Category Archives: poetry

Adam Of Jerusalem, Church History Novels, poetry

Prose or Poetry?

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After a very busy week writing in my work-in-progress, a novel, I had two not-so-busy weeks. Each week I added words, even having a couple of days with a what I consider a good word count. However, I could have done better. Still, Adam Of Jerusalem now sits at over 25,000 words. I’m close to 1/3 through, depending on what the final word count turns out to be. I’m shooting for 80,000, though not sure it will be that high.

But, I find my mind turning away from the novel to…poetry. No, I’m not writing some new poetry, but am thinking of submitting some to a magazine or two.

I have never completely left poetry while concentrating on prose. I still monitor the poetry critique board at Absolute Write and post a critique from time to time. I’m currently reading a book on Robert Frost (will post a review in due course), so that has increased my interest.

So when I saw an internet post about a magazine that is dedicated to short poems, and that the submittal deadline for their next issue is the end of this month, I took notice. For the last ten to twelve years almost all the poems I’ve written are short ones: haiku, cinquains, a rhyming quatrain or two. Some of these I think are pretty good, especially the haiku.

So, I’ve made up my mind to make a submittal to this magazine. My main problem is I haven’t done a good job of keeping track of what poems I’ve written for the last decade. Most of them are on one of two places at the house, I think; though a few may be hiding in the pages of the blue folder I carry from home to work and back each day, with whatever papers I think I need.

Tonight I start the process of finding my short poems, preparing them for a proper file, and deciding what to submit. The mag says it wants ten poems, submitted by e-mail by 30 June. I should have no problems meeting that deadline, so long as I get started tonight. Possibly I’ll report back in Friday’s post whether I’m on track or not.

book reviews, poetry

Book Review: Beyond Words

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Some time ago I bought Beyond Words, a book of poetry by internet friend, Poppy White-Herrin. After the purchase, I let the book sit a couple of months before digging in. Then, I read the book slowly, one or two poems at a time.

Available from Amazon, it is a book well worth having in your poetry library.

In fifty-seven poems, Poppy tells us a story. Oh, the poems aren’t necessarily “linked” into a story, but I sense they are linked nevertheless. You’ll find quite a bit of angst in this book, angst over a relationship that has gone bad.

Or, maybe, it’s about a relationship developed then shattered. In the poem “Fantasies of True Love”, coming early in the book, Poppy closes the poem with this stanza:

Dreams of you like stars glistening in the night,
dangling among the darkness overcasting.
Soar through the clouds unto heaven
where true love is everlasting.

In these excellent lines, I sense hope. Maybe it’s not a current relationship, but rather the dream of one.

Two poems later, in “I Am To You”, we sense the relationship may be going bad in these lines:

you cannot abandon me
to wither in sunlight
for I am your need
to receive bounty.

Not much further in the book, in “Love in the Winds of Rapture”, we are still seeing hope:

Now I know your faults, yet I am still beguiled.
I see the flare of love in your reflection by the light of my own,
it leaps to high winds of rapture, making its presence known

Alas, right after this poem, the next two, “Lukewarm” and “Release” turn the story around. The first gives us this:

We walk between youth’s fire
and the bitter cold of old age,
embrace what seems like defeat.

and the second gives us this:

Let me go,
please…

I don’t want to fly away,
I simply need to breathe.

I love those last two lines, which say much in so few words, giving the reader lots to think about. And we’re only 15 pages into a 57 page book at this point.

Did the poet mean to tell a story? Did she mean to give the progression from starry-eyed love to “embrace what seems like defeat”? Was it all planned out for maximum effect on the reader?

Or, did this all happen by accident, the poet choosing poems from her larger collection, poems intended to gain an editor’s notice and lead to publication, with the story being unintentional? I would never ask the poet this question. Better to let me, the reader, ponder what the poet wrote, what voice her narrator uses, and let the poems speak to me as they do. Who knows: maybe the next time I read this book the poems will speak an entirely different message to me.

With all my reviews, I always askif the book is a keeper, and will I ever read it again? Yes to both questions. I have a shelf of books of poetry in the downstairs library annex (a.k.a. the storeroom). I keep them there because no one but me will likely be interested in them. Poppy’s will be on the shelf, along with Frost, Wordsworth, Thomas, and many others. Perhaps I’ll pull this out again in five or ten years, and again enjoy these poems in a variety of forms, along with some excellent free verse.

