I first came across a ‘golden shovel’ poem in Mslexia (https://mslexia.co.uk/). The form was created in 2010 by Terrance Hayes, a contemporary US poet, who used it to pay tribute to an underappreciated US poet Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000).

The process is as follows:

• take a line (or lines) from a poem you admire;
• use each word in the line (or lines) as the end word for the lines in your poem while maintaining the order. If the line in the original poem is six words long, then your poem will be six lines long. You should be able to read the primary source as an acrostic going down the right hand side of your poem.
• Give credit to the original poem and poet (goes without saying).

I had a go at this with a couple of lines from Charlotte Mew.

Not for that City
‘It is for some remote and quiet stair.’

Péri en Mer
‘The crowded mast cut black against a sky
of fading rose.’

Between Species
April 2020

We were going some,
those days before we lost the remote.
We stashed it somewhere safe, behind the sofa perhaps. And
took to watching each other in the awful quiet,
only able to raise ourselves to a stunned and silent stare.

Once the places become too crowded,
people stand like masts
along the pavement, cut
off from each other. Wearing black
for the loss. One day you’ll lean against
me, we’ll watch a sky
in the last of fading
light, smell the perfumed rose.

I was surprised to find I had taken lines from poems written in the 19th century and turn of the 20th century and they became about now. Maybe that is inevitable.

Why not have a go yourself? If you like, you can share your experience or creations in the comments on this blog post.

The image is inspired by ‘The Wave’ a woodcut by Japanese artist Hokusai, created 1829/1833, the first of thirty-six views he did of Mount Fuji. I have obviously replaced Mount Fuji with Scarborough castle. It is a mix of collage and acrylic paint.

Once a writer puts their work into the public domain, it is for the reader to discover meaning and emotional connection if it is there for them find. So please read the poem and make what you will of it. On the other hand, I enjoy hearing from writers about their own take on their work, so that is below too.

The Day the Sea Froze Over at Scarborough

I walked to the shore as usual
and all was silent,
the scream of the seagull froze
above the un-pounding waves.

The crystal curve caught in mid-plunge,
surely the weight of it will crack
the prism, release what lies beneath:
the crab, the weed, the worm?

People stand and stare
at the roar-less sea, there’s ice enough
to burn a thousand tongues,
cold enough to ache.

The starlings fly and drop
and reform once more, our comma,
our full-stop, our question mark
punctuating the sky.

Even as I walk, the thaw begins.
Water droplets blindingly glitter,
slush edges the beach,
the dregs of souring ice cream Sundaes.

And we who have seen
turn to comfort one another
from the glare of others’
gleaming disbelief.

The Day the Sea Froze Over at Scarborough is a classic ‘what if?’ poem. The first time I saw snow on the beach, I was surprised. And I have always been interested by paintings of frost fairs on the River Thames. I began to ponder, what if the sea froze here? I enjoy watching nature and this has also gone into the poem. Lastly, but maybe most importantly, is the final verse. This covers a host of situations where a small group has seen or experienced something which others do not quite believe.

If I had the luxury of writing a PhD, I would like to research the idea of what drives artists in their particular direction. 

In my musings, often when I am looking at a blank page, I wonder why it is that I must write poetry. Which then leads me off into other realms. Why does one writer write plays and another short stories? What drives an artist to make ceramics, or do a screen print, a collage, a mural, or paint in oils on large canvasses? I have no answer to these questions, but I would love to see a research project that focussed on the psychology of the creative drive. 

Myself I write poetry. It is at the core of my being, I am unable to stop producing poetry, admittedly of variable quality. And yet at no time in my life have I been able to see my writing, my very essence, as a means to generate income. It sustains my soul, but I have never exploited it to sustain my body. And like the visual artist who specialises in a particular form of their craft, I don’t just write poems. I write poems that follow precise form. I have written haiku, sestinas, sonnets, ballads, and the glorious villanelle. 

