Month: June 2019

Jerry Gordon – Closures

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Jerry Gordon responds to Jamie Osborn’s borders and intimacy prompt. To get your work featured submit responses to any of the writing exercises from the first series here.

Closures

I closed roads
to cars leading
into my heart
and have found
more space for
couples to stroll
and kids to mark
the streets with
chalk birds and lions. 
The number of
people whispering
secrets has also increased
three-fold, but that may be 
from more people meeting 
without needing to not
pause. 
I may begin closing
my heart’s skies
to plane traffic, just
because I’d like to 
hear the sun’s motors
whirring again.

Share your poems

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It’s been a great first series of Poetry Non-Stop and I’ve been proud to present a variety of poets discussing a range of topics and sharing some wonderful poems. But the podcast isn’t just a showcase for a few poets it’s an opportunity for everyone to be inspired which is why there is a writing prompt on each episode. Please have a go at these exercises whether you are an accomplished poet looking for inspiration or if you’ve never written a poem in your life. I will be sharing poems submitted on the blog and possibly in a special podcast before presenting more poets in the second series. To submit simply send poems via the submission form, share as a comment or post on social media using #poetrynonstop and tagging @poetrynonstop.
Please submit by June 27th to be featured.

Here is a quick reminder of the exercises with links to each programme:

Jamie Osborn: Borders and intimacy
Sue Burge: Describe a memory in black and white then in colour
Martin Figura: Use metaphor to describe feelings associated with a life event or experience
Jenny Pagdin: Write a gratitude poem (see post for instructions)
Avouleance: Pick a page of a non-fiction book at random and use it to write about a character in a poem
Alex Russell: Find an exploitable market and write a poem to exploit it

For more writing exercises and advice check out the Poetry Non-Stop book.

Episode Six: Alex Russell Poetry entrepreneur

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In this first series we have heard many wise words about the craft of writing poetry but all that anyone really needs to know is: How does it make you money? Alex Russell is a poet, performer and creative entrepreneur. In this final episode in the first series of Poetry Non-Stop he talks about some of his innovations in poetry including poems for TV ads, automatically generating poetry with a predictive text bot, looking for love in the lonely hearts ad section of Craigslist and selling poems sealed in jars as poetry preserves.

Alex’s writing prompt is to identify and exploitable market and exploit it through poetry using one of Alex’s ideas or one of your own. Patrick responds with an advert for a popular soft drink in the form of a villanelle.

Please submit your poems here or share on social media using #poetrynonstop. You can submit poems for any of the prompts from the first series and those received before June 27 might be published on the blog and possibly featured in a future podcast.

To learn more about Alex check out his Facebook page.
You can get his chapbook (name your own price) here.
Write predictive text poems here.

Alex Russell – i am going to paint tim burton’s house hot pink in the dead of night

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The final guest of the first series of the Poetry Non-Stop podcast is Alex Russell, an imaginative and often unpredictable poet and performer in Norwich. He will be discussing some of his innovative works and how you can use poetry to make a living. Here he is in action at The Bird Cage in Norwich.

Episode Five: Avouleance – Autism and Creativity

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No one knows what it means for eyes to chime or how a song can spin.

From Synesthetist

Avouleance is a writer living in Norwich interested in exploring experiences with mental health difficulties through their writing. When not writing they’re studying for a masters in computational chemistry as a hobby.

In this episode Avouleance talks about living with autism and related mental health issues and how creative writing helps them express how they see the world. They also explain why they find Reddit a useful platform for exchanging ideas and sharing work.

Avouleance’s writing exercise
Take a non-fiction book, open it at a random page and use whatever that page is about as a metaphor for what a character is going through and write a poem about it. You can hear Patrick’s response using a recipe for roast goose from a Hungarian cookbook.

Find out more about Avouleance on their Facebook page.
More writing by Avouleance mentioned in the podcast:

The Gay Alexes
SSR Island
Constellation Prize

Avouleance – Nostalgia

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This week’s guest is Avouleance who talks about creativity and living with autism. This is a poem they wrote in about 20 minutes during a writing group I run. If you’re a writer based in or near Norwich you can get details here. You can find out more about Avouleance here.

Nostalgia

There’s a better me
Full of energy
That I’ve abandoned
Not intentionally but automatically
Now I’m less bright eyed
Less blind
But I’d leave all I’ve learnt behind
To be a fraction as kind
Or inclined to look up.

Avouleance