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 23 NaPoWriMo Ekphrastic Prompt

Posted on April 23, 2012 by quillfyre

Day 23 NaPoWriMo The prompt said:
” Today, I challenge you to write an ekphrastic poem — that is, a poem that responds to or is otherwise inspired by a work of art. Probably the most famous ekphrastic poem in English is Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn, but there is no lack of modern ekphrastic work. Take Auden’s Musee de Beaux Arts or Robert Lowell’s For the Union Dead. So go forth and find a painting, sculpture, photograph, or even a piece of music, and use it to inform your poem for today. Art creates art — it’s so efficient!”

I used a favourite photo I took a couple of years ago at a writing retreat at Bridgewater, a place for artists and writers about two hours from home.

Where Have All the Poets Gone?

A Contemplation of Poets

On hot summer days even the sun
floats on the river for relief
hard bright light fading trees
to a blur that only remembers soft green.

Shade offers daylilies reprieve
from heat, yet their petals
curl and fade, prepare to fall.
Only the bright chairs

appear untouched by heat and fade
their colours brilliant even
in the shade. They wait. Poets
not seen but somewhere
near and always contemplating.

Carol A. Stephen
April 23, 2012

Day 22 NaPoWriMo Fruit or the Vegetable Lamb or…

Posted on April 22, 2012 by quillfyre

The prompt for today said “I’d like you to write a poem about a plant. Flowers, of course, have been the subject of poems since time immemorial, and continue to be a source of much inspiration. But perhaps you could write about a tree, or a shrub, or grass. Maybe even a fictional or mythological plant. I could really see some good poems about the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary! (In fact, a few poems were written about it, back between 1550 and 1800. I say it’s time for a renaissance!)”

The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary (Wikipedia)

Carol A. Stephen

So I read about that and it was interesting, another of those stories where everyone has a version and they are not necessarily the same, but not different either. So here’s my poem:
Of Mythical Tales of Watersheep and Barnacle Geese

Were watersheep born on the stem of a plant,
or Barnacle geese born of wood drifted slant,
or maybe both spawned from some strange fleshy fruit?
Perhaps they were mythical creatures to boot,
the stories embellished for use on fast day,
so men could still savour their meals on Friday.

Barnacle Geese. Facsimile of an Engraving on Wood, from the "Cosmographie Universelle" of Munster, folio, Basle, 1552. Project Gutenberg text 10940 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

These men of the cloth and of pious belief
could eat meat those days in such a relief,
that these were the fruits of the water, the sea,
and so could be eaten most sensitively

on fish days and fast days and days in between,
they’d not have to worry the meat might be seen.
If meat is a fruit, it could be tomato,
or if it’s veggie, it could be potato,
and then there’s no sin that must be repented
no penance to do, and nothing resented.

It all sounds quite silly, I think you’ll agree,
just another old wives’ tale if you ask me.

Carol A. Stephen
April 22, 2012

Here, also, real Barnacle Geese, looking perfectly

normal.

Two Barnacle Goose (Branta leucopsis) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

No-Comfort Zone Week Ending April 23, 2012

Posted on April 22, 2012 by quillfyre

Well, this was a busy but successful week. I attended two meetings on Monday, a lunch appointment on Tuesday and a much-anticipated and dreaded doctor’s appointment on Wednesday. But it appears I must have been doing something right on the health score, as my tests showed improved numbers. This is kidney-related, so has been an ongoing concern for several years now, and a complex one to deal with as far a diet goes.

What else? Well, on Friday I sent off my very first non-contest related submission to a national literary magazine. With some help from my friend Claudia. I promised her that it would be for this first one only, just to get me past the initial block. So that’s done. This week I am prepping for the Massachusetts workshop. Good news there too, as my brother will be back in town to cat-sit and house-sit etc. Have to admit though that the maps look rather confusing. Thank goodness for GPS.

I managed yesterday to catch up on both poetry challenges. But today I must clean up my desk so I can start the next batch of paper piles. My goal for the week to come is to work on Massachusetts-related “homework” and to pull together all the info I want to have on hand about the trip, the inn, and the workshop. And my travel lists. Only three weeks away now!

We’ll be staying here: http://brookfarm.com/ which is where most of the workshop will be held, but we will also take in some local sites. See below. The Mount was Edith Wharton’s residence, Steepletop was Edna St. Vincent Millay‘s. And I must mention our leader/instructor, James Arthur. James is a American-Canadian poet, writer, teacher, who grew up in Toronto but who now lives in the U.S. He was the instructor for the Stanford online 10-week poetry course that I took back in the fall of 2010. Two of the other students from that class will also be attending, so we will finally all get a chance to meet in person!

Pics of two places we’ll be visiting while in Lenox: Edith Wharton‘s Estate The Mount, Lenox (our last day workshop will be held here)