Writing Poems that will Never See the Light of Day

Yesterday I wrote a new poem. I was early for the Gawler Poetry Readings to begin, so I got out my lined paper and began writing a new poem.

The writing of this poem had two purposes. Firstly, it was something to do while I waited for everyone else to arrive, and secondly, it was an opportunity to record some of my thoughts on the interesting political matters that had been attracting a lot of my attention.

The political matters pertain to the leadership of the Australian Labor Party. I went a little mad on Friday and Saturday, avidly following tweets to #respill, where the political comments flew fast and thick. I put in some tweets of my own, and picked up and lost a few followers, having some of my own tweets retweeted. This was a little bit of a thrill for me.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about here, don't worry, it's not actually terribly important, in the greater scheme of things. No lives were lost, and only metaphorical shots were fired. I like to pretend I'm one of the 'players' in political journalism, but of course my readership and follow numbers are minimal... It amuses me and keeps me off the streets, so that may be a good thing!

Anyway. The leadership challenge has happened now. Australia still has its first female prime minister who far too many of my fellow Australians hate, and the opposition leader is still abhorrent to me. We shall see how it all pans out over the next few days, weeks or months.

I may get out that poem I wrote yesterday, or I may leave it to sink into obscurity. It doesn't matter, the words are down, and my time was spent in a way I enjoyed. All poems are important to me, but they're not all important for the same reasons...

Do you ever write poems that aren't necessarily there to be shared? Please tell...

After My Month of Poetry - January

Last month was a full on month of poetry, not  just for me, but for many others. Well known
Queensland poet Kathryn Apel called for interested poets to join her for the month of January to be part of her Month of Poetry team.


Many others joined her, and were given the choice of either posting a daily poem, or posting an occasional poem. There were no penalties if one didn't meet the criteria, but I, and I suspect many others, became addicted to meeting the challenge of writing and posting a new poem every day.


The website where this took place was a closed site, and participants were given passwords to get into the relevant part of the site. It was extremely well run, and the poets seemed to thrive there. We were encouraged to not just post our own poem, but to read and comment on the poems of the other poets there. It was in effect an online critique group.


The poets involved were wonderful, some of them very fine poets indeed, and I read some wonderful poetry in the month of January 2012. I've become Facebook friends, and a Twitter follower of a few of the Month of Poetry members, and I hope the connection will continue and strengthen over time.


In December, when I let Kathryn know I was keen on joining this site, I had no idea exactly what I was letting myself in for. I had hoped I'd write some poems and hoped I could manage one a day (challenging!), but I had no idea of the joy and creativity burst that would occur.


I found it was easy to write a poem every day, and I in fact wrote more than the thirty one poems, one a day, that the challenge demanded. I in fact wrote at least one poem every day in January and on some days I wrote more than one poem (I wrote at least 45 poems in January). I was thrilled with that, and I was thrilled with the way my writing for January went beyond the writing of poetry. 


I found more things to write about, and began to post to some of my blogs much more often than usual. This is pleasing to me. I call myself a poet and writer but if I can stick with the increased blog posting, I'll feel comfortable enough to call myself a blogger too. I'm getting more followers on my blogs, especially this blog, so that day is getting closer.


A great side effect of the Month of Poetry for January is the increase in creativity with my various kinds of writing, which is still going on now, after January is over. I hope to keep this up, and continue writing more, and more often. I've written more poems this month than any other month, apart from January 2012, my Month of Poetry. 


So thank you so much to Kathryn and all of the lovely poets who kept me company for January 2012!

More to Life than Poetry!

I try to write something new every day. I mean something more than tweets and posts on Facebook pages, mine and other people's. Today though, I ended up writing a piece of non-fiction.

This piece isn't suitable for this Poetry Blog, but it is suitable for another of my blogs. I have too many blogs, and some of them are terribly lonely. I was slightly addicted to Blogger for a while at one stage and went way overboard with creating new blogs.

Now I mostly post to this blog, because poetry is one of my main interests. Dogs, and family life are other strong interests. Living a Creative and Positive life is another one. The non-fiction piece I wrote falls into the scope of the Positive life blog, so I posted the piece there. If you're interested in reading it, go here.

Death of a Mouse

This morning, it happened again. One of our mouse traps did its deathly business. I wrote about it on my Facebook page, and I felt I had to write a poem about the poor little creature.


This is what I wrote on my Facebook page, and the poem I wrote for the little mouse follows that. My Facebook post caused others to comment on the unwanted little creatures that visit them.

RIP to the mouse that was caught in the trap at the same moment Jake walked in the front door a little while ago. And RIP to all of the mice who have died in my kitchen mouse traps. I wish you hadn't been caught, but I also wish you'd stayed out of my kitchen.

When I finally become enlightened, this will stop happening, but I'm not there yet. Sorry

To the mouse who visited uninvited,

I’m sorry. You snuck into my kitchen

and nibbled where danger lurked.

The quick trap snap probably took you

by surprise, as efficiently, it took your life.

My eyes prickled with tears as I watched

your death spasms, your little legs twitching.

I'm sorry. I wish you’d never visited at all.

I disposed of your soft, still body, as I’ve

disposed of so many of your kind. 
My kitchen isn’t your larder, and I’m not here

to keep you and your kind fed. Goodbye.

If you have little creatures who visit you, please tell about them here. Mice, lizards, insects...

Ways to Write New Poems

I'm a member of a group of people who write poetry. We meet once a week, in the home of one of the members. Sometimes we talk about writing related things, sometimes we read our poetry to the others and critique the work that was read. Sometimes we do writing exercises.


Last Thursday night, one of the members gave us a writing exercise. We had to think of a word, then write down words that related to that first word. Then we had to write a poem using as many of those words as we could.


The exercise was a good one. All of us there gave it a go, and came up with a new poem, which we read to the others. I felt my effort was lame, and not worth much, but when I read it aloud, and received feedback about it, I could see some merit in my efforts. I may take that baby poem soon, and work on it, drawing out the metaphors there, and making it more than a lame little baby poem.


This is one of the things that being a member of a writing group can bring you. Different ideas can help to encourage you to tread different paths, try new things, or try doing old things in new ways. If you're in a rut with your writing, having a new kind of exercise can be just the thing to jump start you out of the rut!