much more forgiving form.

Tanka means “little song”. It is complete in itself and a lot of them are love poems, because that’s what they were hundreds of years ago. They are still popular today and the royal family traditionally write them at New Year. Love, courtship, nature, impermanence, life, death, and marriage, sadness – that sort of thing.

I have to say that I took to it immediately. I’m now finding it a bit harder because I am, as usual, starting to worry about doing it well. It’s that internal editor again. There are some good articles here and here. Sorry to land you with lots of reading, but they explain it better than I can and, to be honest, Julia is cooking banana bread, which makes my brain close down. You will be getting very little thought from me for a while.

The tanka has the advantage of opening up the world of the Tanka Prose. The Tanka Prose is simply a Haibun that uses a tanka instead of a haiku – there is no Japanese name for it. This is  a shame as Tanka Prose is an inelegant name for an excellent poetic form. There is some discussion whether the prose piece should be written differently to the prose in a Haibun (because poets love complication), but I just write it and nothing bad seems to happen. Editors seem to think you can write in a variety of styles for Haibun, so I can’t see them tightening up on Tanka prose just yet. However, don’t bet on it, anything can happen . . .

However, for now, I love Tanka Prose because, quite simply, you can say what you want to say without the rules getting in the way. Sometimes you need rules, but sometimes you don’t.

Behind the waterfall at Newstead Abbey

I’ll just add a link and an example now, as I have covered most of what I need to say in the preceding two posts.

This is from Cattails October 2023.

There are lots of good poems in Cattails, I quote mine because I am the copyright holder, not because it is the best.

Crepuscular rays at Rufford Park

Crepuscular rays at Rufford Park

Paper Cities

Simon Wilson, UK

My wife’s mother watched American bombers glistening in the sky, saw the bombs fall
and, later helped clear the debris from the dropping of an atom bomb. She told me
stories of what happens when you drop incendiaries on a city of paper houses and
taught me how to fold a paper crane.

On the other side of the world my mother tried her gas mask on and practised hiding
under her school desk. In October 1940, a German bomber flew low across the school
and dropped two bombs. She picked up a piece of bomb casing in the school yard while
it was still warm.

We discuss this with the kids as we fold paper cranes for a school project. It means
more to them, when told in terms of grandmothers, than all the pictures on TV.

familiar folds
I have not made
the thousand yet . . .
one of the children asks
for blue and yellow paper

 

Haiku – an explanation

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Welcome to an explanation of Japanese poetry. I am writing it because I have been asked, not because I am filled with zeal to show off my knowledge, and by the end of the explanation I feel I can guarantee that nothing will be any clearer than when I started. This is the nature of Japanese poetry and the mist that surrounds it. In the UK we are still debating if poetry should rhyme, in America (the home of complexity) they are debating concepts which require at least two degrees before you can even start to understand the vocabulary they use. Look at most of the poet bios in an American haiku/Haibun magazine and you will see what I mean – degrees, stellar careers and huge numbers of publications are the norm.

However, I was asked, I have had a go and this is the result. This is just the haiku explanation. Haibun and tanka will be next.

A haiku is a poem of three lines with syllables arranged in a 5-7-5 pattern. Everybody knows that and it is there multiple times on the internet. Unfortunately, it isn’t true. It never was particularly accurate, and it hasn’t been representative of actual published haiku for years. Classic haiku writers didn’t always write in this format and the word syllable is wrong in this context.

The word which the Japanese use for a sound unit is “on” and it is much more, or less, than a syllable. The word “haibun”, to take information from Wiki, is four “on” rather than our two syllables and “on” is actually two “on” rather than one syllable. That is simple compared to the next fact – the word “kyo”, which is clearly two syllables in English, is one “on” in Japanese.

And that, when added to various opinions and translations, is why there is confusion.

The seventeen syllable model is alive and well in junior schools and various other places which need a quick fix for poetry writing classes. However, it is now generally accepted that if you are writing in English, 12 syllables are about right. It is considered desirable to write a poem that can be read in one breath, if you want a more aesthetic way of looking at things. I’m not sure about other languages, but I’m sure they all have definitions of varying subtlety.

That is the easy bit.

There are more rules than syllables, which is where I always get lost. In no particular order – haiku should be about nature, they should have a season word, they should be in two parts, they should be separated by a cutting word. There should be no repetition, rhyme, title or other poetic device. They should feature only concrete images. They shouldn’t be single sentences, shouldn’t be sarcastic and should involve “haiku aesthetics” – there are whole articles about aesthetics. It includes age, impermanence, being broken, being unknowable and other similar things.

