When fog rises from the river
and dances up our hillsides
it pilfers the unmoored,
collects any untethered song
nameless piano tunes roll along
in the dark of its impermeable light

We could see the wriggling
shapes of lost streets ascending
green hillocks. this is how our small city
is remade and how it is undone.

Everyone was watching as labyrinths
emerged on three slopes above Big Flats
where lost streets sought their forgotten
shapes and tangled forming figure eights

By a stroke of deep invention
armchair quarterbacks proposed a solution
they named all the alleys
that were my private walkways
where crows shouted and shadowed me
where squirrel highways become visible

and so weighted and bound
with words, held in place, held down
undone our wayward Brigadoon.

I went through an existential phase,
sneaked a look at her Jean-Paul Sartre
and wondered how much time I had left.
This was during her late teens
when she was snooty, pretentious,
cared only for herself and highbrow books.
I might have been an old cushion
thrown across the bedspread
yet I sensed her unhappiness,
kept a low profile, remembered that
I’d always been her favourite.
I hoped she’d look again at the past,
realise the value of trusted old friends.

She missed her Dad, of course,
couldn’t understand why her Mum
never spoke of his early death.
I saw everything, didn’t dare speak
in case I frightened her, though
when she cried, which she often did,
I shed my own unseen tears.

Life changed for the better.
I became an object of great interest
for her children and her children’s children.
These days, I’m reconciled to ageing, hum that song
to myself, you know, the one by The Beatles..
“will you still need me, will you still feed me…”
(she used to play The Beatles non-stop)
I’ll soon be 64,she’s a year older,
we’re still together.

She held me just now, stroked the brown
leather patch her Dad had sewn on.
She thought about him, smiled..

She’s getting there.

DAY 30

“What I call ‘the object as witness’ is an often surprising exercise to break through block or to find a way of writing about an experience at one remove:

Select an object which has been sentimentally important to you at some pivotal time in your history, or something that has simply been a frequent companion – an item of jewellery or clothing, a watch, a wallet, an ornament. If it could speak as witness to your life, what would it say?

Remember, it’s the object offering testimony – playing with subjectivity is the thrill of this exercise. It may be attempting to address you directly or talking out, to a wider, unknowable audience. Endeavour to prevent the object explicitly revealing its true nature.”

It looks like there might have been a bit of a mix-up on our end with updating the daily prompts, so apologies for any confusion. In case you missed them, here are prompts 27 and 29:

DAY 27

“Write a poem which answers this question: ‘Where do lost streets go?’ In your poem use at least five items from the following list: piano, mirror, armchair, ten pound note, labyrinth, last, shadow, pelican, song, cheeseburger, watching, hope, dark, shape, fog, invention, figure of eight, elastic-band, elbow room.”

DAY 29

“Describe something abstract (silence, hunger, etc.) using the five senses, then add a memory related to it. Is the poem about your original abstraction, or has it come to mean something else?”

… and we’ll have No.30 (the very last!) with you shortly.

No. 28 is thanks to Sarah Fletcher, Poetry School student and CAMPUS member:

DAY 28

‘Write a self portrait as something ridiculous – for example, ‘Self portrait as a sailor’; ‘Self portrait as a trapeze artist’. Explore a hypothetical life through your poem.’

Prompt No.26, with thanks to poet and Poetry School tutor Lucy Sheerman, who will be running a series of workshops in John Clare’s Cottage this Summer:

DAY 26

“Go outside and write a description of a 1cm square patch of ground. Then go up and out to a description of a 10cm square with that first tiny square at the centre. Keep increasing the size of the square by ten until you reach 100km square (about the size of Norfolk). Limit each section to 25 words. Look at what you leave in and out as you increase the scale.”

For more information on the John Clare Writing Workshops, visit our website: http://bit.ly/1M6FGEn

DAY 25

“Go into your email spam or junk folder and find an interesting communication to convert into poetry. What is the narrative behind the million dollar bank transfer promise? Who are the hot singles in your area, really? What will that fake degree qualify you for?”

