Happy New Year! 2015 is off to a great literary start with a couple of my poems appearing in Morphrog Issue 10. Morphrog is a sister magazine of The Frogmore Papers, a long established literary journal.
Get your writing out of your head…put it on paper!
A new year is a good excuse to set some writing resolutions. The usuals are always a starting point, of course:
My last published poem for 2014 is another archaeology-themed one called ‘Reeds’, appearing in Jellyfish Whispers magazine. As I have mentioned before in previous posts, my debut poetry pamphlet, A Model Archaeologist (available from my publisher Eyewear Publishing and from my online store Meandi Books) is forthcoming in June 2015 from Eyewear Publishing’s 20/20 series.
Sunset at 4pm in Eton…but the swans don’t suffer from SAD!
The hardest part about living in the Northern hemisphere is seeing the sun set at 3.30pm, which is the case for all of us in the UK as we approach the solstice. Add to this endless grey days of no sun and what happens to the creative flow? It stalls! Does SAD affect writing output? It can do if the winter blues win over productivity.
So, what’s my solution to keeping the writing going through the dark depths of winter? Here are a few ideas:
Continue reading
This month my poem, Survival Skills, is published in The Commonline Journal. It’s an archaeology-themed poem that I wrote from a memory of my undergraduate fieldwork study days. More of my archaeology-themed poems will be published in my debut pamphlet, A Model Archaeologist (available from my publisher Eyewear Publishing and from my online store Meandi Books), forthcoming in June 2015.
Did I ever have to use any of the techniques I wrote about in Survival Skills? Luckily not, though I had to rely on instinct on one or two occasions such as a narrow escape from my trench when the concrete truck started filling the pits and fun memories of sinking into glue-like mud!
A few months back I read about a UK poet who was driving around in a secondhand ambulance and ‘prescribing’ poems to patients to fit their current ailments. I looked into this and found the blog of the Emergency Poet, which like my own is hosted by WordPress. A recent interview with the woman behind the idea, Deborah Alma, appeared in Write out Loud last week.
I think Deborah’s method of bringing poetry to the wider public is a great one. In my experience of working with children I find that of all the age groups, under tens are the most open to trying new things, including poetry. Teenagers can be of two minds. Continue reading
Every morning on my way to work I pass a man who walks along with his head buried in a book. He is so engrossed that he almost bumps into passers-by. Yesterday I noticed what he was reading. It happened to be a James Herbert horror.
Horror! You can’t beat it in any season. We might be almost as close to Xmas now as we are away from Halloween, but I’m still working my way through a list of great scary books. Here are a few I recommend:
This morning while I was on the train making my way to my day job I was reading Issue 4 of Tuba magazine, published by Inert Enigma press. I got a couple of free back issues at the Free Verse Fair in September but between working on my latest novel draft, editing my final manuscript for A Model Archaeologist and reading copious amounts of horror from the library, I hadn’t got round to doing a write-up sooner.
Tuba is perfect for a mid-range commute. The poems are short and quirky enough to keep one awake before the daily caffeine ritual begins. It was also good to be reading non-conformist poetry, deviating from the normal bookshop types. As one who enjoys idiosyncratic verse, my favourites were ‘Nonsense poem no. 3’ about ‘Mangels’ and ‘Wurzels’ by Lady June and a centre page spread entitled ‘Page for Proboscids’ which included 3 affectionate poems on flies. The only thing missing here was a poem told from the POV of a fly itself or some other such pathetic fallacy. Quick and quirky, Tuba magazine is a fun surreal read.
Been browsing this week for magazines and publishers and I came across this great poetry site. The Poet’s Resource blog publishes links to magazines and competitions on a regular basis. What I like about the site is that it promotes primarily free competitions and submission calls. If the poetry world cares more about publishing quality work than putting cash value on verse then it should make it accessible to everyone and not exclude viable entries in the name of monetary gain! Check out The Poet’s Resource for some inspiration. There’s a little something for everyone and a good starting point for all. Enjoy!
Copied from Poetry Library news:
In celebration of all things spooky, here’s a photo of the painting I did for the cover art work for my novella, Zombie Reflux.
Pretty gory, but then again I am a huge horror fan. I did the initial sketch in pencil, then painted over with acrylic – the whole thing took me about 2 hours in A3 size.
My poet hubby’s latest poem is published in The Open Mouse today. The first time I read this one it made me laugh. Don’t we all enter into a realm of denial from time to time? It’s human nature to wrap ourselves in a bit of self-made cotton wool from time to time. But if we don’t face facts sooner or later, what happens to that fabric? The material becomes so constrictive we can never escape and are trapped! Pity then those who would make what can’t be denied into something profound. Coots are noisy. But are they really simple and harmless? I wouldn’t want to be bitten by one!
Well, I Never
A woman of a certain age
Resident in an uncertain Age
Of sociological and climate change
Watched a coot bathe in a pond
While she dwelled on how she’d changed
Since her school leaving days
And her recent cheerlessness had quite gone
Because she was wearing a particular outfit
That gave hints to her true inner character
If anyone had been looking
Which they hadn’t been
And when she passed on, years later
No one missed her
But she didn’t believe that would’ve been possible
Looking at that coot
Self-deception was panacea
Copyright © Joseph Robert 2014
Joseph Robert’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Decanto, Unlikely Stories, Dead Snakes, The Journal, Mistress Quickly’s Bed, Pyrokinection, The Commonline Journal, Mudjob, Spinozablue, Black Mirror, Message in a Bottle, Bluepepper, Eunoia Review, Inclement, Leaves of Ink and the Insert Coin Here anthology. His joint poetry chapbook with his…
View original post 10 more words
Leilanie Stewart 