Some of you might remember the little fridge magnet project I'm working on this year. No Arts Council grant or anything but hey, who needs the paperwork? This way I don't even need to leave my kitchen and it's going really well so far. There was that baby poem back in May and I wrote one in July too (a happy summer one in fact, it's on my myspace blog and it's called 'Keep the peach'). I'm really enjoying the challenge of (a) using the words on offer on the calendar and (b) bending the rules when I really, really want a word that isn't there!
So here is this month's. It's weird because we haven't actually had that much rain in this part of Scotland but I suppose there has been a lot of talk about rain elsewhere. Also it's a bit of a misery fest and, on the surface at least, I've been feeling quite cheerful (suspicious in itself!). A lot of bending went on - I had to cheat with my second 'why' (take a 'what' and stick a 'y' over the end!) and with the 'break' (interestingly take 'breast' and stick one of Small Girl's fridge magnet 'k's over the end...particularly interesting considering the whole matter of drunks and how they behave like babies...). I know some of you won't like the rhyme at the end but I'm afraid it just wouldn't go away...'rhyme me, rhyme me', it was wailing! I tried other endings (lots) but this seems to be the one for now.
I like this little project for lots of reasons but I have to admit that one reason is to do with the sneering of others (remember how much I hate sneering...how I try not to do it myself..?). Every time I read someone sneering at 'greeting card poetry' or 'slogan poetry' or 'fridge magnet poetry' I feel the urge to bring out a whole range of all of the above, to get Banksy to spray them all over Buckingham Palace or something. I'm not going to do that, you understand, but it does wind me up. It's so easy to sneer..so easy...and I should know...much better to just get on and DO something, WRITE something. Anyway, here's the poem.
Nature falls
Why here, why now
Does it rain like future?
Our grey old present
An eternity lake
We ache and sweat
How wet, how bitter
We rust like drunks
Supped up, fit to break
RF 2008
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11 comments:
Well, that's us pretty much covered in Ireland: another stormy day, rain and wind. Good project!
Yes...when I got the present for xmas (poetry magnets calendar) I thought..lovely but I won't use it...and now look - a series! Obviously it has its limitations in some ways but I do like turning limitations into possibilities!
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rust like drnks. I really like that line. Think I'll nick it.
ps Hedge will be on its way in next few days. Ta very much.
It's a pretty nasty image isn't it? Nasty but I like it too, I have to admit. There are a few people I know doing that just now...rotting away...and then of course there's the whole human race doomed and dying...what was that I said about feeling cheerful..? I knew it was too good to be true...
This is what we will know;
infirmity, decrepitude and death.
So why should we smile at all?
Because we're not there, not yet.
See Ken, you just don't have the miserable poet gene! That's why we need you on the system...without you we'd all be lost in the moaning and sighing...
This poem is excellent without any prior knowledge of the fridge magnets stuff. Wow wow wow. Has definitely inspired me to pull out the old word magnets again.
Thanks Fiendish. It is interesting because I find the magnets make me write quite different poems...they are more...poetic (for want of a better word perhaps)...than some of my others (although not all). Maybe they concentrate my mind in a different way...get me out of my usual mindset, the everyday life. It's quite exciting how much you can do in the kitchen - who needs the writing retreat!
Also I think that having put the first book out this year I can feel my writing changing now. I can feel myself working towards whatever is going to come next.
Plus schools go back here tomorrow! I get some more writing time back!
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I've been staring at this ruddy poem for two days now waiting to be able to say something profound about it but it's just slipped by me. Actually I don't think I got by the first sentence.
My wife got a box of magnetic poetry and it drove me to distraction. When I want a word I want it NOW - I don't want to have to root around for it. It's hard enough writing poetry anyway without all that.
Yes I got a box of it a couple of years ago and never used it - stuck it all on the fridge and there it stayed. But this year I seem to be in the mood for it...plus with the calendar set and the first set I have more words to work with (cheat number 1). It took me a couple of months to get into it even this year but now I'm hooked and will do a poem with it every month till the end of 2008 (or die!).
I am doing other writing too of course...
Also I would have to say that I don't find writing poetry hard. Maybe I should...maybe that's something I shouldn't admit...oh well...truth is all and the truth is I find living hard...really simple things too...but writing poetry is one of the very few things I don't find hard! If I did I think I would stop and go and do something else.
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