Will Ingrams responds to Alan Parry’s prompt to write a poem in response to an old photo. It’s always good to get poems inspired by the podcast and nice to share another one from Will who contributed his own prompt for the NaPoWriMo podcast.
A Photo From ’68
You, with the freckles and mole, your not-long-enough hair and that old donkey jacket, flashed in the photobooth; Geoff there too, looking equally vacant, what in a teenage hell were you at?
We’d ridden the miles into town, Lambretta, him, a Vespa me, searching for something (shoes, or a record?), but crammed in the booth for a strip of damp photos; this the survivor, and me.
But Geoff? I would tabulate tunes for his guitar, hits of the day, and feel less unwanted. Was not of the in-crowd, that dull Sixties Dick; we’d scooter to Exbury, halves at the club.
A life totters, standing on shells of friends cast-off, deceased or mislaid, left behind when your bus pulled away, rattled on to the next stop, a cold, draughty station.
Merseyside poet, playwright and poetry editor Alan Parry is the next podcast guest. He will be reading poems from his latest collection Echoes as well as offering advice from his experiences as a writer and publisher at the helm of literary collective The Broken Spine.
Alan is brilliant at capturing scenes and characters in short poems with a few sharp and well chosen details as you can hear in this poem.
It’s the final day of NaPoWriMo. Congratulations if you’ve been keeping up every day but hopefully you’ve at least enjoyed writing and listening to some great poems – and there’s one more to go. Pete Goodrum returns to share a prompt you will definitely have something to say about after the last month…
I’d like you to write a poem about… Poetry. If you’re interested in poetry, take some time to think about what you think about poetry.
Think about poetry itself. Think about how to construct a poem about poetry. Will it rhyme? Will it be in particular poetic form. What message are you trying to convey?
I wrote this poem after I witnessed some unexpected and very sceptical visitors to a poetry night be completely won over by an open mic session.
Let’s be honest.
Let’s at last be honest. You never really liked me, let alone loved me.
Yes, there were moments, in your teens when you thought it good to have me around. You showed off about knowing me, even sometimes used my words to impress others, but it soon faded.
In fact, and I hate to raise it, but you rubbished me, told the world, or your world at least, that I had no place, no use, and that you had no need of me.
Except of course, now and then, with women more than men you’d try not to hide your sensitive side and you’d touch some hearts with the romantic parts because after all that’s all you recall. The easy bits the cheesey bits.
And then I was forgotten again. Until you needed me. You’d call on me at weddings of course. Yes, I was useful for those. Even at christenings you’d search me out to add a touching note.
Oh, and funerals. Yes, you wanted me then. You’ve summonsed me to attend, to be there, at the end, to play my part to help you explain your breaking heart.
But in all the years in between as I’ve changed and grown, when I’ve ranted and excited, inspired and delighted loved and detested expressed and protested –
Through all of that, you’ve ignored me.
But I’ve never gone away.
I’m here. Remember me now? Yes, that’s right. Whisper it.
I’m poetry.
Pete Goodrum
You can find out more about Pete’s work and various publications here.
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Books by many of the poets featured on the podcast are available from the Poetry Non-Stop bookshop here. All books purchased via this link help to raise money to keep this podcast going.
It’s nearly the end of the month and what a journey it has been. And that is today’s prompt with Christina Thatcher making a welcome return to Poetry Non-Stop for NaPoWriMo.
Write a poem which includes a bus or train journey. You may want to consider what is passing by outside the window, the sounds or conversations happening inside or even the memories that this journey invokes.
On the bus from Pontypridd to Cardiff, a woman braids her hair, an apple’s breadth
from the rattling window where ffordd and farmland meet. How strange to see this here,
after so many years: my mother’s mane in this faraway place—her flyaways breaking
loose, her split end static darting faster than spooked sheep. How strange this electric
urge to release my own locks from their stale ponytail and mimic these braids:
the same weave as these horses, the same soft as these women.
