I spent a very productive couple of hours on a Write Poetry zoom call run by Sara-Jane Arbury. You may remember me mentioning her before when I wrote about Shape Shift Words.
We did 3 exercises. In each Sara-Jane introduced us to a poem, talked about its form, language and punctuation and set us off to write a poem of our own.
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| (c) Frederick Yang |
The first poem was Considering the Snail by Thom Gunn. My version:
Feline Considerations
Hidden.
Camouflaged.
Stripes echoing the grasses’ light and shade.
Perfectly still. But
totally alert to movement of its prey.
Ears pricked.
Eyes watchful, unblinking.
Poised.
Slowly one paw stretches
and touches down silently
as the next paw moves
and the next!
Slow, yet coiled.
Eyes on the target.
A sudden burst of rippling muscle
surging, pursuing
the hapless prey.
Flapping feathers, frightened squawking
The feathered prey fights for freedom and
soars to the safety of branches high above and
jeers and catcalls at the losing stalker.
The cat stalks back to the shadowy grasses
his inner tiger dissatisfied. But,
there’s always another day.
The second poem was Root Vegetable Stew by Myra Schneider. I can't find a copy online for you to see. It was about cooking and about putting roots down.
My version as you will see is not about cooking:
Meals
I don’t cook. I heat up food.
Foil trays and frozen vegetables
brought
from the supermarket of my husband’s choice.
Our evening meals based on use before dates
served on warmed plates
perched on trays.
We eat.
We watch the cooking shows.
The third poem was Amulet by Ted Hughes. We were supposed to write about a creature but firstly I couldn't think of one and secondly this format is really, really hard. Anyway you know my thoughts fairly frequently turn to canals, so here it is:
Roar
Inside the city’s roar, the canal’s silence
Inside the canal’s silence, the coots nest
Inside the coot’s nest, the hatchlings rest
Inside the hatchlings rest, the grasses sway
Inside the grasses sway, the fishes play
Inside the fishes play, the water moves
Inside the waters’ move, the narrowboats steer
Inside the narrowboats’ steer, they enter the city’s roar.
Well done if you've read this far. I'm very impressed.
Thanks for joining me today
Bernice