Slivers of pigment undid its polished perfection
misconstrued tools resulted in severe errors
offset edge by 2.2 micrometers, tiny, profound
restored by skyfolk reworked by outliers
who reengineered vision with corrective devices
more mirrors, new lenses, fixed slight imprecisions
now peers further into cosmos through five servicing missions
competition for telescope time is intense
no schedule for unexpected events
studies the deep field, the fiery filled cosmos
geosynchronous systems used to tell us
discern colors from monochrome sources
figured the birth of the universe in 2003
found our first moment of being to be
13.7 billion before we were concieved
redeployed to higher low earth orbit
345 miles up there it flies
16,000 miles per hour sees bygone whys
flickering lights in ever unfolding skies

We forgot to NaPoWriMo yesterday! We’re sorry, we feel guilty, and here are two NaPoWriMo’s to make up for it:

*yesterday’s* NaPoWriMo is thanks to Poetry School tutor S J Fowler:

DAY 23

“Do you inexplicably hate a vowel? Write a lipogrammatic prose poem, following Georges Perec, whereby the vowel of your choice is barred from use. Do so applying Jacques Roubaud’s 1st principle, and make the subject of the poem the act of writing the poem.”

… and today, we have a writer’s block buster from our Programme and Facilities Coordinator Jo Brandon, whose first collection is forthcoming with Valley Press:

DAY 24

“Stuck for writing ideas? What about your desk? What does it have to say about its daily forbearances? Or your lumpy chair, your cheery lamp, or the wilting potted plant? Their imagined perspectives could be a good starting point for a new poem…”

If you wrote your poem yesterday anyway, please do upload it here and show us what we missed!

DAY 22

Write about the first time. The first time you ate an olive, had sex, had chemo, read Homer. Make it as astonishing as the actual first time; try to describe the experience as you genuinely felt it. Read Sharon Olds’ ‘First Sex’ as an example: http://hugoboy.typepad.com/hugo_schwyzer/2006/07/thursday_short__1.html

Thanks to Jo Bell, Canal Laureate and regular Poetry School tutor https://belljarblog.wordpress.com/about/

Yellow bright plastic cover encases
the seam ripper protects blind fingers
from its sharp metal tip or the razored scoop
where it functions with a small round shaft for a handle

This was her last one,
what I grabbed when she departed
sudden, swift, flew the coop of this brown garment,
efficient as her tool that made quick work
of removing small, tight stitches

undoes the thread without damaging fabric
when seams went wrong
or when repurposing old clothes

new lines made into new relationships
formed under guidance of pressure foot
and treaded feed, pierced by needle
feeding spooled and bobbined threads

fine blades slide under small tight stiches
Legionnaires flu, sick folks in quilting class
during a Sunday afternoon nap, a heart attack

Long nights after long days’ work
she would eat inexpert meals
that Daddy or I made
rise after a quick lie down
to sew until near dawn

Song of her Singer whirring machine lullabye
with seam ripper at hand to release
fabric from misalignments
or strip basted lines from a garment
Open the provisional to attach the permanent
all I have of her is this small, effective tool.

The 21st poetry prompt of the month is thanks to poet and Poetry School Tutor Carrie Etter:

DAY 21

“Write a poem about an object that belongs/belonged to one of your parents. You might find it easier to convey the object’s meaning if you describe your parent using (or whatever word’s appropriate) that object in a particular moment in time.”

Well done to all those taking part in NaPoWriMo this year: here is prompt 20 of 30 from tutor Sally Flint, whose Poetry School course ‘Beyond the Frame’ will start in Exeter on Monday, 4 May:

DAY 20

“Find an image online that sparks your imagination. Look at news, online magazines, books, Facebook, any website that interests you, or go global and search somewhere you have never visited, like the Museum of Modern Art in New York (http://bit.ly/1G0eBNE), which was an inspiration to Frank O’Hara.

Then step straight into your chosen picture and, rather than describe it, investigate and explore what is going on beyond the screen/frame to develop a poem.”

