Poetry

I've been working on poetry over the past few years.

One morning a few days ago an e-mail landed in the in-box with a new publishing company: IZIZA - open to submissions! So I sent off some poetry and - Maggie wanted to read more - and what do you know - my poetry has been accepted AND we are in the process of editing and looking at book covers and goodness know what else.

So it is true, if you set your mind to it you can do almost anything! 

Best of all - it will be available for the Christmas market!

Weekend Poetry

It is always great to have new input from other writers.  

This past weekend I was fortunate enough to participate in a weekend of creative writing with poet and facilitator Ruth Everson. She has a gentle and infinitely interesting manner of teaching and presenting workshops.

Ruth led the group through many variations of creative thought. We were taken from her own poetry  readings to Koans and 'quick think' writing. 

All I have to do now is start writing again.

Here's to many more happy hours of creativity.

March Matters

I am delighted to say that the poems are being edited. Brain Walter has such a great eye for the fine honing needed for finding the essence of the poem. 

So from merely words on paper, the poems are beginning to sing.

I feel that poetry should be viewed as a whole experience so I have begun to print and decorate the poetry in a more creative way. It may not be academically acceptable - but who says that's the way to go? 

Away to Namibia now and looking with new eyes at the vast open dunes and open skies.

Of Poets and Poems

After a break in editing I am now back into that full time. It's exciting and challenging watching how poems form. From a few lines into something that is more meaningful. 

During the break I worked on short stories with JoAnne Richards through her website: www.writingcourses.wordpress.com. It was a great experience with comments and suggestions from another published writer. I recommend that you go into the site and see what you feel.

At the moment the weekend from 27 - 29 March is booking well. The weekend in the Eastern Free State with poet Ruth Everson and artist John Moore and various photographers promises to be a creative and fun weekend. 

Do contact me if you have any queries about it. 

Poets

I've had such great contact with other poets recently. Ruth Everson and I had coffee together the other day with her partner Julie. Ruth will be part of our Cosmos Creative Escapes in March. 

We have had a great response to the workshop in the Free State and hopefully we will managed to capture some great words as well as photography.

Ruth write some interesting and pertinent poetry and it is really great to have met her.

I'm busy re-editing my poetry. Always a challenge. It's all very well saying that once it's read [after editing of course] it alright to let it go. But that is difficult too. Anyway I am working away, changing lines, adding this, taking away that. I often wonder if I shall EVER complete one poem to anyone's satisfaction! 

Editing

I have an editor working with me on my poems again. BW, who digs, suggests, comments and draws out the best. 

I now re-look at each poem with new, perhaps 'cleaner' eyes and wonder why [and how] I did not see what he has suggested myself! [Left brain kicks in]. 

It is most challenging for both of us as we are communicating via e-mail. However we're managing and hopefully I will have a few poems to be delighted with after a few months or so.

I tend to read B's comments very quickly - usually agreeing with them and then set the poem aside for a while to work on it again a few days later. So far it's working for the better. Let's hope it continues. I see a mail has just arrived - maybe more poems to re-create.

Re-working

So now you've written the words. It looks like a poem. Not a conventional one of course, but it has lines shorter than prose and has 'soft ending' rhyme and 'echoes' of thoughts and so on. BUT it now has to be crafted.

So I sit looking at the lines, trying to make sense of the words, and of course, the meaning. Is it subtle enough? Obvious enough? Or is all I write simply thoughts that are really quite banal?

Not sure, but certainly will try again and again until I have something resembling a 'poem'.