Haiku Hopscotch

Hey world, Spring is finally here!! I was inspired by a cherry tree that was in bloom outside my window, so I wrote a poem to celebrate springs arrival: A cherry tree in early morning. The blossoms’ magenta depths inhale the blue skies, feeling it fill their lungs, and breathe out fragrant sighs, their breath heavy with sweet pollen. The bees too are drawn to these clumps of candy-floss hanging enticingly on the twiggy limbs of the tree. The sun pries her sticky golden fingers into the delicate clusters of fist-like petals, peering into their centres as though there was some secret hidden there. The buds yawn and unfold their pink skirts in the breeze, shaking the nights dew off their soft heads. The sun, fascinated by this transformation, laughs so hard she rolls around the sky, making the clouds frown and back off, scratching their wispy heads and wondering why she is so happy. Spring dances beneath the cherry blossoms, beating her tambourine to a jig of growth, drums of the thrum...

May 2nd 2018 Hey world! The other day a friend of mine got me this book called ' Lyrics from the Chinese' by H. Waddell. It's this really old blue book with wizened, yellowing pages, but within it there is some amazing stuff. This type of poetry is more along the lines of song lyrics than poetry. All of it flows so smoothly, it's incredible to read and experience-when you read it you feel more than read. This is what poetry should do in my opinion- make you feel something deep down. Poetry makes us say what we couldn't or wouldn't say out loud. A quote that really illustrates this for me is not by a poet, but a British-Hungarian physicist called Dennis Gabor- " Poetry is plucking at the heartstrings, and making music with them ." See? you don't have be exclusively a poet to appreciate poetry. Peach blossom after rain Is deeper red; The willow fresher green; Twittering overhead; And fallen petals lie wind-blown Unswept upon the courtyard s...

Hey world, I have just discovered a whole new type of poetry: prose poetry! This is such a great form of poetry, it sort of combines a short story with a poem. My poems do occasionally tend to go on a bit, so when I put it into a mini story it makes a lot more sense, but still has the expressive element of poetry. I wrote my first ever prose poem this week on March 14th, and it is called Sapphire Dusk : The bleeding sun sinks down behind the horizon, trailing her bright fingers across the heavens, beckoning to the shy stars that advance towards her dying halo.The sun’s whisper of tomorrow echoes through the trees softly, as her golden head disappears. The moon’s arms loosen reluctantly, and he lets her slide down out of sight, a burning jewel on the skyline, their kiss closing the day. The moon rises slowly, and takes his place among the diamonds that are rapidly populating the heavens. Down below the stars’s midnight dance, quiet has settled on the land. The trees are still, and...

Hey world. This week I've got a gorgeous poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins that is just bursting with colours: Glory be to God for dappled things – For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings; Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough; And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim. All things counter, original, spare, strange; Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?) With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise him. This poem is such a fantastic celebration of life and imperfection. As you'll note, none of the things listed in the poem are flawless. Here Gerard Manley Hopkins creates a pied collection of minor things that today I feel that people overlook or simply don't notice, instead we are all looking at one screen or another. See, ...

Hey world, Following on from the previous post where I discussed Keats's theory of Negative Capability and what exactly it meant, I am now going to look at and analyse seemingly the only poem of his where critics agree that we can observe the application of his theory. Critics suggest that his 'Ode to a Grecian Urn' is the best available example of the poet actually exercising the elusive 'negative capability' of which he wrote. The reader can see this in the way he poses questions to the 'silent form', interrogating whatever meaning it might convey rather than communicating his knowledge of the subject. Knowledge is just the notion that Keats urges us to forget about when considering the concept of negative Capability. Remeber- '... a life of sensation rather than thought.' Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than...

Hey world. Ok, so today I'm going to tackle something a little more intense. I won't be doing a poem as usual, instead I'm going to be considering a literary term first introduced by John Keats: Negative Capability. This is a literary and almost philosophical concept which is pretty hard to wrap your head around. I'm actually still trying to understand it myself. Keats first mentioned the idea in a letter in December 1817: '...several things dovetailed in my mind, & at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in Literature & which Shakespeare possessed so enormously – I mean Negative Capability, that is when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason – Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half knowledge.' Essenti...

Hey world, here's my most recent poem, ' Beyond The Sea', which I wrote on January sixth. I went to the beach, and sat down on the hard stones and shells, Watching the deep, scarred skin of the ocean, constantly shift From form to form, Thinking. Someone told me once the ocean could tell us things if we listened hard enough. Though that was long ago, I sit and listen. The ragged breath of the tide repeats itself, Rhythmically clawing it’s way up the sand with desperate fingers, The seaweed chariots drawn by white foamy horses Ride the surf before turning around and continuing the race back out to sea. The salty air is a physical thing, a rough, cool hand tousling my hair. I pick up a stone, smoothed by the ocean’s touch. The gulls wheel above, and cry out their songs of woe. So I gaze out at the stormy waters, Thinking of times long Long ago. -A. Heezen