poetry

#TankaTuesday Weekly Poetry Challenge No. 296, 11/1/22: #Tastetherainbow-Color Poetry

01 Nov 2022 38 Comments

by willowdot21 in #Haiku, #Senryu, #Haiga, #Tanka, #Tanka Prose, #micropoetry, #poetry, #5lines, #Haibun, #Prose, #CinquainPoetry, #Etheree, #Nonet, #Shadorma, #Gogyoka, Colleen's Tuesday Tanka, colouring, inspiration Tags: colour, poetry, purple, rainbow

Our host Colleen has set us out monthly Taste the Rainbow prompt as part of her Tuesday Tanka Challenge. I have chosen the colour purple. I have also chosen the poetic form Etheree.

From the depths of spirit comes purple prose.
Magically from my mind it flows
I never need to leave my home
Imagination can roam .
Spirited far away
My inner thoughts play
I close my eyes
Hope flies
Off to
Play

*******

#TankaTuesday Weekly Poetry Challenge No. 268: 4/5/22 #Tastetherainbow-Color Poetry

08 Apr 2022 36 Comments

This week, Colleen said : choose your own syllabic form and a color to feature in your syllabic poem. If the form is from the #TankaTuesday Cheatsheet, let us know so we know where to look for directions. If it’s a new form, share how to write it and where you found the instructions. Think about the different ways you can use color in a poem.”

P.S. 🌈 Taste the Rainbow refers to colors. You do not have to write about a rainbow in your poem. Just include a color in your poem.

THIS IS PART OF COLLEEN’S TANKA TUESDAY CHALLENGE.

To day I have chosen an Abhanga. Which is a poem in any number of 4-line stanzas with 6-6-6-4 syllables each. L2 and L3 rhyme. The end rhyme scheme is abbc. It is customary to title your poetry.

© willowdot21 taken by ©hotpinkwellingtons.

A Father’s Love

Warm is a father’s love
Golden like summer sun
Nurturing, yet with fun
Strong protecting.

Deep as azure kissed sea
Taking care, teaching well
All life’s problems he quells
Strong protection.

Pride like a rusty red
Glows in his loving heart
To teach you to be smart
Strong protection.

#TANKATUESDAY Weekly #POETRY CHALLENGE NO. 252 #PHOTOPROMPT

16 Nov 2021 24 Comments

by willowdot21 in #Haiku, #Senryu, #Haiga, #Tanka, #Tanka Prose, #micropoetry, #poetry, #5lines, #Haibun, #Prose, #CinquainPoetry, #Etheree, #Nonet, #Shadorma, #Gogyoka, Colleen's Tuesday Tanka, love, photo prompt Tags: Coexistence, photo, poetry

WELCOME TO TANKA TUESDAY!

Lisa – The Versesmith, selected the image this week. Colleen reminds us : “we can see what’s in the photo, so write your poem using the image as an inspiration. Don’t describe what you see in the image. Think about the colors, the type of flower (aster) and the butterfly. Use your third eye to see beyond the photo, then write your poem.

Think about metaphor and allegory. Just remember to check what form you’re using. Some of the Japanese forms frown upon the use of metaphors.

I thought I would do two, cinqku. A cinqku must always have 5 lines and a perfect seventeen-syllable count. The lines typically follow a 2,3,4,6,2 format. There is no title requirement. As for syntax and diction styles, it follows the free Tanka style originally. There are no metric requirements for a cinqku poem. Additionally, the final line must contain a cinquain or kireji turn for emphasis.

**Image Credit: *Butterfly on Asters* by Lisa Smith Nelson**

Almost
As one we
Excist closely
I give you sustinence
We thrive

Orange
And Lilac
Merging beauty
Co dependant that us.
That’s life.

This is part of Colleen’s

#TANKATUESDAY WEEKLY POETRY CHALLENGE: #POET’S CHOICE

03 Aug 2021 28 Comments

This week’s challenge from Colleen’s#TANKA TUESDAY WEEKLY POETRY CHALLENGE: #POET’S CHOICE . Is a true poet’s choice! Use any poetry form that you’d like including free-style or prose poetry. If your form is something new, teach us how to write it. Have fun!

Here is mine 💜

WEEKLY #TANKA TUESDAY #POETRY CHALLENGE NO. 213 #EKPHRASTIC #PHOTOPROMPT

16 Feb 2021 14 Comments

by willowdot21 in #Haiku, #Senryu, #Haiga, #Tanka, #Tanka Prose, #micropoetry, #poetry, #5lines, #Haibun, #Prose, #CinquainPoetry, #Etheree, #Nonet, #Shadorma, #Gogyoka, Colleen's Tuesday Tanka, Poems Tags: EKPHRASTIC, fractals, light, poetry, prisms

WELCOME TO TANKA TUESDAY!

It’s the third week of the month and so this challenge explores an Ekphrastic prompt. Inspired by visual art (photographs). Colleen selected the image for this month’s challenge, but she’ll choose someone from the recap to pick the image for next month.

Water mixed with light
Bright fractals seen through prisms.
Brightening the day.
Tiny motes of life are we
Caught tight never to be free.

