And still the Haiku come forth

Just read the haiku from the last post and decided to alter the last one in that post. It was originally:-

Winter night comes early

Cloaking day's end silently

Until tomorrow

 

But upon reflection that second line simply sounds wrong, I have re-written it thus:-

Winter night comes early,

Silently cloaking day's end.

Until tomorrow.

 

Does it make a lot of difference? I would argue that it is the little things which make a difference, perhaps you agree, perhaps you don't, but it is my poem.

 

 

And by the way, this is a new pastel painting from my own fair hand, except for a little post processing from photoshop. You can see it and an explanation of how it was completed on my blog, painting with John. I will be creating a series of Zazzle products with the resulting images, find them soon in my Zazzle store. 

So, advertisement break over, here are a couple of new Haiku.

Sixteen wheelers rushed

drove down the road before me

hurtling far too fast

Driving in convoy

too close to one another

there's trouble ahead

As you might imagine, these were written after seeing too many lorries from the local factory rushing down our road in the morning rush hour. Not typical Haiku material, am I cheating and just creating fragments of poems, which I am trying to get away from. perhaps I should play safe and stick to nature and natural subjects?

Still writing Haiku as a way forward

Don't know if this is working, but at least I am not left with what to me seem like fragments of poems. The first stanza or a few lines, and then running into a case of writers block. Time after time after time. With the Haiku, without wishing to claim anything for them, I am able to feel that I have a complete piece. The discipline of the 5-7-5 syllable count is also making me work a little at the words I am using.
It can only be good practice, and heaven knows I need it. So what of this weeks batch. Again I leave them untitled - is this usual? Must take another look at some of the Haiku related sites.

Winter, think sunny

Think warm foreign beaches

Winter, bearable

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Rain everlasting

Spring, summer, Autumn, Winter

Earth needs space to dry

------------------------------------

Rain on rain on rain

Falls on saturated ground

Flooding now certain

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The setting sun dies

Ending of another day

Sleep, refresh, renew.

-------------------------------------

Winter night comes early

Cloaking day's end silently

Until tomorrow

Well, what do you think? Is there any merit in these short pieces. I will be carrying on with this game in the hope that it will bring about an end to this current period of writer's block. And if it doesn't? - well then I shall have to think of something else to try.

Poetry contest submissions - Am I ready?

I have been wondering for sometime if any of my earlier poetry was good enough for submitting to a contest. With some editing and modifications which I have been working on. Well it is something whilst I have problems with writing new poems.

I saw however that there are competitions for Haiku. Not saying that they are easier, in fact they do not immediately suit my style. For instance read: Poetry contests for new poets.

I have therefore submitted three haiku to the Haiku Foundation contest for the new year (2013). I havae edited three that have been posted in this blog which does not count as publishing for this contest. They are:-

traditional haiku:

Footsteps in the snow
freshly fallen, crisp and white
follow them, should I?

modern haiku: 

Poetry  is words
words live forever
forget me not

innovative haiku:

Inspiration grows
Poetry
new thinking, new skills

I await results with anticipation although I don't really expect to hear anything, I can already see other edits / changes which I could have made. Is any art ever perfect?

watch this space!

Haiku to overcome writer's block

I have written about my difficulties creating poetry at the moment. I am not sure why this is but to reiterate, I used to be able to write poetry quite freely but I seem to have dried up. I have sought and discusssed possible reasons but this has had little effect.

I have been reading more modern poetry and not enjoying the so-called "free poetry", as published in many modern magazines and in their web-sites. I think I have come to accept non-rhyming poetry; but poems without structure and rhythm and  readwith no sense to the line lengths has left me cold. I think this is because before I am a writer, I am a musician and an artist. I like to be able to pick up a poem and read or more likely "perform" it without having to study the nuances which the poet may or may not have thought about.

I have seen texts which seem to excuse this on the basis that the message is the most important thing and the overall structure of the poem should noy be allowwed to get in the way. Bullsh*t. This is lazyness on the part of the poet. I have seen free poetry which I have enjoyed but the poet has considered his reader and made it obvious by various techniques what his intentions were.

Similarly, I can enjoy abstract art - but by no means all of it.

I am of the opinion that reading so much poetry that I find almost offensive has been bad for me, drying up the stream of what seems to be considered childish crap. I still find ideas relating to things happening around me but I just seem to run out of steam. However, I have been reintroduced to Haiku - short and to the point. This has given me a way forward to explore some of these ideas without worrying about completing long(er) poems.

So here are a few Haiku written during the snow this week.