My faith in my work has ebbed and flowed over the years. Many times I have listened to critics who do not like form. Critics who have no respect for a structured rhyming scheme. And I have felt belittled and unworthy. At these times I have written poetry that does not adhere to specific form, and I have felt unsatisfied. 

Currently I am feeling strong. At the wrong side of 65 I feel it is time to accept who I am and what I write. Form brings me joy. Form brings me satisfaction. Form brings me a sense of great admiration for the writer who has clung to the coat tails of their belief in their own art. And so now, without apology, I have launched myself into a new venture. I am writing a series of Villanelles. I aim to write fifty in a year. I have no plans for publication. This is a challenge and a goal I have set myself, simply because I need to, and because I can. 

So, here is a Villanelle I wrote last month, whilst walking in the cemetery with my dogs. We came upon a small, fragile bird’s skull, and it took me straight back to the days when my children were small, in particular my youngest, now 30, and about to join the naval medical corps

Skull

In the cemetery we found a skull,
Its beak still intact, we thought it must be
a seabird, maybe, or a herring gull.

Lifting it gently by the mandible
you kissed and caressed it tenderly.
In the cemetery we found a skull:

bone-white fragility a tangible
early encounter with mortality.
A seabird, maybe, or a herring gull

had come to grief. Its span ephemeral
in that long, hot summer when you were three,
and in the cemetery found a skull.

You took it with you in your carryall
the year you left for university.
Was it a seabird? Or a herring gull?

Boy and skull; you were inseparable.
With hindsight it was unmistakably
a seabird. Certainly a herring gull.
In the cemetery we found a skull.

Sue Wilson, February 2019

Sue Wilson lives in Scarborough having retired there after a long career in the caring professions. She was a Probation Officer and an Addictions Counsellor. When not writing poetry she can be found walking her two Trailhounds, Norah and Doris, by the sea, and thinking about the poetry she’s read, and the poetry she’s writing. When not walking she will be in the swimming pool, another great environment for thinking about metre and rhythm. Her body is sustained by copious amounts of vegan food. In 2017 she maintained a Facebook page “The Ginger Vegan Baker” where she published an original vegan recipe every day for a year. Each recipe was accompanied by step by step photography, and, of course, photos of her dogs.

by Jane Poulton

a five oʹclock south-east breeze sweeps north shore
cooling the front to twenty one degrees
      uncurling strands of cirrus pass
      and wave crests break in glassy foam
      as the wandering crowds swarm
      waiting

on the sands beyond the pier and winter gardens
a bird breaks his silence  pew pew pew  he calls to a man
in a voice like liquid air distilled  talk with me
     dumbstruck
     the man replies in broken breaths
     enchanted

twenty notes in twenty seconds is all the bird can spare
before returning to his flock to change his coat
from powder black to shining black
glossed violet-blue and green
     and tonight the man will brag about his matchless talent
     flirting over oysters with a tower ballroom dancing queen

looking back I wonder if
the calling bird saw the goldwings glow at dusk
or the evening star break the west-south-west horizon
or the waning crescent moon waxing in the mirror ball
or if he flinched as the switch was flicked at nine
and the town was set alight or if he heard the cheers
or guessed that many childhood years had passed
waiting for dark nights such as this
when the promenade would pulse with paintpot lights
and we could ride wide-eyed on spangled trams rattling
through the gaudy razzle-dazzle

Common Scoter from http://www.rspb.org.uk

This beautiful poem, Common Scoter: North Shore, 3^rd September 2010,  is one of the 67 poems in Watch the Birdie, an anthology published by Beautiful Dragons. Each poem is dedicated to one of the birds on the RSPB’s Red List of the UK’s most endangered species.

Where to get the Book: All profits from Watch the Birdie will go to the RSPB.  Copies can be purchased directly from Beautiful Dragons: https://beautifuldragons.net/price-list

Here the poet of Common Scoter: North Shore, 3rd September 2010, Jane Poulton, explains the making of her poem:

My work on the poem began with wide-ranging research that revealed serendipitous coincidences that would determine its form and content. 

