This poem by WisƗawa Szymborska, published in her Selected Poems View with a Grainof Sand, starts with two questions:-
Under what conditions do you dream of the dead?
Do you often think of them before you fall asleep?
The poem consists of five five-line stanzas. Some lines are shorter, some longer, but they are all questions.
It’s a striking title – we want to read on, but I can only say that I find it easier to think or dream of the dead people in my life than to write a poem that’s entirely made up of questions. I promise to give it a go. Meanwhile, below is the haiku that was published in the British Haiku Society’s Members’ Anthology (2002) under the theme Hidden:-
on her skin
a pattern of purple lines –
radiographer’s map
You will find this interesting and useful article on the website of the poet Martyn Crucefix. He gives examples of poems under each of the 14 headings. I came across the article just the other week, timely as I’m doing a Poetry School course held at the Manchester Art Gallery.
Martyn has divided these 14 ways into five subgroups:- Through Description, Through Ventriloquism, Through Interrogation, Through Giving an Account and, finally, Come At a Tangent. He suggests people try to write one a day for the next fortnight.
I doubt I’ll manage one a day, but I’ve taken heart from the article: I have lots of abandoned ekphrastic poems, because one tutor was adamant that such poems have no merit if they merely describe!
I ran away to sea many years ago. In 1969 I arrived in London as an economic migrant and went to register with the “Aliens Office”. P&O Lines Ltd had offered me a job as a WAP (Woman Assistant Purser) and I joined my first ship, the Arcadia. The small flags on my blue uniform jacket and white dresses showed that I could speak Dutch, French and German to all the European passengers who were going to start a new life in Australia and New Zealand.
The haiku below was first published in the 2004 Members’ Anthology of the British Haiku Society. The theme that year was “Other”.
To honour International Women’s Day I’m posting this poem about a woman. It was first published in The Best of Manchester Poets, vol. 2, published by Puppywolf (2011). I aimed to give the reader enough clues (the Gauloises cigarettes, the stubborn streak) for them to be able to guess the identity of this woman before they read the final lines.
Writing prompt
It’s a good prompt: with which historical figure (famous or infamous) could you have gone to school, college, university with? Did you even sit next to them in the classroom? What were they like then?
Joan
One of the girls I went to college with
was Joan who’d left home early.
She smoked Gauloises, had a stubborn
streak, wanted to study philosophy.
We thought she was depressed; she cut
herself and once put out a cigarette on her arm.
I wish I’d asked her why. I can see her now
with that hair cropped short, staring straight ahead.
I’m chuffed to learn that my prose poem Broken biscuits has made it into an anthology of poems about Yorkshire, published by Valley Press. The proofs came through the other day. I am in good company with many well-known poets including the current Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy.
The launch is in Leeds on Saturday 18 March, a few days after I’m launching Another life in the International Anthony Burgess Foundation here in Manchester. A good many poems in the book were written there in the Engine Room.
I admire those poets who perform a piece from memory. I’ve decided to learn Broken biscuits well enough so I can perform it from memory: Is there poetry in broken biscuits? Discuss. The short answer is yes, provided it is articulated in the unashamedly Yorkshire, tongue-in-cheek, twinkle-in-the-voice tones of … (insert name of a very well-known poet living in Barnsley)…
The new Orbis arrived yesterday and I was very pleased to see that it included a review of my debut collection by Noel Williams. It’s a perceptive review, identifying my wish for more to be intended than said in my work, the unexpected insights that result from shifts in viewpoint and the surrealism. The review ends:-
“The simplicity of some of these poems belies their subtlety. It’s a collection written with an intelligence that’s wicked, weird and insightful.”
With that I’m off down to London in a few days to read at Fourth Friday (which is at a temporary venue in South London while the Poetry Café is being refurbished). I’m reading with Wendy Klein who was a fellow student at the Writing School.
During the Christmas holidays I went to see Paterson, the delightful film about a bus driver who writes poems. The poems in the film are by the New York poet Ron Padgett. Back home I found his work in the New York Poets II Anthology, including the Love Poem that Paterson writes in the film. The first line is: We have plenty of matches in our house.
