Tag: poetry

In the name of Research, The Library and Books of Poetry

So since Today was a pretty grey day and I had some errands to run, I found myself walking past where I used to work years ago to visit the very unassuming library to do a bit of actual research, I was in a nearby town close to the family home.

Two things happened today, I ventured out to do stuff and in doing so, I put on a smart shirt, some perfume and some heels along with my jeans and a leather jacket, did hair and make up and felt like I had returned to the land of the living for the day. I refused to let the debilitating headache which has plagued for a week get the best of me today and now that the shakes have stopped (almost) I decided to get things done…

So having not got any answers as to how many poems in a book is a good idea. I thought I would flick through the shelves and look at the children and adult poetry sections there for inspiration or to at least figure that bit out.

I located one of the librarians who gave me directions to the bottom shelf, where I was faced with the grand sum of less than 2ft of one shelf with poetry books.  Hmm, I thought nervously, (and more than a little hopefully) maybe poetry is such a great thing that all the books are out.  Alas no, this was all they had, I hoped that my choice of genre was not a bad one after all.  That is not really going to light up my life is it, about 20 books!  Dismayed I sat cross legged on the floor, I opened the first book, the rough carpet under me since there was no sign of a comfy chair on which to sit and I was not going to be emptying the meagre shelf just for a look. I hoped that no-one would tread on me in their stampede on their way past to the craft afternoon which was just about to start and rather wished I had made the journey to the other old library, where I used to go as a child after all. Now that was all that you want a library to be. It was beautiful old building with solid wooden panels and shelves and you could lose several hours there with a good book looking out over some lovely gardens. Or perhaps the one in the nearest town to me, which is huge and has regular exhibitions and lots of seating.  But there I was for a a short time transported back to a world which reminded me that I love reading and if the floor is the only place to sit, it really didn’t matter.

I picked up the first book, which was a collection of the poetry that used to be on the underground. I was quite surprised that the book was over 300 pages deep, but then had large widely spaced text, small poems, one to a page or more and lots of chapter pages too, so a lot of that was information and credits.  There were over 100 poems though.  So if I am going to follow that route then I will need to write a few more and include all the ones I have already written.  

I picked up another book, of Love poems the contents slightly less at just under 200 pages, with about 20 of them being allocated to indexing and notes.

I found a few which only had 30-40 poems in them and some of them were also very short so it seems that there is a whole host of ways to go.

The things I noticed from my little bit of research about this is;

All the books listed the poems, in the index by the first line of the poem. 

Only some of them listed the poems by name.

They were not split into subject matter.

They were randomly included in each book.

Most had less than 180 pages including the indexes and afterward.

Almost anything goes…

So it seems that although there are no hard and fast rules about which way to go, for any of you who like me, are on the route to your first book of poetry, I hope this little list helps you out.

What struck me though was the bizarre mixture of poetry which jumped off the page and stuck in my head as I left there.  Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf by Roald Dahl, Still I Rise, by Maya Angelou and The Tyger by William Blake, all so vastly different.

I may have to visit the other libraries anyway all in the name of research of course! to see what else I can find out. I feel my research is incomplete, plus it will give me the opportunity to read a few more books and see what exhibitions are happening locally. Now who could pass up an opportunity like that.  Plus, I enjoy the silence with which to read, it makes the memories last so much longer without distractions. The silence was definitely missing in today’s library, there was noise and bustle and things going on, along with a loud conversation between the librarians about recycling and composting bags and how many of them they are selling at the moment.  Perhaps I am recalling times gone by, a flashback to the past, when libraries were a place for peace and quiet.  Perhaps it was that this was a small community library that they were holding events in the midst of it, so should I be seeking that serenity elsewhere?

