Tag Archives: poetry forms

New Poetry and Philosophy: Healthy Sun, Prediction and Prophecy

While I could write poetry and philosophy all day, I lack the inspiration due to lack of interest/commercial success; being in the middle of the Establishment/Liberal Establishment – Right/Left divide; despite being a doctor of philosophy and I think being right about most things over the last twenty years!

My mind escaped for a while last night and this morning to write these on Facebook:

Poetry Snippets

Poetry is so easy to write
when its kept nice and light
but digging deep can strain
risking fracking up the brain.

Feel whole again
now sun’s back in me,
filling up cracks with
cement called vitamin D

sleep, coffee, sun
brain’s idea of fun
three merge to one:
all 4 poem stimulation!

Philosophical Thought

Difference between prediction and prophecy:
I called my main fantasy football team last August:
‘A Season Too VAR’. (VAR : Video Assisted Referee was introduced, and I thought it’d be controversial and a big talking point; wordplaying the WW2 movie A Bridge Too Far; and me thinking of retiring from it)
If I’d called it ‘A Season Too Corona’, that’d be prophecy: as VAR was known to me, but not coronavirus! (the season has been on hold since March).

If you liked the above, my last poetry collection is full of similar, and many much more detailed and lengthy; when I still thought I could inspire my demographic and make a difference for humanity; alas, they are now steamrolling into greater calalmity; but if there is a God, it dealt humanity an almost impossible hand; unless it can totally control itself as a global species, which looks beyond it!:

 

 

Frank Skinner Poetry Podcast – Beats Next Week

Frank Skinner, one of my favourite comedians of the last thirty years, has started a poetry podcast (https://planetradio.co.uk/podcasts/frank-skinner-poetry-podcast/listen/2028768/) available on Planet Radio from the above link, where he also presents a classic rock radio show, also available on podcast there.

The poetry podcast is pretty serious, whereas the rock show is more humorous.

Next week’s episode (on Monday, tomorrow) is on the Beats, who were my biggest poetry inspirations – although for me it was more Jack Kerouac’s On The Road spontaneous prose American travel book.

Tree-Hugging Sun Photos, UFO-Shaped Light Haloes

greenYgrey fans can probably see gYg,
especially in the sky earth symbiology,
sunlight and photosynthesising tree,
original returned or baby or three,
or trick of the light photo technology?

The outer ring seems to be PinkyOrangePurple (well pinky anyway!) in the first too, for new POP age fans, fitting in with the POP following on from the greenYgrey core gYgPOP evolution!

Books of Yesteryear for the Discerning Cur; recursive?

Why I’m a Creative Writer Poet: Stream of Consciousness Poem

I removed some mental clutter on the travel25years.wordpress.com site yesterday, my mind’s been enthused by reading about UFOs recently, including photosynthesis on Earth in a scientific one, and the latest NASA’s Unexplained Files (series 2, episode 2) last night (which featured orbs amongst other things, saying they often happen above geological fault lines before earthquakes, so they think they could be created by the same tectonic friction that causes earthquakes. My ‘experience’ was of course in Iceland, famously home to one part of a fault line, where you can swim between the North American and Eurasian plates. Thankfully, an earthquake or volcanic eruption hasn’t followed, and it’s now over a year later.) If any photography experts think it is a camera light trick please let me know; it certainly wasn’t mine!

Poetic Inspiration

I think I’ve just about recovered from a cold I’ve had all week, and I think recovering from illness can provide a little ‘high’. I’ve done the ‘right thing’ and tried to avoid other people as much as possible; but tend to do that now anyway!

Moreover, the sun is shining on snow-covered roofs, providing more mental stimulation, as it differs from the norm. I was also looking back with nostalgia at the Y-day week of celebrations, and especially how T had unconsciously found a place in Oates’s final quote: ‘I may be some Time.’

While you may look on me negatively, celebrating my own work, to me, my conscious as I write this, it doesn’t even seem my work; rather it’s my hidden unconscious, which is like my ‘twin’, or the muse. We are of course now in the muse half of the mistYmuse new-age winter festival!