For more information on ‘Beyond the Frame’, visit the course description on our website: http://bit.ly/1GjlBKn

DAY 19

“Write a poem entitled: ‘Memories of [location] and [name of person]’ that recalls a particularly strange time in your life.”

To find out more about Liane’s Summer Course, visit our website: http://bit.ly/18jNwv8

DAY 18

“Pick up a conversation exchange heard in passing on the street, in a shop, at the school gates, hospital waiting room, the bus stop, in short, where ever you find yourself. See where it leads you.”

Thanks to Joan Michelson, whose One Day Workshop ‘Robert Hass & Tony Hoagland: Notebooks and Shopping Malls’ will take place on 16 May – http://bit.ly/1KhViY0

DAY 17:

“Imagine you found a gun. What next?”

Happy weekend all! More prompts to come, but in the meanwhile do share your poems with us …

Today we have Mimi Khalvati’s poetry recipe to get your creativity cooking …

DAY 16

“Write a long one-sentence poem, and don’t cheat by connecting everything with ‘and’.

– First write a list of connectives, such as… such as, although, as if, because, albeit, whereas, despite, even if, however, which, that, who, whom, depending on, etc, etc.

– Choose one of these connectives to start with; then, without any idea of what you are going to write about, flow-write for at least two minutes in prose.

– If you feel the sentence (or train of thought) is about to dry up, refer to your list of connectives and use another one to keep it going.

– Stop when you seem to have come to a natural ‘landing’.

– Lineate, edit (but don’t chop up into short sentences), and hopefully you’ll have discovered a poem.”

Only two weeks left to go folks, keep up the good work!

DAY 15

See how these lines by James Schuyler might help you write about something in the garden, the park or the street.

‘All the leaves

are down except

the few that aren’t’

Thanks to Julian Stannard whose course ‘The Anti-Poetic’ starts soon at the Poetry School: http://www.poetryschool.com/courses-workshops/face-to-face/the-anti-poetic.php

fish

why you are my favorite food and dishes
is it possible the reason nuts in the brine water which we give a name sea sounding like
see?
is it possible the cause hidden in the salt grain to add a little flavor of the salt?
why meat is out of my choice i really have no clues
once a hunter told me that because you were a hunter in former life well maybe
you know I shoot very well every time i aim a target i seldom miss it
win and win top prizes in bow and gun games
i still can recall the color and smell of the wind the grass the bow the arrows the bullets the arcs the gaps the lines the lights the breath
and where I am
so invisible while I am
aiming at a red heart beating so loud in the distance
can a sunbeam see itself when it aims at me and you?
it works not almost but
always
a hit
there is also some river flashing scales in the almost-see-itself eyes
and scales pop out to cover my body when i lay my bow down
so this is a poem on fish
on my favorite food
on my very dear
it makes me hungry now
and before running for a fish steaming, let me leave one more theory:
maybe I am only proving the fac
t:
I am a cat
to eat fish is to confirm this
a fresh fun game

He wouldn’t know, that day
past starvation
and pain
emaciation,
hallucination,
near death,
would be a celebration
and preparation
for the move across the water.

The day opened the gates
the year before
to release the Rock
from its own gaol.

He wouldn’t know
that the return journey
seventeen years on
led to the day
that the Good was right
that Friday, to bring
Peace.

Sea Song

Not even a seagull calling
across the roof tops, I’m in this alone,

breathing morning air and crying out
“I miss the sea”, inhaling an ordinary
inland breeze: no tang, no brine,
no sense of something special
just around the corner.

If it’s low tide I’ll wait,
kneel on the wet sand, drape
seaweed around me, make a necklace
from shells and pebbles.
I’ll wait as long as it takes
for the tide to gather, hitch up
its crinkly skirts and approach steadily,
rhythmically, blue as Mary’s mantle
with the magic of green rolling like a hill
of brine beneath and between the waves.

I want the gush, the sound, the music
of cold salt water over my feet,toes,ankles.
I want to open my arms, welcome it back
like a long-lost friend I’ll never let go.

I’ll wade even up to my waist, maybe
build a little boat, sail away for a while
not to seek my fortune or my one true love
but to find myself in the quietude of its
back&forth lullaby rocking me to sleep,
splashing me awake.

