So true Ian, Thank you for your comment :) x

Comment is about Forget me not (blog)

Original item by tina

Richard - thanks for the comment you left on "Dambuster". I look forward to reading your "Lancaster" poem in due course.

Comment is about Richard Alfred (poet profile)

Original item by Richard Alfred

It inspired me also I have always loved aviation which helps, but I titled a poem after watching the news today called Lancaster,
which I will write down the line )

Comment is about DAMBUSTER (blog)

Original item by M.C. Newberry

I love the nautical imagery. I love the surprise of the language. Very arresting. What are your influences?

Comment is about Treading Waters (blog)

Original item by Marianne Daniels

Thank you for your time and comment, Richard. I love the sea too and the way it can mother me similarly.

Take care.

Comment is about Treading Waters (blog)

Original item by Marianne Daniels

Love this, your lines brake and ebb and it invokes so much, on a personal level for me.
My soul is bound to the sea, I am never more calm then when close to it, never happier.

I found her hair tangling around
my ankles; a translucent green

seaweed to me )

Comment is about Treading Waters (blog)

Original item by Marianne Daniels

Very moving Tina - I also lost my mum to Alzheimers and other age related illness a couple of years ago - and also wrote a poem called 'forget me not' which is somewhere down the list on my profile/blog page.
It is something that destroys you as a child, because you 'lose' the one you love before you actuaslly lose them - if that makes sense?
Ian

Comment is about Forget me not (blog)

Original item by tina

Hi Richard, great poem, I enjoyed this.

Comment is about Cruel Impossible Love (blog)

Original item by Richard Alfred

Hi Isobel, thank you for your kind comments on perspective. I haven't written much lately, so greatly appreciated. I like your 52 Hertz idea, I shall have to get thinking! xx

Comment is about Isobel (poet profile)

Original item by Isobel

Posted as part of Mental Health Blog Day - http://www.yourmindyourbody.org/mental-health-month-blog-day/

Comment is about Bottling (blog)

Original item by Winston Plowes

Scary stuff. It seems unimaginable that a history, a homeland, a nation can just disappear like that - possibly more easy to accept when it's on this scale - but imagine when it's Holland...

I like the reference to the tracing of circles - it brings to mind the grid lines on a map. if I was better at geography I'd know what those circles are called but the word escapes me.

Comment is about Kiribati (blog)

Original item by David Blake

Oh dear - you sound that bad do you? Well, at least I can vouch for your voice being pleasantly low Ian, even if it is tuneless!

David, Ian - everyone - I'm really looking forward to hearing your poems.

In fact I've changed my mind about offering a prize. I just received something from Nick (who organised the last one) in the post and it was a lovely surprise - made a change from bills and charity bags at any rate. So, there will be something little for first prize - so long as you trust me with your address :)

Comment is about 52 Hertz (blog)

Original item by Isobel

I will enter something official for this shortly Isobel - but here's a haiku for a bit of fun:

Fifty Two Hurts

I sang you that song
every week for a year
and still I’m alone…..

those who have heard my sound samples will understand :-)

Comment is about 52 Hertz (blog)

Original item by Isobel

"Mad Experiment" sounds like a fantastic concept!
My first language is German but I write poetry in English. At school I was fascinated how well Shakespeare translated, to the point of suspecting an underlying conspiracy.
I have six publications to show for and had an article about rhyme published in the October issue of WOL.
If I can help, I'm up for it!

Uschi Wheeler

Comment is about Mad experiment on Write Out Loud – translating poems online! (article)

I may well enter this one :)

Comment is about 52 Hertz (blog)

Original item by Isobel

First - thanks for your kind comment on my last post.
"We laugh...we jest...
To forestall the final rest!"
Second: love your line "I'm glummer than a raindrop falling on a hearse" (above) in a very funny poem. Priceless!

Comment is about George Stanworth (poet profile)

Original item by George Stanworth

Hi Gemma I like this very much, its harsh but so poetic and invokes a perfect sense of the place, nice )

Comment is about Bury Market (blog)

Original item by Gemma Lees

Hot kitten
Sexual appetite
lover's dream
uncertain future
means that
it will
broken again
and again
and again.

Comment is about Morning Shower (blog)

Original item by Katy Megan

Slight Drawback

Heaton Arts
lady designer
foreign translation
Julian explains
blue trousers
golfer gear
political split
why not!
french poem
ohh lala
doctor ambushed
badly beaten
varied selection
fine poetry
only one
slight drawback
no time
collage poem.

