Writing Challenge Week 1

And the all seeing eye keeps watching..

I am approaching the 3rd year of my Literature degree with the OU, Next module A215 (Creative Writing) starts Octber - 2weeks before my due date!!!! Wonder how that one will pan out? So a fellow A215er, Paula has set a pre-module weekly challenge, via our facebook support group, to get our creative juices flowing and get us used to writing on demand and writing to a deadline...Thanks Paula :) You can follow her blog here http://paulaklewis.blogspot.com/.

Tonight's challenge..to be completed by next Tues 16th Aug, for those of us who wish to accept the mission, is to write a poem 40 lines or less around the theme of brutality. WOW!!! I'm used to being asked to write about 'safe' or 'nice' things like love or the seasons or hope etc, this one feels kinda unnerving, but in a good way..I'm looking forward to this challenge.

Well it's certainly got me thinking and my brain has exploded onto a million different tangents..as soon as I saw the word all I could think about first and foremost was the domestic violence and abuse of which I suffered almost 10yrs before leaving..hard hitting stuff, excuse the pun. Then I think in other areas of my life where brutal situations come to mind, like losing my mum when I was only 16 and supposed to be sitting exams..so I left school with no qualifications. Brutal! And losing the daughter I'd always wanted..she only got to see 19 days in this life, this world. Brutal! The word brutality goes hand in hand or cuff in cuff with the police, with police brutality being a much coined phrase these days and a many repeated event..so brutality goes with power and control..or lack of it. Thinking of police brutality forces to mind, by association, quite the opposite, brutality of the average joe such as we are experiencing in Britain at the moment. We are in the midst of anarchy with full scale riots and looting spreading like the plague throughout the country. Scary stuff!!! The biggest thing this word has conjured up for me is a haunting image in my mind's eye of a pair of dying swans, necks intertwined. Elegant, graceful, poignant, yet disturbing in equal measures. I'm not sure where this image is coming from as I don't readily connect swans with brutality..I shall have to peruse and ponder a while - overnight at least and see what I can come up with in the way of poetry. I'm not procrastinating, honest :)

Sweet dreams followers..I'll be back before you know it. T  xx

Tuesday's blog is full of grace..x

And the all seeing eye keeps watching..

Much fun was to be had by all today at the festival, we watched 2 fantastic shows, enjoyed an hour of street theatre and then had some tea before playing at Princes Street garden's park til nearly bedtime :) well the kids played and I took some pictures and read my beloved kindle. It is invigorating to see Edinburgh in carnival mode, also going to the festival each year has formed some of my earliest memories, as I have been to shows and street theatre every year since I've been born!! I feel very lucky and grateful to live in such a cosmopolitan and cultured city, and it is also fab the abundance of parks and green areas dotted all over the city. The facilities for children and families are second to none. I can truly say I'm proud to be an Edinburger.

Much to my surprise, I learned a new word..in the Metro of all places, on the way home on the bus: Peripatetic..sounds brilliant eh. I must admit I am a bit of a word geek, a trait that has followed me from childhood. You can find the definition here http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/peripatetic I love this site Dictionary.com, haha how nerdy is that!!

Thinking of words and wordplay has got me thinking today about the recent fuss surrounding 3 word poetry. I'm sorry but 3 words hardly make a sentence, never mind a poem. I totally don't buy into it at all..all of a sudden 'what's for tea' or 'pass the salt' or 'nice weather today' constitutes a poem, pffft!!! How ridiculous. I think some people are 'chewing the fat' or 'taking the p*ss'. One form however that does appeal to me is 3 line poetry. Give me the delectable haiku any day of the week - simple, strict, succinct - Perfect. In true Blue Peter style, here are a couple I prepared earlier (the first, kinda self explanatory just for fun, written 13/10/2010, and the second, written 29/10/2010 about a leitmotif in my life, the peacock) :-

To A Haiku

Haiku, what are you

Seventeen times syllables

Seldom, yet wise words.

Peacock

Mayurakshi jade

Hera's enthroned hundred watch

Guarding Lokrum's gates.

Back to my housework. As the brothers Warner would say..That's all folks.