Early morning snow

glist'ning in the morning sun

bringing fear to some

Red flowers, white snow

A beautiful sight to see

such blooms cannot last

glistening at dawn

white frost covering the ground

dangerous to tread

Footsteps in the snow

freshly fallen, crisp and white

follow them, should I?

Lamp posts line the road

lighting my way thro' the dark

warm thoughts, home awaits.

Footsteps, pristine tracks

snow records where I have been

short lived memories

A forecast of snow

stores are filled with hectic crowds

shopping in panic.

Creative writing prompts for poems

I am really suffering from a bad case of writers block. Nothing is happening for me at all this month. I have become so desperate that I have been searching for poetry prompts on the internet and thought that I would share a site with you. Creative writing now.

Let me give a couple of examples, I hope that the site owner won't mind:-

9) Write a poem from the perspective of a character in a fairy tale.
10) Write a poem using all of the following words: moth, angle, cloth, tangle.
11) Write a poem that tells the story of a specific love affair or marriage.
12) Write a poem in the form of a message or letter to your future self.
13) Write a poem about the color red or another color. (Some ideas for brainstorming: How does the color make you feel? What things do you associate with that color?)

Go to Creative Writing Now for many, many more examples. Oh, and wish me luck using a few of these.

Free Poetry E-books

Nothing to post from my pen from over the holidays but I have come across a site, Poem Hunter.com which publishes collections of poems by some very well known poets, not sure of how they work exactly but it is free to download thousands of poems in collections by author/poet.

It is an educational site and has the following nnote about copyright:
PoemHunter.Com is a non-profit site. Poems are published on this site purely for educational reasons, for the purpose of information and with good intentions. If the legal representatives ask us to remove a poem from the site, this will be done immediately. We guarantee to fulfill such demands within 48 hours. (PoemHunter.Com reserves the right to investigate whether the person submitting that demand is authorized to do so or not.)

I know that I read lots of poetry both classical and new, I think this will be a wonderful resource to make a note of. They do seem to make it difficult to copy poems from the e-books (I am not very tech savvy) so I cannot post a few snippets/samples of the poetry as I had intended. I can see how by printing and re-scanning/etc it would be possible but the effort would probably not be worthwhile. You will have to visit the site yourself and  download your own e-books.

I shall certainly enjoy reading some of the poems and adding to my own poor skill set by the examples set by the poets whose work is being made available.

The works available as downloads run from Shakespeare to Wordsworth to Frost to Spike Milligan; you can see that there is a very exhaustive data base.

More fragments, still struggling with new poems

It has been a while, I was hoping to have been able to justify a new post with a new poem but it is not to be. As before in my last few posts therefore I am simply going to leave you with a couple of other snippets or fragments which I have been working on. I am also intending to include one or two images so that when I come back to these I will perhaps be able to carry on where I left off.

Summer is over, now Autumn rules

and the wind blows cold

time to wrap-up, dig out warmer clothes.

Blue skies darken, grey clouds scudding by

bringing rain and bringing floods.

Like a spoilt child the wind will rage

showing ever changing moods.

Each day I think of you

I think of how to please you

I think I do not know you

Because I always fail

You turn my thoughts away

You turn the tide each day

I can never find an appropriate way

To turn my thoughts to action

There's always some complaint

That seems a cause to rant

And rave, that boils my blood

And buries sweeter thoughts of love

I am thinking that the fragments are becoming poorer in content and as poetry. I am fast losing confidence in my ability, was it just a flash in the pan; those couple of dozen poems which I created before the turn of the summer. I just wish that I could find the creative spark which I thought I had triggered. I am not claiming that those poems were classics but I was proud of them and believed that I could get better. Unfortunately in trying harder to improve I seem to have lost my way. And I am getting to be a bore on the subject.

I have been reading books, magazines and blogs and can't help wondering if I am trying too hard. Am I being put off by what I am reading? This is why I would like to give a link to a blog which includes a short poem written to a prompt. Maybe this has something to teach me? I know lots of sources of prompts for writing and for  poetry, maybe I should try this and simply open my mind and let go, not worrying about the length of the poem but just creating a fragment for its own sake. If I can start to believe in myself again maybe the longer and "better" poems will start to flow again.

The blog is by Peggy Goetz and is called ON A DAY LIKE TODAY. Two poems I liked particularly from the latest posts were December Afternoon and Words Matter. I shall be reading a few more poems by Peggy and hoping for some inspiration. Wish me luck.

By the way, one of the best sites for poetry prompts must be the site Poets United, give it a try.