My Style - Rosalind Adam

I love writing poetry but I do it in My Style. I’ve never been particularly knowledgeable about the theory of poetry. I can’t tell my terza rima from my quatrain, so recently I decided to do something about it. I bought a copy of Stephen Fry’s The Ode Less Travelled. I have to confess to being a Stephen Fry fan and this book is written as if he’s sitting there talking to me, so I happily launched myself into the first few chapters, and ploughed through his many and varied exercises that he kept insisting I complete. The annoying thing was that nothing inspiring fell onto the page. It was no good. I couldn’t write poetry to a formula and I put Stephen and his vast literary knowledge onto my bookshelf so that I could return to writing in My Style.

So what is My Style? It’s whatever sounds right. I count the metre but I don’t stick rigidly to it. A rhyme or half-rhyme makes it a more satisfying piece of work for me but I’m not obsessive about it. The interesting thing is that if I play around and change a line to improve the metre or rhyme, the altered version is always, without fail, a great improvement on the original. And as soon as I drop a precious phrase that’s holding me up I have a much stronger piece of writing. Sometimes the original idea for the poem disappears completely and I’m making statements that I didn’t expect to make.

This poem started out as a description of an old rotting door and ended up as:

Front Doors

Do you wonder what’s behind front doors

While wishing for a life that isn't yours?

Do you look at neighbours with regret?

You think you want to live their life and yet...

I bet those neighbours often look at you.

I bet they envy everything you do.

They’d love to have the life they think is yours.

So many things can hide behind front doors.

Rosalind Adam

The idea for Front Doors must have been in my head somewhere but I certainly hadn’t planned to write about that. I don’t know how or why this happens but for me it’s one of the most satisfying things about being a writer.

Blog:http://rosalindadam.blogspot.com

Website:http://www.rosalindadam.co.uk 

Blood, Sweat and Tears - Karen Harvey

When Sue announced the launch of the Poetry Space Competition 2012 on facebook I made the light hearted reply ‘The closing date seems such a long way off but I expect it will be here before we can blink...’ and made a joke about time passing more quickly as we get older and promised that I would enter again this year.

Since then I’ve been mulling it over and recalling last year’s last minute entry.  It wasn’t that I intended to leave it till the last minute, I started working on several trains of thought about 6 weeks before the closing date but on the very eve of the closing date I was still wrestling with words. I’d been on  a great course with Rose Flint at the my little home from home Ty Newydd, The Writers Centre for Wales near Criccieth this spring, so I hoped I had some idea of what kind of poetry she might be looking for as a judge, and as entries are judged anonymously I thought it would be great chance to put my theory to the test.  I especially liked the subject ‘Green Space’ because we had done some of our writing out of doors so I took pen to paper quite a few times including taking a rather wet but wonderful writing workshop in the woods with a local tutor Alison Weetman but between my busy life and monkey mind there I was blood, sweat and tears on the eve of the closing date, 3 hours before midnight, 2 hours… 10 minutes… no 9, at last uploading the results of my labour and trying to negotiate my way through PayPal, which I should have remembered I always get in a tangle with. I finally pressed send at 11.59 and a bit. 

I knew I wouldn’t be shortlisted for this one, in fact I didn’t expect to be anything, I felt I might have done better had I started even earlier so I was pleasantly surprised when Sue offered to publish my poem in the anthology.  

I have just checked and it is over a month since the competition opened so it’s about time I sorted out a submission or even two.  I enjoy Poetry Space and look forward to new content on the poetry pages; I have even shared a few of my own poems there. The judge this year is Cheryl Moskowitz another amazing poet and the entry fee helps fund Poetry Space website so I can’t think of a better reason to enter this particular competition.

 I believe that once we start to enter competitions it is helps us hone our editing skills, and it has certainly helped me grow in confidence.  So now the time has come to think seriously about writing something new for this year’s competition… now where’s my pen?

Karen Harvey

www.justafewlittlewords.co.uk

First Success - Moira Andrew

Some say poetry is a solitary activity – certainly it’s not like rugby or soccer or being in a band.  Poetry begins in the poet’s head – ideas, words, colours, sounds, pictures tumbling together until there’s the urge to put them on paper, or more likely these days, on the screen.  Creation, the stringing of words together, is the private, individual part of a poem.  But there’s a time to share – poetry is ultimately about sharing, online, on the page or to an audience, even an audience of one!

My grandmother, who had the time to listen, was my first and probably my most appreciative audience.  I remember sitting in the sun with her on the window ledge of her spare bedroom, in the background the thwack of tennis balls from public courts across the road.  Gran put her hands in her lap, settled down and listened, watching me through thick spectacles as I read.  A pause, I looked up at her face, assessing her reaction.  ‘Lovely poem,’ she whispered.  It was all the accolade I needed.  Poets love to be appreciated!

Many years later I wrote this poem in my grandmother’s honour.  It is published on the title page of ‘Words with Wings’, one of my teachers’ books from Belair.

First success

The sun newly-minted

in the summer sky, the

mesmeric sound of roller

on clay, gentle pthud

thud of racquet on ball,

grandmother mouthing my words

under her breath.

My words!  I watched

her eyes, magnified to

medallions, move slowly

across the page.  ‘Lovely

poem,’ she said smiling.

We sat in the sun, well-pleased

one with the other.

                                    Moira Andrew

The Poetry Space competition gives poets the opportunity to share – and competitors will find an appreciative audience in the judges, both for prize-winners and those who don’t quite make it this time round.  And the prize-winners, of course, will have the delight of seeing their own poems online and in print.

                                                                                    Moira Andrew, October 2011

 Moira Andrew's website




Today is the official launch date for Poetry Space Competition 2012


We prefer online entries: simply pay by Paypal and send in your poems by email to susan@poetryspace.co.uk