Author Archives: quillfyre

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About quillfyre

I'm a poet and member of the League of Canadian Poets published in Ottawa journals and online. My poems have received Honourable Mentions in Arborealis 2008, Ontario Poetry Society, and the Canadian Authors Association National Capital Writing Contest in 2008 and 2011. I began writing on a manual green Olivetti typewriter, but I don’t miss having poems flavoured with correction fluid and cross-outs.

Day 27 NaPoWriMo Nursery Rhyme or Clapping Rhyme

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For Day 27 NaPoWriMo asks us to  write a nursery rhyme or clapping rhyme. Most nursery and clapping rhymes have strong rhythms, use rhyme and repetition extensively, and aren’t overly concerned with making sense. If you’re having trouble getting started, you might start with an existing nursery or clapping rhyme and play with its form, substituting words. Hopefully, this will make for a fun and easy way to end your work-week!

Here’s a skipping rhyme and two very bad nursery rhymes:

Slamming with Dragons Skipping Rhyme

I had a little dragon
His name was Silly Sam
I put him in a contest to see if he could slam
He took all the prizes, he ate the youngest judge
He got so full he couldn’t move even with a nudge
Out flew the timekeeper
Out flew the crowd
Out flew the poets from Poetry Out Loud
In crawled the timekeeper
In crawled the crowd
In crawled the poets from Poetry Out Loud

***

Figgerty, foggerty, filk
The cow gives up her milk
The pail is full
The cow stands still
Figgerty foggerty filk

***

Flim flugel flugel, the boy and his bugle
The poet has lost all her rhyme
Her syllable plan didn’t quite scan
And her iams just couldn’t keep time

Carol A. Stephen, April 27, 2012

Carol A. Stephen

Day 26 NaPoWriMo Write an elegy or an anti-elegy

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Today over at Day 26 NaPoWriMo, the prompt reads:

“Our prompt for today, however, is not likely to induce smiles. For today, I challenge you to write an elegy. Classically, an elegy is a poem written in response to someone’s death, a poem of mourning and remembrance. Your elegy can be about a specific person, a group of people, a pet, a plant, even an idea. Or, like Anne Sexton, you could try your hand at an anti-elegy. Happy (I think?) writing!

Elegy for the Fragments

Today I mourn for the years
spent on a love one-sided
a love all give, and give again
for eyes closed too long against
reality everyone else could see.

I mourn for the fragments
worn away from the self, worn
down to chafe and inflammation
worn to irritation under skin
worn to grit under the tongue.

Today I give thanks for sight
for insight into the other of me
she who repeats somewhere
below conscious thought
the need for letting go.

Today there is the lightness
of air, the upward flight of birds
one feather falling, a freedom
in the spirit, this window
this new and opening door.

Carol A. Stephen
April 26, 2012

Day 25 NaPoWriMo Write a cento

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Day 25 NaPoWriMo On April 25, 2012 said: “Yesterday’s challenge was a bit of a brain-burner, so I’ve made today’s a bit easier. Back on Day Ten, I challenged you to start a poem with a line from another poem. Today, let’s go a bit further in our theft and write centos — poems made up entirely of lines from other poems. You could write a new sonnet out of lines from Shakespeare, or just troll about in an anthology for likely lines. Try to create a cento of at least ten lines. For inspiration, here’s an example. Happy writing!

Here is my attempt, with the poets noted below the cento:

Hungry Static, a cento

My breasts are withered gourds
my skin all over      stiffens
from stone to bronze, from bronze to steel

ospreys would fall like valkyries
for one carved instant as they flew
in sky milk and those soft murmurings

endlessly repeating something we cannot hear
a deeper note is sounding, heard in the mines
I hear a thousand miles of hungry static

and the old clear water eating rocks
outside, the articulate wind annotates this; I read carefully
I have spoken to it in a foreign tongue

I didn’t mean to mention the price of snowsuits.

Carol A. Stephen
April 25, 2012

 

Lines from:
(Dorothy Livesay) (EJ Pratt) (Earle Birney) (Al Purdy) (F.R. Scott) (Leonard Cohen)
(Gwendolyn MacEwen) (Bronwen Wallace)

Day 24 Na PoWriMo Write a Lipogram

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Day 24 NaPoWriMo says: “Today’s prompt is a bit of a doozy . . . so if you feel like you don’t have it in you, feel free, as always, to take a pass! Today’s challenge is a lipogram/Beautiful Outlaw/Beautiful In-Law. A lipogram is a poem that explicitly refrains from using certain letters. The most classic letter to swear off, at least for English speakers, is “e.” A Beautiful Outlaw is a variation on a lipogram, wherein you refrain from using any of the letters in a certain name. For example, if you chose the name Sarah, then you could not use s, a, r, or h. A Beautiful In-Law is another variant, wherein you only use the letters in a certain name (better pick a long name!)
You might think that any lipogram would end up having to be short, but some people have been successful at virtuoso performances in this vein — check out this excerpt from Christian Bök’s Eunoia, in which he uses no vowels except i. It goes on for nine pages!”

I guess the weather has got me down a bit, still cold although the sun,as it sets, is at its brightest so far today.  Still, the day made me think of storms and cold.

So for the prompt, I chose not to use the letter “i”.  Here’s my effort.

That Sort of a Day

A vacant acorn husk
spawns dream of tree, the oak
drops seed on ground to feed

Acorn hoarded by Acorn Woodpecker

Acorn hoarded by Acorn Woodpecker (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

woodpeckers and jays as they watch for the soak
of groundwater under trees that tease
yellows and reds to dance under

the faffer of breeze, scuddy weather
set free today the greys and blues of sky.

A storm comes on, then gone before
wet drops reach the lawn.
Today the best place to be

a warm bed or curled upon
the sofa where a fat furry cat
warms the soles of cold feet.

Carol A. Stephen
April 24, 2012