Category: Poetry

There’s a bit of a poetry challenge going on at the WGB at the moment, where we’re given the first line and have to make up a poem from that: the person who provided the first line gets to judge the poems. I kinda liked how this one (the prompt was ‘Wind pocked sandstone’, and…

A life, a mind, like vellum Too precious to discard And so, instead, it’s scraped Bleached a little by the sun Then over-written with new words A prayer, a sacred parable A recipe, experiment or just Something to be remembered But no scrape, no sun Erases every trace of life Old stories bleeding through Enrich…

A sestina All through these weary Or in other seasons joyful Days and years of life Winds a strange and quiet music Made of tears and time Fear and always, always love The various joys of human love Something of which we seldom weary Across this unforgotten time Lie memories both bright and joyful Of…

It seeps in, you know? You think you’ve sealed it With silicone and prayer And clenched idolatry of text But at the edges And the heart Something new (Yet nothing’s new at all) Erodes, perhaps corrupts or Anyway, intrudes Too full, perhaps, of meaning Power, ritual, belief The ions float, and Membranes thought impermeable Were…

Cassie has an English assignment to write about an ‘Australian icon’. She’s chosen ‘the bushman’, and as part of her research we were looking together at the poems of Banjo Patterson. He was an Australian poet in the late 19th century who had a lot to do with developing Australia’s national identity. He wrote the…

I posted a month or so ago on the topic of using big or unfamiliar words. Messing about today I found a poem I wrote around the same time on the same topic: I didn’t use that Word you’ve never Heard before to Put you down Honest It’s just that I Couldn’t think of Any…

Alex’s best friend Lynsey said to her on MSN ‘I found this site on the net with an awesome poem! Go to www.bravus.com.au/blog and search for this poem‘. Alex then told her ‘That’s my Dad’s blog, and I wrote that poem with him!’ (2 years ago, as it happens.) Apparently Lynsey had googled for ‘Alex…

“That’s all it takes”, he said – slightly arch, a little condescending “Just any sufficiently advanced technology” Perhaps it’s so Perhaps each miracle can be Explained away by secret Mechanisms and hidden springs I’ve met his type before, of course Eager to drop factoids on my toes With a tone-deaf clunk Eager to explain away…

A new poetic form I’ve been playing with a bit. The first one I wrote both illustrates and explains the form: One Then two Four syllables And the next line needs at least eight Themes and topics can be various, but things cyber are welcome Rather than get impossible Reduce power Back to Zero The…

Jintishi is a Chinese form of poetry from the Tang dynasty. Here are a couple of examples, with translations: ??????? ??????? ??????? ??????? ??????? ??????? ??????? ??????? ??????? ???????? Our host brings wine, for merry-making tonight; And bids the guest from Guangling, to play upon the zither; Moonlight bathes the city walls, crows fly mid-air;…

A thread I started at the William Gibson Board that involves writing poetry to order within certain rules. Lots of cool and fun stuff so far: http://williamgibsonboard.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/2866012481/m/2671022652

There’s a bit of a limerick thread going on on the William Gibson Board at the moment. Most of my contributions have related to particular things or people on the board, so they don’t stand alone very well, but I thought this one was kinda fun: The secret to limerick’s metre Is to make every…