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The Thirty Second Mariner
And… the poem is published. you can read it here, and even rate it. Spilling Cocoa is rapidly getting stuffed with witty and daft poems, go and have a browse.
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my first ever poem is about to be published
Well, that isn’t actually true. I’ve written loads of poems, but I’ve just had one accepted for publication for the first time ever. Anyway its very short and a bit silly, but it works – it’s a ‘proper’ poem with a recognisable form. I love writing free poetry but there’s a different kind of satisfaction…
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Pretending poetry, songs of liberty and Ursula le Guin
The thing about running your own business is that holidays become almost entirely theoretical. It’s a holiday to leave the computer for long enough to hang out the washing on a sunny day, it’s a holiday to take the long way to the post office, it’s a holiday to read something that isn’t for work,…
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The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 1st
A new month, but no birthday to celebrate. I’ll have run out of people whose dates I haven’t found soon and then where will I be? Ok, never mind. Today we are composing birthday odes for Emilia Bassano Lanier aka Aemelia Lanyer 1569–1645 Emilia was Jewish, the illegitimate daughter of Venetian musician Baptista Bassano and…
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The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 22nd February
Today’s birthday girl is Edna St. Vincent Millay (February 22, 1892 – October 19, 1950) also known as Nancy Boyd when writing prose, and who called herself ‘Vincent’. Vincent was an American poet and playwright in 1923 she became the third woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, her first poems were published when…
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Sense, Sentences and Sensibility – building poems from scratch
I’m running a poetry workshop on Friday. I keep quiet about poetry most of the time, but the opportunity came up (through Spread the Word), and I’ve been flexing my poetry muscles at the Poetry Cafe’s Poetry@3, Poetry at Mr Lawrence’s and the Towersey Festival recently, so here I go! I’ll be exploring how poems…
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The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 11th February
Karoline von Günderode 11 February 1780 – 26 July 1806 romantic poet, her works often had strong heroic women in the central role, and was critical of traditional gender attitudes. I have to say she behaved a bit like an opera heroine, and this doesn’t strike me as entirely a good thing – Jane Austen…
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The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 8th February
Today’s birthday girl is multiple award-winning poet Elizabeth Bishop (February 8, 1911 – October 6, 1979) “one of the most important American poets” of the twentieth century. Elizabeth was great friends with Marianne Moore who mentored her while she was studying at Vassar. Elizabeth travelled widely, often with female companions, one of whom Marjorie Stevens, she…
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The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 9th January
January 9th – Simone de Beauvoir‘s birthday, but she’s not invited to the party. Sometimes you know too much about a person to find them appealing. Instead, let’s have Aisha bint Ahmed al-Qurtubiyya I’ve no idea when her birthday is, as she was born in Córdoba, Spain in 965 and died in either 999 or…
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Remember
For by my glee might many men have laughed, And of my weeping something had been left, Which must die now. I mean the truth untold, The pity of war, the pity war distilled. Strange Meeting, Wilfred Owen For the past week we have been asked to remember: Remember, Remember the fifth of November Gunpowder…
Cherry Potts, Writer 