The lake shimmered under the glare
of the sun, and seduced
my dog. She bounded
Towards the gap in the fence and then
Splash!
The ducks shook their heads and
Glided away. Four paws
Thrashed in the water and bounced
back to dry land,
where she shook her head, shoulders, haunches
And tail to its tip,
Then saw me, and grinned.

Good luck with this next one, from poet and Poetry School tutor Myra Schneider:

DAY 14

”Flow-writing: to take off into the imagination when starting a poem, write down a word or phrase connected with it, then write spontaneously for about 8 minutes whatever comes into your mind without controlling the words and ideas which come up.”

In the Café at Asda on Saturday morning

I choose a table for two
by the window. My husband smiles
across tea & biscuits, scribbles
a list.(Do we need cornflakes,
apples, yoghurts?) I watch people walk
towards cars,trees sway with
the breeze.Life moves as one
through time and space

while I breathe the moment.

DAY 13

“Write a ‘plain’ poem that contains neither adjectives nor adverbs. You can use metaphor or simile but concentrate your attention on the nouns and verbs. Without the support of descriptors they will need to work much harder.”

Thanks to Katharine Towers, a Poetry School tutor whose second collection is forthcoming from Picador in 2016.

Leaving for her forever home

In a bag her favourite toy,
some blanket from her bed,
Kennel club papers, the invoice
and health check from the vet.

In a box there’s two week’s food,
six new-laid eggs, a leaflet
about biscuits, which if you
buy in bulk are so much cheaper.

One more cuddle, final kisses
before he hands her over
off you go, good luck he says,
to puppy and new owner.

DAY 12

\”Write a short biographical poem in the third person. You can only write about what the person hears and sees, not what they’re thinking. How do you convey their state of mind?\”

DAY 11

• Write a list of objects that are significant to you.
• Choose one and write a letter addressed to that object.
• Then write a reply from the object, addressed to you.
• Edit these into a poem in two parts.

Linger not in my library,
I prefer you to seek wisdom
in other places.
Defiant, you try to prise
your way into all I have,
grasp my leather-bound books
with eager fingers
then sit by the window.
My son is fishing in the pond
and beyond, my beautiful girls
are blackberrying,will bring me
roses for my dinner table.
Under the orchard trees
we will dance together.
My library has no offering
wiser than the kiss of those
who wish you peace.

Sorry I don\’t have a web link to the original poem which is from \”Poems from the Chinese\” by Alun Lewis

DAY 10

\”Open Wikipedia and scroll down to the On This Day section on the bottom right hand side. Choose three of the facts and combine them together into a single poem. Paul Farley\’s poem \’11th February, 1963\’ is a great example of how this can work. Sylvia Plath committed suicide on this date, while – just a mile away – the Beatles recorded their first LP\”

Thanks to Sarah Hesketh, who is running a garden residency project for the Poetry School this summer:

http://www.poetryschool.com/courses-workshops/face-to-face/mixed-borders—poets-in-residence-in-london-gardens.php

The foot bends
from the ball to the heel
as she descends
in slow crotchets each stair.
Her stare doesn\’t waver
And she glides to the underground
Sea that has become known.
She won\’t see
the men down below
who fill up her can,
take her money, and send her
back to the light.
Her fingers caress
the rough stone with its stubble
of years, so familiar.
The stranger that passes
drifts into her view
for a brief moment.
He will remember
but she will forget.

We sneak into the corner,
my pond wet dog and I.
She\’s sad because she didn\’t want
this detour, and the usual friend
is not waiting for her.

Instead there is a man
babbling some incomprehensible
words into space.
It\’s a language we don\’t know
and he\’s ignoring her.
There may be messages
transmitting through his earphones
but they don\’t make him happy.

The coffee is black and strong
and the picture opposite shows laughing friends.
But the people here today
are escaping from the sun outside
and no-one smiles.

