In pursuit of writing time: my Month of May Poetry Challenge (and a new poem)

While I struggle to find the time to dedicate solely to writing I am conscious of the need to do just that. Pursuit of dedicated writing time is a major reason why I attend, organise and promote workshops. It is why I completed the Iowa Writers MOOC How Writers Write Poetry why I have done NaPoWriMo, why I joined Kevin Higgins' online workshop.
I also realise that although the actual writing is a solitary activity, for me an important impetus is the group; the joint participation, the feedback, the energy, the companionship it offers.
So, when I was invited to join a poetry writing challenge on Facebook for the month of May, I jumped at the chance. I would have to commit to sitting at my desk (mostly kitchen table) for a set amount of time per day. Some of the group were familiar to me and included Nick from Garden Room Writers, but most were not.

And that way, May began with a daily prompt, a word or image, and twenty-four hours to respond. At school May is busy with planning and marking student revision, so it was almost always after 10 pm when I sat down to consider my poem. Incredibly, the poems would come. Not all masterpieces but many of them solid first drafts. Most interesting were the poems I wrote that I wouldn't have reached on my own without the prompts.

The camaraderie of the group was important  and the diverse voices without a doubt enriched the month's writing. It was impossible to resist the urge to read what others posted on my lunch-break and at the end of the day (Facebook is blocked on my work computer and 4G coverage poor). Maybe I would have been better to try to respond 'blind', I'll never know. I was surprised by the angles people took, the quality of the writing produced in these constraints and the productivity of everyone involved, not least my own.

The quality of my own responses varied, there were "Yes" moments definitely, but some writing was a chore and reads that way. I persisted even with prompts I disliked, as the discipline of the challenge was so important to me. There were tired evenings and busy evenings, the latest post from me was 11.58 pm. I missed two poems but was determined to get back and I did, writing three responses on May 27th which I posted at 8.36, 8.59 and 11.22 pm.

The challenge produced poems (which is not to be undervalued) but did it instill that all important writing habit? Yes, resoundingly, yes. It certainly proved what I've been told often. Of course you will write if you sit down to write, it is unlikely to happen otherwise.
I have written more since the end of May, although I admit not every day. But still. I'm on holidays now, and excuse free, I have a body of work to edit and submit. I feel satisfied with 31 pieces of work produced in May, nine of which I consider worthy pieces. I have never written nine poems in a month.

Here is my response to 'Tame' and a photo of my print of one of Kim Sharkey's beautiful hares.



Girl

There is fox in that glic eye
hare in the mad dash of you
the badger in you won't relent
you are salmon sure of your path
hedgehog safe when you roll

my frog adaptable dear one
don't tame for them,

not entirely.

It's the first week of December so check out Visual Verse's prompt for the month

I discovered Visual Verse while I was meant to be writing this July. This journal releases a visual prompt on the first of each calendar month. Writers set themselves a challenge to respond in an hour and in 50-500 words. One or two writers provide leading pieces to get the ball rolling and the issue is live. The editors invite you to submit your pieces and publish these throughout the month. There follows a rich and by its nature, imperfect, exploration of the image.
I submitted 'Turning Point'  in July in response to this image by Oscar Keys.

Turning Point

What is the sea’s invitation?

Come see blue, it says, Come and I’ll show you grey.

These changing skies are the wind’s gift,

each passing hour a flickering slideshow.

Seabirds glitter, tilt and soar

are ruckus, tear, uproar

until eyes, ears, heart, soul of me answer:

Step back, they say, slip this blindfold.

Maureen Curran

Is is perfect? No. In an hour you really only have a good draft of a work in progress, not a finished piece. I wonder if my insistence on keeping ruckus was a good idea as a reader may think I spelled raucous incorrectly. Incidentally, I don't like what they did with the layout upon publishing, losing my 8 line, 4 stanza structure. Still, I valued the exercise, and there are occasions when a  good shove in a direction we weren't heading is just what we need.
It's the first week of December, have a look, take an hour out from the seasonal preparations and see where this image from Julien Menier takes you. I might meet you there.

