Next Word, Better Word.

At the moment I'm reading Next Word, Better Word by Stephen Dobyns which gives an interesting and enlightening account of the process of poetry writing. Compared with other books it sits somewhere between the 'How to' beginners books and the 'High Brow' lit crit tomes.

I don't claim to understand every word in Next Word - on occasions I've read a paragraph three times and still haven't deciphered it's meaning - but I do feel as if this is the perfect book at the perfect time for me. Just a shame it's published on such cheap paper and with such a flimsy cover. It will take hardly any dunking in the bath - alas, a regular hazard for my books - to turn it to pulp.

The portfolio is in. For good or bad 'tis finished. Having substituted Rurik the Viking takes Torremelinos by Surprise for a poem titled The Interest in a Worm I can truthfully say that is is a unique (interpret that as you will) collection. God help the tutor who marks it.

I have also entered three poems for the Mslexia poetry competition (closing date 18 July). Of course I don't seriously consider that I have a pickle-in-a-Branston's chance of coming anywhere, but I have some half-decent poems and better to be out there doing something than sitting in a file.

For some time now I've been following Jen Hadfield's blog . Always beautiful and inspiring to read. Check it out if you get a chance.

Toying with poetry

Old natural history books.

The sorts of books I grew up on.

What I'm going to do with these words I don't know.

What I should be doing is finishing my prose assignment.

The problem with elephants

is that they're just not poetic enough.

Pachyderm...oliphant...Loxodonta africana...Elephas maximus...

Even starlings can sound sexy in a poem.

But elephants..?

Poetic Roadkill (or Survival of the most poetic)

I'm having issues with Darwin; he dawdles across my mind every time I leave space for stray thoughts to come begging. I didn't invite him in and I don't know what he's doing there. He strides through grey matter, looking all beardy and talking about finches' beaks and giant tortoises. Sometimes he's joined by Mendel and Buckland, (the former looking monkish and the latter eating zebra roadkill). And then just when I think it can't possibly get any weirder, these group of misfits are joined by a chicken that, coincidentally, is crossing a synapse at the same time. It's most disconcerting.

Why did the..?



Chicken:
runt of the pterosaurs
you cross the road
without looking
left - or - right
No green cross code
A poultry with purpose
‘til the punch
line
strikes
children’s tarmac.
It’s no joke.
I blame Darwin, snitching on fossilized apartheid
so generations of bones
disowned their progeny. And you,
with your 20th century vocation
T. Rex would bite his opposing thumb
if evolution had granted him one
Such cold-blooded kin
surely it’s no surprise
why you
on a daily basis
commit occupational suicide