Weather

People are obsessed with the weather have you noticed? It isn’t just something to talk about as idle small talk or chitter chatter but rather something that we feel compelled to take note of. This is not really that surprising as though we live in our artificial caves with light and warmth or coolness, little bubbles locked away from the actual atmosphere – we have not been so protected for very long and swaths of people still are not. We evolved to take note of the weather. It with the seasons ruled our lives.

Think on the deities of early cultures and what they represented, Thunder, Rain, Sun, Wind and so on.

With flooding, and droughts and mega storms plaguing our planet currently and the raging debate about climate change and global warming – weather should be something we take seriously.

Get a local newspaper and look up the weather, how will it affect your day, week, year? Find some pictures of extreme weather, spend sometime examining these.

Begin writing about the weather but make it not actually about the weather, use the imagery to represent something else… this could be a life change, a war, an internal battle, the rise and fall of a starr or nation or civilisation and so on.

Now off you go and get writing.

Contrasts

Snow at Easter Time is not a regular occurrence here in the UK. This picture shows a lovely contrast of the spring flowers and green grass against the snow flecked hills behind. The presence of the logs reaching to the sky as if some sort of archaic or alien creature gives a sense of the other worldly about the image as well.

Study the picture then set a timer for 10 minutes. During this ten minutes write about the photograph, even if it is just bullet points. List what you can see, the contrasts and the seasons, what does it mean that there is snow in spring? If we lived even a hundred years ago what would it have ment for us in terms of food later in the year? Is there a portal to another universe or world there, are we seeing a Door to December?

What memories does it invoke?

Answer these questions and you may find a poem growing out of sun and ice crystals.

Fooling Around with Poetry

It is April the first and that can mean only one thing… no not the silly practical jokes and false status updates on Facebook but rather the start of the years third Poem A Day challenge NaPoWriMo. This was the first of the Poem A Challenges and as such has a special place in the hearts of us here at team WoPo.

The website has some fantastic stuff on it so check it out. Here on WoPo we will have daily writing challenges and guest bloggers plus general poetry how to.

The challenge for those who are new, is too write a poem a day for 30 days – the whole of April. It was modeled on the novel writing challenge NaNoWriMo.

To get you all started why not use April Fools Day as inspiration. Think about the silly playground pranks and how they sometimes go wrong, make a list of ten jokes and their consequences. Now write a stanza for each bullet point. The poem may want to grow using just one of the jokes – let it. This is the bones of a poem. Let it sit a while and come back to it on a later date. Do not worry about pinning it down into a specific form or rigid structure at this point – that will come with the editing.

Now get writing!

What To Do Now

It has been several weeks since the manic poetry scribbling of World Poetry Writing Month – hopefully it helped to get you into a pattern were you are writing each day. If that is the case then keep going, put your poems away for about six weeks before attempting to edit them.

If you are not in that space and just stopped writing as soon as the challenge was over then it is time to start writing again. If you have something it can be edited but until you touch pen to paper or fingers to electronic device or hit the record button you have nothing. Many find that their had seems too full of fragments of poems – this is not a problem – no it is great! Write those fragments down, fill note pads with them, they are the beginnings, they are the sparks of future poems.

Once you have a selection of these fragments use them for response writing exercises, write the fragment at the top of a page, set a timer for 5 minutes and just begin writing, continue the fragment. Do not worry about what you are writing or weather it makes any sense just keep the pen on paper or you fingers moving until your timer bleeps. If you are struggling stop when the timer bleeps, if you are inspired just keep going. One of the WoPo team often doesn’t notice the timers bleeping if they are really into the writing!

Now off you go and fill that note book!

Insanity

With one day to go in the poem a day challenge no doubt is is what you are feeling right now!

This of the rules and order that allows life to function in the way we know it, start to imagine those being broken down. No law, no gravity, no time, no up nor down.

Maybe put some classical or electronica or other type of music that is music and not lyric dominated. If you have a computer or x-box or similar put ont he pattern generator with the music and watch the colour flashes. That this strangeness of it all wash over you.

Now begin to write.

Eccentricity

Do you know an eccentric person? Are you one? Think about what is considered ‘normal’ and what characteristics are considered normal for an eccentric. Write two lists. Now take the view point that normal is eccentric and eccentric is normal and begin to write about a normal day.

Fidelity

If you have made it this far in the writing challenge then you do indeed have fidelity. A word from an old French word route meaning faithful, it can also mean accuracy and quality as well as loyalty.

Imagine each of these meanings as animals interacting with each other – what adventures unfold? Do they all like each other? Are they of one accord? Do they fight, snipe or ignore each other.

Take this imagery and construct a story. With the story and the imagery firmly in mind begin to write.

Tranquility

Tranquility, a word with peace and harmony at its core. What do these concepts suggest to you?

What would tranquility look like? What colours? Is it a place? Landscape? People or something else – if it were an animal which animal would it be?

Answer these questions and then begin writing.

Whimsicality

What is the craziest thing you have ever done on a whim? Think about it for a couple of moments. Picture the events around it, was there anything in hindsight that made it seem like a good idea? Was it a good idea? What were the knock on effects of what you did?

Mull all of this over.

Now out line the scene – does this spark anything?

If not think about how you felt, excited, sad, scared – all three?

Now begin to write.

Simplicity

Collect five objects from around your house and set them out on a tray. Now describe them – what they mean to you, what memories they invoke, what they look like, smell like and so on.

Now look at the list and think about the simplicity of each object. Strip your description down to the simplest way of describing them.

This about the simple things in life, the things that are our core of being – what is really important to you?

Now being to weave the simplistic imagery from the first bit of the exercise with the concept of what really makes your life worth living.