Rain of Poems, London

Jubilee Gardens, London.......waiting!

First poem drop

On Tuesday I was part of something really special - the Rain of Poems which took place over Jubilee Gardens on London's South Bank.  The gardens were packed with people waiting for the helicopter to arrive and drop 100,000 poems into the sky. These poems would include poets from every country competing at the Olympics next month. At 9.15pm the helicopter arrived to cheers from the crowd, hovered and then the first batch of poems were let loose like a black mass of flies.  The low dark clouds made it difficult to see at times, then suddenly bookmark shaped poems ticker-taped down and everyone began to run trying to catch one.  It helped to be tall and pushy!  I was far too polite to begin with then realised that I was going to miss out if I didn't just go for it.  Even so people seemed to get there before me. It was everyone for themselves and you took your life in your hands!  I complained to one guy who snapped up a poem just before me, that he had loads and I had none.  He must have felt sorry for me because he handed me one!  I still wanted to get one for myself so I went with the crowds as more poems were released (this happened over the period of half an hour).  I am embarrassed to say that as I jumped a bank/wall I fell in my hurry to get a poem I saw drop.  I scrambled up and grabbed it almost on my knees!!  Later I managed to get another by putting my foot on one. 

Then it was all over and everyone clapped as the helicopter whirred away from us.  My husband managed to get two poems (I ended up with three).  Hope you like the photos and the video from YouTube.  The experience was great - something I will remember forever.  Rain of Poems has happened in other countries including Poland and Berlin.  What a unique idea and such fun.


Bookmark poems coming closer



Watching and waiting to pounce

I have my 'finds'

The Big Sing

Euphonix Community Choir

Something a little different....but it's all art! On Sunday I took part in The Big Sing in Kingston with the choir Euphonix. Two weeks ago we were given the words to the three songs we would be singing with other choirs in the Market Place.  They were not easy parts and when we came to the rehearsal with all the other choirs we found ourselves lost! Because we only had the music for our own parts we didn't know when we should come in. We were starting to feel the whole thing was a shambles. The songs had also been arranged differently from the originals, just to make things harder.  Anyway, when we came to sing all together in the Market Place we just did our own thing and it went okay because with all those choirs it didn't matter if we lost our places!  The songs were Higher and Higher, Shine (Take That) and Hey Jude.  Thankfully the last one was easy and I really let it rip! I don't have any photos because it was too crowded for my son to take any.  He did get a sound recording of Hey Jude on his mobile but I'm not sure whether it is worth trying to upload it, or even if I can!  The photo above is from one of or own concerts at The Rose Theatre, Kingston.  I am just above the fronds of the plant! Our MD is doing his beat-boxing to one of our songs!

The joy of good feedback

Got my new OU Poets magazine (The Poetry Society of the Open University) today and was thrilled to see my name mentioned several times. Others who contribute to the magazine had praised me for the two poems I submitted in the last magazine.  Now I can only hope I get enough votes to get published in next year's anthology!  It was so good to see that others like what I write and it made my day.  It makes writing so worthwhile when I get genuine good feedback.  It makes up for all those rejection slips and tough times when I feel I'm wasting my time.  I keep going back to re-read the comments - ooooo!

The morning after the night before

The morning after the night before

Sleeping late does this to me,

like I’m hung over.

Lethargy stills my bones;

I lounge by the window

where the sun drugs me

and I doze.

Change

Here is another of the exercises I did a few weeks ago with The Poetry School.  We had to write against a background beat.  I took the opportunity to chose a Trance track (a good workout one!)  Here is the track and the words are below with approx. timings.

 

             Change

0.16    Change, jump, turn, do
Change, jump, turn, do
Change, (do it) jump, (go to it) turn, (direction) do (take action)
Change, (do it) jump, (go to it) turn, (direction) do (take action)

0.43    Take a chance, quit the reason
Jump the lights, flip the season
Turn heels, turn dreams
Do your thing and quit those teams

 0.57    And

Change, jump, turn, do
Change, jump, turn, do
Change, (do it) jump, (go to it) turn, (direction) do (take action)
Change, (do it) jump, (go to it) turn, (direction) do (take action)

1.27    Turn your life round
Change direction
Jump the start line
Make the connection
Go grab the action
Write your story
Make your music
Grab your glory

 1.41    Life is a canvas, come on make your mark

Splash on bright colours, ban the shade, ban the dark
Don’t wait, life don’t keep
Don’t drift, take a leap
Turn the corner
Turn the stone
Take the wager
Take what you own.

2.09    If you silence all that yearning
It will grip your very heart
It will sneak into your dreaming
And break your little life apart

If you remain always static

And sit upon that goddamn fence
Your life will end in stagnation
Full of algae, full of stench

2.38    Take the lines, jump between them
Reach for gold, don’t believe them
When they say stay the same
Don’t you listen, play your game.

Take the action, take the leap

If you dither prepare to weep
Nothing happens if you leave it
Take that step, come on believe it.

 3.06    Change, jump, turn, do

Change, jump, turn, do
Change, (do it) jump, (go to it) turn, (direction) do (take action)
Change, (do it) jump, (go to it) turn, (direction) do (take action)

My way of working

From my garden

Working on new poems has me going one of two ways really.  Sometimes I am inspired - something has sparked off an idea and I work at it until I get a good first draft.  Other times I struggle to get going, especially when I am using exercises and sticking to the rules!   Take the latest assignment I am doing for Adventures in Form with The Poetry School.  Nearly every time (but some more than others) I read the next assignment I think 'I can't do this'.  I make a few tentative notes but still can't find a way in and feel despondent. Then suddenly something clicks and I am away. Why did I doubt myself?

I am now attempting assignment 8 and as usual I had all the same feelings.  The aim this time is to write an 'erosion' poem.  This technique (as I understand it) is to find a word and then gradually take off a letter each time you use it until you are left with one.  The example used was 'gravel', then you get 'grave' etc.  You can use the letters to make new words and even reserve the spelling of the letters you have left but I've struggled with this because I had to find a word first and then write a poem.  I finally I have come up with a line I like and have stuck with it as my word works with it. So this morning I completed it and will upload it onto the site soon.

Some of the assignments on this course have been quite weird!  As I said before they have been more about games with words to produce a poem using found texts, writing to the beat of a song, random line generators.  It is an interesting way of getting creativity into poetry as you end up with stuff you would never normally write about or using words not normally in your vocabulary.

I do hope my fellow students think my efforts are good - theirs have produced some excellent poems.

Something to celebrate

Especially for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee see this site for a special celebration poetry anthology.


Have a happy day if you are in (wet) London to see the boats along the Thames or celebrating in a street party or just watching it all unfold on TV.