 

Parisienne Shopping

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The day that we went Parisienne Shopping
At Galeries Lafayette
When our feet were close to dropping,
Our wishes there well met.
I sat him down to rest, with croissant and café.
Searching off through the mall on my merry way.
Had no idea it was enormous and how very grand.
Or what item in the sale, I’d be pleased to land.
Skipped out to tell him later, I was worried of the cost.
He told me, “Get Back In There” so the bargain is not lost.
When on holiday shopping is certainly not my aim,
Just cannot see the fun in it, it is a crying shame.
But I had found a beautiful thing in bright blue and pink.
The smoothest silk, a summer dress. I hope it doesn’t shrink!
I walked around the centre, in surprise and awe.
He urged me to return there and I should buy some more.
But I was happy for a something, that I liked and it cost less
A veritable bargain, my Lafayette silk dress.
A handsome pair, hand in hand walk along the Seine
For dinner in some wonderful place, we’d love to visit again.

Writing up the Past and A Pair of Shoes.

In the last few weeks I have been working on a novel, which relates to aspects of my past, so I have been digging deeply without trying to let it swallow me up. It has been difficult to both recall and write about. So the novel itself may be a long way off. Although I have started writing, I have been relying upon memories which have not all been easy to dig up again and so dealing with the demons which inevitably come out to play in the process. All whilst trying to maintain the status quo and a happy home life. It has been a bit of a strain and the posts over the past couple of weeks have been up and down along with my emotions and thoughts.

It feels quite cathartic to have finally typed up all my poems which have languished in the loft all these years, after finding them last week. There would have been 40 of them. A nice round number (and I do like those) if there weren’t two missing, perhaps I threw them away in disgust a reminder of a love that once was, but that is unlikely. I wrote an index of them all along with the dates they were written, even approximately if I didn’t know the actual one. There are bound to be others kicking about in notebooks, handbags etc which I may find years from now, the one I wrote for my friends wedding still eludes me, along with the other items which I have yet to find. I fear moving in case one of the items I have been searching for, gets disposed of, so I will continue to hunt for it until I can find it again, although that may take some time. Meanwhile, whatever gets thinned out is getting checked over very thoroughly for that piece of jewellery until it turns up.

I have tried really hard to not judge myself too harshly since I started to go through them, whilst muttering “Gullible child” under my breath quite a lot. The facts of the matter are that I wrote all of these during the ages of 16-20 and I was young and sometimes very foolish back then. There are a lot about my “Loves” from way back then. At least I can rest assured that I have grown up a lot since then. It’s funny how the inner voice conversations go though, when you read something going back that far about yourself. I found myself thinking about my transformation over the past year or so and telling myself, “Who are you trying to Kid, you are still the same person as when you wrote them“, whilst arguing the fact with my inner voice. I am not! (she shouts like a five year old, almost stamping her foot) Lots of years have gone by and I know that I have learned a lot, however it has not been a joyful few days and quite emotional and I have probably been rather teenager like at times. Just wanting to get it done in the single minded way, which isn’t really fair. So I have also been trying hard to get other things done for the family too, so that they aren’t left out. However I have still been able to relate to the person I was when I wrote them, not the ones which are about the Loves in my life, but about the feelings instead.

I will share only some of them, others’ I have deemed “not fit for consumption,” so will stay where they are, I resisted the urge to edit the hell out of them although some of them have been slightly tweaked, they are raw like I was back when they were written and they would lose their integrity and make them something new. Maybe that would be a good thing after all, but as yet I am undecided.

Anyway, here’s one I wrote and do want to share with you, It‘s called A Pair of Shoes, I wrote it 23 years ago. I laughed when I read it again, thinking that even way back then, I loved a metaphor. The shoes did actually exist, now if only I could remember which ones they were….

A Pair of Shoes

At the moment, I feel like a pair of shoes…. 

I bought them two years ago.
They’ve been in the box ever since.
I like them.
But I’ve never actually “Needed” them.
They might be useful at some point.
Occasionally I take them out and look at them.
I didn’t want to get rid of them.
Sometimes I try them on for size and they’re comfortable.
Then I put them away,
Until next time.

