Haiku Hopscotch

August 20th 2018 Hey world. Last week, I took a drive through the rolling countryside of County Derry in Northern Ireland and visited the Seamus Heaney Home Place in Bellaghy County Derry. I had been looking forward to coming here all summer, and I was so excited to learn more about Northern Ireland’s most beloved poet. My family (especially my mother who is from Northern Ireland) has always been a massive fan of Seamus Heaney's work, so it was incredible to go to an entire centre dedicated to him and his work. We also visited his grave nearby. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this poet, I will provide a quick biography: Seamus Heaney was born on April 13, 1939 on a farm in the Castledàwson in County Londonderry, the first of nine children in a Catholic family. He received a scholarship to attend the boarding school St. Columb's College in Derry and went on to Queens University in Belfast, studying English and graduating in 1961. Heaney worked as a schoolteacher for a ...

Hey world! Two weeks ago, on a sweltering 33 degree celcius day in London, I had the amazing opportunity to go to William Shakespare’s Globe Theatre and see Hamlet! I had always wanted to go there, ever since I was little. As a big Shakespeare fan, both in reading and physically acting out his work for my LAMDA exams, it was a huge moment for me to finally stand facing one of the most gorgeous stages I have ever seen. The theatre is absolutely magnificent, despite it having no roof. Thankfully, I did have a seat which did provide a bit of shade as there was a balcony above me. The performance was just under three hours, so as it went on the sun gradually slid onto me. Luckily I did have a hat and suncream but that didn’t stop me from frying in the heat combined with the sunlight. The play was absolutely incredible, and the performance took my breath away. I went to this performance with my parents and my sister, and at one point it got so unbearably hot my Mum had to go out and make so...

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...