Tea, Coffee, Chocolate x Haiku

 

Tugged handfuls of mint

Infuse in boiling water

Honey sweet sunshine

Mahogany tones

Laptop logs me in slowly

Oil on wood panel

Marshmallow sticky

Flake disappears in suede swirls

Chalky last mouthful

Time to write

I'm just home from a fabulous two weeks visiting my brothers in Canada with my mum. This was the trip I won last year in the Irish Times Generation Emigration Flying Visit competition. I promised myself over the two weeks I was going to write and write and write. Although I did a lot of reading, I wrote exactly 17 words. On the back of a receipt. This didn't disturb me because the summer still stretches out in front of me and some thinking time is good. Enjoying my brothers' hospitality, inevitably I thought of the good times growing up in our too often mad home and how our wicked sense of humour, penchant for a colourful vocabulary and utter love from and for our mum sustained us then and continues to keep us strong.

So, home, my theme this six months really. I've spent some time away and am returned to it now, rested and recharged. I sat down to write yesterday and read more; the latest Crannog, the latest Spontaneity, a few papers I'd missed when I was away, checked out what submission opportunities are open. Somewhere in the midst of that I typed the 17 words and you know a poem followed. A few drafts later, but still brand new, here it is:

 Antidote 

There was living too

voices rising, sweary banter and food,

endless tables of food, second helpings, second sittings

and laughter, there was laughter,

the good of it rose in us and we carried it like light.

I know it in the bearing now, here

in this late night chat and breaking out in song:

new belief in the fact of survival, in love.

Chasidy, me, Brian, Peter, Aidan, Mum, John in Canmore, Alberta

Along these Lines - two poems

.

Me and mum at Ardara Show last summer

After a weekend of organising workshops for North West Words and talking to many people about how they write I was thinking of the value of workshops, of stimulating writing out of exercises. I’m not very good at writing ‘live’ like that, I suppose few people are; but when I read back over my work from the session and allow the theme time to settle with me I often find there is a poem.  So, two workshop inspired poems.

Theme me up (and Ciaron and Karen's poem a year on)

I've been idling on the theme of ‘Take Me Home’, the Abridged call out that just closed today, for the most of the month of March. I don’t write to a theme very often, although I have written in response to images and to other poems now and again. Now that I think about it I have written poems ‘to order’ for births, birthdays, for my brother’s wedding and to commemorate a dear friend and that’s similar I suppose. Still for those ‘public’ poems there are responsibilities and parameters inside of which I need to find a hook, an image or other access point to the theme. It’s a real challenge then to say something true to myself at the same time.

It shouldn't be that hard to write to a theme; I expect my students to do it and they do. My husband John's working to a brief all the time, managing to satisfy not just the client and planner but his own creative impulse too. Carol Ann Duffy never ceases to impress me, not least by her ability to write to themes as diverse as the Hillsborough tragedy and Richard III. If you haven’t read her poem Richard written for the re-interment of his remains at Leicester Cathedral last week and read by Benedict Cumberbatch, then do so here.

Shortlists, Long Lists and To do lists

My cousin Caroline in Rossnowlagh Oct 28th by my Aunty Marie 

I love October, I love autumn air, its colour and autumn clothes, back to school routine is established, I know the names and a fair bit about the students sitting in front of me and they have got their heads around their English teacher’s penchant for turning rainy day classes and days when half the class is at a match into impromptu creative writing lessons. It’s a busy month but I always feel I’m making progress in October after the go slow of August and the disorientation of back to school.

This October I've had the added satisfaction of seeing my name on the shortlist and then my Shelter placed third in the Bailieborough Poetry Festival Competition as well as seeing another poem and a flash fiction make it on to the longlists of the Allingham Festival competitions. 

