Nineteen poems in twenty-two days, the majority of them draftable and some even fully formed. I'm calling it a day on NaPoWriMo. I'm very happy with what I've written but I've run out of steam now and I'm stopping before it becomes an utter drudge. Lots of short imagistic poems, lots of playful pieces and a few experiments. I've thoroughly enjoyed the push to write daily and I've had fun writing the poems I've written. Now to redraft and send them out! 

So far NaPoWriMo has been mostly a plant-based affair! Fourteen days down, sixteen to go.

  Here are some pictures of my inspirations for some of the poems:

 

I think I'll need to come up with a different theme if I'm going to manage to write poems till the end of the month! 

"We and the members of the editorial board have read with interest your submission, and we have the pleasure in telling you..."

Three poems accepted by Poetry Salzburg Review!!

I opened with trepidation the envelope that arrived this morning with Universitat Salzburg printed on the front. An absolutely gorgeous magazine, I'm so excited to have poems in their next issue! Of course they never took the poem I was sure if they would if they were taking any! And I've vastly redrafted the poems I'd submitted to them (as I am in the bad habit of doing!). I will return the proofs today and walk about with a stupid big smile on my face!

Check out the new Calder Wood Press website. My poetry pamphlet collection, Vintage Sea, has now been reduced to a mere three quid along with several other pamphlet collections. A great variety of poetry for super-cheap prices!

I've decided this year to join in on NaPoWriMo. Haven't attempted it since before Ruby was born and now she's three so I thought it was about time I gave it a go! The most I've ever managed before is fourteen days of poem writing before giving up. I hope to beat my personal record this time round! It's a great way to build up draft poems to work on later.

Had a few poetry rejections in the last couple of weeks which is always deflating but one of the rejections was the nicest I've ever received using the words 'engaging' and 'tantalising' and 'delighted to read more of your work', so it's not all bad!!


Thanks to the heads-up from swiss I've recently been devouring  With Robert Lowell and his Circle.What a fascinating read and a very well written memoir. A must read for any Plath, Sexton, Bishop, Kunitz etc fan. I've gone back to reading my Selected Lowell with a lot more care and attention than I ever read it before.

I think, overall,  I feel most at home in imagist poetry, though the movement birthed and died within a few years in the early twentieth century.
I wonder if there are contemporary imagist writers out there who would define themselves as such.