While there are lots of new-age pagan bands, titles and themes I like in rock now, I was particularly poetically impressed by Earth’s album title: ‘The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull’!

I could make my new poem below into a Folding Mirror poem, but for now, here it is stream of consciousness style. While it’s probably covered old themes of mine; something I’ve criticised rock bands for doing before!; it does have some new and updated material, and the biggest new innovation of having the title at the start and finish; kind of Folding Mirror style…

When Time Stopped, Trees Breathed Photosynthesis, Aliens Returned Requesting…

that moment you don’t remember happening
when you’ve worked up enough steam
and you can freewheel
as if you’ve climbed the steep hill
and now you’re racing down the other side
or struggled upriver against the tide
and now you’re rushing downriver
with the tide washing over you
driving and covering you
so you just have to breathe and steer
but while in physical activities
you just have experience and memories
here you also have
‘genius’ word connections
popping out of
synchronicity in motion
like atoms reacting
creating electrical charges
brain freeflowing
open to cosmos
like puddle to cloud
ocean and rain
no need for devotion
pure pleasure
zonal leisure
this is the moment you write
like the times you feel like flying
when running or cycling
having warmed up on the day
after years of training
the sun is shining
words are flowing
and when you review
they sparkle more than you
remember writing
or even think
you’re capable of
producing, creating, painting
while the conscious has the here and now
the unconscious has past and present… future?..

Humanity, put a stop to this.

P.S. Notice that last line fitting finale little bit of self-proclaimed genius wordplay – which was the unconscious in control as I wrote about times when the unconscious is in control – ‘put a stop to this’ before the full stop!?

Brain Creation Coffee or Cortisol Folding Mirror Poem

This latest Folding Mirror poem developed out of a few articles and documentaries I’ve seen recently; while the screen hypnosis was featured in Moby’s Porcelain memoir, cited here recently; so at least five multi-media sources over a coupla/few months.

A couple were about ideal coffee drinking times, in relation to your cortisol levels, saying you should avoid drinking coffee just after awakening, as your body is naturally producing cortisol then, which has a similar effect as caffeine. Cortisol is produced on average by the body’s circadian rhythm between 8-9, 12-1 and 5.30-6.30 so the article said it’s best to avoid drinking it then.

Another article said that cortisol could actually shrink the brain, which I thought I might have felt during times of coffilosophy, when I was digging deep into the mind to create, and then concentrating to get it down on screen. I’d also feel tired afterwards a lot of the time, needing a nap, which could have been to do with the physical demands I think this kind of creation can impose.

In a Horizon documentary about the body clock, circadian rhythm and sleep, with volunteer, Aldo Kane, locked away from daylight for a month without knowing the time, chronobiologist Professor Jeffrey Hall  said the circadian rhythm is in all animals and was one of the first genetic imprints in us all.

A BBC Click documentary had a nice introduction to a piece about new ADHD technology with roundabout-cars chaos, which reminded me of some coffilosophy times when I’d feel like that. Sometimes the ideas would come together into a poem, story or blog post, like this one; other times I’d forget some of it, like the cars of the roundabout going the wrong way and getting lost!

It was kinda fun, and the best way for me to work, but not really efficient and dependable, which is why I think I’m more suited to this kind of creative writing!!

This is a self-portrait image I created in 2005, when the current mental health initiatives were in their infancy, to try and show as best I could how I thought my ADHD mind worked:

As Brain Shrinks, Squeezed Information Links

I am animal
of circadian rhythm
drinking coffee
for tunnel vision
organising thought
wild ideas pulled taut

ADHD roundabout thoughts, words directed downwards

sometimes converging one way
creation overlay
streamlining writing process
screen hypnosis
natural hormone cortisol
can contract cerebellum

Mirror Poem for Easter 21-C , with AI Space Technology

Today’s a special day for Christians, and I think Jesus provided a good overall example, criticising humanity’s greed and sacrificing his need. This latest Folding Mirror poem probably has a little Christian inspiration in looking at humanity’s development of technology positively, in that we are willing to produce something that will be superior to us in some ways.