In response to a comment after the poetry review in today's Irish Times

what women write is of the body

the body we toil to preserve and to serve

up, we write of Sile na Gigs

the body familiar, the body of history and hysteria

we write of our genitals these days,

of our lovers’ too

we dare to speak its name

we dare to write it white

we write of domestic bliss and of love

we strive for the universal in the local

the shelter of words when the sky is falling

for the secular prayer to fill the void

while children are dying in Gaza and maybe 

we could take our hands out of our knickers

and write about expelling Israel’s ambassador

or the sale of the country’s most beautiful theatre

or the consultants getting a pay-rise

but sure who'd read it anyway

now that books are dead?

and a girl in a workshop last week

had it on good authority poetry isn’t far behind them.

 John McAuliffe's poetry review in today's Irish Times

Writing to 5K

I began to run when I got fed up walking, and when I discovered that getting up at 6 a.m. to make an hour to write in didn't mean I had any more to say. In the last year I have run a nice loop around where we live and there is no accounting for the entire benefits. I definitely feel fitter, many a lesson plan and idea for the day ahead has formulated itself. Its the peace at that early hour I appreciate most though. Sometimes an idea that is slow burning or stuck resolves itself and I have the best of both worlds.  I compromise now, split the time between writing and running. Here is a poem.

Some thoughts on reading at Over the Edge next week- and a poem

In ten day's time I will drive to Galway and join Breda Spaight and Afric McGlinchey as featured readers at the Over the Edge reading in the city library. I am thrilled and rightly nervous at the thought of this reading. Moreover, I am  proud to be doing it and glad of the validation of my writing. There is always this nagging question with me, how much of a writer am I really? Do I spend enough time and energy at writing to justify a claim to the title poet? On good days I see the progress I've made, other days I only see the rejection emails.
I don't have this kind of insecurity about my job, I'm good at it and I can say so. I know how to gauge that, how to up-skill and reinvent, reinterpret, keep fresh. I am inspired by my students and my colleagues in the English department and rarely too tired or otherwise turned off to make most days a good day at the office. There is an element of  performance in teaching and of course a script in the form of a syllabus and prescribed texts.

Outside Lidl- how I wrote the poem

Outside Lidl

My hand is crushed by a proud Leaving Cert mother,
we congratulate ourselves on her daughter’s success.
Parting, she tells me her heart is breaking after her.

I drive from the car-park
back to the day of my own results.
I duck below an up-and-over door,
clamber over boxes
and box shaped plastic,
to where you are checking off items on a delivery docket.

You set the clip board down, breathe deeply,
put two steady hands in front of you on the shelf.

How you had wanted me to get away,
how life had made you fierce,
my ninja mother fighting on all fronts.

Women haunt their daughters’ rooms this evening
folding clothes, arranging their things on the table.
I love you for all the grief you never allowed yourself.

The time of year made me think of sharing the story of this poem as my first post on the GRW blog. I have the fortune to teach near where I live so I often meet students and parents as I go about my business. Three years ago this week I met a lady in the Lidl car park and we had a chat about her daughter’s results and plans. I remembered my own results day and how my mum reacted when I told her. I put my thoughts in my notebook that evening and the poem isn't substantially different from the first prose draft.
I wanted to make the poem sound like I was sharing the story of it with my mum over a cuppa so it is very direct and addressed to mum. I tried to suggest the flashback, the physical motion of ducking under the up and over door to the store at the back of our shop and the introduction of the real subject of the poem by the different line layout in the second part of the poem.
The poem sat for a while in a work in progress folder. It was a hard poem to share, especially with mum because I didn’t want to diminish her reaction in comparison with the other mum in the poem’s reaction. Once I found the ninja mother image I was happy. My mum is a fighter, a disciplined, resourceful, canny woman.
The last line may be sentimental but I suppose when I finally did let her read it that was what I wanted her to understand.
Outside Lidl was published this Summer in Skylight47.