On a Roll and On the Buses!

At the beginning of the year I decided that, instead of submitting to magazines, I'd enter a few poetry competitions. I've never really got into the competition thing, but I have some friends whose names seem to pop up on every shortlist and winners' list, and I thought I'd have a go.

I spent several weeks agonising over which poems to send where, reordering words, fiddling with commas, changing titles and changing them back again, and eventually sent off entries to five competitions. And it seems it was worth it, as I'm really chuffed to discover I have won or been placed in three!

My poem 'Dead Things I Have Seen While Walking' was placed joint fourth in the Kent and Sussex Open Poetry Competition, judged by Catherine Smith. The winner was Janet Sutherland, with her amazing poem 'Braided Wire'.  You can read all the winning entries, and the adjudication report, on the Kent and Sussex website, and I am very proud to be placed among such a fabulous group of poems.

'My Glass Father' was placed third in The Plough Prize, judged by Philip Gross. First prize was won by Vicki Morley, and second prize by Millie Guille - two fantastic poems. Once again, I am honoured to be placed in the company of such great work!

And in the Guernsey Literary Festival's Open Poetry Competition, judged by Gwyneth Lewis, my poem 'Demeter's Lament' won first prize, with 'Monsoon' coming joint third, and 'The Cliff' coming fourth. Second prize was won by Gabriel Griffin, and the other third prize by Fiona Ritchie Walker. All the winning poems in this competition will be featured on Guernsey's buses and at the airport, so I am absolutely delighted!

Many thanks to the judges Catherine Smith, Philip Gross and Gwyneth Lewis, and to the competition organisers.

I guess after this flurry of excitement I'd better get back to working on the new collection and the MA!

Poem: The Cliff

The Cliff

(after Anselm Kiefer)

I make a lexicon       of things that can be        white

         linen             lace        sea foam           face

but these     small dresses      nightshirts   doll-sized robes
    

       are spattered               grey     and        maculate

stone ghosts of birds            snagged       on a wall of ash

I wonder                 how they           were stitched

smock       shirr         pick         cross               feather

        but it’s                   impossible             to tell

their seams           have rotted               in the spray

I think      how they once were cut     from patterns

        facing    yoke    placket     pocket        welt

but the waves   have flung      this flock of empty children
      

         against                           a squalling bluff     

all memory of making                           has been lost

Above the cliff  the sky            is cracked like mud

I make a lexicon of things     that are        unravelled

                       

Sally Douglas

'The Cliff' was a prizewinner in the 2015 Exeter Poetry Festival Competition, and was originally published in the Festival pamphlet, Threads.

Nana on a Dolphin and other poems...

I'm delighted to have three poems featured at Exeter University's poetry journal, Canto. One is a response to Niki de St Phalle's wonderful 'Nana on a Dolphin'; one has its roots in Russia, and another was described on Twitter by WN Herbert as 'a fine elegiac poem about eyebrows'. (Thank you!) You can now read the poems here.

To whet the appetite, here are a couple of related images:

A carving by Grinling Gibbons

By Camster2 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6521009

Nana on a Dolphin, by Niki de St Phalle

By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30813065

Poem: Mid-Autumn Moon

I promised back in February to post my version of Su Shi's 'Mid-Autumn Moon'. And here it is. 

Poem: Schrödinger's Cat

On 29th November 1935, Erwin Schrödinger published his famous thought experiment about the cat. That famous cat in the in the steel box, the cat which is at the same time dead and alive until the box is opened and the cat is observed. I can't say I fully understand it at a scientific level, but at a poetic level, it's just my thing!

I started thinking about how surely, unless the cat were asleep, it would be able to observe itself. And if it did, what would happen? Would the 'psi-function' collapse and, in effect, the cat kill itself via its own consciousness? Let's hope it's asleep, I thought, so there's no danger of that happening...

So, to celebrate its 80th birthday, here's my ode to Schrödinger's Cat, complete with suitably unscientific 'footnotes'. Imagine it with a bit of a rap feel...

Apparently, in later life Schrödinger wished he'd never mentioned the darn cat. I bet the cat wished so too.

Reddled Days

red letter days
red alert
red admiral
red apple
red arrows
red ball
red bull
red blood cells
red cabbage

red cross
red carpet
red onion
red october
red umbrella
red berries
red ochre
red wine

red dwarf
red dragon
red dress
red riding hood
red kite
red lentil soup

red eye

red ensign

red flag 

red fox

red pepper

red planet

red giant

red velvet

red hair

red herring

red nose

red queen

reddled days

Poem: Eye

As I've been posting a few prompts for ekphrastic poetry, I thought I'd share one of my own poems inspired by a painting. 'Eye' was written in response to Howard Hodgkin's 'Love Letter', which you can see here. I liked this image as a prompt because it is so open, so full of possibility, and a poem could move outwards from it without (I hope) undermining it. I wrote this a few years ago, and looking at it now, although I'd probably write a different poem today I still like it enough to share it.

Liberated from my Hard Drive

This is an old dramatic monologue that has never before seen the light of day. It was obviously ashamed of itself...

