Moonlight slithers across this dark island silvers ocean waves outlines the midnight ferry as she looses moorings slips out of the bay and across the night to Sao Miguel
I watch her lights shrink into the distance imagine the landing tomorrow morning after a night on ocean dark
I’d like tell you about a great online workshop/ community that I have been part of for the last few months. We have detailed prompts, critical feedback, video interviews with key poets, and lots more.
I never try to sell you something. This post is just me wanting to share news of something I’m really enjoying and think many of you would too. I’m enjoying this new community as much as hearing from all my WordPress contacts, and that’s saying something. I really value the support and friendship I have found here on WordPress.com – you are all wonderful.
My new find is run by Jo Bell, an established UK poet, writing coach, and mentor at places like the Arvon Foundation and Poetry School. In recent years, she has built several lively online spaces for poets – each one something between a village and an academy. This time she is on Patreon, and the community is called The Poetic Licence.
At The Poetic Licence, each month we get a prompt, complete with ideas and sample poems. You can share your poems for feedback, or not as you please. But there is so much more. As members we can come up with ideas for Jo, and so there is now a series of video interviews with other poets where they read three poems and answer one question. ( Members get to suggest the question). There are also giveaways, news of poetry competitions, as well as opportunities and programmes in the UK. There are regular discounts on real-life or online workshops, and occasional giveaways. Jo also posts ad-hoc videos with hints and tips. One recent example was when she suggested thinking about ‘word groups’ to enhance the strength of a poem.
Jo needs to earn a living from her poetry, and so the cost is currently £4:99 per month. It is open to all, regardless of location. I’m on a limited income, but what I’m getting out of this as a poet is well worth the small payment to me. I understand that it is now possible to have a free trial.
Whirring spinning singing tilting weaving space-time in the abyss of creation making moment by moment inch by inch will take aeons spun out on the reel of quantum
Space dreams out time time is the distance travelled by a life eternity is a place all is understood but not understandable
Memories of the excuses I used as a child to get out of doing the washing up. The boss who told me I was too clever. All those hours happily lost in books, of all kinds. His bright blue eyes outshining all others and taking me away. Attending that Rock concert in Paris that was surrounded by armoured cars, all pointed in towards us, the audience. Getting those promotions. My huge pregnancies. The searing incandescent grief of losing a baby. How much we love our now adult sons. Realising we had become workaholics. That time we all went sea-kayaking. And swimming under a hot waterfall. Attending the funerals of too many friends. All those Covid Lockdowns and how we dealt with them. Trying to enjoy life as much as we can. Finding new things to see and do. Talking to a restaurant owner about his secret recipe for green tahini. Sleeping in the ruins of an ancient Abbey. Loving each other since we were seventeen – and still as crazy. This poem however is living its own best life, has a way of saying things, even those things I didn’t know I needed to say. Maybe you need them too. Maybe you don’t. But it has told me that life and poetry are not competitions. Just things to be survived. And enjoyed.
Kim Whysall-Hammond (The Cheesesellers Wife) 