Year of Poetry Update - Month 10

Two pamphlets from
the Picaro Imprint

No storms this week.  But Spring in all its pollen filled glory has arrived along with sinus headaches.  So while I had writing time, I was out of commission for at least two days.

Still as you will see from the stats below I manged nine and a half hours, cracking the 400 hours poetry writing threshold and starting my 6th notebook for the year.

This week also saw some poetry bundles arrive.  I ordered the two pamphlets featured to the left from Ginninderra Press and they arrived within in a couple of days - for $5 each, they were very good value.

My copy of Katrina Naomi's, The Way the Crocodile Taught Me also turned up. I wrote briefly about her here (where you can listen to her read).

The Writing

I had one of those glorious happenings when a stray line just pops into your head and spent the first half of this week crafting it into a poem. I was trying to turn convention on its head a bit with this poem, have a little bit of fun while also engaging the reader in looking at something in a different way. After 10 or so drafts I was happy to send it off.

For the second half of the week a tried an exercise from Ron Pretty's book where you take a passage from a dramatic text and rework it into a poem.  I found it extremely difficult initially.  

The process didn't feel like writing poetry to me.  But then I think I became ensnared in the narrative. Once I loosened up and paid closer attention to the emotion it felt more like writing poetry.  

The text was Jane Eyre if you are interested.

The Study

I completed reading Ron Pretty's Creating Poetry and began Frances Mayes', The Discovery of Poetry - A field Guide to Reading and Writing Poems.  

Close Reading

Understandably a much better week for poetry reading.  I managed to read Stuart Barnes' Ebon Cans from his first collection Glasshouses and Leaving by JV Birch from her first pamphlet collection pictured above.  

Both stonkingly good poems and poets

For the Statbadgers:


Total time: 9:30 (400:52) hrs

poem writing = 5.30 (186:46) hrs

close reading =1:51(80:35) hrs

technique/theory 1:35(91:50) hrs

reflection = 0:35(33:32) hrs

Poetry written:

1(35) poems completed


(0)16 poems in draft


1 poem abandoned


1 poem facing execution at dawn


Poems Submitted:


1(21 in total) poems



Poems Published:


0(7) poem



Live Performances:

0(2)

Interviews:

0(1)

Rejections:


0(8) poems