Christina Thatcher
First published in A470 anthology (Arachne Press, 2022)
Christina Thatcher is a Creative Writing Lecturer at Cardiff Metropolitan University. She keeps busy off campus as Poetry Editor for The Cardiff Review, a tutor for The Poetry School, a member of the Literature Wales Management Board and as a freelance workshop facilitator across the UK. Her poetry and short stories have featured in over 50 publications including Ambit, Magma, North American Review, Poetry Wales, The London Magazine and more. She has published two poetry collections with Parthian Books: More than you were (2017) and How to Carry Fire (2020). To learn more about Christina’s work please visit her website: christinathatcher.com or follow her on Twitter @writetoempower.
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Books by many of the poets featured on the podcast are available from the Poetry Non-Stop bookshop here. All books purchased via this link help to raise money to keep this podcast going.
Connect with the natural world for today’s NaPoWriMo prompt from Gabrielle O’Donovan.
Be the voice of something in the natural world
My prompt is to write a poem in the first person from the point of view of something in the natural world that is not a bird or animal – for instance a tree, a river, a cloud. It’s a chance to observe, free associate, have fun. If you can, go outside for inspiration, and spend some time with whatever you are giving a voice to. I wrote some short poems about trees a few years ago when I was working with Roselle Angwin and recommend her book ‘A Spell in the Forest – Book One. Tongues in Trees’. For more inspiration, you could read Don Patterson’s wonderful sonnet, ‘The Wave’, or Louise Gluck’s ‘The Wild Iris’. My two short poems are on Willows, and it is worth noting that it is currently Willow month in the Ogham tree calendar.
Salix Babylonica I am diva of the riverside I am Monet’s moody blue I am star-crossed lovers I am Salome’s seductive dance I am a coloratura trill I am the shiver in your spine the risk of letting go
Crack Willow I am the hawk’s eye view I am the blackbird’s call I am cricket’s straight bat I am the arch of the harp I am the song of the wind I am weaving the earth flickering your dreams
Gabrielle O’Donovan is an Australian living on the Cheshire edge of Manchester. She is a member of Second Light women poets’ network and has been published in anthologies, journals, and alongside art exhibitions in the UK, France, and Australia.
If you’ve enjoyed this podcast please consider showing your support with a donation via ko-fi.com
Books by many of the poets featured on the podcast are available from the Poetry Non-Stop bookshop here. All books purchased via this link help to raise money to keep this podcast going.
Peter Wallis introduces us to a short form the sevenling for today’s NaPoWriMo prompt. He says:
a Sevenling – a seven line poem consisting of two three-line stanzas and a single final line. It is a form devised by Roddy Lumsden. I was lucky enough to be taught about it at a workshop of his. He took the idea from a poem by Anna Akhmatova (here translated by D. M. Thomas)
He loved three things alone: White peacocks, evensong, Old maps of America.
He hated crying children, And raspberry jam with his tea, And womanish hysteria.
The first three lines should contain an element of three – three connected or contrasting statements, or a list of three details, names or possibilities. This can take up all of the three lines or be contained anywhere within them. Then, lines four to six should similarly contain an element of three, connected directly or indirectly or not at all. The seventh line should act as a narrative summary or punchline or as an unusual juxtaposition. There are no set metrical rules, but being such a short form, some rhythm, metre or rhyme is desirable. To give the form a recognizable shape, it should be set out in two stanzas of three lines, with a solitary seventh, last line. Titles are not required. A sevenling should be titled Sevenling followed by the first few words in parenthesis. The tone of the sevenling should be mysterious, offbeat or disturbing, giving a feeling that only part of the story is being told. The poem should have a certain ambience which invites guesswork from the reader.
