Tag Archives: Quillfyre

No-Comfort Zone Challenge Week ending June 17th

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This week I completed a commitment to participate as a volunteer and judge in the 2nd annual Arts Carleton Place Youth Art Competition. Yesterday’s poem was a bit tongue-in-cheek about the event, which was in association with the Lambs Down Festival held in Carleton Place, Ontario.

From the Arts Carleton Place tent, we could just see the field where the sheep were being herded by a border collie, who was doing an excellent job. Around the corner, there were sheep being sheared, and fortunes being told, and many interesting items for sale from cupcakes to CDs of pan-pipe music. If you were hungry, you could indulge in maple syrup taffy or Belgian waffles, lamb burgers or Carib-style chicken. I don’t think I could have partaken of lamb after watching the sheep on the hoof.Besides, I was there to help out with the Arts Competitin. It was good to see so many young artists and poets taking part, and to see this particular challenge through to completion.

And yesterday I began reading The Craft and Business of Writing, to try to get a better focus on and approach to the practical side of being a poet. Is this more procrastination or is it a way to get past this block I have about submitting? I am not sure, but I am hoping that it will get me moving.

On a much more personal note, I also ended an on-off-on-off relationship that spanned the last six years. No going back this time. It was not a smooth closure, but a final one.

Just Another Saturday Poem

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Responding to the challenge over at this blog:

http://anexerciseindiscipline.wordpress.com/2012/06/16/saturday-challenge/

 

Judging at the Lambs Down Festival, Carleton Place, Ontario

Dressed for this morning’s cool weather

by noon I was feeling the heat

at the annual sheep-shearing festival

here in town, just down the street.

There were sheepdogs herding the bleaters

and big dogs just out for a stroll.

We held a youth art competition

with everything under control.

There were prizes for all of the kiddies

and lamb burgers, waffles and fries.

There were buyers and sellers and two fortune tellers

and a big fella selling pink ties.

Carol A. Stephen,  Saturday June 16th, 2012

English: Town Hall and Mississippi River, Carl...

Town Hall and Mississippi River, Carleton Place, Ontario, Canada (Wikipedia)

No-Comfort Zone Update Week ending June 10 2012

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Well, for last week I found out that I have been accepted to participate in the next issue of TheLight Ekphrastic. That will be coming up in August, I believe. I submitted 5 poems and received 3 art pieces back in return. I am to write a poem based on one of those. Then the artist creates a piece based on one of my 5 submitted poems. Both poems and both art pieces then appear in the online issue.  It is a challenge, but it is a good way to stretch myself as a writer.

This week I took my new camera with its 24x zoom out into the countryside for a test drive. I am not a photographer by any means, but I would like to start taking my own pix for use on the blog and perhaps in my chapbooks. A 3x zoom was not going to do it for me. I can see that I have added another challenge to my weeks to come, learning how to use this beast.  So far, I can figure out how to take closeups of flowers. That doesn’t sound like I have progressed very far, does it?  Interesting that the next time I took the old camera out it had completely died. I am taking that as an affirmation of my decision to make this purchase. It is no longer an indulgence, so I can feel good about it! (AND, I did go back and get a refund when I found a competing ad with a better price. So that was another challenge met, since I tend to let those things slide…)

Of course, looming over my shoulder is the other challenge: submissions.  Not much done there yet. But it is still high on the list!  C.