Mirror Poem Reflections 26-30

Thirty-five reflections from 242 Mirror Poems and Reflections are on the Writing and Poetry blog now, so following on from reflections 1-5, reflections 6-10, reflections 11-15, reflections 16-20 and reflections 21-25 here’s reflections 26-30.

Reflection 26 mirrored Dying to Live, Living to Die:

Life is Like…

Life is like a journey on a neverending road,
you know you’ll never find out
the destination at the end,
but just try and learn along the way.

Life is like flying over a real rainbow,
you know you’ll never find
golden immortality at the bottom,
but just try and enjoy the journey.

Life is like a big night out,
you know that you’ll peak and tire
and not continue forever
but just try and make the most of it.

Reflection 27 mirrored Life Has More Meaning than Death:

Depression
is a state of mind
if you accept its normality
and accurate view
of the negative side
to the world cycle
that enters your life
then it’s not time
wasted.

Reflection 28 mirrored Y Green and Grey Go Together:

Reflection 28 (part 1)

‘by seeing Venus during the day while trekking in the Yorkshire Dales Three Peaks, alerted by the Sky at Night television programme; my first conscious sighting of a middle-of-the-day planet or star at the age of 46. It was on the same March 2012 trip that I took the 242 Mirror Poems cover photo.’

Reflection 28 (part 2)

The second half of the Reflection lightened the mood under a clear day and night sky with a previously unpublished comedy poem:

If the sheepdogs tell great jokes
and livestock like to clown around
under a smiling sun and moon
I want to go to the funny farm.

Reflection 29 mirrored I Can See Through You, Why Don’t People Understand Me:

I Like Your Mask

Why should you believe I like you
when I say I don’t care about myself
perhaps it’s because I can’t read your mind
as clearly as I can mine.

But the more I see of you
the more I think we’re no different
just humans living day to day
some with better masks than others.

Reflection 30 mirrored Space Brain Becoming Plain:

The poem was inspired by images of the universe and a scanned brain that looked similarly oblong.

A clear night sky from a dark viewing point is an incredible sight, but it is only what our eyes and brains can manage to see. Telescopes show the connectivity and immensity beyond our Earth view.

Human brains use complex systems to keep us functioning, but we can’t see how it is done, as our eyes see outwards. Scanning equipment shows the connectivity and immensity on the inside.

Mirror Poems Book Widely Available

Marc Latham’s (which might be a J.K. Rowling pseudonym?) 242 Mirror Poems and Reflections, which combines self-analysis, social criticism and nature appreciation is now available on lots more Ereaders via Smashwords after passing review for the Premium catalogue. 40% of the book (twice as much as average) is available to browse for free.

1. Premium Catalog (Reaches Major Retailers): Once your book is accepted into the Premium Catalog, we automatically distribute it to major online retailers such as Apple (distribution to iBookstores in 51 countries), Barnes & Noble (US and UK), Sony, Kobo, WH Smith in the UK and FNAC (both powered by Kobo), Livraria Cultura in Brazil (powered by Kobo), the Diesel eBook Store,  eBooks Eros (operated by Diesel), Baker & Taylor (Blio and the Axis360 library service), Page Foundry (operates retail sites Inktera.com and Versent.com; operates Android ebook store apps for Cricket Wireless and Asus), and other distribution outlets coming soon.  These retailers require certain mechanical standards, such as a quality book cover image, a proper copyright notice at the top of your book, and other simple requirements outlined below. If you’re a serious author or publisher, you want your books included in Smashwords Premium Catalog. Both Apple and Sony require you have an ISBN, which you can obtain or assign in the Smashwords Dashboard’s ISBN Manager. For additional special requirements of the Apple catalog, see this checklist, How to Publish Ebooks on the iPad with Smashwords. Visit your Dashboard’s Channel Manager to control which retailers we distribute your book to.

Smashwords.

It is also still available on Amazon for paperback and kindle.

Amazon.