Lists of three and the number seven are magical things. I find this exercise best if you can approach it lightly. Aim to jot down several attempts and then go back to the one that you feel most drawn to. Don’t overcomplicate things – Akhmatova’s poem has just seven end-stopped lines. Start with three of anything – the last three novel you read, three favourite holiday destinations, favourite foods or drinks, three ways to sign off emails, three schoolfriends, three wishes . . . I find that the first two stanzas are relatively easy to come up with. What takes the time is the final line which cuts across expectations. You might find yourself redrafting this in the back of your mind throughout the day. In the original workshop, as I was a teacher, I used “Reading, Writing and Arithmetic” (The three Rs).
Back to basics. Reading, Writing and Arithmetic, the curriculum says.
Then I jumped to my father questioning me after school. He wanted signs of academic progress.
What did you do at school today? Was it good? Tell me your best thing.
and finally Miss Crowther’s dress had seven petticoats.
The one thing I gloried in was the teacher’s full skirt, not having twigged what my father thought school was for. More recently, as part of a project about allotments, I wrote:
SEVENLING (He set to work)
He set to work and planted three rows of radishes, two of lettuce, one of peas.
The home he left was cheerless. Home welcomed his return. He changed his clothes.
Anniversaries can be made of such afternoons.
Peter Wallis is a U.K. based poet and Hawthornden Fellow. He won publication of a pamphlet, Articles of Twinship, in the Bare Fiction Debut Poetry Collection Competition 2015 (copies available via the Contact Page at peterwallis.co.uk). His poems have been widely published and have both shortlisted and longlisted in the National Poetry Competition. He is Submissions Editor for the U.K. charity “Poems in the Waiting Room”.
Please share your responses to today’s prompt either in the comments or via email. The best submissions will be featured in future podcasts.
If you’ve enjoyed this podcast please consider showing your support with a donation via ko-fi.com
Books by many of the poets featured on the podcast are available from the Poetry Non-Stop bookshop here. All books purchased via this link help to raise money to keep this podcast going.
A welcome return by one of the first guests on Poetry Non-Stop Alex Russell. They invite us to look at urban legends from today’s NaPoWriMo poem.
Retell an urban legend in an everyday, mundane way.
Take that in any direction which feels right, but if you;re stuck and need a starting point: How would it be different if it was told from another point of view or focus? If the supernatural element was a metaphor or misunderstanding? With a different amount or placement of sympathy?
The Largest Man in Arkansas
I wish I had a better answer, but I’ve wracked my brain all I can, and I really think my favourite place is The Bait Shack – that dive bar that draws in all the conspiracy theorists. No idea how you get a reputation for this sorta thing, but they got it. Last night I talked to a salt and pepper preacher about mosquitoes for an hour. Big, messy tales of two huge skeeters eating a lumberjack’s horse in two bites, leaving nothing but a shredded saddle ‘til they spat out the shoes. Last time he told it the lumberjack was the same but they ate a cow and used the horns as toothpicks. When people find out this is my favourite way to spend a Friday night, they figure I’m mocking the clientele. Nobody’s ever assumed I believe it. I mean, I don’t, but still. Truth is, I like being around the passion. I want to see someone wave their arms around with their story, doubly so if they’re so excited to tell it they don’t know you’ve heard it from them before, because what are the odds? People don’t come back. You get one time and Lord best believe you’re gonna make it count. But I love to hear it. I want that fire in their eyes to melt me, I don’t care what it’s about as long as it’s not hurting anybody. When’s the last time you saw someone enthused about something that didn’t have a body count? I only get that here, and it makes me think I could find it too. One time I got asked to guess the size of a creature’s claws and I held my hands out about a foot apart. He put down his drink hard, took them firm and moved them for me, spread them out twice that, showed me forcefulness without cruelty for the first time. My hands moved in his so quick and I’ve been searching for the right word for it every night since. If “grab” were a little more tender, I’d be close. Anyway, this evening he told me about Bill Jenkins, the largest man in Arkansas, carried away into the night by a pair of skeets. I think I’m jealous.
