4:

First line generator

Carrie Etter

I've been to Much Wenlock Poetry Festival over the weekend so I was unable to post my NAPOWRIMO poems. I used poetry prompts from Carrie Etter and a first line generator. The 'first line' one was harder as they were a bit 'poetry' for me, you know, a bit flowery! Anyway the poems will follow...

4:Write a poem using five of the following six words: errand; body; world; dusk; snow; light.

5:Write a poem that begins with seeing a person who resembles someone who's dead.

6:Beyond this moment of Winter the men seek 

7:In the child of the soul the trees wander


4:

The world of bats
is one of haste
and errand:
busy, busy hurrying.

Flittermice bodies thrum,
always trying
to become invisible.
The sun at dusk

is slumped in envy
as the velvet leather bags
appear and disappear
into the thick grey air.

Dragons

The first one is still the best one,
a small scaled green dragon
hatching from a speckled egg,
small enough to close in a fist.
The others, metal and pottery,
covered a shelf until they were
packed away into a box
beneath the bed. Affection
for them dwindled and they
nearly went to the charity shop.
Instead they were given to my kids
to litter up their shelves: except for two.
The little original, still on my dressing
table next to my perfume and picture
of my favourite cat; now dead.
The other, a hand-made sleeping
dragon I lost like the friendship
of the person who made it: cold
and cruel as dragon claws.

Poetry prompts

Carrie Etter has some great ideas on her blog...

Including the one I am working on today.

'1. Write a poem about something you collect or used to collect. Focus on the rich details that distinguish the items in the collection from one another.'

poem on day 2

Your prompt for NaPoWriMo Day 2 - "January freesia, hot coffee". What small, physical things delight you? Write about them. Stick to the physical. See where it goes...


Green Park

walking through Bath city streets in the morning,
still high so that honey-coloured stonework
is magical and towering

then milling around in a supermarket until
10am allowed us all to hand over £4
for a bottle of red wine each for breakfast

and we lay on the bank rolling joints
swigging from the bottles, in hot sunshine
watching Ollie proclaim

line after line of Shakespeare
from his beautiful, expressive mouth
and Gould was quietly humming something

such big happiness and I think of it
as the sun beats in this cottage window
and I make breakfast for my children

then hang the laundry and watch it flap
as I sip from a mug of tea my
 contentment rises like sap

NaPoWriMo begins today...

I did this a few years back and got some good poems out of it and I liked the routine of writing something every day and thinking about it for a long time first. Last time I just grasped around for inspiration but this year I saw that the helpful poet Jo Bell is going to provide a poetry prompt every day. This is going to help me to get started (my mind is a blank lately). Here is her first one and I will post the poem (first draft, rough thing) later today.

'So, my NaPoWriMo prompt number 1 is - write to yourself as a sixteen year old. What warnings, what advice do you give? If you have time - write back. 

[NB I know that some of these prompts will sound worthy or 'workshoppy'. But give them a shot, especially if they aren't the sort of thing you would normally do?]

Moonlight halo: love painting trees