See the post below for all this week's Poetry Bus passengers. The Bus doors are still open - anyone who wants to hop on board can just leave a comment and your link will be added to the post below.
The poem below is my last minute offering. Thanks to everyone who took the bus this week, and a big thanks to Totalfeckineejit for letting me take the wheel.
The day is full of the usual things:
Work; school; a trip to the shops;
small town traffic on the coast road.
Main Street’s deserted
now the summer crowds are gone.
We get back home to find
September sliding across the lawn.
It slips into the kitchen where I’m chopping meat,
roams upstairs, checks out our bed,
examines the empty rooms.
We flick on rings, lights are lit.
Potatoes are tested, the table set.
Outside moths and daddylonglegs gather.
Hannifin’s horse whinnies drily, and night
washes up against the windows and walls.
Pure fiction
So far it's been fiction, long periods of silence, and a poem or two
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Saturday, September 4, 2010
The Bus is now taking passengers
I'll be updating this post in dribs and drabs, between work and other stuff, but
the first of this week's Poetry Bussers are already grabbing their seats.
First up is Jeanne Iris (Talk about prompt! She almost had this poem written before I'd even finished posting!)
And lagging not too far behind is Rachel Fox here
Next up is Carolina at Child of a frosty morning
And Jinksy has two poems for the bus this week. First off, a strangely prescient post here and also a freshly penned poem here
Next up is the Bug here
An owlish poem from the The doc
And a poignant one from The Weaver of Grass
Next passenger is Niamh at Various Cushions
And lagging not too far behind is NanU here
While Lydia at Writerquake has been doing some serious transforming
And last for now, but certainly not least it's Poetry Bus progenitor Totalfeckineejit here
Some more passengers - Welcome aboard to
Crazy field mouse who's here
And Helen at Poetry Matters here
There's more -
A big welcome to The Watercats who's also just hopped on board
And Peter at the Stammering Poet has penned a magical poem
Also to King of the camels, who's gone graphic
And to Heather over at Ragged old blogger. Welcome aboard!
Titus the dog has managed to grab a seat just before the bus takes off here
And next up is Poetikat
And last for now, but by no means least, Dominic Rivron at Made out of words here
Hold on! Patteran has just jumped on the bus here
And another latecomer, Karen at Keeping Secrets, is here
Not sure if chiccoreal is hoppping on the bus or not, but what the hell, we'll stick up her link here
I'll be posting my offering sometime Sunday and getting round to read everyone's hopefully Monday. Meanwhile, keep those poems coming!
the first of this week's Poetry Bussers are already grabbing their seats.
First up is Jeanne Iris (Talk about prompt! She almost had this poem written before I'd even finished posting!)
And lagging not too far behind is Rachel Fox here
Next up is Carolina at Child of a frosty morning
And Jinksy has two poems for the bus this week. First off, a strangely prescient post here and also a freshly penned poem here
Next up is the Bug here
An owlish poem from the The doc
And a poignant one from The Weaver of Grass
Next passenger is Niamh at Various Cushions
And lagging not too far behind is NanU here
While Lydia at Writerquake has been doing some serious transforming
And last for now, but certainly not least it's Poetry Bus progenitor Totalfeckineejit here
Some more passengers - Welcome aboard to
Crazy field mouse who's here
And Helen at Poetry Matters here
There's more -
A big welcome to The Watercats who's also just hopped on board
And Peter at the Stammering Poet has penned a magical poem
Also to King of the camels, who's gone graphic
And to Heather over at Ragged old blogger. Welcome aboard!
Titus the dog has managed to grab a seat just before the bus takes off here
And next up is Poetikat
And last for now, but by no means least, Dominic Rivron at Made out of words here
Hold on! Patteran has just jumped on the bus here
And another latecomer, Karen at Keeping Secrets, is here
Not sure if chiccoreal is hoppping on the bus or not, but what the hell, we'll stick up her link here
I'll be posting my offering sometime Sunday and getting round to read everyone's hopefully Monday. Meanwhile, keep those poems coming!