Relevant Quote for Folding Mirror Poetry

Just saw this quote in the latest Publish Your Own Ebooks newsletter, and thought it was relevant for fmpoetry (the writer could also be a woman of course):

“[The writer] has to be the kind of man who turns the world upside down and says, lookit, it looks different, doesn’t it?”

~ Morris West

2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:  (Marc Latham says thanks for all your visits and comments, and hope you return regularly in 2011.  Happy New Year!)

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 10,000 times in 2010. That’s about 24 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 80 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 179 posts. There were 42 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 7mb. That’s about 4 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was October 29th with 236 views. The most popular post that day was Sunrise Poem: When a New Day Washes the Old Away.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, greenygrey.co.uk, search.conduit.com, en.search.wordpress.com, and suite101.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for sombrero galaxy, alice in wonderland poems, thomas girtin, alice in wonderland poem, and immersion album cover.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Sunrise Poem: When a New Day Washes the Old Away April 2010
1 comment

2

Hubble Space Poem Trilogy 1: the Sombrero Galaxy February 2010
5 comments

3

Alice in Wonderland Poem March 2010
8 comments

4

Pendulum’s Immersion Album Cover Interpretation Poem May 2010
2 comments and 1 Like on WordPress.com,

5

Thomas Girtin’s Bamburgh Castle: 9 out of 10 June 2009
1 comment

Marc Latham’s Folding Mirror Invention Claim in Crisis!

Marc Latham thought he’d invented the Folding Mirror poetry form in 2007, but new evidence unearthed today in the planetary poetry pond suggests that a folding mirror style was around for a long time before that, although it was unnamed, and specified that the same words should be used in each half of the poem.  So it is slightly different to the form initiated/named by Latham, although it was much closer than Latham had been aware of. 

Robert Lee Brewer Provides Expert Poetry Knowledge

Latham always admitted he was a poetry novice when he thought up his first Folding Mirror poem, after being inspired by the haiku form.  Some poets with more experience and knowledge told him about the palindrome, but the examples Latham saw just had two blocks of text in two halves, so he thought the Folding Mirror was different.

But this morning he got a newsletter from Robert Lee Brewer with his palindrome (mirror) poem that uses a word in the middle to link the two halves.

Palindromes History on Deviant Art

Latham at first thought that this might have been inspired by his Folding Mirror poems, but when he searched palindrome poetry, he found a site with examples of three types of palindrome poetry from 2004, and it said that they were invented by Sotades in 3rd century BC Greece. One of the styles does use a linking word in the middle.

The Future for Folding Mirror Poetry

The big positive out of today’s revelations is a window to lots of great mirror poetry, and hopefully this will increase interest in the mirror form(s)…and this site…?

New Halloween Week Poem Interprets Rock Music’s Alice Cooper Cover

Image via Wikipedia

To begin Halloween week, Marc Latham’s latest Folding Mirror poem interprets rock music legend Alice Cooper‘s Alice Does Alice 2010 record cover, which is featured below, and seems to have a mirror format.

The mirror theme seems to be common and recurrent in Alice creator, Vincent Furnier’s work, and the album cover to your right also seems very much in line with a folding mirror.

 

The poem:

 
 

 All Cooper

Alice, meet Cooper
under the moonlight
Furnier’s alter ego
could just become your hero
if you’ll get to know him
in amongst all that din

Getting to grips with the relationship

having a heart to heart
two hands in one play part
palm and neck closely embrace
snarling Vincent’s face
beside the firelight
Cooper, meet Alice

Edited after expert advice from Annie Sisk. Thanks Annie.

Pendulum’s Immersion Album Cover Interpretation Poem

This Folding Mirror poem by Marc Latham interprets the Pendulum album cover for their new Immersion album.

