Skeleton Architecture

More! Yes, more terrific tankas from guests to the tanka project. I'm so thrilled to have these guys taking part in this project, so I'm sharing their work with you so you can love it too. First up is another awesome artwork from Joseph Massey ( you've previously seen his work here ), this one speaks to the world being rubbed out by November and reminds me of Thomas Hood's 'November' ( set to music by the Art of Noise ). I love this tanka from Joseph Massey. It reminds me of Thomas Hood's poem, November, and speaks to the grey on grey outside my window. #Repost @tongbliss (@get_repost) ・・・ Still writing tanka over here. #poetry #poem #poems #poetsofinstagram #haiku #tanka #tankaproject #poetrycommunity #poetsofinstagram #tanka #inspiration #poetryofinstagram #instapoetry #igpoetry #instapoetry, #poetsofig A post shared by Tanka Project (@tanka_project) on Nov 7, 2017 at 11:29am PST Elizabeth Bae-rett Browning does not enjoy the tanka, and ...

More lovely people have shared their tankas on the tanka project - please do join in if you're up for writing a tanka yourself. The syllable structure is 5/7/5/7/7, you should have a turn in the poem around the middle, but that can just involve thinking of something a wee bit slant. Give it a go and join in. This was Tina's first go (and it's amazing). I love this tanka from Tina McFarlane. It's her first one! #Repost @mcfarlane_tina (@get_repost) ・・・ #Twitter #tanka #poetry #freedom #tankaproject #poetrycommunity #poetsofinstagram #tankalife #inspiration #poetryofinstagram #instapoetry #igpoetry #instapoetry, #poetsofig A post shared by Tanka Project (@tanka_project) on Oct 26, 2017 at 4:37am PDT I was first drawn to Jamarow's tanka below because of the fantastic handwriting - I wish I could do that! But the words of it too - if Shakespeare wrote tankas instead of sonnets... I wish my handwriting was as gorgeous as this, and I love the ...

I have tried to do yoga in recent years. I have had babies and required physiotherapy, and got older and stayed fat, and had years of not getting enough sleep. I wanted to regain the feeling that my body was strong, that I was flexible. I also wanted to focus on the breath. I went to my local yoga class where the teacher was lovely, but I don't think she was experienced in dealing with fat bodies, perhaps she just wasn't experienced in dealing with mine. She gave me blocks and things to help me get the positions rightish, but I simply couldn't breathe in some positions, and I was acutely aware of what I looked like. That said, I know that no-one was looking at me, but I couldn't relax for imagining my oxygen starved frame toppling over like an elephant on stilts , domino-ing into my neighbour and causing havoc. When it came to the relaxation I was able to breathe. In the quiet of the room I told the tears running down my face to stop, but they didn't. I wipe...

Way back in 2013 I wrote a blog post about how all the time I lived in Moffat I never managed to get up Grey Mare's Tail (very long waterfall) to the loch at the top of the very big hill. I tried, I really did, but the path was very steep, and the way down was very far, and I have a huge problem with heights. The time I got up the farthest my husband called our mission off because I was holding on to the ground, and passing people was becoming a huge problem. Since I went to Ilkley Literature Festival this year I've been inspired to try out different poetic forms, like list poems , and pantoums. I know that formal poetry and rhyming are not currently fashionable, but I love to work with those restrictions. Occasionally something will burst out and become free verse, but I love the interesting things that can come out of pattern. So, today I'm sharing a pantoum. This is one of my current favourite things, and involves repetition, although I'm not quite repea...

The prompt over at Mum Turned Mom this week is Lonely, and it got me to thinking about poetry, Wordsworth wandering lonely as a cloud  strikes me as odd, it is rare one seens a single cloud in the lake district, surely if there was one by itself, it would be relishing that moment of freedom? I also thought of Henri's mash up of Wordsworth's poem , and of how things can be taken out of the familiar context to give new meaning, both to the word and to the context. The other thing in my head when I think about 'lonely', is poor Tallulah, who is perhaps the loneliest person at Bugsy Malones when she sings the song about not having to be lonely. But that's what we do. We put our best foot forward, paint on a face and go on with the show. Anyway, I wrote a poem which doesn't want to be very long, about that little cloud. There are lots of clouds in the sky as I write, but I can't see her. I think sometimes we can feel most lonely when we're surroun...

I've been away for such a long time! My last post was about a month ago, and was written when I thought that Katsuma was going to die. I was so incredibly worried about him, and I'm happy to report that he has pulled through that crisis, although he is still a very sick cat. He is now on lots of medication for his heart disease, and he is no longer capable of living the life he previously lived. But I think he's still content. He gets ever so much love, and I know he wishes he could still go out and kill things, but lying in any possible patch of sun comes a close second. He's never going to be fully better, and at some point another crisis will come, and that is when we will stop, because he's done amazingly well, he's walking again and everything, but I wouldn't want to see him go through such a terrible time again. Anyway, what have I been doing to keep myself away for so long? Lots of poems. I have been writing away, with so many ideas that I'm ...

What can I say? Nothing sensible. My beautiful, massive cat is sick, dangerously sick, and I am beside myself, but writing about it helps. Nothing fits into a poem like the ones I usually write though. I can't make this fit. I can't make the feelings fit. So I'm going a bit freestyle. I don't know if it's good. I don't know if it's worthwhile sharing. But I'd have liked to have read it while I was Googling this stuff recently, and it helps me to write. So this is it... ...this was it (edit 18th June 2017). This was the first terrible thing that happened to Katsuma, in summer last year, and we did our very best for him, and as I mentioned above, I was beside myself.  I miss him. I'm not the same. I'm still scared about leaving my kittens because leaving Katsuma, even though he was well looked after while we were away, was the thing that caused him stress and led to his death. It still doesn't matter that logically I know Katsuma had somet...

This week I'm taking part in the Mum Turned Mom Prompt linky, and the subject is: Confusion. At first I was wondering about where the word confusion had come from? Was it some kind of coming together of disparate things? Then I was thinking of the King Crimson song Epitaph  (although I'd misremembered the lyric as 'confusion will be my alibi'), but then I thought of the people I have known who have suffered with Alzheimers, and something I heard a man say while he was watching his friend who is increasingly affected by Parkinsons (which is not dementia at all). The things that happen to our bodies are most unkind. This is a sonnet because I need practice at sonnets. I don't feel the volta quite works, but I wanted to get the turmoil across. Hope you like it. Confusion Signals spark, but something's unconnected, the word will not appear inside his mind. She says it for him; is again affected, her smile is tight and yet she remains kin...