Friday, September 3, 2010
TFE'S Poetry Bus is ready to roll
Okay.
The engine’s purring.
The windows have been cleaned.
The empty crisp packets, beer cans and aero bar wrappers have been removed.
The seats have been scrubbed and sprayed with febreze.
The Poetry Bus is read for its next journey.
Have a look at the following poem.
When I Set Out for Lyonnesse
When I set out for Lyonnesse,
A hundred miles away,
The rime was on the spray,
And starlight lit my lonesomeness
When I set out for Lyonnesse
A hundred miles away.
What would bechance at Lyonnesse
While I should sojourn there
No prophet durst declare,
Nor did the wisest wizard guess
What would bechance at Lyonnesse
While I should sojourn there.
When I came back from Lyonnesse
With magic in my eyes,
All marked with mute surmise
My radiance rare and fathomless,
When I came back from Lyonnesse
With magic in my eyes!
Thomas Hardy
Now write a poem about a moment of transformation.
It doesn’t necessarily have to take the form of a journey, like the poem above. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a personal transformation.
It can be about something as simple as freshly laid eggs transformed into a breakfast – A seed transformed into a plant – or a poem about a person transformed by circumstance into something completely new.
Now throw in a recurring line here and there.
And before and after pictures would be nice :)
The engine’s purring.
The windows have been cleaned.
The empty crisp packets, beer cans and aero bar wrappers have been removed.
The seats have been scrubbed and sprayed with febreze.
The Poetry Bus is read for its next journey.
Have a look at the following poem.
When I Set Out for Lyonnesse
When I set out for Lyonnesse,
A hundred miles away,
The rime was on the spray,
And starlight lit my lonesomeness
When I set out for Lyonnesse
A hundred miles away.
What would bechance at Lyonnesse
While I should sojourn there
No prophet durst declare,
Nor did the wisest wizard guess
What would bechance at Lyonnesse
While I should sojourn there.
When I came back from Lyonnesse
With magic in my eyes,
All marked with mute surmise
My radiance rare and fathomless,
When I came back from Lyonnesse
With magic in my eyes!
Thomas Hardy
Now write a poem about a moment of transformation.
It doesn’t necessarily have to take the form of a journey, like the poem above. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a personal transformation.
It can be about something as simple as freshly laid eggs transformed into a breakfast – A seed transformed into a plant – or a poem about a person transformed by circumstance into something completely new.
Now throw in a recurring line here and there.
And before and after pictures would be nice :)
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Call back Friday to catch the Poetry Bus
Just happened to check TFE's place and realised I'm cheduled to drive the Poetry Bus this coming Monday.
I've fallen off the bus pretty spectacularly in the last few months, between work, vegetable garden, rebellious nine-year-old daughters, and other stuff, but I'm hoping to find a spot in the back row this autumn. Meanwhile, I solemnly promise to have the engine purring smoothly by Friday morning (or thereabouts).
Also meanwhile, here's a picture of just some of our spectacularly successful vegetable garden harvest.**
**Please note that the hand on which the pumpkin is placed is an unusually large one.
I've fallen off the bus pretty spectacularly in the last few months, between work, vegetable garden, rebellious nine-year-old daughters, and other stuff, but I'm hoping to find a spot in the back row this autumn. Meanwhile, I solemnly promise to have the engine purring smoothly by Friday morning (or thereabouts).
Also meanwhile, here's a picture of just some of our spectacularly successful vegetable garden harvest.**
**Please note that the hand on which the pumpkin is placed is an unusually large one.
Monday, July 12, 2010
TFE's Poetry Bus with Dominic Rivron
A little late for the bus, but couldn’t resist Dominic Rivron's prompt this week.
Weirdly enough, while I was sitting in the kitchen writing the words on the egg (as you do) a small green bird smashed into the window. Maybe it resented the fact that I was only going to mention magpies.