Pendulum's Immersion Album Cover

The poem mirrors in words per line:

7-7-6-5 (5) 5-6-7-7

The Poem

Immersion Meeting Mirror

dance, dance, dance to the sweet watercolour
move in rhythm with the ocean dancer
sound of light shining from above
moving emotions of liquid love

central sunbeam illuminates magic moment

man woman meet in synchronicity
nemos watch the truly romantic sea
come alive to welcome this mystery couple
meet, greet, heat and stay immersion supple

Humanity is the Filter of the World

Hands up if you want to save the Nepal Himalaya

This is the 100th post here on fmpoetry. Thanks to all the contributors and readers.

This poem is hot off the ol’ noggin press, coming into my head just before logging onto the computer and finalised as I write. Maybe it won’t be finalised when I first publish, and further edits will come to me in the future.

It’s dedicated to all the climate campaigners trying to preserve the planet, and hoping for a good deal for people, animals and the Earth next week in Copenhagen. Although clouds may appear as the most obvious filter on Earth, I think humanity is the most powerful.

After a couple of coffees the sunrise has just come through strong and Dave Deen – Thomas DeColita Guest mix is sounding good on Discover Trance Radio. Together with getting some ideas out of the ol’ noggin and into some kind of form makes it not a bad start to a UK winter morning at all. Quite euphoric actually!

Poem Explanation

The poem can probably be seen as an addition to the Surface trilogy, which appeared here earlier in the year. Links to those poems follow the new poem.

It’s a simple Folding Mirror, using a container/filter/liquid metaphor for the world, humanity and concepts, but it hopefully brings together some truths/philosophy in a concise format, which helps to emphasise the points made.

The poem starts at the top and seeps downwards, as liquid does when emptied into a container. Humanity is placed in the middle, as a filter might be in a container.

It mirrors in a 3-3-1 (4) 1-3-3 format.

The Poem

Humanity is the Filter of the World

philosophy, politics, religion
concepts of time
cause

Humanity absorbs, hosts, filters

effects
bringing actions of
positivity, negativity, equilibrium

——————————–

This poem did not appear in Marc Latham’s poetry collection published by Chipmunka.

Surface Trilogy 1
Surface Trilogy 2
Surface Trilogy 3

New Development in Folding Mirror Form?

Today we have a new Folding Mirror that hopefully adds another dimension to the form.

Poem Explanation

The poem was inspired by a combination of a BBC documentary series on the British Medieval Mind, the Angels and Demons book and film and Channel 4‘s 1066: the Battle for Middle Earth docu-drama.

Poem Structure

The poem subject is new, but not the most original factor. I think the structure may be, as it totally starts from the middle and then works outwards to the outer lines.

The poem starts with the medieval mind thinking about being judged by God, and then working its way through what might happen if they are judged positively and get taken to heaven (up into the top half of the poem) or negatively and taken to hell (down into the bottom half of the poem).

The poem mirrors in line word count: 4-4-4-4-4-3-3-2 (9) 2-3-3-4-4-4-4-4

The line length and punctuation mirror pretty much too. The poem starting in the middle and then dividing to the top and bottom helped with the punctuation, as a capital letter starts the folding line and poem, and then two full stops end it at the two outer lines.

Poem Images

Thanks to Stock.xchng for providing the images, which I then edited on Picasa. Also, thanks to rore d for creating the up arrow, and dropowtt for the down. The images link to the pages where the original photos are on display.

The Poem

To Heaven or Hell

enjoying tranquillity for eternity.
amongst clouds and angels
through the pearly gates
welcomed in by Peter
knocking on heaven’s door
righteous carried upwards

we can rise
judged positively

On flat Middle Earth, if we have our lives

negatively received
one will fall

damned descending down
dragged by hell’s harpies
to their lord Lucifer
over bloody burning coals
fire and demons surround
slaving painfully for infinity.

List of Poems on Site Updated

With the Folding Mirror poems from the Tips for Writers summer edition and the Romantic Art set on site I thought it was time to update the list of poems.

This site now contains 43 poetry posts: 42 Folding Mirrors and Jean Knill’s haiku set.

The updated list is here: New Posts on this Site.