Poetry Monthly

You had a go at kennings this month and some of the pieces were deeply imaginative. Here are three crackers:

Ed Crane’s beautifully textured leather cloth war:

https://www.abctales.com/story/ed-crane/leather-cloth-wars-poetry-monthly

Rhiannon’s visual delight:

https://www.abctales.com/story/rhiannonw/%E2%80%98icecoming%E2%80%99

Catherine Poarch’s words are charmingly inventive:

https://www.abctales.com/story/catherine-poarch/ladenbox

This month’s brief is nonsense poetry and contributed by one of ABC’s performance poets, Accidentallyexisting. She wants you to use Lewis Carroll’s ‘The Jabberwocky’ (1871) as a starting point for poetry with some elements that make sense and some that do not. I went camping with cousins to Edale, age 7, and late at night we recited that poem whilst making eerie hand shadows from the amber glow of our lanterns. When I got to: The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame / Came whiffling through the tulgey wood /And burbled as it came!, my father pushed his terrifying face into our tent wall from the outside yelling ‘cowtwouch is here!’ I couldn’t sleep until dawn broke the shadows.

Nonsense means nothing out of context but it can take on a mood and meaning of its own in poetry. Did you use secret words with your sibling to communicate in childhood? Have you ever combined two adjectives to make a word better suit you? Accidentallyexisting encourages you to record your creations on audio or video. This isn’t essential, but may be fun for those of you feeling bold and with the right technology. Thanks all, have a Christmas full of love and laughter.

Ray 

Photo Credit: http://tinyurl.com/gn7eu49