Tag archives for Poetry - Page 4
A215 – TMA3 Poetry – Chaos Monkeys
This is one of two poems submitted as part of the poetry assignment for A215 Creative Writing. Chaos Monkeys No typewriters for these monkeys, pressing random buttons on keyboards and boxen. There goes the power, the server’s down. Chaos monkeys cannot read, instead they watch Netflix, that set them free in the darkness of the internet. Where did they lurk before? Did they hide in the telephone exchanges, or with gremlins somewhere mechanical and unloved? Down dusty corridors behind doors marked 'no entry to unauthorised personnel'. All they want is somewhere warm, with food. Perhaps they are refugees from a lab where they spent time solving puzzles for treats, until they finally opened the door. At night they wandered corridors, climbed ladders looking for more. Like Pavlov's dog, they explore for food. Pressed into service they explore the world wide…
A215 – Creative Writing Assignments so far
TMA4 for A215 Creative Writing is back. So all that remains is TMA5 and the end of module assessment (EMA). Both of these are a free choice from the three taught types of writing, short fiction, poetry and life writing. Before I started the course I had mostly written fiction, in the novelette to novel range for length, none of which you'd reasonably describe as short in OU terms (somewhere in the 2,000 word range). My first assignment for A215 ended up as life writing, I found it easier to write short bits about memories than to condense fiction down to the correct word count (and I'm very good at editing things down). The second assignment was short fiction, and I managed to write a half-decent story for it. Rounds is the beginning of a longer story that I still…
Poetry – Bloom by James Kemp
Bloom “Splash!” A roar over my head closes from behind and drowns the radio. Binoculars brought to bear, I observe the seed embedding. It grows a small orange blossom. Morphing into a larger, darker flower climbing from the point of impact. Rain patters over the iron roof as sods and stones strike sonorously. The flower is gone, dissipated in a cloud of dust, and silence returns. Notes Bloom was the first full poem that I wrote, and this is the fourth draft, which may not be the final version. It was prompted from my memory of watching artillery shells burst when training as an artillery forward observer at Warcop training area in Cumbria in 1991. On the FOO course I gave an incorrect map reference and the first ranging shell burst about 150m in front of me (the wartime safety distance is…
How I write poetry
Before I started studying the Open University's A215 Creative Writing course I had never tried to write poetry, even though I've written several short stories and novellas. For TMA3 of A215 I had to write 40 lines of poetry. How I write poetry With one exception, which was my first attempt, all of my poems start as a freewrite on the subject, title or prompt. Normally I discard the first paragraph of the freewrite because it is overly literal, I use words and phrases from the remainder to form the basis of the first draft of a poem. Unlike my prose, where I typically draft in scrivener, the poetry starts on paper or a basic text editor. Subsequent drafts use the track changes feaure in a word processor. This allows me to see how each poem develops. Each draft is its…
Poetry Station
my desk for writing poetry I am busy crafting poetry for the third assignment of my Open University course A215 Creative Writing. Or rather I am indulging in a little displacement activity right now. However I will be back to work in a few moments. You will see from the picture of the table I'm using as my desk a number of things. Most useful being Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Travelled which is a very good introduction to poetry that I heartily recommend. Next is the video camera that I've been using to record myself reading the poetry out loud so that I can listen back and refine it. This is my own take on poetry being about the sound of the thing, much more so than prose. I think that's what makes poetry harder for many people…