 

In The Days of Green Ink writing…

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I wonder when it was that I stopped writing in Green Ink, I used to all the time…. Before that it was almost always black, we had to write in Blue when I was at school and from then on I shied away from it, rebelling. Which is slightly odd as Blue is actually my favourite colour. Now more often than not, it is Purple or Pink, I guess they must have run out of Green and I picked up a job lot of coloured ink, I am looking forward to using the Turquoise, it isn’t the same boring old blue.

I do love a fountain pen… I don’t use it often enough now, using it mainly for writing cards or special notes.

I am currently putting the handwritten poems which I have just found from way back when into some semblance of order, well at least in one place on the laptop.
I found them other day, in the bag which I mentioned in a previous post. A total blast from the past. But so many other things in there too along with my old poems, among them a book where I had written recipes, in one place. I don’t remember whether they were favourite ones, or if I had copied them from a newspaper. Some people had scrapbooks for such things, but I have written them out instead.

It is funny how going through this I noticed how, dependent on what I had written and when, my handwriting changed. As I grew up, I did away with the loopy I’s and flamboyant T’s, but from time to time it still maintains a creativity of it’s own. Back when I wrote these, my handwriting was very controlled Probably like the rest of me. The recipes however maintain a different script to that of the poems, following similarities with my writing today as though somehow more relaxed. It is different again now, noticeably so. I wonder what the experts would make of it now if it were deciphered.

The Daily Post – Handwriting

 

Abuse, Trauma and Trust Misplaced

Before you assume that I am very gullible and naïve please, let me shout from my corner with my explanation. I was brought up to speak the truth, to be good. To respect my elders and follow their advice and do as I was told. As time went on following these rules I was about to become very unstuck! The very people who were supposed to teach, protect and you can learn from, abused their positions, my trust and Yes, they definitely taught me Lessons in Life that I would rather not have learned. Things that would shape me in years to come, tormenting my mind and sabotaging my thoughts, whilst haunting my dreams.

Don’t get me wrong, I am more than aware that Life could have been so much worse. I am Thankful each and every day that over the years, the experiences stopped. They were usually one off’s and once I had removed myself from the offenders then that would be it, until the next time. Until someone new decided to take an opportunity which wasn’t there, to overstep the line once again. I am thankful every day that I did not have to suffer an endless onslaught of abuse lasting years. At least that gave me the chance to rebuild myself in between. There are different levels of abuse all wrong and all leaving scars which may or may not ever heal. I pushed each time to the back of my mind, hoping that if I left it there and forgot about it, then it would be gone. Little did I know that it would merely lay dormant until some other trauma brought it out again, all right back and threw it back in my face. I got angry with myself, and over time I was more angry at having been so gullible as to be fooled over and again than I was over the perpetrators. How could I be so stupid and how could I have trusted them? I must have been doing something wrong for it to keep happening to me… and generally beating myself up mentally about my misfortune.

Did I wear my heart on my sleeve? Kind of… Did people around me know the things that I had gone through? Very few did. Some are delightfully clueless, whilst others’ like me chose to bury and forget what they did know. I dealt with it alone preferring not to speak of it and thought that was working well for me right up until yet more trauma arrived and opened up Pandora’s box once again.

I thought that it was strange when I woke yesterday morning and felt compelled to write down on paper the episodes. It started out as a list of where my trust had been misplaced (Hmm, a little of that self blame creeping back in there!) then it somehow grew into a list of childhood and teenage sexual abuse that I had experienced.