Paterson is also the title of a long poem by William Carlos Williams, so I re-read him. Seeing Paterson sit in his bus scribbling away each morning before he drives off for the day reminded me of another American poet, William Stafford. He wrote a poem each day, starting with a brief description of the weather, then a short aphorism, then a poem. I believe his “hit rate” for acceptances was 1 : 7, or 1: 8. I’ll settle for that!
May you have a healthy, happy and creative year. If you’re short on inspiration, you can always write about the matches in your house. Over Christmas I used up a couple of boxes of good old “Svalan” from Sweden. Now I’ m on “Flix” from the Netherlands. The packaging is modern, but the tips are brown…
Here are piles of blue books with the colourful cover image – a painting by my brother-in-law – and glowing endorsements. Publication of Another life is perfectly timed: I’ll be giving my debut collection as Christmas presents. Some friends and family members have already ordered additional copies too. Manchester city centre is heaving with the crowds attracted by the Christmas markets, so the launch is postponed till early 2017.
I sold my first copy last Saturday to Pansy Maurer-Alvarez who’d flown in from Strasbourg to read at Barlow’s Cigarette. She’s published by KFS – knivesforksandspoonspress.co.uk. I very much liked her work. And the invite to read got me to brush up and polish some more experimental work and “found” poems. It was fun to include German and Dutch words and phrases and my performance was well received.
Covent Garden tube station and Manchester Cathedral is where you could have heard my poems this month. My poem This too is art was one of six winners in the quarterly competition for members of the Poetry Society. I gave permission for it to be printed and handed out to people passing their stand. Along with some of the other winning poems on the theme of ‘Messages’ it was recorded by staff and played all day on National Poetry Day (6 October) in Covent Garden tube station – ticket office, lift, platforms – just like any other announcement. One feels for the staff in the ticket office!
I always enter the annual Manchester Cathedral Poetry Competition. It’s local and any money left goes to charity. This year one of the three I sent was Highly Commended by Jo Bell. She read after Michael Symmons Roberts delivered his talk on Poetry and Religion. It’s a slightly daunting venue, but the poet-in-residence Rachel Mann put everyone at ease and it was a great experience.
My lucky streak in competitions has ended: nothing in the Torbay and Buxton. But the collection is definitely being published this year! It’s all done; just waiting for two poets to send some kind words for the back cover…
I’m planning to get the 10.41 to Liverpool Lime Street. I’m on the single-decker blue Magic bus, with the bright orange bars and handles inside. We’re crawling through the Curry Mile – with the newly completed cycle lanes and a few badly parked cars, the buses have to manoeuvre; even the walkers are catching up with us.
white petals float
towards the shisha bar
sleeveless cyclists
The Liver birds are shimmering, a salt tang, ice cream sellers and flocks of French pupils draped around the dock. The Tate opened late this morning. A friendly guide – grey curly hair, faded lilac shirt – directs me to the first floor.
On one side of The Snail four bronzes: a backbone has become an “abstracted plait”. In fuzzy black-and-white film Matisse points with a walking stick to where the next piece of cut-out should be attached. The Snail’s alternative title is Chromatic Composition. Apparently it was planned as part of a triptych, this “purified sign for a shell”. The pin holes are visible in the brightly coloured paper.
Photo credit: Alexas_Fotos via Pixabay
In a traditional saijiki (list of kigo, or season words) the snail is linked to summer and that fits with these colours: orange, lilac, greens, blue. My own saijiki is Haiku World: an International Poetry Almanac compiled by the late William Higginson. It’s a unique anthology: over a thousand haiku, from more than six hundred poets, living in fifty countries, writing in twenty-five languages. At 400 yellowing pages it’s too heavy to carry around.
The snail is caracol in Spanish, slak in Dutch/Afrikaans and katatsumuri in Japanese. The Spanish word sounds like the shape of the protective shell and katatsumuri is, perhaps, the non-moving or slow moving, the snail stuck to the window. Many years ago I had a Korean manager lodge with me at Norwood Rd. He and his colleagues were learning English at the Business School. Smoking he paced through the rear garden, saw me sprinkle blue pellets…Miss Fokkina, you nourish the snails?
Acacia Publications 