One of the main wintering grounds of the Common Scoter (Melanitta Nigra) is Shell Flat, a sandbank off the coast of Blackpool’s North Shore.  Shell Flat was once the proposed site for a large wind farm development by Cirrus Energy.  The project was cancelled in 2008, partly due to concerns about its impact on the Common Scoter population. 

I found a short recording of the bird, made at North Shore at 5pm on 3^rd September 2010—which also happened to be the date of the annual switch-on of the Blackpool Illuminations at 9pm that evening. Prior to the switch-on, the crowds had been treated to an additional light-show spectacle—a parade of Honda Gold Wing motorcycles, decorated in fairy lights, driving slowly in convoy along the promenade. 

With further research, I was able to establish the weather and sea conditions at the time of the recording, and which stars and planets would have been present in the northern sky.

The poem contains official technical descriptors about the bird, the sea and the weather, which I enjoyed for their slight awkwardness and chose to let stand as ‘found’ words and phrases.  The poem is divided into two parts.  The first is about the bird, the recording of its call, the recorder of it, the prevailing weather and sea conditions, and the pre-switch-on atmosphere of the town.  The second part begins with a personal speculation about the bird, leading to a recollection of annual childhood visits to see The Lights, for which my anticipation and delight never waned.

A footnote for those who don’t know it.  Some people ‘get’ Blackpool and others just don’t.  It’s a traditional seaside holiday resort on the north-west coast of England; colourful, loud, brazen—and famous for its annual Illuminations.  Strings of coloured lights and illuminated, animated tableaux run along The Prom (the coast road) for 8km, from Starr Gate in the south to Bispham in the north.  Much speculation and excitement surround the ‘switch-on’ and the matter of who will push the button.  Once lit, the Illuminations shine brightly each night between dusk and late evening from September to November.  Since 19th September 1879, when 8 arc lamps lit up the promenade with “artificial sunshine”, ‘The Lights’ have become a much-loved, major tourist attraction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yceBTuCqBos

Biog of Jane Poulton
As a child, I loved words and drawing.  I eventually chose to study Textiles, but never stopped ‘playing’ with words.  I have earned my living through visual art and design, and only began to write seriously after moving from Manchester to North Yorkshire.  Here, the scope of my writing has expanded and I have become braver with words.  The sea and the landscape, the dark skies and weather patterns—the enormous wonder of it all and our place in the universe—are irresistible influencers.  

http://www.janepoulton.co.uk/

http://sitematerialobject.com/

I am delighted to welcome to my blog poet Adrienne Silcock who ponders on how poetry communicates.

Given that any poem is a communication (even if it’s to our own inner selves!) and many of us want to write something that someone else can read and enjoy, it’s surprising how difficult it can be to express a thought, even when we know exactly what it is. Isn’t that what Alfred J. Prufrock was indicating in Eliot’s famous Love Song – “That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all” ?

How often we come across a poem that seems far too simplistic, or that we simply don’t get. The poet knows what they are saying and no doubt there are complex thoughts behind either style, but we don’t receive the message. In order for the reader to reach the final line of a poem with a sense of satisfaction, there has to be a connection. They may not necessarily understand everything the writer is trying to say but will nevertheless be left with a feeling of comprehension. And from a writer’s point of view that has to be bull’s eye.

So as I edit that first precious draft which is the nugget of my poem, not only am I trying to grow the poem, but I also try to step into the reader’s shoes. How might a reader interpret this? What might a reader see? Will giving the words a specific poetic form aid understanding? Will the music of rhyme help? How much can I expect the reader to interpret metaphor without blatant hint? Is the idea clichéd? There are so many ambiguities in life, in art, in communication. If I can achieve with my poem a resonance, an emotional recognition where my reader understands my message, my human theme, then I feel that I have succeeded with my poem – even though the lines may be open to quite different interpretations. But it is a constant struggle.