Alex Russell is a nonbinary poet and editor at Placeholder Press. Their pamphlet ‘stories in which’ is forthcoming from Really Serious Literature, and their micro-chapbook of poems inspired by cryptozoology (which this prompt is based on) is available for free from Ghost City Press.
Placeholder Press is coming back from a hiatus, and will start doing free workshops, open mics and writing support sessions from May. Alex would love to see you there.
If you’d like to be involved, details will be announced on their social media at @readplaceholder and on www.placeholderpress.co.uk, where you can also find wonderful poems to enjoy and use as inspiration for your poetry month practice.
Please share your responses to today’s prompt either in the comments or via email. The best submissions will be featured in future podcasts.
If you’ve enjoyed this podcast please consider showing your support with a donation via ko-fi.com
Books by many of the poets featured on the podcast are available from the Poetry Non-Stop bookshop here. All books purchased via this link help to raise money to keep this podcast going.
This prompt is one all about finding the humour in life. In the harder times, in the happy, and in the ordinary. I would prompt you to think of a time that made you laugh or smile, simple as that. The last few years have been challenging, and I think finding joy and lightness anywhere we can is an essential part of being human, in good times, and especially in darker ones. In my opinion, it’s vital to getting through them. “Joy as an act of resistance” is something I think about often, almost as a modus operandi. It can be a relief to look back on what might have seemed like the end of the world at the time (and may well have been), and finding something to laugh about in hindsight— finding the brighter side to life when at all possible, even in small ways. We may not be able to solve all of life’s problems, but we can make some jokes out of them to help us get through them and onto the other side.
Your poem doesn’t have to be about anything recent, just something that will add some lightness and laughter to your day. Try the first thing that comes to mind. Perhaps even start free writing it as a story, as if you were telling it to a friend. From there, you can pick and choose certain words or phrases that pop out as a jumping off point to craft the poem from. Happy writing!
PARTY OF ONE
I had my birthday party indoors this year So did everyone else in the entire world, I hear
Maybe I’m not as depressingly special as I thought
Maybe we’ve all been secretly eating cake alone in the dark all along
Michelle Marie Jacquot is a writer and performer from Los Angeles, California. Her debut poetry collection Death of a Good Girl was released in 2019, becoming a Barnes & Noble bestseller in the genre. Her latest pamphlet, DETERIORATE, critiques and contemplates the effects of the digital age on humanity, and is available worldwide. Her next collection is set to be published in the summer of 2022.
Please share your responses to today’s prompt either in the comments or via email. The best submissions will be featured in future podcasts.
If you’ve enjoyed this podcast please consider showing your support with a donation via ko-fi.com
Books by many of the poets featured on the podcast are available from the Poetry Non-Stop bookshop here. All books purchased via this link help to raise money to keep this podcast going.
This is a prompt from Patrick Widdess’s Poetry Non-Stop book, and it is one I find difficult, but actually the word itself points to a good general method for tackling a difficult prompt. What I’m going to suggest is that you release yourself from making sense. This is a great way to generate original ideas, because when we become hung up on whether something makes logical sense, we become limited by the conscious mind which can be very stuck in its ways.
Firstly, time yourself for ten minutes and write about anything, absolutely anything, for that length of time. This is just to get the words flowing.
Secondly, choose a standard poetic form. This won’t be your ‘real’ poem; it’s just an exercise to generate material. Depending upon how familiar you are with poetic forms, it could be as simple as a limerick, or something more involved like a triolet or a ballad or perhaps a sonnet.
Thirdly, fill up your chosen form with anything that pops into your head, working quickly and not censoring yourself. Write total nonsense. The only rule is that whatever it is has to fit the meter and rhyme-scheme of the form. Whatever you do, don’t try to make sense or to communicate; all you’re doing is extruding random word-filler into a template, as quickly as you can.
