A Blast From Poetry Past

A Blast From POETRY PAST

I have written previously about the joy of rummaging. Well, today I did some more,- rummaging that is and it paid dividends. It seemed most appropriate on Poetry Friday.

I uncovered a collection of long forgotten poems I wrote many years ago. -More than thirty years ago to be precise.

This was my first anthology of poems. All hand written on pieces of card and presented in a spiral bound book format. I recall creating this book primarily for my children and my students at that time.

Reconnecting with these early poems again was like seeing ghosts from my past. It was both thrilling and confronting. Confronting because the poems turned out to be much older than I first recollected.

It was so good to reconnect and reread those historic words. It was a feeling akin to unearthing a pirate’s treasure. I got such a buzz revisiting work from this earlier phase of my writing life. I now have some new-old poems to reshape and consider.

I now present a couple of those previously forgotten poems. The first, ‘When Dad Gets Mad’ is presented in its original form.

The second poem, ‘Please Sir’ has been lifted from its original resting place and undergone some revisions in my current writer’s notebook. I am delighted by my discoveries. I am pleased I went rummaging. I recommend it to one and all as a habit worth cultivating. You never quite know what treasure await you.

Original hand written copy of my first anthology of poems

Revised version of Please Sir, taken from my original poetry anthology

Comments

Poetry Inspired by Images and Objects

There are many ways pictures and photographs can be conscripted to support the writing of poetry. Allow me to share a few ideas with you: Old photographs are a great source of inspiration. Cynthia Rylant explored this idea with great success in her book 'Something Permanent' where she employed the Depression era photographs of Walker Evans to add a new voice to the starkness to the lives of people experienced under extreme circumstances. I have used this strategy to spark many individual poems. In ' I Bet There's No Broccoli On The Moon,' I used a photo I had taken in 2004 while living in New York to inspire a poem. The poem was based on a story related by a friend who grew up in New York. I regularly combined poetry and pictures in my writer's notebook, drawing on inspiration from the photograph and my personal memories. We can also utilize existing cartoons and illustrations to create ekphrastic poems. I frequently use the illustrations of Jim Pavlidis to co...

Opposite Poems

O pp o s ite P oem s In his book, ' How To Write Poetry,' Paul Janeczko presents the idea of opposite poems. Paul suggests they could also be referred to as antonym poems. This is wordplay and it's fun to try. Here are some examples Paul provides to help us see very clearly how these short little poems work. I think the opposite of chair Is sitting down with nothing there What is the opposite of kind? A goat that butts you from behind Paul Janeczko You will notice the poems are written in rhyming couplets. They can be extended so long as you remember to write in couplets. Paul shows us how this is done. What is the opposite of new? Stale gum that's hard to chew A hot-dog roll as hard as rock Or a soiled and smelly forgotten sock You might notice that some of Paul's opposite Poems begin with a question. The remainder of the poem answer the question posed. Opposite poems are a challenge, but it is a challenge worth trying. N...

Powerful Poetry, 'Refugees' by Brian Bilston

This week, Poetry Friday is hosted by Janice Scully @ Salt City Verse where Janice shares some original words and offers us a taste of Thomas Carlyle to ponder. I encourage you to join a host of poets from all around the globe and visit Janice's page... Almost two years to the day, I wrote a post featuring the poem 'Refugees' by Brian Bilston. The poem was included in Brian's first book of poetry, 'You Took The Last Bus Home.' A very powerful Reverso poem and technically brilliant. A Reverso poem can be read from top to bottom or bottom to top. It will often express opposite opinions depending on which way you read it. Such poems really make us think. A Reverso poem is like a picture turned upside down, a frowning face upended to reveal a smiling one. The poem read in reverse, contradicts itself with an opposing message. In 'Refugee' Brian Bilston focuses on a societal issue that tends to polarize feelings and the opposing views are clearly in eviden...

Search This Blog