The Writer Diaries - Micropoetry, November 2016

Well, I certainly wrote more this month than I did last month.

I have no idea whether any of these are any good - but here you go anyway; enjoy! (Or not. Whatever.)






4th November

Princesses are flawless
Pale, weak, & soft
Born to be brides
Princesses don't kiss princesses;
Girls need to be princesses -
Right...?

7th November

Sweethearts

- because your hearts are sweet, aren't they? -

remember that people are people

Who love & live & hope & wish

Just like you

13th November

Fight for hope.
Fight for people.
You'll make mistakes,
Get up & do things better.
Treat people like people.
Love with your whole heart

14th November

People are fallible

They can be selfish

They can be short-sighted

They can be ignorant

The best ones try to do better

Even if they fail

16th November

We told you
That the fire
Was burning
You laughed
And stuck your hand in the flame
Told us to do the same.
Unlike you, we felt the pain

24th November

I see your face

In the weirdest of places

And it never seems

To be good news

24th November

I put my heart
Into it all
& how I tried
To make it count
But you can't please all of the people
All of the time
No matter how you try








Like this post? Try these:

• The Writer Diaries - Micropoetry, September 2016
• The Writer Diaries - Micropoetry, October 2016

The Writer Diaries - Micropoetry, October 2016

So, October is on it's way out, and it's time to show you the micropoetry I wrote this month.

It's kind of been an up-and-down month for me, depression-wise, so sorry if these are kind of a bummer... and there are only three of them.

Sorry.






10th October
How do they do it?
The charmed ones -
While we strive, struggle, scrimp, save,
The universe re-arranges itself,
To better suit them.





13th October
I'm so tired
Of feeling so tired
Not knowing what's required
of me. What should I do?
What do you want from me?
I'm so tired.

23rd October
Tired.
Running uphill just to stay in one place.
Tired of the struggle; of the fight; of the hate; of the dark.
Tired of being tired.








Like this post? Try these:

• The Writer Diaries - Micropoetry, September 2016
• The Writer Diaries - Micropoetry, August 2016

Aberfan

On October 21st 1966, 50 years ago this Friday, the village of Aberfan was changed forever.

A coal spoil-tip fell on the school.

Over 1 million cubic feet of industrial waste fell on the village, killing 116 children, and 28 adults.

We remember, and I give my small tribute here:

Aberfan

The heart was hollowed from the land

You left the guts to choke us.

A mountain fell on innocent heads.

You faced no prosecution.

Our children meant nothing to you.

Just a poor man's son, a poor man's daughter.

Our children were killed

By a black heart -

A company, an industry,

which cared more for profit than people.

You murdered them with your neglect.

When we screamed 'Murderers!'

you told us we didn't understand

Inferred we should defer to our betters.

Westminster ignored our anger and our pain.

You expected us to bow our heads,

Mumble 'yessir, nosir, threebagsfullsir,'

and creep away.

A father, speaking for a nation, speaking for a people, speaking for his child

Insisted on the truth.

Died of asphyxia and multiple injuries?

'No, Sir, buried alive by the National Coal Board.'

You buried our children alive.

You took the heart from the mountains,

Left the guts to rot on a hillside.

And buried our children alive.

And we remember.

Wales will always remember.

You murdered our children.

You murdered

the children

of Aberfan.

The Writer Diaries - Micropoetry, September 2016

It's that time again dearest nerdlets! September is rapidly skimming out of view, and I have more micropoetry to share with you.

Sorry if several of these are kind of a downer - I learnt that someone I knew in school had died and... yeah.

I kind of worked through some stuff (the poems for 13th Sep will show you that,) so feel free to skip anything that's bringing you down!

9th September

Nothing deserves pity

More than those

who fear love & compassion

& turn instead to hate

Poor lost soul,

Find your way home soon

13th September (I)

How am I supposed to feel?
They say you died;
A casual friend;
I hadn't heard your name in years.
How am I supposed to feel?
Tell me.

13th September (II)

Do I have a right to grieve?
5 years or more -
Must have been
Never close, even then
Just two birds of the same flock
One bird now dead


13th September (III)

A background fixture,
Left behind when I left the room.
Weren't you younger than me?
Or was it a few days older?
Young & pretty & dead

17th September

No matter

How dark

It may be

There is light

There is good

You are loved

23rd September






2016
The year of mean.
Have my tears,
But cariad, I'm gonna sing



Over the heads of abject liars -
Reaching ears that may hear
me
2016

Like this post? Try these:

• The Writer Diaries - Micropoetry, August 2016
• The Writer Diaries - Micropoetry, July 2016

Month In Review(s) - August 2016

August. Ahhhh, August.