This part of Colleen Chesebro’s Tuesday Tanka.

Ronovan Writes Décima Poetry Challenge Prompt No. 37: (STAR) in the C rhyme line.

23 Dec 2020 10 Comments

by willowdot21 in #Haiku, #Senryu, #Haiga, #Tanka, #Tanka Prose, #micropoetry, #poetry, #5lines, #Haibun, #Prose, #CinquainPoetry, #Etheree, #Nonet, #Shadorma, #Gogyoka, Décima, Poems Tags: Closed, poetry, Ronovanwrites, Solace, star

Our host Ronovanwrite’s said :You may, if you wish, make some kind of link between the Haiku Challenge prompt of (OPEN and Solace). and this Décima Challenge of STAR in the C rhyme line. This means you could write a haiku post using the prompt words. Then do a Décima post using this week’s prompt uniting the two with a common message.

The two challanges are separate but can be combined if you choose to do so.

Again I choose to combine my Haiku and Décima.

Image from Pixabay

We’re all locked up in our houses.
All hiding from the unseen foe
None of us knowing where to go.
Alone or with friends or spouses.
Long days full of stress and grouses.
Two planets aline like a star
Like the one wise men saw afar.
All borders closing no solace
We all need to turn about face
Our home planet we spoil and mar.

This is part of Ronovanwrite’s Weekly Haiku Challenge.

Ronovan Writes Décima Poetry Challenge Prompt No. 35: (KNOCK) in the A rhyme line.

09 Dec 2020 39 Comments

by willowdot21 in #Haiku, #Senryu, #Haiga, #Tanka, #Tanka Prose, #micropoetry, #poetry, #5lines, #Haibun, #Prose, #CinquainPoetry, #Etheree, #Nonet, #Shadorma, #Gogyoka, Décima, Doggy Tales, feeling unwell, inspiration, Ronovanwrites Tags: Dog's, love, loyalty, poetry

Ronovan says : You may, if you wish, make some kind of link between the Haiku Challenge prompt of (CURL and Paw). and this Décima Challenge of KNOCK in the A rhyme line. This means you could write a haiku post using the prompt words. Then do a Décima post using this week’s prompt uniting the two with a common message.

The 2 CHALLENGES are SEPARATE but CAN BE combined if YOU CHOOSE to do so.

Ruby. A Décima

Gently she gives my elbow a knock.
Her eyes full of love “I need you”
I smile back needing her too.
She is my foundation and rock.
Tells the time better than a clock.
When I’m well she’s out running free
When I’m not well she clings to me
Somehow she knows just what to do.
She’ll always guide me good and true.
Ruby is my lifesaving prop.

This is part of Ronovanwrite’s Décima Challenge.

An interview with Author, Jane Dougherty.

02 Nov 2020 30 Comments

by willowdot21 in Book news, inspiration, Interviews, Poems, Review Tags: Jane Dougherty, poetry, thicker than water

Today I am very excited to have the very talented Jane Dougherty to visit and discuss her latest book. This is a new adventure for Jane as this is a poetry book.

Hello, Willow. Thank you for inviting me to talk about my very first book of poems.

Hi Jane it’s great to have you here do sit down and have a cup of tea, tell me what made you decide to write a book of poems about the elements.

It wasn’t a conscious decision. I write a lot of poems, every day, and although I post many of them, there are still lots left. Some of them I have been keeping because I think they deserve a bit more than to be just one blog post among thousands. A themed chapbook seemed like a good idea. Every time I do some physical sorting, weeding or clearing out, I hurt my back, but sorting poems is a relatively safe activity. When I looked through the scores of poems in the homeless folder, they all seemed to fall into a few main themes, and the first theme I tackled was water.

That makes a lot of sense Jane, I am all for saving my back too. When did you first start writing and was there a specific reason.

I went to a very special primary school—big shout out for Saint Patrick’s in Birstall—with a visionary head teacher. It was founded by Irish immigrants who wanted their children to succeed through education, and the nun who headed the school through the 1960s and 70s until she left to run a war orphanage in Sarajevo, believed in education, not just the three Rs. We learned about the natural world, about physics and how things work, we had an orchestra, learned calligraphy, meteorology, how to wire plugs and make cheese. And we were encouraged in all kinds of creative activity, all kinds of art, and writing; we all wrote poetry from the age of nine or so. I had an ideal environment for developing a taste for creativity and taking it seriously. Having a father who was a poet and sculptor and mother who was an artist and art teacher certainly helped too.

Your school and teachers sound very progressive and you obviously had a varied education. Would you like another cup of tea.

Tell me Jane who most influences your work.

It probably sounds strange, but there aren’t too many poets whose work I read and reread with boundless admiration. There are individual poems I love, but not many whole bodies of work and none remotely contemporary. Yeats is the poet I love the most and whose words, even when I don’t get all the mystical references, inspire and uplift. Francis Ledwidge too is a favourite and John Masefield, Walter de la Mare. All rather old-fashioned sounding now, in their clarity and lack of self-analysis. The poems point outwards rather than inwards, showing us the world as it is all around us, not how it seems at the back of a troubled head.