Now why on earth would anyone want to write a list, that list? I cannot answer that, I have found out that over the past few months that writing is a major part of my own healing process and it sometimes catches me unawares but when I write it down, things get better. It enabled me to write down how I actually felt about things. Last year I discussed several of these episodes with a counsellor for the first time ever. I had been referred having been diagnosed with PTSD following the trauma of an accident. As the sessions went on I had a feeling that the time was right to talk about some of the other things that had happened in my life, which had suddenly all come back to me since the accident, sometimes reliving the nightmares, quite literally I was not sleeping and had no confidence after the accident. It had had all been brought back by the trauma I had suffered recently. But in these sessions, she told me something of great importance which was a turning point for me and for which I am eternally grateful.

For anyone who has suffered childhood abuse and asked why it happened to them, I will pass on what she said to me.

“It’s not you, It IS them. You did not DO anything to encourage this behaviour towards you and YES, you should have been protected from it by the adults around you time and time again.”

Some 33 years after I was abused for the first time as a child . I had summoned the courage to speak about it stating that the abusers were either dead or long gone, they could not harm me for speaking about it now. Someone finally told me that I did not bring it upon myself and that I did not deserve it. If it had not been me, then it would have been someone else, If I had not thought so quickly as to how I could escape, things could have been much, much worse. No-one had thought to tell me that previously. It was such a relief to hear those words and I bawled my eyes out. Thanking her profusely. The release was immense. I eventually left the car park some time after my session and drove for about 2 hours, just wanting to be on the open road.

Am I healed? I actually doubt that yet. But I do believe I am getting over the damage it did for so long. I am no longer waving that Victim flag saying “Come and Get Me, have another go, see if you can break me this time” Instead I am now brandishing my sword with the war cry of “Don’t you Dare” Dressed in my armour, complete with chinks in it, battered and scarred but still fighting. I am surviving and at times I have been a mess and barely winning, sometimes not knowing how to carry on, but feeling that I have to and I pick myself up.
They say that What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger… It is certainly true for me, By becoming strong, therefore I AM. My positive thinking is a part of my armour which protects me and as my anthem goes.

Something inside so strong.
I know that I can make it,
But you’re doing me wrong.
So wrong.
Thought that my pride was gone, Oh No!
Something inside so strong…

Sending shivers down my spine as I write those words down and spurring me onwards toward Victory.

After writing my list, I felt very uneasy as though something awful was going to happen. In retrospect I think it was just the aftermath of all those emotions being given head room again. I had a sense of doom all day, so I stayed indoors the safety of my home, I found things to do and ventured in to the loft yesterday afternoon, on a search for something entirely different. In doing so I found a carrier bag, it was full of old things, recipes, poems, coursework, drawings and letters and photographs and so much more. I have not yet read all that was in there. I knew that I had written out poems years ago and kept them in a book, which I had decided I must find, but I came across it quite by accident. What was a shock to me was to find a notepad. I did not recall writing in such detail my abusive experiences 23 years ago on paper. Back then I often wrote things down to get them out of my head rather the same way as I do today, but I had no recollection of having done this before, when I wrote them out earlier that morning. I am shocked at the matter of fact way I explain what happened way back then. That I had kept it and also that it has been with me in the several house moves since then, hidden away in the loft as well as the back of my mind. If only I had been given the opportunity to speak to someone about it back then, it might have made such a difference and I have been literally carrying it around with me for years.

Later, I ventured out with my family walking the dog in the evening. Nothing awful happened, it turned out OK. My partner brought Hope out of the Garage for me, for the first time in months. She is sitting outside the house in the road, with fuel, taxed and ready to drive out she needs a good run after her rest. Away for months, under wraps it is wonderful to see the bright blue shining outside the window despite the rainy day and a smile returned to my face. I was exhausted at the end of the day, but unable to rest until the early hours, again passing the 3am threshold before sleep took a hold of me but Today we will drive.

Hope is what it represents. & Hope is Waiting

The Daily Post – Angry

 

I am a Survivor!

I am a Survivor!

The things which I have gone through, I have come out the other side.

Broken, Yes Sometimes for a while…

Forced to hide away and repair myself, when others have chosen to just brush it aside.

Rebuilding each and every time without fail, essential for my survival.

