Skeleton Architecture

Hello all, thought I'd share my good news with you this morning.  First up... I've managed to get a poem into the prestigious online poetry magazine, Ink, Sweat & Tears. It's called Before the Weighing, and it's inspired by Jane Hirshfield's poem, The Weighing, which is all about the idea of weighing your soul against a feather to see if you're fit to enter heaven. I totally had the scene in American Gods (here's the clip, watch out for fruity language at the end) where that happens in my head when I was writing it, even though that was missing the lioness, can't imagine why. Anyway, the poem is there TODAY, so grab it while it's hot,  HERE . Another place I've been trying and trying to get a poem into is the fabulous Picaroon Poetry  and on what was going to be my last attempt I got in! Not only did I get in but it's with a poem which I wrote at a mini poetry retreat with my late friend Rose, who gave me so much inspiration to b...

This is the 44th tanka of the 44 I told you I'd write for the tanka project. I actually accidentally wrote 45, but the spare one will have to remain secret for now, you might find it somewhere in the future. I need to get my head out of the tanka shaped space. I'm yearning to go longer, I'm getting excited about stories, although I am mainly finding ways to keep writing while the house keeps getting messed up (honestly it's as if five people and four animals lived in it), and I'm working at the library. On that, I'm loving working in the library. It's such a fabulous place to be, even on days which are a bit fraught, like today. I am also incredibly impressed with how lovely my co-workers are. I've never worked somewhere like this before! Anyway, this tanka was something I wrote while drinking wine in front of the TV, binge watching Poldark (I finally got 'round to it, I am gutted that Ross and Elizabeth didn't end up together yet because t...

Back in 2013 a quiz had me pegged as Batwoman (Batgirl? Surely not?) but I fancied myself as more of a Wonder Woman/Misfit/Sookie Stackhouse mashup, if I had to have super powers. We have just been to see Justice League (which was OK, but would have worked much better as a TV series), so I'm again pondering my superpowers. Now that I'm in my 40s, it seems to me that like so many women in films like Justice League (because we can't see them, ya ken?), my main powers are invisibility and inaudibility, with a heavy dose of empathy thrown in - not so that I can read minds or anything, not so I could send anyone to sleep or make someone afraid, but just so I will cry genuine tears for a sad advert. Sigh.

Sometimes, when I'm stuck on how to make something work, or I've lost the point of a poem I will use a formal poetry technique to shuffle the cards in my deck and come up with something different. Usually I do this with poems that aren't working for me, but sometimes I do it with other texts which I like, but am not getting any inspiration from. It can spark new ideas. I tend to make things into poem structures that use repetition, making the words learn the steps of the sestina, pentina, tritina, pantoum, or villanelle. I've just had a villanelle accepted for publication which started life as a free verse poem which just wasn't working. I love the circling and the repetition of these forms because I think they bring more focus onto the moment of the poem.  Of course, things don't have to stay formal, often, usually, in fact, they break down having once come together, but the process helps to reveal patterns and the little important things which can mak...

Things change fast in the blogosphere. The blogs that are available, and the ones that catch my fancy come and go, so I thought it was about time I updated this post from last year, to tell you about five of my favourite blogs taken from my Bloglovin ' feed now. What are your favourites?  First up (just because it came up first in my Bloglovin' feed) is the Authonomy Blog from Harper Collins. I love The Quotidian pieces which offer quotes from writers, mainly on writing. They're inspirational, and just long enough to set the mind racing, without having to do someting about it straight away.  This quote from Neil Gaiman was there just the other day: "All writers have this vague hope that the elves will come in the night and finish any stories." - Neil Gaiman Talking of Neil Gaiman, I am obsessed with him at the moment. I am delighted that he and Amanda Palmer are expecting a baby, and wonder what it must feel like to be such an incredible 'it' c...