DAY 9

\’\’Watch this clip from In The Mood for Love twice. And then go make something of it, following these guidelines –

Form:
– No more than 28 lines
– Include a pair of homonyms (e.g., ‘rite’ and ‘right,’ or ‘dear’ and ‘deer’)

Action:
– Consider ‘drift’ and ‘light’

Content:
– Consider anatomy (but not the heart, eyes, or lips); and
– A line, phrase, or name taken from this Wikipedia entry on the lunar maria and the mare basalts ( http://bit.ly/1IvLpEj )\’\’

And here\’s the clip from In The Mood For Love!

DAY 8

\”Go to a coffee shop, and order something to drink. While you\’re waiting for it to arrive cast your eyes round – see if you can spot a person, overhear a snippet of conversation, maybe a muffin catches your eye. That\’s your first line. You have until your drink goes cold to finish the rest of the poem.\”

Thanks to Rishi Dastidar, who is one of the Poetry School’s Summer School tutors this year: http://www.poetryschool.com/courses-workshops/face-to-face/call-and-response.php

All those big bodies filled the parlor
someone sat in Mama’s winged chair
embossed, floral, with a doily

Light poured in front windows
filtered by dense tall plants: snake,
elephant, vines, avocado and money
trees outside on the fire escape,
inside, frame the pierced wall
grown from what was eaten
and cuttings. Shadows in high relief,
dark mounds of mourning clothes shift, clink their spoons against her good china

i move between their murmurs
why did I feel so small in memory
already eleven and tall to my affirmer,
my supporter, who stayed my mother’s ire ,
cherished comforter of any pain,
purveyor, demonstrator, of unconditional love

mother of mother, source of my source
who took me to her high Anglican worship
taught me her rituals of kindness
demonstrated generosity in her store
with slips for some of long credit
patient listener to noisy chatterers
who said my name and made God manifest
in the unbounded love in the sound

None knew her as I did
first born of the new generation
proof of her new world’s planting
nor needed her protection
bathed in her demonstrative affection
her Khus Khus fragrant embraces
her healing kiss on my slapped face

i needed rescue from the lonely shore
as I stood alone in the middle of the parlor
wanting to be one in the cool company of grief

‘The tears of the young aren’t salty,’ someone said
the rest agreed and something once alive
was now truly dead.

Always be modest,
My headteacher said.
You should not celebrate
Your achievements, but keep
Them under your hat,
Your eyes cast down.

We listened in assemblies
To his morality tales.
How important it was always
To scrub your fingernails
And above all else,
Boys shouldn\’t play with girls.

Oh Mr Ramsbottom,
We didn\’t expect to hear
When we had left some years, that you
Had run away with the Head of Infants.

DAY 7

\”Think of something once said to you by someone important when you were a child that has always stuck in your mind. Write it down as a line or a phrase and see where it takes you.\”

Cheryl\’s Summer Course, \’Growing Poems From Thought\’, will look at writing poetry in response to great thinkers in philosophy, psychoanalysis, physics, medicine, astronomy & more – a full course description can be found here: http://bit.ly/1FVF2W6

….A week of poems! Well done everybody – do keep sharing your results.

DAY 6

\”Copy a poem or text you don’t know very well into a notebook using whichever hand you don’t write with. Be careless. Go back to it a few days later and try to translate what you wrote.\”

Here\’s your fifth NaPoWriMo prompt – a poetry recipe from Holly Hopkins, to balance out the chocolate:

DAY 5

\”1) Read (or re-read) Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market
2) Pick a fruit mentioned in the poem
3) Now write your own poem in which you describe this fruit in all its luxurious detail
4) Create your own sinister character who attempts to give away or sell this fruit
5) Try to make it a new character (no goblins or biblical snakes…)\”

Holly\’s Summer School workshop, \’A Long Drink for a Hot Day\’, will taste some of the less-than sober poems out there, and prompt writing inspired by students\’ own spirited exploits. For more information: http://bit.ly/1Gjl5Mr

Mountains, Valleys, Forests, Music

Is meaning possible from these notions?
We are at last in possession of all that might have been

