It's a kind of magic… #napowrimo

So, halfway through Napowrimo/ Glopowrimo, and I’m actually on track. I accidentally wrote two poems on the first day, set the second one to go live on day two, and have followed that pattern obsessively so far. Ironically, knowing that I always have a poem in hand and could chill out if I wanted to has kept me on the straight and narrow. Very confusing – welcome to my brain.

Tonight’s poem (which will become tomorrow’s, of course) appears to be a new form. I was trying to find the name of (and rules for) the poem form where you reduce the number of words in each line until it’s down to one. Couldn’t easily, and then gave up as a new idea formed.

For Reasons, my prompt for myself tonight was “Abracadabra”. I remembered that people used to make the word into a protective/ healing charm, in triangle form, reducing the word by a letter each time:

Abracadabra has eleven letters, so I reckoned: eleven lines, first line has eleven syllables, the next ten, and so on until you have a one-syllable line to finish. A cursory search of The Internets has not, so far, shown me that this is a thing already, though I’m very happy to be corrected if I’m wrong…! ☺

Until or unless someone can tell me it’s called something else, I’m going to christen this take on another form The Abracadabra, and you’re welcome to do whatever you like with it.

Tooling Up - #napowrimo, #saboteur17, and stuff

It’s been a long few months, but, with the sunshine and all of that stuff, I finally feel like I’m turning a corner.

My health is (slowly - so slowly) improving, and my voice appears to be returning to something like its original mellifluousness. This will be a relief to everyone, I’m sure (though most of all for the people who’ve had to listen to me squeak and grate and despair about laryngitis as the days turned into weeks turned into months).

The opportunity for Something Exciting turned up recently. I won’t know for two months whether I’ve been successful, but it’s been an amazing opportunity to review what I’ve done with poetry and other artforms and poets and other artists over the last few years, and it turns out that it’s a great deal, and some of it brilliant. So I now have a nice, portable poetry CV to hand and plenty of buzzphrases about my “practice” to recycle for other opportunities.

In the meantime, NaPoWriMo approacheth, and I’m feeling pretty confident about it this time. Since I lost all momentum on getting The Selkie any further after Edinburgh (did I mention I lost my voice - I feel sure I must have done...), I’ve decided to deliberately give it (and my vocal chords) a further rest before trotting it out to other places next year. Since I spent an enormous quantity of energy on The Selkie last year, my NaPoWriMo efforts definitely suffered. You can follow what I post publicly here.

In the meantime, though, if you liked it, you can nominate it for a Saboteur Award and frankly I would just explode with excitement if it made the shortlist (let alone won), so if seeing a grown woman run around and around her kitchen/ garden (depending on weather) like a hyperactive five-year-old is your idea of a reward, I will totally film that if I get shortlisted. Get clicking.

For other entries, you should also consider nominating Allographic Open Mic/ Hammer & Tongue Cambridge for best regular show, Haiku To F*ck To (Spark The Words)/ In Other Words Anthology 2016 for best anthology, Poetry & Piano (Matt Widgery accompanying Nikki Marrone, Uppahar Ups Subba, and Tim Knight) for best collaboration, Bunbury Magazine/ The Fenland Reed for best magazine, SHINPRINT (publishing arm of SHINDIG) for most innovative publisher, Knots & Branches (Stewart Carswell)/ Years Ago You Coloured Me (J.S.Watts) for best single collection. In Other Words would love your vote for Best Wildcard... 

My choices are arbitrary and personal and partly to do with who I think needs the kind of boost that a Saboteur Award would bring. I'm bound to have missed someone. I'm sorry.

Best solo artist is a terrifyingly open field. PM me if you want a suggestion to fit your tastes...