Tag Archives: micro-fiction

Handwritten Pages #5

I grew up in a house with a corrugated iron roof and loved hearing the sound the rain made on it. It’s a familiar sound and a familiar memory and I used it as the basis for an idea developed below.

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Like the wind picks at the corrugated iron roof, this memory is a scab I have picked at for years and years.
I have scratched and scratched.
Sometimes out of curiosity, out of a need to understand; to comprehend how we failed to relate to one another. Or out of frustration and anger at failed intimacy. 
I retreat into the solitude of the bedroom, into a book and a pen and bury myself beneath headphones where the music thrashes and yells and pummels.
And like the wind, I return to pick at the scab of memory.

Mending the War – Flash Fiction

This was a piece I submitted last year to a competition. No result. Another piece to help me practice. 

But I’d like you to have a read and tell me what you think.

She looked up from the sock she was darning, needle paused mid-stitch, and watched the missile burn across the blank expanse of blue sky, rending it in two.

“Where is it going?” asked her granddaughter.

“To war.”

The smoke trail began as a small tear, slowly expanding, making the rift wider, ragged. Slowly, imperceptibly at first, the blue pushed through the vapour trail, dissipating the smoke.

“There will be another,” said the grandmother.

“When will we have peace?”

The needle wound through the fabric and pulled the two halves together.

“When we have learned to mend our hearts.”

Post It Note Poetry 2015 Recap Week 3

How have you been going this week? Have you had a chance to write something?

Here is this week’s recap of my Post It Note Poetry. You can also see the recaps for Week 1 and Week 2.

They are posted in reverse order (Sunday 22 Feb – Monday 9 Feb) and I’ve added in the inspiration behind each poem. 

This week involved a lot of trawling through my notebook and pilfering half written ideas.

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This poem was sparked by a random song lyric on the radio this morning on my way to playing drums at church this morning. 

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This poem came out of a line in my notebook about ourselves being a minotaur, a hybrid of the things we have created, and putting ourselves in a maze we created. 

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Another line from my notebook, sparked by one time when I was filling the ice cube tray. Sometimes I fill it cube by cube; other times I cascade the water until it is full. What does that say about my character?

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No one remembers milk bars anymore; they are a relic of the past. I love watching the patterns made my shadows. Notebooks for the win for ideas.

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Getting my wordy geek on. Finishing off a poem I was going to write last year (at about this time) as a longer exploration. Instead, the brevity worked better.

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Another notebook find. I’m not happy with the end section of this poem; it is inconsistent with the first part. 

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I do not remember how this one came about as it was not an idea I took from my notebook. A photograph is, for me, a snapshot of one moment, one experience. It serves as a reminder of what was, but doesn’t speak of what will be.

Final Note

For the last week of the official Post It Note Poetry season, I thought I’d go for a remix week. I will take a line from the previous day’s poem as the basis for the next poem. Starting Monday I will write a new poem, and Tuesday will be the first remix.

Post It Note Poetry 2015 Recap Week 1

It is the end of the first week of #postitnotepoetry.

I have collated here the first seven poems. This series of poems began after I heard a song titled, “Things To Do In Winter” and it inspired the idea of a loosely linked thematic suite.

Instead of seasons, I chose days of the week. Each day of the week was prefaced with an idea. In my notebook I hastily scribbled down a list of potential ideas and throughout the course of the week amended, deleted or built upon the idea for the day. 

Some poems were easier to write, others took longer to compost and come to fruition. I was surprised at the thematic darkness of some of the poems as it was not the initial intention; only in the repeated readings did the layers of darker interpretation emerge.

It made me wonder whether I was subconsciously channeling a darker theme, or purging the darkness within. I think that’s another blog post/poem in itself.

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If you want to join in the fun of #postitnotepoetry, grab a pen, a wad of Post It Notes and write. Take a photo it and upload it to twitter with the hashtag #postitnotepoetry

1 Step To Kick Start Your Creativity

Ever wondered how to kick start your creativity?

Besides a swift kick up the bum (which is easy to do by the way. Tie a piece of rope around your right ankle. Bring the rope up and over your shoulder from behind. Pull the rope swiftly and kick yourself in the bum).

There is an easy way to kick start your creativity. 

You start by DOING.

No thinking. No procrastinating. No making a cup of tea first. No checking twitter or Facebook. No worrying. No hesitation. No. No. And no.

To get you started in the DOING phase of kick starting your creativity, there are a list of suggestions. Pick the appropriate category and off you go and DO IT.

For Aspiring Writers

* write 5 very short stories or pieces of description. Each story must be 6 sentences in length and include one sentence of dialogue.

For Curious Poets

* write 5 poems. It doesn’t matter about how bad you think they are, write them. Give yourself 5 minutes to write each poem. Do them all at once or one at time.