These were the kind of thoughts which passed through my mind as I walked the wintry landscape of the Dordogne this January. And these are some of my poetic notes:

Dordogne haiku
Woodpecker hammers
high in the frozen forest
now silence echoes

Direction
If it’s pain you feel
when white egrets fly over
the brown field in winter,
then it’s not I who can explain
or understand.
We both watch, see the same thing
from differing directions,
the birds landing, settling upright
upon the dark earth.

Adrienne’s work has been published widely in the independent press. Her first novel Vermin (Flambard) was published in 2000. Her second novel Controlling Aphrodite was shortlisted for the Virginia Prize 2009. Her third novel The Kiss is published on Amazon. She has self-published two poetic sequences Flight Path and The Fibonacci Sequence. Mudfog published her poetry pamphlet Taking Responsibility for the Moon in 2014 and she is a featured poet in Arachne Press’ 2018 collection by six women poets Vindication.

Links:

Website: www.adriennesilcock.co.uk

https://arachnepress.com/books/poetry/vindication-poems-from-six-women-poets/

http://www.mudfog.co.uk/portfolio-item/taking-responsbility-for-the-moon/

For a copy of Vermin, please direct message me on Facebook, or see the links on my website.

I am delighted to welcome Sarah Askew to my blog, with her poem, ‘Not A Minute’s Silence’.

Not A Minute’s Silence
A muted explosion
of stamping feet
on sticky floors.
Mouths shriek

against my ear plugs.
Ten seconds of madness
to honour the silence
of Monday’s voiceless concert-goers.

The walls shake around me,
inside me. I felt
the reverberations, the impact,
three days late.

Sarah explains the naissance of her poem:

I wrote this poem in response to the Manchester Arena attack in May 2017. Just a few days after the attack, my partner and I had tickets to another concert at the O2 Academy Bristol, which still went ahead despite the increased terror alerts, but with extra tight security.

So there was a highly loaded atmosphere, not to mention the incredible heat wave that had descended that Spring, and the place was packed. The walls were sweating, shoulders and elbows jabbed, and leather clad behinds refused to budge. At one point I attempted to find the bar for a drink but was soon forced to retrace my steps as I could wade no further through the immovable wall of bodies, faces invisible to me in the dark.

And then the singer, outspoken as she is, invited the crowd to take part in, not a minute’s silence, but ten seconds of madness, in memory of the victims from Manchester’s concert. They had gone out that night, she said, to have fun. We were asked to honour them, not with silence and sadness, but with noise and madness; to make up for the fun they never got to have. The band counted us down, and the foot-stomping, hand clapping, cymbal-crashing, vocal-wailing began.

I hadn’t realised quite how anxious I had been about attending the concert until I was stuck in the middle of such chaos. And then it occurred to me: what must it have been like for those people in Manchester – in Paris, in London, in the middle of any terror attack – to be in the eye of such a storm of noise and panic and confusion. The chaos surrounding me was safe, controlled, expected. Theirs had been dangerous, sudden; fatal.

And, despite the fact that I was very much in my own bubble- ear-plugs in, eyes closed, feelings (up until this point) about terrorism in general, pretty much on mute – I found that I was crying. Relief, sadness, fear, shame, all washed over and through me and I remembered why I myself had given up singing with a band just a few months before: I hate chaos.

When I reflected upon this (uncharacteristic) flood of emotions at my poetry group the following Monday, this poem arrived…

Sarah (aka The Pocket Poet) is an award-winning poet and writing for wellbeing enthusiast based in Wiltshire. She has lived with various mental health issues, such as depression, anxiety, eating disorders and OCD for as long as she can remember and has always used writing as a therapeutic tool to promote self-awareness and self-expression. She runs writing for wellbeing workshops for groups and individuals and also offers a bespoke poetry writing service for those looking to give a personalised poem as a gift.

You can find Sarah at:
http://thepocketpoet.weebly.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ThePocketPoet

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarahthepocketpoet/#