Haiku Hopscotch

Hey world, Spring is here!

Hey world! Recently I was closing my curtains quite late and I glimpsed a particularly bright constellation, the only constellation that I really know and recognise in the night sky: Orion. Ever since I was little I have always looked for him on a starry night. No matter where I have been, I always find his belt which is easy enough because they are three in a row. I find it comforting when I can look up and see him anywhere in the world, he is like my celestial guardian. There are several different stories of Orion the hunter. My favourite one is perhaps the most sanitised version as there are several myths about Orion being a rapist. However,  I am  willing to overlook this for the purposes of poetry. There is, after all, not just one story. It is open to interpretation.  Artemis, the goddess of hunting, fell in love with the hunter and, to stop her from giving up her vows of chastity, her brother Apollo dared her to hit a small target in the distance with her b...

January 13th, 2019 Hey world, Happy New Year! To celebrate the opening of the new year and all the hopes and aspirations that accompany it, I thought I would pick a nice cheerful poem about senile old people who are, for lack of a better phrase, slowly losing their marbles: ‘The Old Fools’ by Philip Larkin. Philip Larkin is renowned for his honest, intimate, lyrical and often foul-mouthed verse, the latter description bringing his famous poem ‘ This Be The Verse ’ to mind. He is also renowned for being a bit of a pessimist. Using his own poetic technique he conveys his own discontent with his existence, but he does so with elements of humour and profanity. I have blogged about Larkin before on his poem ‘The Trees’ which is one of my favorites, so if you haven’t seen that post make sure to check it out before continuing. Before Christmas someone gave me a collection of poetry which included Philip Larkin’s collection of poetry High Windows, which was the fourth volume...

December 3rd 2018 Hey world. In my garden there is a beautiful, inspirational tree. This tree, whom I have named Nox, is very special to me. Those of you who have read some of my earlier posts will be aware that I am a huge dendrophile, and adore anything with leaves. Trees, to me are incredibly spiratual things what are so much more than wood and sap. Trees capture and store excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and give off oxygen, giving us air to breathe. They regulate the climate, filter water, provide foods, medicines and provide habitats for countless living creatures. Trees are the lungs of the earth and are a fundamental part of our environment that allows us to survive. The poet Khalil Gibran shows how fatuous our attempts to make art appear beside nature: “ Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky. We fell them down and turn them into paper, so that we may record our emptiness.” Trees have a lot of symbolism and philosophy to them as well. They have appeared in mythol...

November 28th 2018 Hey world, We have made it into the cold, wet, transitional stage of autumn into winter: November. It is a time of fires being lit and the sun leaving abrubtly in the early afternoon. This is the time for thick scarves and thin trees. Taking inspiration from my grey surroundings I have written two poems about Autumn. I have been trying to reassess my poetry writing style: ever since I was little I have had the tendency to make my poems into lengthy epics that bore the readers in the first stanza. Because of this, I have been trying to condense my poems, I have been trying to distill them down into a single drop of gold. I read somewhere recently that poetry is what happens when you stop for a minute and all you do is feel. Following this quote’s message, here is what I wrote: Autumntide The sky decided to unfold its its grief for us down below on the russet November earth, our forests and hedges losing their cranberry rash and beginning to resemble a door mat...

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...