For Ingenious Artists

* draw 5 pictures. Draw each picture on a Post It Note.

For Ambitious Photographers

* select one random object from around the house or office and take 5 photographs in different locations.

Which one are you doing? 

If you’ve given it a go why not show the world what you’ve done and link it back here?

A Found Poem

Rifling through this list, 51 Of The Most Beautiful Sentences in Literature (via Buzzfeed) a poem formed in my mind by compiling, editing, amending some of the sentences.

I have come across this form by other writers. It’s an interesting new form in that it is almost a type of plagiarism (except I am acknowledging my sources), to create a new piece of work with words that are not mine. In some ways it is another form of blackout or erasure poetry.

Follow the link above to see which sentences I have borrowed and what I have changed. There are some instances of changing letters for the sake of grammatical accuracy, and I have divided up some of the sentences to link them with specific ideas or imagery.

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I took a deep breath
and listened to the old brag of my heart;
I am, I am, I am.
Sometimes I can feel my bones straining
under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.
Do I dare
disturb the universe?
What are men to rocks and mountains?
Folks say God crumbles up the old moon into stars.
The pieces I am,
I could see
standing there
leaning on the balcony railing.
How wild it was,
to let it give
them back to me
in all the right order.
an enormous, unmerited gift
given randomly,
stupidly
holding the universe together.
Everything was beautiful
and nothing hurt.
Let me be something
every minute
of every hour
of my life.
Let the wild rumpus start.

When In Doubt, Write Poetry By Erasing Words

Diving back into the classics for more blackout poetry.

You’ll find my first two attempts here (Moby Dick – Herman Melville) and here (Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad)

I have taken the first page of a range of texts and used the tone and ideas to create something new.

Epistemology

from Frankenstein – Mary Shelley (click image to enlarge)

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Who I Am

from The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald (click image to enlarge)

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What Your Mind Has Made 

from The Picture of Dorian Grey – Oscar Wilde (click image to enlarge)

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A New Situation for Families

from Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy (click image to enlarge)

 

 

 

 

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Like Ivy

from The Strange Case of Dr. Jeykll and Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson (click image to enlarge)

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Blackout Poetry – Another Questionable Attempt

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Between us
the bond of
periods of separation
and
a box of dominoes
toying 
with 
the anchor
we did not begin that game of
placid staring
The day 
was a benign unstained
mist
Only the 
brooding
somber minute
angered by the
curved and imperceptible
heat
a change
more profound
unruffled dignity
that comes and departs in the
abiding memories. Indeed nothing’s
easier
than to evoke
its unceasing

After yesterday’s modicum of success with blackout poetry, I tried my hand at another (need to do something creative at the moment while I get my head back into shape to tackle some significant writing projects in January).

This page comes from Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness.” I studied this text in high school last century and thoroughly enjoyed it. Admitting at the time I didn’t quite understand the colonialism and inherent racism, it still holds as a powerful metaphor. Tie it with Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” and you have a teenager’s existential orgasm. 

So, with that in mind, I wanted explored the idea of relationships through the text.

It’s a diversion from writing Post It Note Poetry (and a couple of other major works in progress) but I posit that flogging someone else’s idea to pursue something creative is better than nothing. Blackout, or erasure, poetry makes you look at words, their order and the meaning created. It opens your mind to see other possibilities, limited as it is by the choice of text, to create something new.

I encourage you to try it yourself. Or buy a colouring book and pencils. Do something to stimulate your brain. 

Small Achievements – Best of Vine Leaves Literary Journal 2014

Earlier this year I had a poem, Elihu’s Meditation on Questions Unanswered, published in Vine Leaves Literary Journal.

And now it is being published in the Best of Vine Leaves Literary Journal.

I would encourage you to support small press and publishers as they are pushing boundaries and discovering brilliant new literary voices. This edition is full of remarkable vignettes, poetry and art.

Follow Vine Leaves (@VineLeavesLJ) and its editor-in-chief, Jessica Bell (@MsBessieBell) on Twitter.

Orders can be made directly through the web site. Order HERE. It would make for a wonderful Christmas present for the book lover in your family.

Best of Vine Leaves 2014

Remixing is the New Creating Part 2

Earlier in the month I mentioned I had a piece listed on the if:books Australia Open Changes project titled The Storm. It was a remix of a previous work, Jodi Cleghorn’s poem, ‘Later.’ I took the line, “born up on the cicada chorus.”

In good news, I have another piece featured in the last week. You can read ‘The Naked Rosehere.

I took inspiration from Jodi Cleghorn’s piece, ‘She Would Be Grass.’ In particular, the line “On the ninth day, green patches of turf appeared.”

Now the project is closed, it will take the form of a story tree. I will let you know when it is up for you to have a goosey gander at.