Friday Poetry: A Walk Through A Seaside Village POEM

Opportunities to make poetry exist all around us. We must practice being alert to possibility. As a committed traveller, wanderer and explorer, I find ideas in local settings as well as more far flung, some might say, exotic places as well.

This poem found its origins in a morning walk in Ireland a few years back. I rediscovered it this week and have given it a bit of a polish and a dusting off. Please join me, and a wandering we will go...

A Walk Through A Seaside Village

Breakfast failed to fire
The start of a brand new day
Just cindered toast
And hard-boiled egg
To set me on my way
Wandered down the main street
The shops were mostly shuttered
Birds on rooftops
Sat in silent lines
A single pigeon fluttered
Passed a man
With a bristled broom
His doorway keenly clearing
I offered him my morning smile
But he was not for cheering
Circled round a tree-lined park
As a couple did Tai Chi
A lean and hungry mutt took time
To bark and snarl at me
I wandered by the seawall
I felt the ocean spray
The angry, wild waves
Crashed and smashed
As the seagulls turned away
I heard a mermaid singing
Out beyond the rocks
The morning mist was lifting
As I ambled
Down beside the docks
I returned to where I started
Recalling paths I’d crossed
A cup of coffee beckoned
So, despite the wandering that morn
I clearly wasn’t lost.

Alan j Wright

Consider This:
Think about a walk or a wander, you may have taken. A walk that presented something unexpected, a delight, a surprise. I invite you to go wandering with your words.

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