Finding strength I didn’t know existed all over again. To help me grow instead of wither and die, like they expected. Making me a person far different from the one I could have been.

They did not win. They will not win.

I did not fail.  I will not fail.

My Branches may have been cut and I bled, but they grew again.

My wings may have been clipped, I waited for my feathers to return.

My impatience to continue evident, not content just to wait for it to be over.

I gathered the wind under my wings, ready to soar again, back where I belong.

My Spirit, untamed, released at last from my experiences.

Free to Live, to dream and to Be.

The Daily Post – Survival

Lost work or When Mercury goes Retrograde

It’s frustrating isn’t it, when you search the depths of your PC, your files etc, only to find that it is gone….
Is it another hazard of the planet Mercury going retrograde. When the planetary movement destroys the work which was not backed up properly, or fries your technology. Of course, that is not the actual description as to what happens, except that invariably does. To much clasping of hands to the side of the head and Oh No’s!

I do believe that it IS a real phenomena, it happens so regularly and goes on for weeks. Every quarter and lasts for around 3 weeks at a time. Where suddenly Pcs’ Phones & TV’s begin to play up. It affects communication but not just online causing havoc in your life, especially to the unprepared.
Thankfully the internet can offer you a warning of the impending doom that is on it’s way and for the next few weeks you’d better hang on tight, but there is good news, the current one is due to finish on 22nd and not return until late August apparently.

At least the knowledge of it’s existence serves to advise you that you are not losing your marbles and that you can stop pulling your hair out. My reason for writing this… Well, I have been caught out on a few occasions with this. Lately I have begun to back up my Laptops to an enormous external drive. But having done that with every file I can find, I still can’t find it…

There have been a few things I have lost over the past few months, which have caused me great distress and whichever “Safe Place” I have put them in they have yet to materialise from. But the aforementioned IT, was from about 10 years ago, when I wrote a short story. I can remember sitting at the computer, no laptop back then for a very long day, then going back to edit it the next day. I was quite pleased with the end result, although I never sent it off anywhere to be published. It was on an ancient PC, at one such time, the PC began to “play up” again and I subsequently lost a lot of my files from it along with a hard drive. I relied upon a back up on the PC and it failed me, but I wonder if I did actually manage to save it, if only I could remember what it was called.

Recently my thoughts keep returning to the story that I wrote. I cannot remember the whole thing, but the character’s name and backline are in my head, so often right now that I felt that I should search for it again. Since all my old backups are now on this one drive. I also have another just in case I am dealt a further cruel blow, I’m being careful now.

I am now gathering up my work form the years gone by. I refer to myself as a new writer since I have not openly written or published anything until recently. However it occurred to me that I have been a part time writer for many years. I have poems, short stories, ideas for books, allsorts of things. I remember that I was writing a book when I was fifteen. I wonder what happened to that? It must have gone adrift in the 13 house moves since then. Thrown away to start again, or is it hiding again in storage which may never be uncovered, awaiting the day when it is cleared and someone may either find it and destroy it, or decide to finish it and publish it.

So, it may be that I have actually been a writer for years. Not a failed on, just a not ready to launch yet one…

My valentines cards to my partner have often contained poems of love, I wish I’d written all the poems down elsewhere, but I’m sure that in the grand sort out, they will turn up in the cards, since we tend to keep them with the lovely words we have written. I thought about updating my website, my social media with my current choice of work experience. Maybe that unscheduled time off which forced me to be the person underneath all the rest of it that I am, can come out to play, learn to dance as my words do, off the page.
Maybe I have finally embraced what IS meant to be after all these years, the writer who was hidden underneath. Watch out world. Here I come….

As my writing persona takes me to a whole new level in my life, I am grateful for the new opportunity I have seized with both hands. For the new experiences it has opened my eyes to and the people I am “meeting” along the way, via social media and the fact that this year, I WILL publish my first book.

