Celebrating one of our own

Many congratulations to Catherine (Foster) for winning 1st Prize in a competition run by First Time magazine with her powerful poem, The Prodigal Son. And thank-you, Catherine, for sharing it with AppleHouse:

The Prodigal Son

It’s the hogshit stink rising with the sun

that’s done for me.

My hands webbed, gloved with the stuff.

And the cornhusks: dry as old harlots I’ve had

when shekels ran low.

One shindig after another. Sex

like shooting stars. My belly a wineskin,

now scooped out, shrivelled as the last fig of summer.

Birds could perch on each rib.

A cowl of shame.

Dare I shadow my father’s house?

The utterance of my name- 

each letter an ulcer on his tongue?

Will I be but a mote of dust

shooed out by his hirelings?

I set off, sandals flap like dying fish.

Vultures fidget in my path.

My Father-     

arms outstretched in folds of the wind.

I stagger, kneel.

The forgiveness of a fatted calf,

purple robes to cover skin pleated over bones.

Words of silver to quench my thirst.

My son who was lost is now found.

And my brother?

He vomits envy.   

I thought it would be a good idea to set a poetry prompt in response to Catherine's poem. Choose a biblical character and write a poem in their voice. 'Persona' poems, as they're called can be written in a number of ways:

1. You stay true to that character's experience and re-tell their story.

2. You use that character as a mask to talk about your own concerns (e.g. using the voice of Eve to talk about feminist issues)

3. You update the character and their story and give it a contemporary 21st century spin.

There's no shortage of characters to choose from and given the season you might even like to choose one from the nativity story.

Looking forward to reading your work.

Write well.

Lynne

x

Oven cleaner, apples, open fires

Hello from Kent where I've spent more time inside the oven that I really wanted to and where the cardboard boxes are gradually diminishing. But not in my writing room. We left all our library shelving in the house in France so I'm waiting for new pine bookcases and a new pine desk which won't be here until after Christmas. It's not that I really need access to all my books but I do feel better when they are all facing me, the bright colours and words on their spines smiling at me as I pass, and not lying on their backs in the dark. But not long now.

Home means apples - there are 20 acres of apple trees just outside my door. It means log fires - we've kept the wood stove alight 24/7 since being home. An open fire in late autumn and winter is one thing I really missed in the house in France.

This week I've paired things that I haven't paired before: apples and sausage-meat (for a savoury supper), and big paintings and little paintings (to create a different effect on the walls in the lounge and kitchen:

Placing them next to each other like this made me think of haiku, of the phrase and fragment (or fragment and phrase) construction a lot of contemporary haiku take:

The haiku at the end of my last post was phrase/fragment:

fall, yet new leaves
on the plane trees:
we pack to go home

The longer part of the haiku, the phrase, extends over the first two lines and the fragment (a single image or comment) is confined to the third.

Free verse poetry can play with similar constructions e.g. long lines alternating with short lines, or perhaps a poem made up from regular stanzas that closes with a single line set apart at the end. The poet's craft lies in knowing why we do this, the effects that changes in pace will have on the reader, on their breathing, how isolating lines will change their relationship to the words on the page.

Write a poem that changes its form at some point during its development. Think about:
long lines
short lines
changes in stanza structure
a poem of two halves
long sentences
short phrases

But choose your subject matter to suit this form change. Remember that form arises from subject matter, that it can be used to effectively reflect emotional tone.

Write well.
L
x

Goodbye and au revoir. And quite soon, hello again.

Many thanks to those of you who posted poems in response to the end of September's prompt. Catherine, Keith, Martin, Glen, Jim, Anne - I'm sure you'll understand that organising the move from France to the UK has got in the way of me responding individually to you all as I usually do.

And thank you to everyone who has written a poem and posted it to AppleHouse over the last fours years and those of you who follow the blog and pop in to see what's happening every now and then. Yes, four years! AppleHouse began in December 2007 and I never anticipated that I'd still be here in 2011.

But I am and you are too. And once I get settled into our home in the UK I'll be back with more prompts and ideas and look forward to reading more of your poems.

See you next month.
L x

fall, yet new leaves
on the plane trees:
we pack to go home

Changes



Hugging the Plane tree in the garden
when we first arrived

I'm moving from the South of France back to the UK at the end of October. I have mixed feelings about the move. We've achieved so much here but it hasn't always been easy (you can read a little bit more about it here).
I'm not at the point of having to say goodbye yet but it does seem that I spend a lot of time thinking about it.

The end of September.
All traces of our summer guests
have gone: sand rinsed from showers,
beach towels folded away.

Under the terrace
the deflated paddling pool
gathers leaves.

We will not be here
much longer: palm trees, the Mistral,
the smell of coconut oil
at the supermarket check-out,
things of the past.

Four years of our life.
We measure it in numbers:
additions, subtractions,
try and make sense
of what we gain, what we lose.

A language. The scent of bread
carried on a sea breeze. The company
of the sun. The people we love
far away at the end of a phone.

Let me imagine a year ahead:
my parents' will celebrate
their 60th year together.
The smell of apples in the cold store.
The cat will have captured
a foreign territory and accepted it
as home. Which is what

we all crave: home.

I find it relatively easy to feel 'at home'. I can adapt to circumstances and situations. Sometimes it's a temporary home, a writing retreat that's made more familiar with a bed-throw, a rearrangement of the room's furniture. Sometimes it's more permanent: learning a language to feel part of a community.

Write about changes. About home. About the year ahead. Or the one you're leaving behind.

Write well.
L x

Welcome back to AppleHouse

And welcome to September.

How is yours? I've had two September experiences so far. Both in one day. I left Kent, UK yesterday which was a surprisingly summery 20 degrees and a welcome comparison to the wet and cold August. The change in the weather made me want to stay longer but the flight was booked and we took off from London City Airport, flew east along the Thames and out over the southernmost part of the North Sea.

1 hour and 50 minutes later we landed at Nice and drove to Antibes where it was 32 degrees and sunny, but so humid. This morning I couldn't tell where the wet quilt cover ended and I began as I struggled to lift it over the washing line.

Coming back to France in September meant I missed most of our crop of figs. I took a bowl of them back to Kent and left instructions with my cat and house sitter to help herself to whatever ripened in my absence.

All that's left now are a few, small late ripeners. September is too late for them. I missed their best time.

Here's a poem called 'September' by Linda Pastan, a poet I've previously introduced on AppleHouse Poetry

September

it rained in my sleep
and in the morning the fields were wet

I dreamed of artillery
of the thunder of horses

in the morning the fields were strewn
with twigs and leaves

as if after a battle
or a sudden journey

I went to sleep in the summer
I dreamed of rain

in the morning the fields were wet
and it was autumn

from Carnival Evening: New and Selected Poems 1968-1998
W.W. Norton & Company, 2009

Buy from The Book Depository

September is our ninth month but takes its name from 'septem'/seven as it was the seventh month in the Roman calendar.

We tend to associate September with autumn but in the Southern hemisphere it's the beginning of spring.

September was always a mark of going back to school. More recently it reminds me of 9/11 and the attack on the Twin Towers.

Write about September, or the shift from one month to another. Or dreaming. Or waking up. But anchor your poem to a particular time of year.

Write well.
L
x