Skeleton Architecture

If ever there was a time that we needed dreams and visions to help us lay the foundations for our changing future it's now! The politicians are not doing enough for the climate emergency we're facing (big up to Scotland for doing more than some, but it's still not enough). The far right are being given power by the electorate, as if they had legitimate opinions or something, but hooray for the greens and lefties making gains too. The Great Bloviator, Donald Trump has been invited  to visit our shores where he's stirring his hateful pot, and slagging off Meghan Markle. Rude. Let us hope the Queen's brooch game is strong, or perhaps she'll just wear a 'Nasty Woman' badge ( here's a rather lovely one )? So, in the face of this, if your poetry game is strong, or if you just want to push yourself to get your poetry out there  here are just some of the submission windows for poetry that are currently open: Magazines: Spitball Magazine - NEW ...

I want to draw your attention to the amazing poem by Jacqueline Saphra - Cimex Lectularius, which you'll find here  if you scroll down. I love how Jacqueline purposefully meanders through ideas, starting with the bed bug of the title and wandering to seemingly unlikely destinations, before turning back and bringing it together. I particularly love the callousness of the last line which applies to everything and so much more besides. That poem is a stroke of genius. I'm not a genius, so I figured I'd use a technique borrowed from Kamsin Kaneko , using some of the words from the original poem to craft one of my own. I did it a few weeks ago in this post , creating a library themed version of Mary Oliver's Wild Geese. The words I chose to pinch from Cimex Lectularius are as follows: I have learned this week that... and that... which reminds me of... which causes me to wonder... like that... which leads me back... Perhaps... As you can see, they're the directiona...

The above quote comes from a writing exercise provided by the Glasgow Women's Library at their most recent, online, Open the Door event. The exercises were inspired by the work of Muriel Spark who was born 100 years ago, so I'm guessing it is a quote from one of her works.  This is from the first exercise. You have to use one of the quotes provided to start a story, and just keep going until you're done.  You can have a go too, you'll find   the exercises here. This is mine (with links to The Literary Gift Company and Etsy stores to buy the things in my imagined shop). Let me know if you do one of the exercises too, I'd love to see it.

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...

I was recently lucky enough to provide a poetry inspired writing workshop for a young writer's group at one of our local libraries. Some brilliant work came out of it, so I thought I'd share the workshop with you, to spread the joy of a bit of inspiration. I was thinking about time. FYI Salomé (which is currently on hiatus due to illness) is hoping to have a theme of 'time' for its Spring issue. Check out this link to their submissions page to see when they're back up and running. I was also thinking about our communications with ourselves at different times of our lives, the 'if I'd known then what I know now' moments. In poems, these can take the form of advice to our perhaps younger selves, statements of intent about how we will behave in the future, or observations of people at a particular stage of life to share some kind of truth about it. I shared a few poems with the young writers group to give examples, making sure we had time to chat abo...

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 ...

I'm currently reading A Court of Mist and Fury by Sara J Maas, because I am obsessed with the fairy tale of Tam Lin and will find him anyway possible. TBH I'm very disappointed in his behaviour in this book, although it does make sense and provide a sound reason for Feyre's continuing story arc. Who knew? OK, so everyone knew, but still. Anyway, I like to use first lines as a writing prompt from time to time. It is ridiculous how much thought goes into a first line, and some of them are utter genius (Patrick Rothfuss, I'm looking at you). This one is intriguing, but a little annoying and pathetic as well. It seems more like the sort of thing a teen might write in her diary than an opening line, so I thought I'd fudge it up a bit and go elsewhere from there. I am, being a raging goth, assuming that the darkness is a good thing.  Here's the first line: "Maybe I'd always been broken and dark inside." And here's where I went with it: ...

This is inspired by a prompt from Sara at Mum Turned Mom. One that I almost missed, so it's appearing out of order - sorry! The prompt was - PURPOSE - which made me think of all the things we use for something other than what they were made for and what a joyful thing that can be.