Who knows the message it will say then?

Christmas, Danny Tompkins Short Stories, poetry

Thinking About The Journey

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Yes, I live in the past. While the discoveries are exciting, they also tend to make me melancholy at times. Christmas is almost always one of those times.
Yes, I live in the past. While the discoveries are exciting, they also tend to make me melancholy at times. Christmas is almost always one of those times.

Something about this season of the year, Christmas, always makes me reflective of all things past. Each year I write a post about something from childhood Christmases. I’ll be doing that, probably next week, possibly the week after.

The last few days I’ve been thinking of the journey my life has been. In my better moments for the last decade I’ve said that I would title my autobiography The Journey Was A Joy. I must admit, however, it hasn’t always been a joy. Sometimes it’s been a struggle. Rarely has it been routine, though in fact I love and crave routine. My journey through life has been anything but routine.

Almost everything I write about is about the past. Very little is contemporary, and, so far, nothing about the future.
Almost everything I write about is about the past. Very little is contemporary, and, so far, nothing about the future.

What’s got me thinking about this recently is looking ahead to the unknowns in the journey. One is retirement, which is now only 1 year 23 days away. Sure, I long for the time of not having to go to an office every weekday and tax my brain. But I also fear doing without the income. I have savings, but far less than I intended to have.

Other unknowns are ahead. Lynda’s mom is now 92, and has been living with us for a little over two years. Her care is becoming more difficult. It falls mostly on Lynda, as I’m away all day, and it’s not easy for her. A woman marries and moves out of her mother’s home, and doesn’t expect to move back again. But with her mom moving in with us, that’s essentially what happened. Lots of water under that bridge, lots of history to deal with. It’s not easy.

There’s the unknown of how long I’ll have the physical ability to keep up our property. We’ve lived at our house almost 15 years, the longest we’ve ever been in one place since we were married almost 42 years ago. Someday I will struggle with the upkeep. When will that be? Five years? Ten? Or hopefully twenty or more? Someday we’ll have a decision to make about that.

Remember, these are short stories which, by definition, are fiction.
Remember, these are short stories which, by definition, are fiction.

So those unknowns about the future are very real. There are also thoughts about the journey I’ve been on. From Mom’s death, to being a latch-key teen, with no parent in the home most of the night, to college experiences, to traveling half-way across the country for work and a fresh start, to traveling to the Persian Gulf area for work and career advancement, to adventures in Europe and Asia. To the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait when we lived there and having no home to return to in the USA, to finding work in (of all places) Arkansas. To revelations about family, learning of many relatives in three major discoveries over a twenty year period.

Sometimes, when I dwell on this, it becomes almost overwhelming. I suppose that’s why people who deal with mental health tell us not to dwell on the past. But as a hobby genealogist and historian, I do live in the past an awful lot.

Ah, well, the melancholy will pass, as will desiring the past more than the present. Winter will fully come, with it’s full on, refreshing chill. Some snow would help, would remind me about joyful childhood romps in the snow. While waiting for that, I’ll leave you with one of my poems.

Conflicted

I long to live that day when I will rest
and cease to tax my brain. Then I will die,
and stand before my Maker. Yet, I’m blessed.
I long to live! That day when I will rest
is somewhere out there, far beyond the quest
that now demands I try, and fail, and try.
I long to live that day when I will rest,
and cease to tax my brain, then I will die.

miscellaneous, poetry, Writing

Money and Creativity

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I regularly read two publishing industry blogs to keep up with the news and opinions. One is Between The Lines, the blog of the Books & Such Literary Agency. This agency serves the Christian booksellers market, and could be considered closely aligned with the trade (sometimes called traditional) publishing model. Their five agents rotate through the week with a daily post. The other blog I read is The Passive Voice. This is by a lawyer who re-posts and sometimes comments on news from the publishing industry. This blog is closely aligned with the self-publishing model. Both blogs have a community of readers/commenters, and I comment at both blogs from time to time.

Creativity comes in many sizes. Sometimes it even comes inside the box.
Creativity comes in many sizes. Sometimes it even comes inside the box.

Being part of the self-publishing industry, I tend to be more in agreement with TPV than with BtL. I keep reading the latter, however, because I want to keep up with news and trends in the other side of the industry. I’ve tried other blogs, but find BtL as easy to read, and it provides an adequate sampling of what I’m looking for.