Comment is about Stockport WoL (group profile)

Original item by Stockport WoL

Yvonne,
That bloody Coopey feller again!...He gets all of them!...It`s the youth, isn`t it...and the guitar?...that sound you can hear is my teeth grinding...all four of them.

Comment is about A poet at prayer (blog)

Original item by Harry O`N eill

Hi Ann I really enjoyed Breathing, for me the sound of the words almost made me lose sight of the meaning, if that makes sense wonderful )

Comment is about Ann Foxglove (poet profile)

Original item by Ann Foxglove

Hey John kind words as ever, the picture is the profile one) its a beautiful painting, of for me a beautiful place

Comment is about Richard Alfred (poet profile)

Original item by Richard Alfred

Thought your Blackpool poem had gone mate,was looking for it then found it here.'Sweet smell from pink hair to eat.Clowns of glass,elephants and rock.' Love it,but didnt it have a posting of its own with the brill pic?
I could taste the candyfloss,feel its sticky sweetness as I read this.'Charm,romance,beauty!nostalgia'

Comment is about Richard Alfred (poet profile)

Original item by Richard Alfred

Great poem Richard,sad/heartbreaking but full of depth and experience.

Comment is about Cruel Impossible Love (blog)

Original item by Richard Alfred

thunder-inward
cosmos needle points
of angry miracles

like this very much

Comment is about Eye (blog)

Original item by Marianne Daniels

What a very clever form this takes Tommy, really, really innovative, the sort of thing you wish you'd done yourself. Well done! Left frustratingly hanging. Graham

Comment is about 00:01 (blog)

Original item by Tommy Carroll

I like this very much Lynn I have a real love for green fields and golden meadows and I know it twists at the end but it still invokes beautiful imagery on a personal level for me :)

Comment is about perspective (blog)

Original item by Lynn Dye

Thanks for your kind comments on 'eyrie avenue' jonnie - glad you liked it - i hope it stayed just on this side of eerie - and the pay-off is the thought of what/who else is behind those other twitching curtains.
You know - I'd never even thought about the dual connotation of 'horny' and now I do I want to change it :-)
Cheers
Ian

Comment is about Jonnie Falafel (poet profile)

Original item by Jonnie Falafel

I'd be well up for doing something too. They are fracking here in West Sussex...

Comment is about Whole lot of shaking going on: poets join fight against fracking (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

thanks for commenting on 'eyrie avenue' Yvonne - it's an older poem of mine and the characters are actual people - glad you liked it
Ian

Comment is about Yvonne Brunton (poet profile)

Original item by Yvonne Brunton

Thank you for the encouraging words Jonnie

Comment is about Paul Sands (poet profile)

Original item by Paul Sands

Do watch the video! There's a bit of everything at Sunday Xpress, it seems. It's not just poetry, it's true; but listening to the stories unfold in this very enjoyable piece of film, this venue in Brum does seem to have many typical characteristics - and characters - that Write Out Louders will recognise. And, as Brendan says, it keeps him out of the bookies.

Comment is about Poetry and all that jazz: Birmingham's Sunday Xpress at Adam & Eve (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

IKEA is brilliant. Haven't laughed so much for a long time. Very funny.

Comment is about John Coopey (poet profile)

Original item by John Coopey

Love the satire. These are my kind of poems. Superb.

Comment is about Your First Hut Is The Cheapest (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

I like the dark humour. Very witty.

Comment is about THE MAGICAL MEDICAL MERRY-GO-ROUND (blog)

Original item by M.C. Newberry

Very original. Enjoyed this. Love your style.

Comment is about 00:01 (blog)

Original item by Tommy Carroll

Thanks for commenting on my old coat Lynn - yes it's one that I think would appeal to women more than men - I do believe that we feel things differently at times.

Any chance of a poem from you on the 52 Hertz theme? x

Comment is about Lynn Dye (poet profile)

Original item by Lynn Dye

Thanks Richard & Isobel
it was written as an homage to Poe, so I'm so so glad that Richard picked up on that :-)
I write short stories Isobel, usually Magic Realism, Horror or fantasy - and this was adapted from one of those.
I love the idea that the clowns claim back their murderers by taking them into the caravan and painting them up to become one of them. A twisted revenge - who do you feel sorry for - the kids or the clowns????
mwuhaaahaaahaaahaaah!

