#NaNoWriMo Day 1 Started

First Lines written for Day 1 NaNoWriMo

So I finally put pen to paper and I have lots of ideas jotted down. I have written around 1,500 on this years project.  I will need to write on average just shy of 2,000 if I am to reach the target of 50,000 by the end of the month.

Ruby’s Pocket Treasures

I am creating short stories and poetry for a collection of books for younger readers or those simply young at heart. I want to do mini books 4x6inch that are affordable for kids to buy with their pocket money. To start with I aim to create four titles around the holiday seasons. Here are the very VERY rough mock ups. Click the image below to enlarge (opens in a new window)

Four New Books

1. Ruby’s Christmas Wishes
2. Ruby’s Valentine Kisses
3. Ruby’s Easter Feast
4. Ruby’s Halloween Treats

The mini books will be themed seasonally, and contain short stories, poetry, teasers and puzzles.

Here is a little one I did today inspired by my friend Chris Turnbull whose wonderful Christmas Book is a pure delight ‘It’s Beginning to Look a Lot like Christmas’. 

I have a little toy dog called Miss Ruby Heart (these books are what she would like) when I saw Chris’s poem ‘The Dog Peed on the Christmas Tree’ I felt that Ruby would have to tell on Little Dime  expressing that it was him and not her peeing on the tree.

His Dog Peed on the Christmas Tree

The dog peed on the Christmas tree,
it was not me but him.
He even had the nerve to eat,
the baubles and the trim.

***

He was just a tiny thing,
they called him – Little Dime.
A naughty little pup was he,
when they got him Christmas time.

***

But they love him and now he listens,
to everything they say.
A dog is a family’s friend for life
not just for Christmas day.

***

Remember a Dog is for Life!

Thank you for visiting

If you are taking part in the Challenge Good Luck

Happy Writing

 

#RubyTubeDay Poem ‘The Big Bad Wolf’

Well we hope you are enjoying #NationalPoetryDay don’t forget to visit the website for more information about the day and check out what is happening in your area. Are you still smiling, or maybe you have not checked out ‘Highly Contagious’ on the previous blog post?

#RubyTubeDay Poetry ‘The Big Bad Wolf’

The Big Bad Wolf
came out to play,
with three little piggy’s
for the day.

First he would huff
and then give a puff,
to blow their house down
but the last was too tough.

When Sunday came round
He was really quite bored.
he fancied a change,
and a chance for reward.

He decided to help,
re-build the pigs houses.
So he set off to work,
in check shirt and brown trousers.

Wolf smiled as he worked,
and sang a sweet song.
The pigs were impressed,
and they all sang along.

As they all worked together,
the house was soon finished.
The pigs gave their thanks
yet Wolf’s mood had diminished

An idea came to mind, and a sly smile crossed his lips
as he left with their thanks, and them calling him winner.
But standing outside he took one giant breath,
And with a huff and a puff, there was roast pork for dinner.

Beware of the Big Bad Wolf, make sure he does not come to blow your house down. Call back later for more poems. Don’t forget to SMILE!

Happy Reading

Thank You for visiting

Today is National Poetry Day join in the fun

Celebrate Poetry on Thursday 3rd October 2019

Today is the 25th Anniversary of #NationalPoetryDay to find out more click the banner above. The theme for today is Truth. But we are sharing our great love of poetry and Miss Ruby Heart will be reading some of our poems on her YouTube Channel.

#RubyTubeDay Poetry 01 Nature Shorts

So the first selection of the day is three mini poems 2 in a limerick style. We hope you enjoy them. If you have a limerick share it in the comments below. If you enjoy the YouTube channel please follow and #SpreadTheWord. Thank you.

No Birds.

No birds were there singing this morning,
as the new day around us was dawning.
It’s raining outside,
in their nests they do hide,
snuggled up in their down and just yawning.

Rainbows.

Today I am the soft summer rain,
You are my sweet golden sunshine.
Together we’ll build us a rainbow,
to last, a life time.

The Birds.

I heard the birds singing since dawn.
So I rose from my bed with a yawn,
as I stepped out my door
I said “Please sing some more.
Then I’ll join you for drinks on the lawn”.

Thank you for visiting

Drop back later for more readings

Camp NaNoWriMo Day 18

Day 18 Camp NaNoWriMo

Happy Thursday. So I had a day off and instead of putting my time to good use, I binge watched #UglyBetty on Amazon Prime. NO WORDS Written again 😦

My teaser today is a reasonably short poem. Click the link below to open in a new tab for ease of reading Or check out the words below.