(I can't resist a happy-dog-in-sunglasses pic!)

August was actually a pretty good month for me.

Despite how difficult my anxiety made it, I came out as sexually fluid; and that felt great ;)






Blog-wise, less impressive stats than last month. But they were still pretty damn good :)

Over 4k page-views this month, reaching over 25k page-views over-all!!!!!!!!!!! XD I mean - wow! 25k!!!!!! XD XD

(Actually I've now reached over 26k, but 25 is such a round and shiny number, lol!)

And I now have over 950 followers on Twitter.

Things've stagnated a little on BlogLovin' - but still trotting along with a handful of new followers this month :)



And shameless plug time!

The Bookish Diversity Link List 2016 is up and running.

Be sure to check it out, and let me know if you find anything I can add! (It's easier when people help me, lol.)

Kids

The Bone Sparrow by Zana Fraillon - contemporary, magic realism

Young Adult

Switched by Amanda Hocking - fantasy, paranormal* (*ish)

Adult

Blood Season by Claire Meadows - poetry

Last Night, A Superhero Saved My Life - non-fiction, essays

Graphic Novels

Limbo, Volume 1 - fantasy*, horror*, crime* (*ish)

Malice In Ovenland by Micheline Hess - kids, fantasy

Kilala Disney Princess, Vol 1 - young adult, fantasy, manga, fairy tale, media tie-in

The Writer Diaries - Micropoetry, August 2016

Another month faffs off into the everloving history books, and I have more micropoetry for you :)

Hope you like!




(Also for some reason I seem to average four micropoems per month - random.)

9th August

My love, your hope.

Hearts tried to speak,

Yet never spoke.

16th August

We snipe at each other
Humans become trolls
Keyboards delete humanity for some,
But increase it for others -
Good web knights

20th August

Speed through a red light.

Go on. Go ahead.

But the flowers tied to that tree?

They're a warning,

Don't take them as a challenge.

22nd August

When I laughed
You thought that I agree.
No.
I didn't want to show
How badly your words
hurt me.






Like this post? Try These:

• The Writer Diaries - Micropoetry, July 2016
• The Writer Diaries - Micropoetry, June 2016

Review! (Poetry Edition!) - Blood Season by Claire Meadows

Title: Blood Season

Author: Claire Meadows

Genre: Poetry

Amazon: UK - USA

A few starting notes:

I received a free digital review copy of this book from the publisher, Urbane Publications, via NetGalley. NetGalley provides review copies from publishers in exchange for fair and honest reviews.

You may know that I love poetry - and I've been getting back into it more lately.

That said, this collection seemed interesting. Something about it quirked my distracted-toddler-style interest, and I decided to give it a shot.

Premise:

A poetry collection from Claire Meadows talking passionately about life, love, death, and blood.

Best bits:

Meadows can create imagery in her sleep. Her poems are stuffed with powerful, vivid, imagery - sometimes strikingly stark and raw.

Clearly, she also knows her writing techniques, inside and out.

There's an awareness present throughout this collection of the way in which words weave together to create those strong images she confronts us with time and again.

There's also meaning in buckets for those who like to pick apart metaphors with a fine tooth comb - there are impressive layers to this poetry.

The poet's passion shines through - there's definite feeling throughout.

There's also the slightly uncomfortable but beautifully powerful sub-text of domestic abuse/violence (I'm not sure whether it was intended or not, but this sub-text is most definitely there - whether a metaphor for something else or not.)

Yes, this is going to be problematic for some people - but the raw feeling involved is undoubtedly something to admire.

Not so great bits:

The main problem here, to me, was the cohesion of the collection - or the lack thereof.

I was left really uncertain over whether the speaker (the 'voice' of the poem) was meant to be the same in several places.

Likewise, sometimes it felt like the addressee (the person being talked to) of the poem was the same over several separate poems, and then a detail here or there would throw a discordant note into the mix and confuse me.

This was a problem with the collection arrangement, I think, more than the individual poems. The flow was damaged by the sense of same-but-different in the placement of the poems.

A few poems I didn't like as much of others - but that's a matter of individual preference, and is going to occur in any collection of poems.

Here and there I felt that the images within the poem - though undoubtedly still very vivid - didn't quite gel together into something (and here's that word again) cohesive.

Also, several topics here - specifically the under-tones of abuse and violence - may be distressing to many.

