How does the formulation of a poem begin? With an idea, an image, a phrase, a subject, a feeling, a memory, a structure?
I’ve been thinking about this question in relation to my own writing. Unsurprisingly, there is no single answer. On rare occasions a poem plops almost fully formed into my head (inconveniently, this tends to happen in the middle of the night). The trick then is to capture it, to write it down before it flits off and disappears like a migrating bird.
Continue readingThe days are lengthening. Harbingers of spring pierce through resistant soil; spikes of daffodils and early tulips mingle, tight buds sprinkle thin syringa stems. A few oak leaves linger, crisp-curled and dead, rasping in the flowerbed – but death is a stranger now. Pale hellebore blushes shyly, fern fronds prepare to unfurl. Clouds lift. The air is clear and bright. All winter I have dug hard cold ground, hoed, mulched, dreamed of growth. Now, accompanied by bird song, I plant words.
This poem was first published on The Wombwell Rainbow in February 2023. It is a variation of a masnavi (or mathnawi), a poetic form that has its origins in Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Kurdish and Urdu writing.
Listen to the riversong – meltwater from mountain flanks tumbling its own path between resistant rocks. Meltwater from mountain flanks trickles down through peat and moss, conjoins to become a burn tumbling its own path; tugs at roots by shaded banks, crashes, eddies, foams. Between resistant rocks salmon leap against the flow, glinting in the sun.
This poem was first published on The Wombwell Rainbow in January 2023. It is a trimeric, a recent poetic form devised by Dr Charles A. Stone.
I always enjoy experimenting with poetic forms I’ve not come across before. Recently Paul Brookes has introduced me to two delightful forms – both of them centuries old, but new to me – that use a combination of rhyme scheme and syllabic count per line.
Continue readingWe dispatched them to explore the outer planets, where we can't go ourselves: observe rings, moons, alluring mystery. Beyond Neptune one final image, of a pale blue dot clasped gently in rays of light. Thereafter, night. They can not go back: blinded, must journey on, two tiny travellers alone on separate paths through the vast, cold universe. They are not – yet – lost in space. We can still trace where they are, faint signals from the darkness telling us how fast, how far; but not for long. Soon, voiceless, they'll traverse interstellar space, bearing golden records – earth sounds, earth words. Who will hear?
A version of this awdl gywydd (a traditional Welsh poetic form) was published on The Wombwell Rainbow in November 2022.
The phrase ‘pale blue dot’ was used by Carl Sagan to describe an image of Earth taken by Voyager 1 on 14th February 1990, shortly before the spacecraft’s cameras were permanently switched off to conserve power.
Again grooved granite mill-stones grind formless flour from coarse grain. The brake wheel clanks; the wind thrums an untuned refrain.
This poem first appeared on The Wombwell Rainbow in October 2022. The form is known as a Bob and Wheel and dates back to mediaeval times.
Repetitions are a feature of many established poetic forms – the triolet, pantoum, and villanelle all contain patterns of repeated lines, while the ghazal consists of couplets with a repeated refrain. The sestina is determined by six end-words, following a fixed rotational pattern through six six-line stanzas, with a three-line envoi that includes all the end-words.
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