For today’s adventure, I tried my hand at postcard fiction : attempting to write a complete story that fits onto the back of a postcard. Sometimes short forms of fiction are also referred to as micro fiction or flash fiction. The rules for short forms of fiction vary, but I’m keeping it simple today and writing a short love story that fits onto a postcard-sized image 🙂 .
It’s a true story, and one of the characters is in the image on the postcard 🙂 .
For today’s adventure, I decided to try out a new form of poetry. I Googled “experimental poetry” and found several references to the term “cleave poetry”.
A cleave poem is 3 poems in one – and I’ve tried my hand at writing one today. The way to read the poem is :
1. Read the poem on the left (in black) first. Let it sink in.
2. Read the poem on the right (in purple) second. Let it sink in.
3. Read the two poems together, from left to right. Let it sink in.
It was fun to write – and quite challenging too. I think it would be a very therapeutic process for someone experiencing an inner conflict! It was really helpful to fully associate myself with both sides of “the story” before writing and not really think of the third poem. The third poem emerged quite naturally! (It’s the third poem that elicits the biggest emotional response in me. I’m going to stop and think about that for a while. I’m going to stop and sit in that poem for a while.)
Lots of preparation is going on behind the scenes to support the launch of The Big Renga Project on the 1st December. Renga is a cross between jazz , chess and a murder mystery (where you’re constantly changing your mind about “who-dunnit”) . At the moment the poets are getting their heads around all the rules so that when it comes to the time to “play”, everyone can relax and have fun.
You could say that The Big Renga Project is quite an esoteric undertaking, something that you might only enjoy, or understand, if you were involved in the project and had immersed yourself in the spirit of this collaborative form of poetry.
Realising that the art of renga has a huge amount to teach us both in terms of an outlook on life and in terms of the way we collaborate and express ourselves, it occurred to me that inviting people to share our experiences might be something really worthwhile.
And that’s when I hit upon the idea of running a daily TV show throughout the project 🙂 . Think about those football programmes with post-match reviews; or about the television programmes covering the Olympics where, after each event, a panel of experts analyses the performances of the day – and some of the competitors actually come on the show too. That’s the approach I’m aiming to deliver on the TV show.
The programme will be fun (and probably more than a little tongue-in-cheek)! It’s going to teach the viewers about the form and get them in involved in the process too. It’s also going to help the community of poets get tactical as they develop a deeper understanding of the form.
To support the TV programme, I had a go at creating a title sequence for it : it’s the first time I’ve managed to make something with a dynamic video loop. You can watch the title sequence here :
For today’s adventure, I’ve entered my very first poetry competition!
I’ve selected 10 of my haiku for a haiku calendar competition. Entries are open to anyone , anywhere in the world, and a haiku will be selected for each calendar month.
Because my haiku adventure tracked the transition from Summer into Autumn, my entries are limited to the months of August, September and October.
This has been an exciting adventure – and an interesting one. I feel no sense of exposure or risk. I’m not worried about what the expert panel thinks of my haiku. Winning something isn’t even on my radar. Instead, I feel thrilled that an expert panel is actually going to read my collection of haiku! And, I feel a sense of connection to the haiku community too.
For today’s adventure, I tried my hand at writing my very first acrostic poem. An acrostic poem is a type of poetry where the first, last or other letters in a line spell out a particular word or phrase.
I chose to use “other letters in the line” to spell out the theme of my poem : Cherry Tree. I have capitalised the relevant letter on each line. If you scan my poem from top to bottom, my acrostic poem spells out CHERRY TREE!
I’ve been wanting to capture the spirit of the cherry tree for some while now. Its blossoms captivated me in Spring, but during the summer months the cherry trees sunk into the background , unable to compete with other flowers and trees. A part of me wondered why people would plant a tree that only held its beauty for a very short period of time.
As Autumn has advanced, I now understand the real beauty of the cherry tree. It’s as if the Spring blossoms offer a promise of better things yet to come. In Autumn, the cherry tree is bright, bold and confident. If the cherry tree is a pretty girl in the Spring, then by the Autumn, this tree is all woman (and all too ready to take off her clothes!)
For today’s adventure, I tried my hand at postcard fiction : attempting to write a complete story that fits onto the back of a postcard. Sometimes short forms of fiction are also referred to as micro fiction or flash fiction. The rules for short forms of fiction vary, but I’m keeping it simple today and writing a short love story that fits onto a postcard-sized image 🙂 .
Humans Resourced 