This evening I went to the book launch of The Geelong Writers, Anomaly Street (Poetry With A Difference), a twice-yearly collection of poetry that creates jolts for flatlined minds, and to the editor, Jo Curtain, for selecting my poem. Below is a photo of the poem’s presentation in the book … (my scanner is broken)
I am proud to announce that my poem “Lines To Nowhere” has been nominated for Publication of The Month of June, at “Spillwords Magazine”. A big thank you to the editing team at Spillwords for the nomination, and hearty congratulations to the other Nominees.
Voting will cease on 6/29 and soon after we will reveal the winner. Please note, you need to register and/or login to vote.
The winning publication will be featured on Spillwords.com sidebar during the entire month of July!
HERE ARE THE NOMINEES:
Mid Week by Roy Eisenstein Lines To Nowhere by Ivor Steven Mermaids & Miracles by Ann Parker The Sunset, The Beach, The Stars, and The Midnight Sky by Michelle Ayon Navajas When You Find Your Center by Kate Leo Darker The Water, The Deeper The Deep by Gerry Stefanson Joy by Daniel Clarke-Serret The Centre of My Universe by Jane Bradshaw Two Faces by Chris Corbett Dead Man’s Hand by Kerr Pelto At 28 Weeks: When Reality Shifts by Erin P.T. Canning And All That Jazz by Angela Huskisson Piggy by Zach Zajac Dress Rehearsal by Jon A Lunsford
Good luck to all!
Lines to Nowhere
As my drapes fell apart I saw a setting eclipse And I decided to walk To the south side of the moon
Carrying my plastic spoon There, a giant vanilla cheesecake Rolled over the crusty moonscape On a giant crumbly base Topped with blueberries and cream Laying here in bed, life is but a dream
The evening skyline begins to drool Am I, a full moon’s fool? I will meet you at the old school Down by the empty pool This time we will not be ridiculed
Hello dear readers and followers, I am writing for “Coffee House Writers” magazine on a fortnightly basis, and my poem “Yellow Boulders”, is in this week’s edition of Coffee House Writers Magazine.… please click on the link below to view my poem, at Coffee House Writers Magazine. >> https://coffeehousewriters.com/yellow-boulders/
In keeping with my “Whale Theme” this week, I found this piece from September 2022, while I was selecting poems for my up-coming book “Until Eyes Hear Sound”
In those ignorant bad old days Who would have wanted to be a whale? Who threw that harpoon into my back?
Whales Cry Too (a Mariannet*)
I
Hear them cry
…..When horrific harpoons pierce their hides
…..My heart bleeds from inside
……….Seeing whales so cruelly maimed
The name “Mariannet” was recently ‘coined’ by Paul (of Paul’s Poetry Playground) >> [ Invented Poetry Forms – The Mariannet – Paul’s Poetry Playground ] for the previously unnamed poetic form that the poet Marianne Moore created to write her classic poem “The Fish” first published in 1918. The form was invented over a hundred years ago and is relatively unknown to most poets. The mariannet is an isosyllabic rhyming poem, consisting of one or more five-line stanzas (quintains) with one syllable in the first line, three in the second, nine in the third, six in the fourth, and eight in the fifth and final line. The first two lines rhyme with each other, and so does the third and fourth, but the fifth is nonrhyming and does not rhyme with any other lines. Thus its rhyme scheme can be expressed as aabbx for each individual quintain (with x representing the nonrhyming line). In Moore’s original formatting of the form, the third and fourth lines were indented five spaces and the fifth ten spaces. Below, I have attached Marianne Moore’s poem “The Fish”, and below is a poignat Lisa Hannigan’s music/video.
“The Fish” – by Marianne Moore
wade through black jade. Of the crow-blue mussel-shells, one keeps adjusting the ash-heaps; opening and shutting itself like
an injured fan. The barnacles which encrust the side of the wave, cannot hide there for the submerged shafts of the
sun, split like spun glass, move themselves with spotlight swiftness into the crevices— in and out, illuminating
the turquoise sea of bodies. The water drives a wedge of iron through the iron edge of the cliff; whereupon the stars,
pink rice-grains, ink- bespattered jelly fish, crabs like green lilies, and submarine toadstools, slide each on the other.
All external marks of abuse are present on this defiant edifice— all the physical features of
ac- cident—lack of cornice, dynamite grooves, burns, and hatchet strokes, these things stand out on it; the chasm-side is
dead. Repeated evidence has proved that it can live on what can not revive its youth. The sea grows old in it.
Today’s ‘Throwback” poem, from September 2020, will appear in my upcoming new book “Until Eyes Hear Sound” … It’ll be the 1st poem in “Chapter 3. Nature and Existence”
Hello dear readers and followers, I am now back writing for “Coffee House Writers” magazine, and my poem “An Untravelled Highway”, is in this week’s edition of Coffee House Writers Magazine. … please click on the link below and visit my poem, at Coffee House Writers Magazine. >> https://coffeehousewriters.com/an-untraveled-highway/
Ivor.Plumber/Poet 