I have been so lucky with guests over on the Tanka Project Instagram feed, here are three more of their wonderful tankas. First up is Melayne Bowden with a gorgeous tanka about wanting and love: A post shared by Tanka Project (@tanka_project) on Oct 30, 2017 at 3:42am PDT Next it's Kyelsang Choeden, with a lovely tanka about pausing, which is really what I should be doing. I promise I'll do that after this post! A post shared by Tanka Project (@tanka_project) on Oct 30, 2017 at 4:14am PDT Finally, for today, an amazing tanka from Joseph Massey which I was telling my aunt about just last night. It's so interesting the way he uses words to craft something about the constant art of creation. Love this. I love this tanka from Joseph Massey, it's very meta while also saying something about how we're involved in creation itself. Thanks for letting me share! #Repost @tongbliss (@get_repost) ・・・ After breaking news, a formal f...

I am coming to the end of a period of what I was inspired by Henry Rollins to call 'breathing out' - when I put my work out into the world. Soon I will start the 'breathing in' where I focus in on the creativity, writing and rewriting for me, to let things flourish and grow. I will keep the tanka project going until I reach 44, which is my age, twice as many as I'm at now, and also a number I love because I love repeating numbers. At that point I don't think it will die, just maybe breathe in. When I am busy sending my work out into the world I sometimes start to believe that a rejection means it's not good. It sometimes gets to you, especially when someone keeps hold of it for months on end only to reject it. All that time when you could have nurtured the thing and instead it was held by someone who didn't even love it. I can't judge myself or my work by other's standards (apart from the standards of my boss at the library where I now work...

I'm trying to make the Tanka Project Instagram page look all fancy and professional, but I keep posting things in the wrong order! Anyway, I have had a chance to repost some absolutely luscious poems from other Instagram users, so I thought I'd share the first three of those here just for you. I love this thought provoking tanka from Gary Mansfield. Thanks for sharing Gary! #Repost @mansfieldgary (@get_repost) ・・・ #tankaandhaiku. #tankaandcoffee. #tanka. #writer. #experimentalpoetry. #voiceofpoetry. #voiceofpoem. #poseía. #poema. #reflectivepoetry #poetry. #poems. #beingvulnerablethroughpoetry. #whyiwritepoetry. #poetryforbreakfast. #poetryforbabyboomers. #poetryforthesoul. #nightpoem. #morningpoetry. #studyingpoetry #discussingpoetryforschool. #poetrytherapy. #poetrytochangeourworld. #analyzingpoetry. #teachingpoetry. #sharingpoetry A post shared by Tanka Project (@tanka_project) on Oct 10, 2017 at 5:52am PDT Gary's tanka is really interesting, raising i...

Yesterday I set you a creative writing challenge , so today I'm sharing what I've come up with. Please do share yours too, stick your link in the comments, or just share what you've come up with. I rolled a three so got the snippet from Sergio Ortiz' poem, Day of the Dead: "They married. Julia, carried down the aisle / by two old lovers, found the lost bottle of rum" I was taken with the idea of Julia not wanting to marry, or perhaps she did want to marry but knew it was hopeless. That her former lovers would present her to her husband as if she were theirs to give. I was also fascinated with the merging of the funeral and the wedding. At the moment I'm interested in writing in the first person plural, so I thought I'd explore the idea of a funerary wedding from the point of view of the bride bearers. I've given you six of them. I initially wrote this in the voice of the bride, but I kind of feel that the point of this is that her voice is ...

It's been a while since I've shared a creative writing exercise with you. Something like this one I shared two years ago, which was inspired by weird lines I was saying for Vocal ID . Right now I'm mainly writing things inspired by other poems (plus lines of dialogue on TV and all sorts of other random nonsense). Today I'm sharing six bits of other poems with you. I'm keeping it to two lines from each poem, although of course, you might want to look into the poems a bit more. However, for this exercise and understanding of context is not really important, it's more about what it sparks. Here are the six bits: 1) "And before the end comes, the complete / corrosion of all things beautiful..." from Ruin by Joel M Toledo - find the whole thing on And Other Poems here . 2) "that love, that life, that creation / is more than wanting." from Love by me, Cara L McKee. Find the whole thing here . 3) "They married. Julia, carried down t...

