Tag Archives: writing poetry

Modern Problems Future Predictions

14 Replies

Sorry everyone, it seems to have been eleven days since my last post. I managed to get all my submissions done before panic set in (though to be fair it was a very easy month) and have spent several days relaxing and feeling good about being able to organise myself. It won’t last, as this coming month is the complete opposite. Last month I had six easy submissions to do.  Two were for anthologies and one of them guarantees to include a submission from every member. The other guarantees to take one if you send five, so I send three, just to preserve an element of jeopardy. . Next month the target is twelve.  I really need to get a move on as a couple have to be done by mid-month and several are quite challenging.

I’ve had two or three acceptances since I last wrote. To balance that, I had two sets of results from poetry competitions where my entries sank without trace. It’s what normally happens, so it wasn’t a surprise. I have, of course, looked at the winning entries to see what they have, or what I lack, and, as usual, can’t come to any firm conclusions.

For one of them, I think I might be a bit too modern for the judge, when I look  at the winning entries. As I’m considered old-fashioned by a number of editors this came as a bit of a surprise. With the other one I couldn’t see anything wrong,. In that case, I suspect my words just didn’t grab the judges. That’s how it goes. One day I will write a poem that resonates with a judge and may get lucky.

The car is booked in for servicing and repair. It’s a lot less convenient than my previous arrangement, where the garage was a hundred yards from the shop, but that’s what happens when you move. The nurse at the GP surgery failed to find blood yesterday and there was nobody else on duty so I am going back tomorrow. And the washing machine has broken down. It’s 19 years old so I can’t complain, but having only just got on top of the light bulb replacement (they all seemed to blow/start flickering within a week or two) I could have done with a few weeks of nothing failing.

We have, I think, five different sorts of bulb/tube in use, plus at least three different for the lamps. I needed three different tubes and ended up having to buy two of them via Amazon – one is still in transit. Now we know they fit, I will be buying spares.

It seemed much simpler at the last house, but when I run through the bulbs we still used three sorts, with three more in lamps. I think it seemed simpler because we had spares for all of them  and knew where to get them from. A new town makes things more complicated.

I wonder if, in years to come, a research student will look up from his electronic reader in his environmentally controlled study cubicle (with built in whale music), drink a nutritionally balanced sip of plant-based smoothie and Google “light bulb” . . .

The language, to him, will be like reading the Canterbury Tales, and the things I mention will all be exhibits in museums. As he sits round with his contemporaries, indulging in mutual grooming and complaining about the bonobos down the street, I wonder what they will say about their hairless ape ancestors who ran the planet into the ground and are still rumoured to live in underground bunkers in remote mountain ranges.

Pictures are some recent ones from Julia. She’s going through an artistic phase. Sort of van Gogh meets Warhol.

A Grumpy Old Man of the Neo-Carolingian Period

7 Replies

Pigeon

I thought about using a title such as Sun, Sea, Sand and Samphire, but as there is no sea, no sand and very little sun, it seemed cynical and unfair. To be honest, apart from a rumination on why we eat samphire (salty, bitter and woody are three of the kinder words I would use) there wouldn’t be much about samphire either. I once ate foraged samphire while I was wild camping (or ate samphire while I was camping, if you remove the 21st century vocabulary, which tends to over-complicate quite simple things).  I had no kitchen facilities and didn’t wash it well, so you can add gritty to my lexicon of samphire stories. In other words I eat it when it is free or a couple of times a year when I feel I should add some variety to our lives.

Yesterday was (First World) Hell. having been ill and managed my time badly, I struggled to make seven of my nine planned submissions. Oh, the struggles of a poet. It’s not a very artistic way to go about my art, but if I didn’t impose targets I’d probably be writing about writer’s block instead. It’s all about regular practice, and the phenomenon where having ideas brings out new ideas. One editor actually used the word “brilliant” about one of my submissions a few months ago. Another used the word “greetings card” a few months before that, just to preserve a sense of balance. However, I do feel that regular writing is the key to success, and setting targets makes me write poetry. Left to myself I would just write about coins, medallions and history. And civil servants, technology and the disappointing nature of my life compared to my dreams and the projections of 1960s sci-fi programmes.

Greylag Goose Arnot Hill Park Arnold

Note the addition of (First World) above. I am well-fed, not in danger of being bombed and can can walk down the street (as can my neighbours) without fear of being picked up by masked bounty hunters and sent “home” due to a minor mistake in my paperwork. My children had access to food and healthcare and grew up in a world largely free from violence. I’m actually beginning to feel a little guilty about how easy my life is compared to other people around the world.