Morning brings hope, light and labour,
evening rest, play and despair
They are the variety of Nature,
Venus, whom one dare not name,
and Mercury, who will bring no news of her

Mountaines, haunts of Pan for lust and Diana for chastity,
to both of these lovers appeal
for banishment; impossibility and impotence,
difficulty and achievement; greatness –
They give you the peace, or the despair, of the grave;
They are the distant things behind which the sun rises and sets,
the too near things which shut in your valley;
deserted wastes, and the ample pastures
to which you drive up cattle for the summer

Vallies hold nymphs, yet are the normal places
are your whole world, your voice can affect the whole of them;
places of shelter and comfort,
places of humility and affliction ;
rich with flowers and warmth,
dark hollows between the hills.

Forests, valuable and accustomed, are desolate and hold danger;
though wild and sterile, there are both nightingales and owls
Their beasts, give the strong pleasures of hunting;
Their burning is useful or destructive
They give freedom for contemplation,
Their trunks are symbols of pride.

Music, at once more and less direct than talking,
may please or distress,
belong to despair and the deaths of swans
It may share living beauty
be an inmate of celestial spheres,
illuminating occasions
on which each Nature is used
if we had understood

DAY 4

\”Can\’t sleep? Put on your dressing gown, step into your garden or porch and write outside by the light of your phone or tablet.\”

If your poems take on a life of their own after dark, Tom\’s Online Summer course \’Nightwriter\’ will explore poetry writing at dusk, midnight and dawn. For more info on Tom\’s course: http://bit.ly/1FWYrG3

We were off for Good Friday yesterday, so you get a bumper crop today! The third prompt of the month is from Poetry School tutor Claire Trévien… Don\’t forget to post your results here, or enter them in Mslexia\’s competition:

DAY 3

\”Pick up the closest book to you, turn to page 37. Make a poem either inspired by that page or made out of words from that page.\”

Day 2\’s Prompt

Taste of fresh copper is bright
unlike the tang of old silver
tarnished forks damage food
When boiled green bananas rolled
in salted waters with pale yams
grandfather stirred, chopped, seasoned
in the back of grandmother’s grocery store
Shiny pennies were my wages for
helping, learning to push the buttons,
ring the cash register, greet the patrons
place meat on slicer, fetch hard cheese,
hand customers their cool change
Under their warm tutelage
this shy child budded
so sweetly planted, so many ways
to grow strong, to bloom

Here\’s prompt number 2, from Poetry School tutor Clare Crowther:

\”Take any everyday coin from your pocket and write a sensory response to it, using every sense apart from taste. You can allow your memories of coin-incidents in your life to flow into your response.\”

Good luck, and keep your poems coming in!

10 words which mean I’m Not In Love

(Nasal hairs, pig, farting, water, coiled, Radox, mud, evil, clone, sheep, drizzle)

When we met you were devoid of protruding
nasal hairs or twirling shafts coiled round lobes
like those you find on baked pig-ears that dogs
so love to guard (even if it means burying them
in the evil-smelling mud hump at the bottom
of the garden, once a compost heap, where
no-one, not even you, dares to tread).

Back then you’d never have dreamt of farting
under the cover of hot water like a beached
schoolboy, when sharing the joys of a Radox
Vanilla Silk skin-softening bubble bath, letting
the semi-rounds of rainbows rise then drizzle
to smelly nothings, imploding on greying leg-hairs.

Yet I’d still marry you today, even if I had to find a clone
of you and that clone or another clone of you or another
had started life as a cell of a American Black-Bellied sheep.

Salvation

I was lost.
Unaware of the drudgery
of my day to day.
Stagnant in an impotent rut
that had been whittled over years.
Until I met you.

I was desolate.
Fake laughter punctuated
my increasingly arid social life,
loneliness hidden beneath
lies and self-deceit.
Until I met you.

I am found.
Invigorated by ardour.
Comforted by caresses
and cherished with soft words.
My life is a joyful dance of passion.
Since I met you.

\”Write a list of ten words you think would never appear in a love poem. Now write a love poem using those words.\”

Upload all your poems to this group. Good luck!