Image:Original Artwork, Ink & Acrylic on Canvas, Sally Douglas

On The Line                         

I didn't mean to get into this mess

Just got in with the wrong crowd

on the dark side –

found myself one morning crumpled

and screwed up

 – in a dirty dive –

let myself be taken for a ride

But oh, it was exciting  –

whizzing around with a new gang

feeling a bit of rough

letting myself be run through

by the blues

but now

I see it’s changed me

My other half won’t know me now

he’ll hang around with others

(clean as clean and white as white)

who have an

almost

matching rib

I am blue

and no one else is blue like me

I pray for

bleach

Sally Douglas

Here's One I Prepared Earlier: The Fair Toxophilites

First published in Iota 80

The Fair Toxophilites, a painting by the Victorian artist William Powell Frith, depicts three finely dressed young women engaged in archery. It is part of the collection at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter. When I wrote the poem in 2007, I was struck by the intensity of the main figure, and the way her clothes seemed at odds with what she was doing. It felt to me that the artist was not thinking at all about her thoughts or character, but more about the dress she was wearing. However, it also seemed to me that, in spite of this, some of her determination had made its way through his brush-strokes. So the poem became a comment on the way Victorian women were socially and physically constrained.

Today, looking for a link to the picture to post here, I found that RAMM's website has now got some information about the artist and the painting. And I discovered that I was right about Frith's attitude to the subjects. He decided to paint the picture after seeing some 'lady-archers' at the seaside, whose 'feats' had 'amused' him. He used his daughters, Alice, Fanny and Louisa, as models, and commented that 'the subject was trifling and totally devoid of character interest', but the clothes would be a record of 'the female habiliments of the time'. Well, he was right about the clothes, but I think the picture tells us a lot more than that, even if that wasn't at all his intention. I wonder what became of Alice of the determined jaw.

Epithalamium and The Poetry School

I'm very pleased to have a poem of mine here on the Poetry School's Campus website. It's a poem that had its roots in my daughter's wedding four years ago. My future son-in-law being an animal lover, the couple decided to theme their tables around animals that mate for life. Four years later, on a course tutored by the award-winning poet Steve Ely (Oswald's Book of Hours and Englaland are published by Smokestack) one task was to write an Epithalamium, a poem celebrating marriage. The brief was wide: it could be ironic, subversive, surreal, or an un-ironic and joyful celebration. This was the result, and I was delighted to be asked to share it on Campus .

'Epithalamium in Twenty Six Creatures' is very different from most of the stuff I've been writing recently; but that's the joy of courses and workshops - they can send you off in unexpected directions. And they're also great if, like me, you're recovering from a bit of a block!

In my commentary on the poem I talk about riddles. If you're interested, here's an early blogpost of mine (from 2011) on the subject of that and much more!

Poem 25 - Red-tailed, Bumble

Red-tailed, Bumble

Red-tailed, bumble,

common carder,

cuckoo, mason,

tawny mining,

leaf-cutter, hoop-shaver,

humble, honey,

homeless.

Red-tailed, bumble,

common carder,

cuckoo, mason,

tawny mining,

leaf-cutter, hoop-shaver,

humble, honey,

homeless.

Red-tailed, bumble,

common carder,

cuckoo, mason,

tawny mining,

leaf-cutter, hoop-shaver,

humble, honey,

homeless.

Red-tailed, bumble,

common carder,

cuckoo, mason,

tawny mining,

leaf-cutter, hoop-shaver,

humble, honey,

homeless.

Red-tailed, bumble,

common carder,

cuckoo, mason,

tawny mining,

leaf-cutter, hoop-shaver,

humble, honey,

homeless.

Bee.

Poem 24 - Another Riddle

Photo: Sally Douglas

Riddle

I am a lock turned by infinite keys,

A knot that’s too tight and too fine to untease.

Unpick me too far and my threads turn to dust,

but I’ll let you inside me to make what you must.

I am the white space as well as the mark,

I am the place you can find in the dark

I am said, I am thought, I am harsh, I am kind.

I blow free from the page in the winds of your mind.

Sally Douglas

In addition to being a riddle, this is possibly a manifesto of sorts. And the photo isn't a clue, but I think it fits.

I will post the answers to the riddles - eventually.

Poem 23 - A Riddle

Photo: Sally Douglas

Riddle

I am a judge (but I do not judge).

Soft darkness pours from my empty eyes.

With a shrug I weep onto the ground:

divide (not decide) what’s to keep or despise.

I am the O that holds onto stones,

fragments of twig, and shards of bones.

I am the O pierced all over by light.

I am the O! that is in plain sight.

 Sally Douglas

Any ideas?

Incidentally, if you're interested I wrote a blog post about riddles and readers here.

Poem 22 - Girl with a Letter

Photo: Sally Douglas

Girl with a Letter

(after Vermeer)

I close the window.

Draw the curtain

so the folds of red brocade

hang flat

against the day.

. 

I held them both,

the flatness

and the folds.

The flatness of paper

and the folds

within its words,

the spilling of the fruit –

my folding of your letter

into something very small.

