writing and writers – Page 145 – don't confuse the narrator

cats mean credits

I’m travelling at the moment, and only intermittently connected to the web, so it’s tricky to find time and opportunity to update the blog, especially as there are all too many other priorities when there actually is a connection.

One of the things I’ve been trying to research during my intemittent interconnectedness in the last few days is postgrad writing courses.

The idea of going back to (semi) formal study is a subject that has cropped up again after a long period when I was sure it was the last thing I wanted to do. I’m not going to go into the ins and outs here, but I will quote from a course handbook I was reading yesterday:

Assessment
A portfolio of 10,000 words (45 CATS), or 8,000 words (36 CATS) 6,000 words (30 CATS) or 5000 words (20 CATS).

I might manage to write 45 poems with cats in them – indeed, perhaps I already have – but I thought poetry was a condensed form. In which case, surely more words isn’t necessarily a Good Thing?

(Additionally, I am reminded of those “binders full of women”, not to mention that even 20 cats are almost certain to be very smelly.)

poetry on the bus

The village bus station looks quiet in the photo. Not so the journey into Madrid this morning.

En el autobús,
las viejas cotillean;
sólo los hombres casados
pueden dormir.

Roughly translated:

On the bus
old biddies gossip;
only married men
can sleep.

I swear you could tell which guys were used to nagging wives: they simply closed their eyes and nodded off as if the screeching voices were a lullaby.
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perspective

So much depends

on whether it was
a red wheelbarrow
or an orange cementmixer

on whether it was
glazed with rain water
or shaded
from the setting sun

on whether there were
several white chickens
or just the one, escaped
from the neighbour’s yard

on whether it was
early twentieth century
industrial America
or rural Spain in 2012

on whether it was
William Carlos Williams
who saw the scene
or me.

For the chicken in question,
much more depends
on whether my cats find her
before the neighbour does.

black & white

You know how some people don’t seem to have any doubts about things? They seem to see the world in black and white.

Or do they?

Although those grapes are destined to be eaten unfermented, I have an idea that seeing the world in shades of wine might improve it.
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versification on a theme

The theme for this year’s National Poetry Day in the UK is stars. In conjunction with this, the Poetry Society ran a competition with the theme stripes for Stanza members.

I often wonder how judges can hope to choose ‘the best’ of a competition’s entries when all the poems are different styles and topics, so I definitely like competitions that either suggest a theme or demand a specific poetic form, as I feel there is then at least one identifiable point of comparison.
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