Folding Mirror Poem Ins and Outs

After using bittersweet recently I thought I should have written it’s in the greenYgrey family of terms, as is the Ins and Outs of the title above. I’ve heard tit-for-tat a lot recently, and that’s another greenYgrey one – one term featuring two contrasting words.

The lines of this quite simple poem, compared to the last one, rhyme in the following line, and those two lines also start with the same letter; something I thought of doing along the way, after the first four lines worked like that automatically.

The triangle symbol may have been inspired by watching the latest NASA’s Unexplained Files (repeat from 2016) on Quest last night, with a mysterious triangle/diamond shaped old-fashioned greenygrey shape seen docking on the ISS (International Space Station), which looks like a cross. A greenYgreyology interpretation could be a greenYgrey Christian birth? Video of it from YouTube posted at end of the blog.

Advancing in Numeration, Nurturing of Automation

living in the zone
life by smart phone
no time for reality
never considering impartiality
wise for fun time
without reaching sublime

above will seem IA∇, ℑAI shows the way

humanity will advance
hedging back seat chance
providing evidential humility
poor relation in productivity
only time will tell
of heaven or hell

Independent Archaic (archaic – old-fashioned) – my term to reflect AI. The special character is the apt ‘backward difference’, fitting in with how humanity may seem in the future according to AI now defeating humanity in many tests/games/creativity, and set to widen the gap in the future.
Artificial Intelligence. The special character is the apt ‘imaginary part’ – took a little while searching through many of the 255 of them before choosing it.

Mirror Poem Book Reflections 16-20

Hope you’re enjoying autumn/fall in the northern hemisphere, and spring/summer in the southern. Sorry I haven’t posted any new poems on here for a while, but I’m creating a lot of poetry for a two-years X Files parody project I’m serialising over at the Writing and Poetry greenYgrey blog, as well as serialising reflections from the 242 Mirror Poems and Reflections book there, so I’m being kept pretty busy when not doing the day-job.

Mirror Poem Book Reflections

Over twenty reflections from 242 Mirror Poems and Reflections are on the Writing and Poetry blog now, so following on from reflections 1-5reflections 6-10, and reflections 11-15 here’s reflections 16-20:

Reflection 16 mirrored Middle-Age Memories:

Our age is one of great importance,
for it is the only one we’ll know.

Reflection 17 mirrored Living in the Middle-Ages:

Reaching middle-age
for a rebellious youth
leaves you with two pathway choices.
Try to continue as you are
while remaining cool
or become what you rebelled
against in youth.
Neither is easy or perfect,
and will include falseness,
compromise or both,
but there’s no alternative.
You are not what you were
and while not planning to survive
you continue to be alive.

Reflection 18 (in 2 parts) mirrored The Futility of Life and Death:

I’ve fantasised about creating life, but dreamt about ending my own more. Suicide was my parachute, knowing it was there helped keep my plane on course when it was in trouble.

Vampires are All in the Mind

Molars dig deep
through unconscious neck
into conscious brain
draining lifeblood from mood.

Hourglass inverted
serotonin drains away
you join the living dead
for another day.

Reflection 19 mirrored The Art of Humanity:

Travelling with Janis Joplin

Existential travel
searching for confirmation
only freedom to lose.

Reflection 20 mirrored Summer’s Sunset Soliloquy:

Strength and Death

In youth I felt strong enough to die.
In middle-age I feel my strength dying.
In old age I expect to feel death strengthen.

The book’s available from Amazon for under £3 and under $6, and lots of other currencies for the equivalent prices; and less than £1 or $2 on Kindle, and Smashwords for other ebook readers.

It could be a great present for middle-aged people, and a good one for people of all ages!