You mention your parents in the dedication of your book, were they influencal and supportive to your writing.

Both my parents died when I was still in the throes of having babies and bringing up young children. I hadn’t started to write seriously, then, but as I said earlier, they were both artistic and expected that their children would be too. I know they would be proud that I have finally got around to it.

Tell me Jane have childhood memories influenced you much.

I think that a happy childhood has been fundamental to making me what I am. It obviously wasn’t happy every single minute, and there are memories that still make me anxious. Tuesday, for example, will always be music lesson day, when I’d leave school early and walk up the hill to the music teacher’s house with fear oozing from every pore. But it was a country childhood, on farmland at the edge of a small town, and we four children spent most of our time poking about in woodland and along the banks of streams, listening and learning. Although I have enjoyed some of my time living in cities, I have always hankered after trees. Three years ago, we moved from the centre of Bordeaux to the countryside, with a large chunk of land of our own. Too much, really, but sharing a place with trees wildflowers, animal and birdlife, has been a revelation. Who knew there was so much life going on?

Now tell me Jane which do you prefer to write poetry or prose.

I write poetry for pleasure. It’s something that I do in-between doing other things. Often an image will strike me and I jot it down to find that it’s already working itself up into a poem. Poems are short and they can be turned out in hundreds of different ways. I can work with an idea or an image for half an hour and get something that pleases me. A novel is different. If writing a poem is like sketching, or shaping something in clay, a novel is like hacking at a slab of wood or stone. The frame of the story might be tenuous, the characters vague, and all I have to go on might be an opening phrase or an idea from a legend or myth, but it’s there. The hard work is in revealing the story trapped inside and maintaining enough interest in it, because it’s a long job. The two approaches probably complement one another; I write poetic prose and often write stories into poems.

Thanks a lot, Willow, for the opportunity to give some background to what I do and why.

thicker than water

Book details

Link co.uk https://tinyurl.com/y2et7dcr
Link .com https://tinyurl.com/y5ueldrq
Link Australia https://tinyurl.com/yykla7nm

Link Canada https://tinyurl.com/yxu5azlk
Link India https://tinyurl.com/yy6qvle5

https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/

@MJDougherty33

Jane’s Bio, so you know.

Jane Dougherty has wandered a bit from her Irish origins but still feels close to her roots, especially in the bit of green field where she now lives in southwest France. She writes incessantly, and hopes to continue as long as the ideas keep coming, and the scene beyond the window demands that she take notice.

*************

I have read Jane’s book, thicker than water. It is full of beautiful poetry. It’s a joy to dip into but I read it from cover to cover unable to stop. I can highly recommend it. Here is my favourite poem .

No Light

All is death and the ache
in the breast where the heart is
wave-wrought in cold seas
or on grey pavement, it whispers
in the spray of salt and blood,

There will be no moon this night
no petals on the rose

🌹© mjdougherty

Thank you for visiting Jane it really was a pleasure to have chance to chat.

COLLEEN’S 2020 WEEKLY #TANKA TUESDAY #POETRY CHALLENGE NO. 199 #EKPHRASTIC #PHOTOPROMPT OR #SYNONYMSONLY

20 Oct 2020 31 Comments

by willowdot21 in #Haiku, #Senryu, #Haiga, #Tanka, #Tanka Prose, #micropoetry, #poetry, #5lines, #Haibun, #Prose, #CinquainPoetry, #Etheree, #Nonet, #Shadorma, #Gogyoka, Colleen's Tuesday Tanka, inspiration, photo prompt, photos, Poems Tags: Make and Move, poetry, Syllabic poetry, Synonyms

Our Hostess with thmostest Colleen said :”You can choose the Ekphrastic #PhotoPrompt provided by Trent McDonald, or you can choose the #SynonymsOnly challenge using the words “MOVE & MAKE” provided by David Ellis.

OR… You can do both! It’s up to you#

This week I have decided to write a Etheree using Trent MacDonald’s photo and David Ellis‘s words. I used glide, skimming and sailing for move and create and manufacture for make.

I
Glide through
Life, serene
Swanlike skimming
Not a ripple seen
Sailing through like a dream
Nothing betrays the madness
Created by my feet beneath
Autumn colours also manufacturer
A gentle serenity to fool all.

This is part of Colleen’s Tuesday Tanka Challenge.

#Haikai Challenge #159/#160 (10/10/20): Fall Foliage/Goose (Kari) #haiku #senryu #haibun #tanka #haiga #renga

13 Oct 2020 23 Comments

by willowdot21 in #Haiku, #Senryu, #Haiga, #Tanka, #Tanka Prose, #micropoetry, #poetry, #5lines, #Haibun, #Prose, #CinquainPoetry, #Etheree, #Nonet, #Shadorma, #Gogyoka, Autumn, Frank Tassone, Haikai, Poems Tags: Autumn, Geese, leaves, poetry

This week, Frank Tassone asks us to , write the haikai poem of your choice (haiku, senryu, haibun, tanka, haiga, renga, etc.) that states or alludes to either Fall foliage or goose (kari)–or both, if you feel so inclined!

I chose a Tanka.