Poetry Monthly

I hope the sun glowed down on you this summer. I spent most of August in Cornwall’s limpet pools and became obsessed with photographing mussels on sliding perilous rocks. Thanks to Canonette, her psychegeographic theme inspired me to write about a beach I’ve visited for years in a sinister new way.

This month your poetry tore up the map and dug up old haunts, you explored new places and reinvented settings with daring. The strongest poems tended to slant reader perspective by using location in unexpected, often symbolic ways with moving outcomes. Look at these crackers:

Pat G transformed mundane street garbage in to stunning flight:

http://www.abctales.com/story/pat-g/dummy-poetry-monthly

Rhiannon illuminated childhood in a rural setting with charisma and urban longing:

http://www.abctales.com/story/rhiannonw/surroundings-impress-poetry-monthly

Philip Sidney wowed with her abstract Miro mindscape:

http://www.abctales.com/story/philip-sidney/mindscape-ice-poetry-monthly

This month, you’re in Bear’s ever-so-poetic paws. Here’s what he wants you to do:

The Brief: Found Poetry – don’t lose it, find it!

Potential poetry is all around us, from the telephone bill to ingredient lists to graffiti on a subway wall.  How did your last M.O.T failure notice read?  A ‘corroded sill’ and ‘fractured coil spring’?  Emission problems?  Cut it, slice it, dice it.  Add line breaks and punctuation or chuck it in a stew pot and swirl it around, sieve the words and see what filters through. Found poetry doesn’t have to stop at rearranging ready text, it can be used to fire your imagination and lead your poetry in new directions.

The shopping list your wife gave you, she seems to be buying a lot of weed killer and cake mix lately, and isn’t that the number for your life insurance company written on the back?  Nudge the words around, perhaps something a little more sinister than a simple list will reveal itself.

Rearrange the flat pack instructions, stir up a recipe with a few added extras, expand the phrase that sends your imagination skittering wild.  Find the poetry – sign posts; newspapers; toothpaste tubes – it’s all out there, waiting for your pen. 

Sharpen your pencil, ducks! If you’d love peer criticism, say so in a comment underneath your piece and please post by September 30th. Email me: ray@abctales.com if you’ve got fire in your belly about a new prompt. Thanks for your involvement and making poetry such damn fun.

Header Image: http://tinyurl.com/qdtt7va