Looking through some old photos, I found this, from a project I had entirely forgotten.
I’m guessing this is going to be very frustrating for those of you who read the blog on your phones as you won’t be able to scan the QR codes and read the poems. I’ll leave it to you to sort out how to get round that!
Years ago, I used to participate in an online poetry forum. It was the best thing that could have happened to me at the time, as I learned a huge amount and stopped writing teenage-angst, hearts-and-flowers poetry and started to – occasionally – write something worth writing. Perhaps even, though more rarely, worth reading.
I posted my own poetry, and I learned from the comments and critiques, and the subsequent discussions. When someone misunderstood what I’d intended, or found my word choice or phrasing unsatisfactory, it was always helpful, as it encouraged me to look more closely at what I was trying to do and where I had failed.
Continue reading “the wrong poem”
You know how it is, when you get a phrase stuck in your mind and it repeats round and round on an endless loop? Just at the moment, the phrase I can’t shake off is the quotation from John Cage:
I have nothing to say and I am saying it.
It’s pretty much the truth. But even if I have nothing to say today, at least I am saying it here with passion (flowers).
If you write a blog on WordPress, they offer you insights into the number of visitors, where they come from and the like. They also send you little messages when you reach certain “achievements” or targets. Today, they have told me that it’s thirteen years since I registered on WordPress.
The odd thing, though, is that if you go back through the archives here, you’ll find that I published my first post – cerditos y patitos – on the 23rd of April, 2007, which is thirteen years and three months ago. Somehow, it seems I managed to write and publish five posts before I actually registered the blog. I suppose I must have cheated and backdated them so that if the first visitors enjoyed what they found they’d have something more to read.
Continue reading “looking back”
I’ve been a writer for a long time and I’ve written in a lot of different genres and styles. At the end of the day, though, I think my strengths lie in poetry and non-fiction. The latter includes memoir, creative non-fiction, essays and opinion pieces.
When it comes to fiction, I’ve never really done more than dabble. Certainly I’ve never been tempted by long-form fiction and can’t imagine writing a full-length novel. In my files there are a handful of short romances, fantasy, twist-in-the-tale magazine-style pieces and not much more, other than a few children’s stories.
Continue reading “variation on a theme”
don't confuse the narrator 