Take: a poetry post

Hello!

It's November and I'm doing NaNoWriMo, which for those that aren't involved in this crazy world of writing means that I'm trying to write the first draft of a whole novel in one month.

Some people have finished already. Somebody allegedly finished in the first 24 hours. Imagine that! I'm hoping that slow and steady wins the race for me. I'm trying to get more than my target words of 1,667 words a day written, and so far, after a glitchy first day, I am doing just grand.

The novel I'm writing is a reworking of my first Chaptershill book which I first wrote a while ago, but then realised it was fatally flawed. If you recall I had a meltdown last year about what was wrong with it - that it was infested with the worms of other fantasy, much of which is uncritical of patriarchal culture, and that I couldn't buy into that in good conscience. Besides which, it didn't work for the story. I tried amending the story but it was so riddled with all the nonsense that I had to rewrite. Same characters, some of the same plot points, but different ways to get there.

It's good. It's interesting. It is difficult. And right now I'm doing a really tricky bit which is slow and awkward and needs to be linked in with lots of other stuff, and I know that it's not great, but it's a first draft and that's OK.

And anyway, that's where I've been.

But I need some headspace too, so I thought I'd give Sara's Prompt a go this week and write a poem. I never really got the point of list poems until recently, although my Mother in Law likes them, but when I was down in Ilkley for the Literature Festival I got to go to a poetry workshop with Daljit Nagra, where we did list poems, and that's really got me thinking about them. I need more practice, and so that's what I'm doing. My Red poem was a list poem, and so is Take.

Take

Take your life.
I'll take yours and
you take mine
and please, take your time.
Take your glasses,
take a seat,
take thy hand,
to lawful wedded.
Take a walk,
take a left, take a right.
Take it easy,
take a chill,
take a shuftie.
Take take take,
but don't be respectable.
Take two.
Take five.
Take the piss,
take the Michael,
take the Piemontello,
take the biscuit.
Take the high way,
take the low way
(I'll get there before ye).
Take my hand and hold on
for dear life.
Take this life -
I'll take yours
and you take mine.
We'll take our time.

© Cara L McKee 13/11/16

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February update!

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Cleaning: A Poetry Post

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