Fourthly, look back over your random poem and see whether it sparks any ideas for a real poem. If so, great; off you go. If not, write another random poem, perhaps choosing a different form, and repeat this process until something jumps out and grabs you.
This was the method I used when I first met the prompt in Patrick’s book. I have taken to using this book during a couple of 30-day months every year, since it is a really convenient way of cornering myself into generating new material every day, and I can then spend the rest of the year editing this into usable poems.
In the case of ‘release’ I started with a few minutes of random writing, during which a garlic press just so happened to pop up, and then I tried writing out an acrostic on the word release. Next, I very quickly wrote down a completely nonsensical sonnet in which the garlic press also happened to feature. Now, at that point, the line ‘he rinsed the neighbour’s garlic press’ occurred to me. I then realised that the concept of release was relevant to the idea of ‘getting out’ of one’s social background through adopting the cookery of a desired social group. The following villanelle was constructed accordingly.
This poem appears in the March 2022 edition of the light verse webzine Lighten Up Online and I wish to thank the editor Jerome Betts for his very helpful feedback.
Getting In
He rinsed the neighbour’s garlic press. Funny how things come about; Funny how some things progress.
Better not to leave a mess – The owner had impressive clout. He rinsed the neighbour’s garlic press;
Better not to cause distress To those who lent it for his trout. Funny how some things progress.
How has he got to this address, When all those years they kept him out? He rinsed the neighbour’s garlic press;
Pretentious food, but nonetheless He’s learnt it wafts away their doubt. Funny how some things progress;
The pungent odour of success, The rules one simply cannot flout. He rinsed the neighbour’s garlic press. Funny how some things progress.
Alexander Blustin
Alexander Blustin’s light verse has previously appeared in Lighten Up Online, Light Quarterly, The Bell and in audio form on the Poetry Non-Stop blog. His heavier verse has appeared in Popshot and elsewhere. From October 2012 to July 2014 he ran a weekly poetry stall on Cambridge Market (UK), with a particular focus on work from local Modernist and experimental publishers.
Please share your responses to today’s prompt either in the comments or via email. The best submissions will be featured in future podcasts.
If you’ve enjoyed this podcast please consider showing your support with a donation via ko-fi.com
Books by many of the poets featured on the podcast are available from the Poetry Non-Stop bookshop here. All books purchased via this link help to raise money to keep this podcast going.
Today Salma Yusuf demonstrates how we can use an animal or animated figure to explore complex issues. Listen as Salma gives the background to this poem and consider how you could use this technique to write about feelings or experiences that might otherwise be hard to address.
How the divorce came
It did not knock on any door It just bumped into us in the middle of intimacy We were still trying to cover ourselves a bit of bedsheet here and a bit of quilt there.
The chandeliers juddered The taps and sinks rusted The buckets leaked The house caught fire Letters and pictures became embers.
It came prepared for war writhed in pain destroyed everything that we built for years The dreamlike ambience of our home had slowly transformed into a ball of cashmere.
We held hands but the wick of our candle was not enough to defeat the dragon They say that love is the lightning that can strike seas and valleys I hold a burnt portrait of you holding the sadabahar flower It was the first time we met.
I don’t remember how the dragon left But I remember the aftermath I opened my eyes The blind man next door was blowing into his flute I was still holding the portrait this time I could only see the sadabahar flower It was the last time we met.
Salma Yusuf is a Postgraduate Taught Student at the University of East Anglia pursuing an MA in Creative Writing (Poetry) as the 2021 recipient of the Global Voices Scholarship. Her poetry has appeared in Lolwe, Doek and Ink, Sweat & Tears, among others.
Please share your responses to today’s prompt either in the comments or via email. The best submissions will be featured in future podcasts.
If you’ve enjoyed this podcast please consider showing your support with a donation via ko-fi.com
Books by many of the poets featured on the podcast are available from the Poetry Non-Stop bookshop here. All books purchased via this link help to raise money to keep this podcast going.
Poetry Non-Stop 