I haven’t been sitting idle, and stopped banging my head against the wall whilst I tried to figure out the next step forward for me. I have begun to do what has been there all along. I am happy. Everyone knows that writers have no money until their big break, right? So we pared back, hunkered down, stayed in and stuck together. I have gained strength from the process and we live a simple life again at the moment.

Having the Vision

Oh if I could have the vision to see, what in the future I could be.

The dreams of past failures gone, giving me strength to carry on.

Oh there would be the sense of delight, that courage inside would not take flight.

leaving me hiding in the dark, not out in the world to make my mark.

A chance of regained confidence, for this work some recompense.

 

 

The Daily Post – Vision

Desert Boots

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These boots have been to places
Of where I dare to dream
Of people and their faces
That I’ve never seen
Of hills and deserts yonder,
As far as you could wander.
These boots were made to win the war,
For the feet of soldiers, the stories they could tell.
But these came home, you know the score,
On someone fit and well.
They did no longer need them, as their war was at an end
A dearly loved father, a brother or a friend.

On reaching 100 and Counting, (Still)

Well, that’s one for the list of Yay’s…
To those of you have been waiting and would like to know, you’ll be pleased to hear that I have now reached my 100 poems. This is the goal that I set myself to write, before I would choose which ones I will include in my first book. It also appears on the list of Yay’s. For the uninitiated, this is a list which I made myself in February, just as I began this blog of things that I wished to achieve (preferably) this year. As I complete them, I place the Yay! By way of celebration in the completed column. See Intentions – Things I want to do this year

The truth be told, I have surpassed this particular personal goal in a glut of writing that began yesterday and went on through the night. It was daylight when I finally clambered into bed at 5am having been unable to sleep once again, the words and thoughts just kept coming and I am but its slave. Having been in bed for the grand total of three hours I was suddenly awake again, at 8am the notepad pulled from under the pillow, the pencil poised once more. Round two, ding-ding!

I am not stopping yet though, let’s continue to make hay whilst the sun shines. (Although this morning is actually met with rain) the selection process will begin, just about the time that my current stream of writing falters a little, I will then feel able to edit and work on how it will all come together and final quantity that will be included in the book itself, also on how on earth I am going to get it out there and market it on my non-existent budget. Hold on to your hats.

The intention is there and I had anticipated that it would be my first book, but since my butterfly mind is flitting once again I may conclude something else I am also working on first. I know, I know the voice inside my head warns the old me to finish what I had started, before moving on to the next thing. But there is another deadline I would rather like to meet. It is a competition entry, with a month to spare and would be my first entry for writing. It could be a short story, but what constitutes a short story and where is the line drawn before it becomes a long one?  If last night was anything to go by, it could end up a novel. It started off a couple of months ago, notes on a page, characters in my head, stories to be told. It has sat there, whiling away the time, until more thoughts formed in my head and I began to consciously write it, I somehow knew that once I did it might open a floodgate.

This particular story is of a young girl, reaching womanhood and the people she encounters, who try to change the direction her life should take and the people thrown into her path. The way that it is coming thick and fast at the moment, I might just ,make the deadline for that particular competition, dependent on what else May holds for me. If not, then there’s a rather large shelf full of stuff that I could put it on. I’d been sitting on there myself until recently, but it was time to dust myself off this year and start something new.

Oh metaphors, how I love thee….

I said that May is going to be a good month, where good things happen. It is traditionally so and I don’t want to break with that particular tradition. I have a lot to accomplish this month and so far, progress has been made, so Salut and long may it continue.

There is another goal, which I am so close to reaching on the list, the magical number of 50 followers to my blog. So, if you are reading this for the first time and want to do me the honours, I’d be over the moon to be able to tick that one off too and I‘m oh so close…

I am filled with Gratitude for the people who follow the blog and regularly send me their comments and emotional support, sometimes the road can be rocky, but your words continue to inspire me. Thank you!