Happy New Year! I hope you've had a great Christmas and New Year. We did, although it was a bit quiet. The last week of the holidays dragged, mainly because I got a stinking horrible cold on January 1st, which is making me feel totally rotten. Ugh. Anyway, things are going pretty well on the writing front. I had two poems out last month, and I also got shortlisted for the Great British Write Off, which was totally unexpected, and kinda lovely. I've also had lots of things rejected, and failed to get placed in my local writing group's competition. I worked really hard on that poem and I'm annoyed with myself for not doing better, I'm trying to tell myself it's all subjective, but the usual suspects got placed again. Maybe it's just not my audience. I am slightly gutted that Maddy at Writing Bubble is going to be too busy to run the What I'm Writing Linky this year, but so glad that she's got lots of interesting things on. However, Sara at Mum T...

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...

Beneath the ground, within the diamond pressure of mountains, the wyrm had slept for so long that her body had considered stone. But she had not stayed all these years to shrug off her own precious flesh, sinew, and bone for mere minerals. She might wind around her sparkling stones, but she would not become them. Instead, once or twice upon a millennium she would stir, just slightly, her body undulating along its length as she stretched, muscles reminding themselves of their flesh. It was only a shift. Even that was enough, she knew, to split the earth itself. Once she had had sisters, and with the moving of their bodies, they had forged new continents. Once all the wyrms had roamed the surface, gorging on the creatures there, growing fat on other's flesh. She had grown the biggest of all her sisters. When the sleep came she and her sisters had coiled their way down, shifting the very plates of the earth to make their beds. For millennia she had felt her sisters shifting in thei...

Hello there! Today (21st March) is World Poetry Day. To be honest, I didn't know this until Vic Welton shared a poem on her blog earlier today ( here ). She got some glorious goodies from Viking, which I'm jealous of, but I too can write about the joy of poeming, even without fancy stuff (although Viking , if you're watching, I'd love some freebies 😉), so here is my poem about why I write poetry, and underneath that are some links to awesome poets you might like to check out. Why do I write poetry? For poetry makes words into silly-putty to bounce ideas around and mould to our meanings. For poetry is a way to speak my truth to beauty and in that, reflect your own. For poems are small, and sometimes tiny and can be crafted and smoothed, embellished and made just so, and they might even find a new home. For I read and listen to poetry and find I must join in: take your words and swallow them to set my own words free. Ⓒ Cara L McKee 21/3/17 As promised here are some...

Hello all! I'm taking part in Chuck Wendig's flash fiction challenge today, sharing this ever so short story about, well, it's about a woman who broke gods. Iconoclastically. I'm getting more into short fiction lately, so let's see how I get on! She Broke Gods She did it methodically, working her way around the incensed alcoves while the men in their robes worked out what to do. Some sank to their knees, praying to the gods even as she smashed them, taking her time to hit them repeatedly against the wall, the floor, anything which might help reduce the beautiful statues to ground powder. Hands raised in blessing flew across the floor as she hauled each god down from its plinth, and if any of the be-robed men challenged her actions, and they did, tears tracking down dust grimed faces as she performed her iconoclasm, taking her time to get it right, she seemed to pay them no heed. Yet, as she swung the statues down, golden crowns tinkling to the floor...

One of the things I love about writing poetry is that you can put in secret messages. Some of them are so secret they might never be decoded, others can be pretty obvious, but still offer an opportunity to plead innocence. Weather is a good way to talk about things, we are all used to weather being used to tell us things in programmes and in books, so it works easily in poems too. I've written a poem about books which was actually about a person I know, although that one's not currently available. This poem is about plants. Honest. Worthy of the sun This seed is just as worthy of the sun but staked and tethered has no room to thrive instead, the same trees race to feel gold rays, taking the place of others pushed aside. Many, it seems, must naturally fail, yet flowers are diverse here down below and if we could find more space in the sun who knows what wonders we who tend might grow? For those who fear the plant may 'come a weed, shading the leaves that ...