Comment is about That Which Autumn Leaves (blog)

Original item by Ian Whiteley

I'm with Richard on clowns - I've always seen them as potentially sad subjects - covering their sadness with the paint and farce - not really being heard or seen.

This poem makes for a macabre nightmare story though - the stuff you might see in a film. I suppose as soon as you don any disguise there is the potential for children not to see you as you are - human beings.

Interesting poem - where do you get your ideas from? Not from experience, let's hope ;)

Comment is about That Which Autumn Leaves (blog)

Original item by Ian Whiteley

This just brought a great big smile to my face :)

Please don't consider it a tit for tat comment - though I'm grateful for yours on my coat poem. I just love the humour in this - the way your lofty, dreamy language leads to that punch line. I think it's very skilfully done - and a sad but funny reflection on reality :)

Comment is about perspective (blog)

Original item by Lynn Dye

Very good this, it for sure appeals to me, its funny, on a personal level I don't find clowns fearful at all I find them sad and wonderful but so many people think they are a thing of nightmares. This reads like something Poe might of wrote.....love it

Comment is about That Which Autumn Leaves (blog)

Original item by Ian Whiteley

Thank you Francine, gratifying to know :-)

Comment is about perspective (blog)

Original item by Lynn Dye

Hi Isobel, I really love this poem. It works so well on different levels, and definitely one I easily associate with. xx

Comment is about A day in the life of... an old coat (blog)

Original item by Isobel

The samples were speriamo good I had a scoot through the list. Wonderful stuff. Midnight Bird struck a chord. One thing i notice where i live now is the absence of light pollution. You can see the bands of the Milky Way when there are no clouds. I also thought of the way humans change the ecology of natural habitats. The foxes in British towns and the bears in Canada.

Loved Remembrance to. Very poignant.

Comment is about Paul Sands (poet profile)

Original item by Paul Sands

Hut's the way (uh-huh uh-huh) I like it (uh-huh uh-huh)...

Comment is about Your First Hut Is The Cheapest (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

Cheers for the comments re: The Writing Class me hearty. I'm not much of an Abba fan either (can't you just tell there's a bad joke about Scandiwegian vegetables dying to come forward right about now?)

Comment is about John Coopey (poet profile)

Original item by John Coopey

Cheers for the comments Johnnie. Me too: I love the discipline of tight rhythm and rhyme - it makes me think about my native language in an expansive way. Although I write in free verse too I believe that one shouldn't think of oneself as a poet until structured poetry has been...well, if not mastered then at least taken to task. Is that a contradictory principle for a revolutionary socialist to hold? I can picture many poets thinking me a reactionary fuddy duddy for holding that opinion, but I'd argue that I simply love my craft, this artistic enterprise called poetry too much to be slipshod, to settle for 'just' or 'always' writing free.

Comment is about Jonnie Falafel (poet profile)

Original item by Jonnie Falafel

I could visualise this all the way through!

Comment is about perspective (blog)

Original item by Lynn Dye

After shock would work well too. I tried to explain that expression earlier. After pain resonates more for me because it relates to childbirth - it's about pain rather than shock - after pains are like contractions - very very painful and they strike right at the core of you.

In a way, poems are like babies, you give birth to them and then you outgrow them - or maybe they outgrow you.

Thanks for reading - I appreciate it.

Comment is about A day in the life of... an old coat (blog)

Original item by Isobel

LOL - everything you've said would be supported by very many people on WOL. You should check out the discussion thread on 'sentimentality', which wandered down that very same route.

There are the right wing extremists who believe that free verse isn't poetry, there are the left wing extremists who believe that ancient rules strangle the essence of poetry and there are the liberals, who believe that knowledge of rules is preferable, even if they aren't adhered to...

Those classifications are just me poking fun of course. There are probably plenty more you could think up. I've written a few poems in strictly metred format. I enjoyed them as an exercise but like to try my hand at free verse now. It's incredibly hard for me to do free verse though. My musical ear want it to flow - and it's a lot harder to write flowing poetry without rhyme - which leads me to abandoning lots of poems.

Rhyming poetry doesn't seem to win many poetry comps though, if you take a look around at what is flavour of the day... Not that that bothers me cos I don't enter them - it's just an indication of where contemporary poetry is going.

Best get off before I end up writing an essay :)

Comment is about Richie Muster (poet profile)

Original item by Richie Muster