‘Ode to Sandy Brown’ by Rose English

As we stroll the country lanes,
through the forest and the trees
excitement pumps right through my veins
with every tickle of the breeze.
We listen to the birds a singing,
watch the clouds go sailing by
in the distance church bells ringing.
Oh look there is a butterfly.
Suddenly a bright sunbeam
does flash before my eyes,
glinting off a silver stream
it’s beauty amplified.
As we follow with our eyes, the current picks up speed.
it’s flowing to the river; to join up is its need.

*~*

We know the river is quite near,
as the forest opens out
and the rushing torrent do we hear
yet few people are about.
We spot the bridge and stop to rest,
with Sandy on the wall.
Then suddenly become distressed,
as I watch my friend now fall.
Poor Sandy Brown, my teddy bear
he tumbles to the river.
I mutter up a little pray,
but then I scream, and shiver.
The current pulls him far away, there is nobody near,
poor Sandy Brown is lost to me, forever now I fear.

Copyright © April 2019 Rose English

---

Thank You for Visiting

Camp NaNoWriMo Day 07 #WorldChocolateDay

Day 07 Camp NaNoWriMo

Sadly I have done little writing today except to spread the love of some of my favourite book people and their new releases. So as it is #WorldChocolateDay I decided to share one of my poems from last year.

Chocolate Treats

This was a poem written for NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month in 2018) Click the image to enlarge for ease of reading (opens in a new tab)

Chocolate Treats (Words)

Here is a list of chocolate treats, from savoury to sickly sweet. How about some ginger crumble? Or try our sticky Turkish mumble. Perhaps white frothy lemon tickle, sprinkled with choc cherry pickles? Try chocolate with our hazelnut fizz, or maybe with a raspberry whizz. Lavender honey, with a chocolate haze. Or buttercup bon bons for sunny days. Our chocolate pomegranate pips, are sharp and tasty on your lips. Chocolate lavender rainbow kisses, or delicate fluffy choc rhubarb wishes. Try chocolate with some rosemary and thyme, sprinkled with a dash of lime. Pinky white chocolate is our violet frost. With crystallised petals, it looks embossed.

Chocolate thread through a maple crackle, is an easy dish to tackle. Or if your tooth is not so sweet, why not try a savoury treat? Cheddar cheese is sure to please, when wrapped up in a chocolate breeze. Or perhaps a chocolate covered brie, washed down with our chocolate and blackberry tea. A delicate white chocolate yarrow parfait, is not only tasty, but keeps sickness at bay. To encourage sleep within a blink, wild parsnip in a chocolate drink. Will help to lull you into sleep, without the need to count those sheep. Now close your eyes and visualise our mini chocolate butterflies.Copyright © Rose English April 2018

Thank You for visiting. Happy Reading
Enjoy your chocolate

#NaPoWriMo Day 30 Final Day

#NaPoWriMo Day 30 and the last day of the Poetry Challenge

Today’s video resource is this short film in which the artist Iris Colomb “translates” the minimalist poems of the Russian poet Eta Dahlia into gesture drawings. This is another great illustration of the way that poetry and other art forms can intersect and inspire one another. This video also shows that the rhythms and sounds of poetry can cross language boundaries, allowing a form of communication beyond the merely literal.

And last but not least, now for our final (but still optional) prompt for this year! Taking a leaf from our video resource, I’d like you to try your hand at a minimalist poem. What’s that? Well, a poem that is quite short, and that doesn’t really try to tell a story, but to quickly and simply capture an image or emotion. Haiku are probably the most familiar and traditional form of minimalist poetry, but there are plenty of very short poems out there that do not use the haiku form. There’s even an extreme style of minimalism in the form of one-word and other “highly compressed” poems. You don’t have to go that far, but you might think of your own poem for the day as a form of gesture drawing. Perhaps you might start from a concrete noun with a lot of sensory connotations, like “Butter” or “Sandpaper,” or “Raindrop” and
– quickly, lightly – go from there.

Happy writing!