Smashwords cover

Mirror Poem Mind Twists Amid Creation

Marc Latham’s latest Folding Mirror poem started with a thought about how a change of mind, going against past behaviour, can change the course of history; either personally or on a wider scale; confounding those who have studied the form.

A moment of malfunction or genius, rule-breaking or freedom.

You do what you want,
but do you know what you want,
and do you want what you know?

Solstice Christmas 2010 004

Folding Mirror Mind Malfunction 

judgements are based
on the past
anticipating the future
carefully analysed
accurately quantified
the folding mirror line
should happen about now
with two clauses
of the same amount of words
but with a twist of the mind
the poem can just continue
line after line
without a fold
to mirror two sides
until the words end.

I wrote that free thinking, but perhaps predictably, after noticing there were the right number of lines for a mirror poem, I edited it into one.

Updated: I later edited it again to describe a mirror poem, rather than an unstructured one.

Folding Mirror Finished, Normal Service Resumed 

idea inspires research
on multiple sources
imagining whole shape
analysis upon analysis
accurately quantified
folding mirror line
happens about now

with two clauses, divided by comma

then poem continues
in bottom half
same amount
words to line
remembering upper semi
reflecting both sides
until form accompli

usa 2011 014

Marc Latham’s central site is the Greenygrey (http://www.greenygrey.co.uk), and he has books available on Smashwords and Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/author/marclatham).

Poetry Form Latest: Folding Mirror Evolution

Exciting news for the Folding Mirror form. It is the form of the week on Lewis Turco’s Odd and Invented Forms website, following its inclusion in the new version of the definitive Book of FormsThanks again to Lewis for using and publicising the form.
Also, thanks again to Caroline Gill, who alerted me to the above, and has been instrumental in clarifying and maintaining the form, and who features a new post about it on her Brekekekex Koax Koax blog.
English: Mirror, Mirror, on the Ground The pud...
English: Mirror, Mirror, on the Ground The puddle, on this stretch of Wolvens Lane, forms an effective mirror. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Caroline Gill writes about Poetry Forms

As previously mentioned on this site, the Folding Mirror poetry form was included in the new Book of Forms, edited by Lewis Turco. One of the examples of an FM poem included in the book was by Caroline Gill, who has also provided a lot of expert advice and support for the establishment of the form and this site. Caroline recently blogged about the book on her Caroline at Coastcard site, and an extract is copied below with her permission.

Caroline Gill
Publication Pointer (2): The Book of Forms (4th edition) by Lewis Putnam Turco

Professor Lewis Turco’s work, The Book of Forms, is now available in its 4th Edition, published by the University Press of New England. This new ‘revised and expanded edition’ has as its subtitle, A Handbook of Poetics Including Odd and Invented Forms. 

A copy of the third edition (published in 2000) has long been my constant poetry companion. I have learned so much about what Professor Turco calls ‘the elements of poetry’, comprising ‘levels of language usage’. I have been fascinated by the plethora of covered forms, from one lineadonics to 210 lined sonnets redoubled.

The latest edition contains all these features plus added extras in the guise of ‘odd and invented forms’. If I home in on British contributions for a moment, you will find a description of Dr Marc Latham’s Folding Mirror Poetry, with an example by Claire Knight and a second one by yours truly.

Lewis Putnam Turco is an emeritus professor of English. He was the founding director of the Cleveland State University Poetry Center and of the Department of Creative Writing at the State University of New York College at Oswega. The new edition, with sample poems by established names like Robert Frost and newer names like Greg Pincus, can be purchased from UPNE: the details can be found here. You can read the reviews on Amazon here.

In drawing these thoughts to a close, I would also wish to express my thanks to those who create these new forms for us to enjoy. For after all …

“It can be argued that to invent a verse-form which becomes immortal,
living on in the works of future poets and in other languages,
is one of the greatest achievements possible for a poet …”  
Martin Lyon, ‘Acumen‘, issue 71 (Sept 2011), p.71 
http://carolinegillpoetry.blogspot.com/2012/01/publication-pointer-2-book-of-forms-4th.html