If they don’t include this sort of thing they may be senryu, which are similar but without much of the baggage. They have extras in the form of human nature, sarcasm and even crudity.

Alternatively, it could just be a bad poem or a greeting card verse. And just to add another layer of mystery and complexity I will add some links in a moment. They are for reputable haiku magazines (you can tell they are reputable because they have been rejecting me for years) and here you will find poetry of exquisite quality which disobeys many of the rules I have just discussed.

Perhaps I’m not the best man to ask about this . . .

Heron’s Nest

Wales Haiku Journal (who used to accept some of my haiku but stopped when editors changed).

Cattails (who accept tanka, tanka prose and Haibun from me. I tried haiku but failed and gave up.)

Goose poem – Anderby Creek

Two Poems Published

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I finally found the energy to have a look round the net today. It’s been a while. My apologies to all the people I have been neglecting, I will get round to doing some meaningful reading and writing, I promise, but it’s going to take time.

I took a trip to CHO and found two poems by a sadly neglected Nottingham poet. He is currently being ignored by his wife who thinks he is now well enough to make his own hot drinks. After two weeks of fetching and carrying she has abandoned the nurturing model and is adopting the survival of the fittest model. This involves me using a kettle or dehydrating. A weak and quavery voice and a raspy breath is no longer, it seems, the way to get endless tea.

She will be sorry when I keep her awake tonight with the howling of random wheezes in my bronchial tubes.

Tomorrow I am having blood tests and, probably, another consultation with the doctor.

Tonight, however, I am going to provide links to my two poems that are in CHO. This is one that started off being about swans and ended up being about a cormorant.  No, I don’t know how I manged it either. Editing is a wonderful thing. And this is the other – it’s just another one about arthritic fingers so don’t get too excited. I really must try to write about larger themes this year.

I’m currently considering a poem on the importance of continued breathing. At the moment I’m still doing the research but if I continue my slow recovery it’s likely I could start writing it in a week or so. I’m also thinking of writing one about eating chocolate, not sure when I’ll write it but I’m off to try a bit of research now.

10p P is for Post Box

Too Cold to Work

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

It’s been a bit chilly this afternoon, so I spent it in front of the fire in the front room. Winter, I’m afraid, tends to depress my productivity. I have up to ten submissions to make this month and so far I’ve not made much impact. Being laid up for two weeks with the infection took some of the wind out of my sails and laziness did the rest. Really, I should be doing better than this and getting ahead.

I’ve had several bits published, including this. I’m near the foot of the list of contributors and you  can click the Simon Wilson link, or you can scroll down to page 53. I’ve also had a magazine with me in it, but no internet version. As usual I will let them have it for a month or so before quoting the poems. Or I may just forget about them – they are only average. The one I’ve supplied the link for is only average too, so don’t get your hopes up – just another tale of middle aged people (who am I kidding? we are elderly people) emptying out a garage (which, to be fair, is more a plan than an actual achievement).

Some people get out into nature, or world events. I write poems that take place in my back garden. I could probably produce a chapbook of poems from the garden.

A new book arrived today, which I am enjoying. I’m reading bits at random – it’s not the sort of book to go from beginning to end. It’s the Oxford Dictionary of Allusions in case you are wondering – a book of limited interest to most people, I admit.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

A Good Start and a Weak Finish

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Pom-pom Christmas Wreath

Another day and another new experience. I ended up standing on the landing at 5 this morning, writing notes that came into my head after I got up during the night. I was back in bed after a trip to the bathroom when I half composed/half dreamed a new poem. Rather than lose it I got up, searched for paper (it would happen on a night when I had no notebook to hand, wouldn’t it?) and scrawled as much as I could remember on the back of an envelope.

Whether it will ever amount to anything I don’t know, but at least it’s there. I forget too much stuff and am determined to capture more of it, even if it does mean getting cold.

Mistletoe from eBay

We are closing in on Christmas and, as yet, I have done very little. The two shopping deliveries are booked, but that is all. I assume that we will be having turkey and all the trimmings but apart from that hve little idea about what we will be doing. It doesn’t really matter what I think because Julia always goes out and comes back with loads of things we don’t need just before the big day.

Meanwhile I can’t access my emails as BT is making changes. It’s all in aid of the “new and improved” service they will be offering. Ho, ho, ho . . .

I’ve been getting more and more annoyed with them ever since we changed our internet supply on the instructions of BT, then found that they were going to be providing me with a worse email system as a consequence. I’ve been with them ever since I went on the internet and don’t want to change as it will be quite complex to unravel some things, but it’s looking more and more like I will have to move.

Something else happened too, but I can’t recall what it was, so I will finish now and go to watch TV.

Holly