This is a personal thing again - I didn't have a problem with it - but I could completely understand if some of this is too much for some people.

Verdict:

Look, book, me and you? We had some issues, true. But I think we could make this thing between us work.

What do you say? You up for another round? ;)

Buy Now UK – Buy Now USA – Goodreads – Author's Site

Liked this post? Try these:

• The Poetry of Biffy Clyro
• What Is Poetry?

The Writer Diaries - Micropoetry, July 2016

If you read this blog and/or my Twitter account a lot, you might know that I like to dabble aimlessly in micropoetry.

Micropoetry is basically poetry in the length of a tweet. Which is awesome, no?

So, without further ado, here's the micropoetry I wrote in July (which is hopefully a little more up-beat than a lot of my micropoetry has been in recent months!)

12th July

Can you know

I'm fragile glass,

And yet know

I'm strong as steel?

Can you take

Conflicting truths,

And believe

Both truths are real?

14th July

I know

It's never easy.

Just once

I wish

It wasn't quite

so hard.

18th July

You still don't get it

I'm not like you -

never was.

You're all made of sunshine,

but honey, I'm not.

I'm starlight,

I'm the stars.

21st July

Fingers dance across the keyboard

Pull the letters into the beat

Pirouette into a woven textile

Heart strings pulled along to the beat

Like this post? Try these:

• The Writer Diaries - Micropoetry, June 2016
• The Writer Diaries: Micropoetry - May 2016

The Poetry of Biffy Clyro

'Angels fall to the floor

Like they would if I was Captain

'Silver children' she roared,

I'm not the son of God'

- Biffy Clyro, The Captain

Amazon link (UK - US)

'The Captain' is one of my favourite Biffy Clyro songs. One of my favourite songs over all, actually. And the perfect example of poetry in song lyrics.

It's a song of hurt and hope, all woven together. It's a song with something ancient in it's heart - something that beats drums and dances for a pagan God.

Biffy Clyro's lyrics are a beautiful mix of imagery. No-one will ever be able to tell me that their lines aren't poetry.

Their lyrics (sung beautifully in lovely Scottish tones) are some of the most meaningful I've ever come across.

And they're proof that poetry belongs to everyone - not just academics and arty-types. Poetry is not sovereign territory, and can be enjoyed by everyone.

'This river is particularly sinister
Close your eyes and take my hand'

- Biffy Clyro, That Golden Rule

Amazon link (UK - US)

To me, the imagery in Biffy Clyro music - just that blend of the religious, the natural, the mystical, and the mundane - is just incredible.

Don't get me wrong, Biff' aren't a religious band. But they take religious imagery - angels, God, heaven, demons - and turn it into a beautiful complex weave of metaphors.

OK, so maybe I'm making them sound a lot more intellectual than I should be. They're a rock band, not a literature seminar.

But then, that's kind of the point. They've got genuine heart and a genuine rawness.

'Cause when my back is turned,
My bruises shine.
Our broken fairytale,
So hard to hide'

- Biffy Clyro, Many of Horror

Amazon link (UK - US)

'Many of Horror' is a beautiful, horrible, song. Brokenly stunning, it's just... wow.

It's about how love hurts - physically and mentally. And it's one of the few songs with the ability to make me cry - which is an achievement in itself ;) 

If you don't know much about Biffy Clyro, then you should totally check them out. They're awesome.

And, just because it deserves to be heard in all it's glory, here's 'The Captain':

What about you guys? Do you think music can be poetry?

Like this post? Try this:

• What Is Poetry?

The Writer Diaries - Micropoetry, June 2016

Here we are my dearest nerdlets! The little scraps of micropoetry that I've written this month, all wrapped up neat 'n' tidy in a blogpost!

(They're kind of sad poems... sorry about that! In my defence, more than one was written in reaction to various things going around me, and in the country in general, when I wrote them.)

8th June

Goodbye little bird,

I promise I loved you

I promise I cared.

Goodbye little bird -

If I could've made it so,

You would've been spared

11th June

Empty shop, empty shop, empty shop.

Reduced bank hours,

Downgraded post office,

One train an hour.

Empty shop, empty shop, empty shop.

15th June

The sky is crying -

It throws down its tears,

So we can know,

That it cries too.

16th June

A bright light burned out today

As it left it lit the way -

Said love not hate is what I say,

Hatred will not win the day

#jocox

23rd June

You think you know me.

How I wish that were true.

You claim to know me.

But I know you.






Like this post? Try these:

• The Writer Diaries: Micropoetry April 2016
• The Writer Diaries: Micropoetry - May 2016