Picture by Mareefe from Pixabay

Raindrops

The raindrops
nourish the little
flowers

Copyright © 2018 Rose English

Thank You for visiting and thank you to the NaPoWriMo website for some great prompts

#NaPoWriMo Day 29 ‘Calm Before A Storm’

#NaPoWriMo Day 29 Poetry Challenge

The penultimate (optional) prompt! The poet William Wordsworth once said that “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.” For Wordsworth, a poem was the calm after the storm – an opportunity to remember and summon up emotion, but at a time and place that allowed the poet to calmly review, direct and control those feelings. A somewhat similar concept is expressed through the tradition of philosophically-inclined poems explicitly labeled as “meditations,” – like Robert Hass’s “Meditation at Lagunitas,” the charming Frank O’Hara prose poem, “Meditations in an Emergency,” or Charles Baudelaire’s “Meditation.”

Today, I’d like to challenge you to blend these concepts into your own work, by producing a poem that meditates, from a position of tranquility, on an emotion you have felt powerfully. You might try including a dramatic, declarative statement, like Hass’s “All the new thinking is about loss,” or O’Hara’s “It is easy to be beautiful; it is difficult to appear so.” Or, like, Baudelaire, you might try addressing your feeling directly, as if it were a person you could talk to. There are as many approaches to this as there are poets, and poems.

Happy writing!

Nonet Poem

Calm Before A Storm

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

For ease of reading click the image above or read the words below.

Calm Before A Storm (Nonet)

Tranquillity, calm before a storm.
Weather turns, wrong word out of place,
emotions stirred. Dark clouds burst
thunder crashes, lightning
flashes, once – then gone.
Anger spent, ‘til
once again
there is
calm.

Copyright © 2018 Rose English

Thank You for visiting

#NaPoWriMo Day 28 (WIP)

#NaPoWriMo Day 28 Poetry Challenge

The video resource today was suggested by longtime Na/GloPoWriMo participant Elizabeth Boquet, of Oaks to Acorns. She and a fellow group of poets in Lausanne, Switzerland, have been engaging with the concept of meta-poems – which are poems about poems! In this video, the poets Al Fireis, Lily Applebaum, Dave Poplar, and Camara Brown discuss Emily Dickinson’s “We learned the Whole of Love.” You can find additional background and video discussions of other meta-poems here.

And now for our daily (optional) prompt. As you may have guessed, today I’d like to challenge you to try your hand at a meta-poem of your own. If you’re having trouble coming up with a poem about poetry, and would like to take a look at a few examples, you might check out the Wallace Stevens and Harryette Mullens poems featured in the article about metapoetry linked above, or perhaps Archibald MacLeish’s “Ars Poetica” or Kendel Hippolyte’s “Advice to a Young Poet.”

Happy writing!

A Short Haiku

I am actually still playing with yesterday’s sonnet prompt but I thought this would fit here nicely for today a poem about poems.

Sonnet (Haiku)

Sod it, sonnets are
too much messing. Iambic
pentameters suck.

Copyright © 2018 Rose English

Thank You for visiting

#NaPoWriMo After Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130

I love this poem by Constance Bourg  a twist on Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare check out today’s prompt for the #NaPoWriMo poetry challenge Day 27 and find Sonnet 130 -> HERE

#NaPoWriMo Day 25 ‘Ice Filigrees Painted on Glass’

#NaPoWriMo Day 25 Poetry Challenge

Today’s featured video resource is this short film featuring a reading of Keats’ “To Autumn,” along with a sumptuously sensuous dessert. This video makes me hungry, and also, weirdly nostalgic for September!

And now for today’s prompt (optional, as always). Taking a cue from our video resource for the day, and from Keat’s poem, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that:

• Is specific to a season
• Uses imagery that relates to all five senses (sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell)
• Includes a rhetorical question, (like Keats’ “where are the songs of spring?”)

Happy writing!

I have a work in progress for this prompt but in the meantime here’s a Triolet

Ice Filigrees Painted on Glass (Triolet)

Click image for ease of reading (opens in a new window) or see the words below.

Image Larisa Koshkina from Pixabay

Listen on SoundCloud

Ice Filigrees Painted on Glass (Triolet)

Behold youthful memories of past Decembers
stirred by the bitter, biting breeze
as smoke taints the air from the chestnut vendors embers
behold youthful memories of past Decembers.
Most flowers now sleep as autumn surrenders
ice filigrees are painted on glass, and snow dusts skeletal trees.
Behold youthful memories of past Decembers
stirred by the bitter, biting breeze.

Copyright © April 2019 Rose English

Thank You for visiting