The weekend saw NaPoWriMo challenge us to write a ‘serene and observational’ poem inspired by a walk, with the following day (day 14) prompting with a ‘persona poem’, perhaps in the voice of a hero or a villain… A walk observed Soft silence ebbs and flows on a tide of bubbling birdsong shrills and trills […]

 Day 12 of NaPoWriMo has challenged us to: “write a poem consisting entirely of things you’d like to say, but never would, to a parent, lover, sibling, child, teacher, roommate, best friend, mayor, president, corporate CEO, etc.” (This is inspired by Charles Bernstein’s list of poetry experiments). What if? What if I told you, you […]

Day 11 of NaPoWriMo is the day of the tanka poem (syllable structure 5-7-5-7-7) and, on a day a little less inspiring than most, my poem is below… with a nice picture to help it along. Sighs and lullabies enchanted mind at moonrise Soulful swirl of thoughts, Fly free from broken bondage hearts jig-sawed, puzzle […]

First things first – I missed posting yesterday’s NaPoWriMo poem but… I did write it at home so see below! Also, I may have been a little hasty in speaking of my visit to the BBC’s Blackstaff House, which was meant to be yesterday, but I’m afraid I actually didn’t go in the end, as […]

 Day 9 and to the noir genre… Now, this is more along the lines of what I was expecting in terms of the prompts – writing about a topic rather than focusing on the form. That said, I’m not sure I’ve produced the most illuminating piece of noir-inspired poetry!   Damned Downtown Spoiled, spilled light […]

Poem number eight for this the eighth day of NaPoWriMo and I conclude that yes, these prompts are getting harder! There I foolishly thought they would just say, write about ‘this’ one day and ‘that’ the next… I really didn’t predict the exercises in form and theory! But it’s all good practice, although I hope […]

Poetry, music, dance, drawing, coffee and of course, good food, all came together at the Hope & Gloria Emporium on Friday evening to create a beautiful ‘Tapestry of the Arts’ in Coleraine. Celebrating local artistic talent and helping to raise funds for a team who will work against human trafficking in Cambodia this summer, the […]

‘A cinquain is a poem that employs stanzas with five lines. Each line has a certain number of accented or stressed syllables, and a certain number of overall syllables per line. In the “American” cinquain, a form invented by a woman with the highly unfortunate name of Adelaide Crapsey, the number of stresses per line is […]

Day four of NaPoWriMo and the prompt is to write a poem with the title drawn from an Iain Banks spaceship name. I have chosen: A Fine Disregard for Awkward Facts The girl she is small, not lanky or tall the man he is scary – not caring at all Her family can’t cope they […]

Ok, so it appears I’m running a day behind… Not so anymore! Day three of NaPoWriMo is the day of the sea shanty. Waves rushing in, oh they make such a din paws and feet crunch on sand, shells scattered on land Then the clatter of rock and the race against clock to get home […]