When I got outside it slid to the ground, but as I was going back into the house it was sitting up, looking a bit dazed. Because I want this post to end on a happy note, I will not dwell on the cat, just emerging from his night’s sleep, who hadn’t as yet spotted it.
Monday, June 28, 2010
The Poetry Bus
I missed Totalfeckineejit’s bus last week, expertly driven by Poetikat, but am determined to catch it this week. Don't Feed the Pixies is the current driver, and one of the prompts posted by DFTP’s was to pick a sign, follow it to its destination, and write a poem about it.
For anyone who doesn’t have Irish, Béal Bán means white mouth, and is the name of the local strand.
Béal Bán
At the end of the road
there is a mouth -
a great white mouth –
that stretches the length
of the parish, cheek to cheek.
This morning it was hungry.
With a great white smile
it swallowed three fence posts
a section of sandy path,
and a nice chunk
of Noely Malone’s field.
It eats most things, apart from seaweed.
But there are some things
it treats with respect,
like the eggs planted firmly
in its shingled gums
by a small ringed bird that hovers, returns
to its nest, glowing with pale blue life.
For anyone who doesn’t have Irish, Béal Bán means white mouth, and is the name of the local strand.
Béal Bán
At the end of the road
there is a mouth -
a great white mouth –
that stretches the length
of the parish, cheek to cheek.
This morning it was hungry.
With a great white smile
it swallowed three fence posts
a section of sandy path,
and a nice chunk
of Noely Malone’s field.
It eats most things, apart from seaweed.
But there are some things
it treats with respect,
like the eggs planted firmly
in its shingled gums
by a small ringed bird that hovers, returns
to its nest, glowing with pale blue life.
Monday, June 14, 2010
TFE's Poetry Bus with Jeanne Iris
Jeanne Iris set two great tasks this week for Poetry Bussers over at Revolutionary Revelry.
The first asked us to sit somewhere and just listen for five or ten minutes. I haven't sat alone, doing absolutely nothing, for a while. This morning I managed about 40 seconds before I started fiddling with my phone, checking out the cat, worrying about my vegetables (the wind wooooooooooh the wind!)
The sort of poetry that comes from trying to pin sounds to a page is very different to what I usually write. Some people, like Irish poet Kit Fryatt, have a definite gift for translating pure sounds into words on a page, playing with sound, turning things on their head.
I struggled, and what I came up with is very rushed, but what was great about this task was it made me listen in a new way.
I did try doing the audio, but had terrible arguments with my phone, computer, and audacity.
A song thrush bripp brrripp ping reeeeeep pip
A distant delivery van, shhhhhhh, bump
The wind woooooooooh wish swish wooooh
A song thrush brrrip brrrrip brrrrrip creep pip
A drip drip drip of silence from
an upstairs room.
The wind husssssshhhh, shhhhhh, don’t wish
A songbird, brippp, rirrrrrip, ping ping bleeep
Swish swish swish three cars sail past
on a stretch of road below.
The first asked us to sit somewhere and just listen for five or ten minutes. I haven't sat alone, doing absolutely nothing, for a while. This morning I managed about 40 seconds before I started fiddling with my phone, checking out the cat, worrying about my vegetables (the wind wooooooooooh the wind!)
The sort of poetry that comes from trying to pin sounds to a page is very different to what I usually write. Some people, like Irish poet Kit Fryatt, have a definite gift for translating pure sounds into words on a page, playing with sound, turning things on their head.
I struggled, and what I came up with is very rushed, but what was great about this task was it made me listen in a new way.
I did try doing the audio, but had terrible arguments with my phone, computer, and audacity.
A song thrush bripp brrripp ping reeeeeep pip
A distant delivery van, shhhhhhh, bump
The wind woooooooooh wish swish wooooh
A song thrush brrrip brrrrip brrrrrip creep pip
A drip drip drip of silence from
an upstairs room.
The wind husssssshhhh, shhhhhh, don’t wish
A songbird, brippp, rirrrrrip, ping ping bleeep
Swish swish swish three cars sail past
on a stretch of road below.
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