a dictionary of spectral curiosities
"We don't do politics here.""Personally, I don't support any particular ideology." These are two phrases I've frequently heard when issues connected to discrimination have come up. Most recently, the first was shouted at me by a very irate building manager who affected not to understand why her migrant-background neighbours might feel upset by the Prime …
Continue reading "“You can’t post this here”: The story of a poem"
I can't believe that I have almost reached the end of this year's poetry-writing challenge! Tomorrow, I'll have to find a way to celebrate, but for now, here's my next-to-last poem of the month! Once more, I followed the daily prompt, which suggested that we write a meditative poem. Mine is inspired by my uneasy …
Playing catch-up again, because this is my life. 😀 Sometimes it feels like a juggler walking a thin rope through fog. Anyway, here's my "debt" of four poems! For day 25, I wrote a poem about stained glass, for which I have a very healthy (I do assure you!) obsession. Stained Glass Whom do these …
Today, the optional prompt suggested that we get inspired by an encyclopaedia in writing our poems. And since this is the very Encyclopaedia Vanitatum – the encyclopaedia of worthless, transient things – the prompt fit like a glove. And so today's poem was written sub specie aeternitatis – considering timelessness. Sub Specie Aeternitatis Gromphadorhina portentosa Dionaea muscipula Achatina …
Today's prompt encouraged us to write a poem about an animal, which was an excellent excuse for me to to write about a cockroach for the first time! I dedicate this one to my patient hissers, Kafka and Rilke. The Cockroach He burrows, searching for the trail left him by his ancestors, alive with the warning …
Hold on tight, fairies and sprites! Today, to catch up on my NaPoWriMo backlog, much neglected after three full days of travel and uproar, I give you four poems born out of a sleep-deprived brain! For day 19, a poem about states of emergency. Emergency Measure This is not a drill: gather your thoughts and …
Continue reading "NaPoWriMo/ GloPoWriMo 2019: Days 19 to 22"
Today, I wrote a poem about fairies, elves, mermaids, and nature, inspired by the amazing town I'm currently staying in. The View from the Nehaj Fortress One could almost believe that the elves went to war with the fairies here. The hills, bathing their feet in the sea are true testimony; there have been no …
Today I wrote in transit, inspired by the act of travelling, and by the wonderful book I am reading, The Icarus Girl, by one of my newly favourite authors, Helen Oyeyemi. It is a poem not about loneliness, for once, but about – Solitude People wash over me like waves, another landscape flowing by a window …
I'm lucky enough to have been travelling a lot these past few days, and this plus a lack of access to the internet has meant that I have somewhat fallen behind on the NaPoWriMo challenge. Well, today I am catching up and repaying my three-poem debt! For day 12, I wrote about an unimportant detail …
Continue reading "NaPoWriMo/ GloPoWriMo 2019: Days 12, 13 & 14"
Where I come from, people would use the expression (literally translated as) "sun with teeth" to refer to sunny, yet freezing cold weather, such as one might experience in winter. Today's poem speaks of one such day, following the prompt for day 10 of NaPoWriMo. Toothed Sun The sun is baring his teeth today, my …
Encyclopaedia Vanitatum 