Thank you, Jane Johann, for nominating me for The Versatile Blogger Award!

VB Award

I would like to thank dear Jane Johann http://johannisthinking.com/ for nominating me! Thank you so much for your support!

The rules are:

1-Thank and link back to the person who awarded you.

2- Nominate 15 bloggers for The Versatile Blogger Award- and include a link to their site {and tell them that you have nominated them}

3- State 7 things about yourself.

MY NOMINATIONS ARE:

1. Seth http://sethsnap.com/

2- The contributors at 20 Lines a Day   http://anexerciseindiscipline.com/

3- Jo-ann http://joannltremblay.wordpress.com/

4- Joseph Harker http://namingconstellations.wordpress.com/

5-AJ  http://ajwagoner.com/

6- Karin      http://karinwiberg.wordpress.com/

7-  Ray   http://raymmax.wordpress.com/

8-  Norm   http://oldunionist.wordpress.com/

9-  Andrea  http://andreakbeltran.wordpress.com/

10- Mark    http://peculiaritiesandreticences.wordpress.com/

11- Randy   http://cloudfactor5.wordpress.com/

12-  Gary  http://garylongden.wordpress.com/

13- M. & T.    http://awakeandasleep.wordpress.com/

14- Walt & Marie Elena  http://poeticbloomings.com/

15- Michelle, Mary, Margaret, Lin & Anne http://poetic-muselings.net/

7 THINGS ABOUT ME!

1-I’m a Canadian poet living in the Ottawa area of Eastern Ontario.

2-I am excited about all things poetic.

3-I always think I have more time to do things, so I over-volunteer my time.

4-I try to be honest but respectful in what I say.

5-I have wonderful friends.

6-I write too many poems. Most of them are not on my blog.

7-I have difficulty with goodbyes.

Good luck to all the bloggers on WordPress and keep on writing!

Poems for Days 11 & 13

napo2013button2Still catching up. I am writing the other poems too, may at some point post them here.

The prompt for Day 11 was to write a tanka using the 5-7-5-7-7 format. A friend of mine is president of the local Haiku group. I’m told that good North American Haiku is not 5-7-5 because the Japanese form does not use syllables. So the English form of syllable is not an accurate measure. This of course confuses me. And then there is the famous “turn” in the haiku, which I can never get right. And the form called senryu by the Japanese has somehow changed for the English version, so that human references are okay in English haiku. This means that I don’t write Japanese forms because I can’t quite get it right.

Nevertheless here is a short poem that somewhat adheres to the prompt at least!

TATTOO TANKA-esque poem

Along the main street
the town is closing up shop
boarded up windows
a new store boasts neon flash
Discount! TATTOOS WHILE YOU WAIT!

Day 13 was to take an observational walk and write a calm poem. I tried!

Early Spring Landscape

Remnants of snow leach back into
the ground, brown with flattened grass,
green still sleeping off the winter weight.
Early flowers poke above the soil, tentative
and shy, face to leaf with soggy mash
of old news, expired flyers. Nothing beautiful
yet, no faint tinge of spring on trees,
no budding bushes, air still damp and chill.
But the front lawn boasts its first robins,
and the population around feeders suddenly
triples with common redpolls stopping by
on their way even further north than here.

English: Common redpoll Deutsch: Birkenzeisig

English: Common redpoll (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Carol A. Stephen
April 16, 2013

Day 10 Un-Love Poem

napo2013button2Day 10 poem. I am so far behind with these. I just downloaded a week’s worth of prompts! I skipped the Day 8 one, will come back to that. Here is the un-love poem, though.

One Way Street

The Wrong Version

The Wrong Version (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Loving you was the wrong way
down a one-way street
All go and no return
Direction south without a north
or east with no west.
And you the centre. And me?
Caught half way round the roundabout
with no exits but the wrong one.

Carol A. Stephen
April 16, 2013

Poem post (belated) for April 7, 2013

napo2013button2Ok, I got a little bit backlogged over the weekend, and just getting back to the poems now. A small one for April 7, a sevenling as prompted by PAD Challenge Day 7.

That’s over at the Writer’s Digest site. I’d not heard of the form before, and while mine has 7 lines, I am not entirely sure I caught the essence of the form here.

Just Desserts

He needed space just for him
no near neighbours
the occasional kiss.

She gave him the boot,
no visitors,
the kiss-off.

He was wrong about what he needed.

Carol Stephen
April 7, 2013