When that mythical 22nd Century PHD student, to whom I often refer, starts to read my blog as part of his thesis on Grumpy Old Men of the Neo-Carolingian Period  I wonder what he will make of my concerns.  Of course, by that time he may actually be wearing furs to protect himself from a nuclear winter and making tools by chipping bits of flint as the wolves circle his camp. In that case I would be torn (assuming that I had mastered the art of time travel, which is unlikely, as I struggle with keeping track of keys and maintaining my keyboard in crumb-free condition) between being sad to see what a mess we had made of it, or happy at being right about the mess we had made of it of it.

Arnot Hill – Alder Tree

 

 

 

Struggling Still with Time

8 Replies

Buzzard

I had another acceptance. I’m now about to enter a lean streak with just three editors to reply – one I’ve never submitted to before, one is a new editor with a magazine that normally turns me down and the third is a guest editor in a magazine with which I have mixed results. And that final one is the one I submitted as the only submission of this month. With everyone cutting back on frequency of publication, and with them all operating on different schedules this sometimes happens. A few years ago there were several who published every month but both of them have now gone to publishing just six issues a year.

I now have more poetry to write, so I had a quick image search for Crowland Abbey. It’s been an interesting subject over the years, and I just wanted to look at some photos for ideas. I found a great picture, and a quote I recognised from John Clare’s sonnet about the abbey – Wrecks of Ornamented Stones. It’s a good quote and, I thought regretfully, a shame that someone had already used it.

Donkey watching . . .

Then I looked harder. It seems I’m being immodest in calling it a great picture, as it’s one of mine, and it was me who already used the title. Sometimes I’m just so prolific I forget what I’ve written. February 2017. We’ve seen a few changes since then. Like the old abbey I am “struggling still with time”.

Having appropriated another line of Clare’s poem I am now going back to my previous (pre-Crowland search) activity – reading tanka and stealing ideas to help me write poems of my own. That’s the T S Eliot method isn’t it?

“Good poets borrow, great poets steal.”

Captain Cook and a seagull

Unfortunately, as usual, it seems to be a misattribution. What he actually said was  “mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.” I know that because I just lifted it from another blog. I could research it myself, but it was easier just to cut and paste and then post a link.

It’s pretty much the same, it’s just that the second quote is far too complicated. I look through a poem and extract something that sets me going. It’s not plagiarism, or outright theft, it’s seeking inspiration and understanding. Think of an opal miner. They take a stone from the depths of the earth, and give it a wash. It’s a thing of beauty in its own right. Then a stone cutter cuts and polishes. Still a thing of beauty, but different, as it is after a jeweller has set it.  Theft is probably not the right word, it’s just a well-travelled idea, and I’m about to take a few of them on a new journey.

Wren

 

Writing Poetry – the Nuts and Bolts

12 Replies

Orange Parker Pen

I got into my car at16.00 precisely tonight. Traffic was light and I arrived home at 16.11. After allowing myself to dwell on the years 1600 – 1611, where the reign of Elizabeth I gave way to the reign of James I (or James VI if you prefer the Scottish version). Our recent change from Elizabeth II to Charles III has shown little change, but the earlier change was more dramatic. We had witch trials thanks to James, the Gunpowder Plot and attempts to unite England and Scotland. As usual, there is a lot of history, and not enough time to do it justice. In an ideal world I would have taken to my book-lined study and immersed myself in Jacobean history.

Instead, I had tea and banana bread and chatted to Julia, which was an excellent substitute.

We had chickpea and sweet potato curry for tea, as planned, and practiced being retired – sitting round the fire making dull conversation about our day and watching TV. I think we are getting the hang of it and will probably enjoy it.

In the next two weeks I have to write twenty seven tanka, 10 haiku and 13 Haibun/Tanka Prose. Fortunately I have fifteen Haibun/Tanka Prose that are almost finished. I’m trying to do bit on them each night. The tanka are not as far advanced, but I’m getting through them. I really need to get out and get some inspiration. That is planned for Monday. Under the new arrangements I have Mondays off. It’s just that every time I am ill, I seem to stop writing and it takes a while to get things moving again.

I think I’m back on the right track again, but it takes a surprising time to turn things round. I keep thinking of the effort of manoeuvring a large modern ship.

February will be quite a light month, so if I can get January out of the way it looks like all will be well. It’ quite  way from the inspiration/art/creativity model, but without this sort of planning nd framework I would find it har to do anything. Inspiration rarely strikes – it’s hard work that produces the goods.

My Orange Parker Pen