Sally Douglas

The first draft of this poem has been on my hard drive for a long time - since 2009, according to the date on the file.  I attended a very enjoyable Poetry School workshop, run by Lawrence Sail, which focused on poetry and paintings. This poem came from an exercise based on Vermeer's painting Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window. I stashed the draft away, and didn't do anything with it until now, prompted by NaPoWriMo. So here it is.

Incidentally, if you haven't read any of Lawrence Sail's poetry, I would recommend it. You can find some of his poems here.

Poem 21 - That Thing You've Carried for So Many Years

Photo: Sally Douglas

That Thing You’ve Carried for So Many Years  

Once, you could have planted it

in the rich kindness of loam

in earth which would have let it breathe

and then you could have gone away

lived some life

visited the garden just from time to time

and one day found green shoots

clean new shoots which would have cheered you

however frail they were.

But to bend down to the ground

was far too hard.

Sally Douglas

The picture was taken in Bugle, Cornwall.

Poem 20 - More Fun with Oulipo Constraints

Photo: Sally Douglas

This Day's Constraint

Today is a death to sleep.

This set of hours is rest’s oblivion.

Day and dark want that fall’s fall,

ticking tiredly away –

Wednesday, respite’s murderer.

Tomorrow is the birth of wakening.

Today is a day to sleep.

I sit within indigo hills, in wing-singing wind,

below a slope of blade south-east.

On the ground beneath the sounds,

I am low in a sky of calling flight

all arching, flying, hymning over.

Oh, low moon-bowl of owl solos

below a sky of birdsong.

This poem is a result of a bit more playing with OULIPO constraints. The Oulipo Compendium (ed Harry Mathews and Alastair Brotchie, Atlas Press, 2005), describes a way of submitting a line or a stanza of poetry to a series of variations, thereby creating a new piece of work. It sounds both straightforward, and weird. It is weird, but it's surprisingly difficult to do, and the constraints force a creativity with language which can have very satisfying and surprising results. The poem above took some lines from yesterday's poem (actually I combined some shorter lines to make longer ones for this purpose), and submitted them to the following constraints:

First Stanza

1. First line in N+7
2. First line as a lipogram in a
3. First line as a univocalism in a
4. First line with nouns eliminated
5. First line with verbs eliminated
6. First line treated antonymically
7. First line in its original form

Second Stanza

1. Second line as a univocalism in i
2. Second line in N+7
3. Second line with verbs eliminated
4. Second line as a lipogram in e
5. Second line with nouns eliminated
6. Second line as a univocalism in o (Actually this should use the first line, but I made a mistake!)
7. Second line in its original form

It's fun to do, and really stretches the brain! I can't claim that it produced a fabulous poem, but I think it's a brilliant exercise to get the language muscles flexing without having to face the terror of the blank page.  

And I hope I haven't made any glaring errors when applying the constraints.

Or possibly, I hostage I haven't made any glaring europeans when applying the containers...

Poem 19 - This Day




Photo: Sally Douglas

this day

today

was a day

to sleep

in the

sun

under a sky

of birdsong

today

I have

not

wasted

my life

Sally Douglas

Poems 17 and 18 - Blackout Poems

A Blackout Poem

Blackouts are another form of erasure poem, but in a blackout poem the poet selects words to be kept from a text and crosses out the rest. In this way one is left with a space that holds new meaning within the shape of the old. I was reminded of this method by a prompt tweeted yesterday by Jo Bell, who included a link to the Newspaper Blackout  website which has an amazing array of this type of poem. It's fun to do, but can become rather addictive...

Here's another. I've chopped up the columns to fit it in here, but they're in the original order. Michael Gove, in case any of my readers haven't heard of him, is the somewhat Gradgrindian UK politician in charge of education policy.

The Facts



Poem 16 - The Voices

Photo: Sally Douglas

Voices

I am the leaves that grew from the tree

I am the river that grew from the rain

I am the mountain that grew from the rock

I am the waves which grew from the sea

I am the sea that poured through your hands

I am the tree that grew in your bones

I am the rain that washed your heart

I am the rock that splintered your lands

I am the land that is covered with sea

I am the bones that are carved from rain

I am the heart that is chipped from rock

I am the hands that shatter the tree

Sally Douglas

Poem 15 - When

Photo: Sally Douglas

When

and when your hands are black from the stories

wash them with ink

and when your mouth is silent

wash it out with inoculations

and when the horizon is pared to a small impossibility

wash out your eyes with potato peelings

and if you think we are living in a tinderbox of legends

wash it out with flame

wash out the book with mime

wash out the sky with elevens

wash out the bones with milk

wash everything with something and

wash out the everlasting and  

Sally Douglas

This poem came from the NaPoWriMo website's prompt for Day 18: write a poem beginning and ending with the same word.

What's working quite well for me at the moment is taking an external prompt and then going back to my notebooks and seeing if it sparks with anything there. In this case I was drawn to something I had written late one night about washing in ink. This is what resulted.

The photo was taken in St Austell, Cornwall, UK, last week.