So, all that said, I recently read this on the BtL blog:

“The need for money is the bane of art. Oh for the days of good old-fashioned patrons of the arts. Writing for the paycheck is the fastest way to kill a career. Each book needs to be better than the last, if we’re to build over time.”

This irks me. “The need for money is the bane of art.” How? How is commercial viability a bad thing, but whatever is not commercially viable a good thing? Commercial viability (a.k.a. artists making money off their art) indicates people are willing to pay to own or use the art. This, in turn, is a reflection of what society believes is good art. The inability of an artist, by which I mean anyone who does artistic things as a career, which would include writing, to sell his art indicates that society doesn’t believe he’s producing good art. Who is a better judge of what art is good: society, or the artist who produces it?

The writer of that phrase is implying that the need to produce art that society will accept as good and pay for somehow compromises the artist’s creativity. Follow the supposed train of thought by the artist: I need to feed myself and my family. No one’s buying the art that I produce, even though I think it’s good. But they are buying that [genre of book; type of painting; method of sculpture; etc.]. So maybe I should just emulate that artist and produce art I don’t this is good so I can feed my family. I guess I won’t be able to produce the stuff that I think is good but which society apparently doesn’t think is good.

Kids know. Sometimes playing inside the box is better than all those toys outside the box.
Kids know. Sometimes playing inside the box is better than all those toys outside the box.

What’s the solution to this? The original poster said, “Oh for the good old-fashioned patrons of the arts.” Their solution: For the artist to find a source of Other Peoples’ Money, to allow them to produce art they believe is good, even though no one wants it. And this is supposed to free the artist to produce whatever they believe is good. This is supposed to advance the arts, to produce stuff that people think isn’t worth paying for?

I could go many ways with this. Is artistic creativity really stifled by having to produce art that people want to buy? Cannot an artist be creative while staying “inside the box” or “between the lines”, or within the range of commercial viability? I think they can. I’ve said often before that my favorite type of poetry is formal poetry. Give me a sonnet, a ballad, a haiku, or a cinquain any day. Give me those constraints, and I’ll produce something with artistic creativity. Inside-the-box creativity is equally creative as outside-the-box creativity.

It always amazes me that people want to pigeon-hole creativity by saying it can only happen outside the box, and that it can’t happen on the lines. It’s funny that, in wanting the maximum artistic freedom, they say creativity can only happen one way. Once again, I reject that. I believe my creativity is best released by being presented with boundaries, and, since my art is the written word, finding words that do something new and different within the boundaries.

That’s my opinion, and I’m sticking to it. Any comments?

Bible study, books, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, poetry, Preserve The Revelation, self-publishing, Writing

It rains! It rains!

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Today, Friday, we are having band after band of thunderstorms pass over us here in Bentonville. As I’ve mentioned before, I like the rain; it does my heart good. So, on a Friday afternoon, I’m upbeat. I have completed a number of miscellaneous tasks this week, including today, and am ready for the weekend. If the storms continue (as, I believe, they are forecast to do), I shall read and write, file and discard, clean and organize to my heart’s content. If the rain holds off, I have plenty of outside work to occupy my time.

My writing work has been slowly progressing of late. I add a little every now and then to Preserve The Revelation. I do the same to Thomas Carlyle: A Chronological Bibliography of Compositions. Almost every day I review and add to my Bible study titled “Entrusted to My Care”, which we are scheduled to study in our adult Life Group beginning in four weeks or so. Of poetry, I add nothing. The villanelle I wrote last month I hope to get back to in a week or so, tweak it, then submit it to the anthology; the deadline for submittals is Oct 31.

Then, the other major task I have at hand is the cover for the print version of In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. I’ve been waiting for two talented cover artists/creators to get to it. For a variety of reasons, some legitimate, some not, they haven’t gotten to it in over a month’s time. So, my top priority is to get it done this weekend, uploaded to CreateSpace, a proof copy ordered ASAP, and the book published ASAP. It won’t be as good as if a pro did it, but it will be done, and the book will be available before the Cubs win the World Series—if they do.

My cell phone just gave me a severe weather alert, the first one I’ve received on this. Yet, the thunder has about quit. I may not go by Home Depot on the way home. We’ll see.

poetry, self-publishing, Short Stories, Writing

Works-In-Progress

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Finally, I have a minute, with no other posts pressing on me, to write about what I’m working on in my writing career. I’ve been trying to get to this for several weeks, and another thought for a post keeps popping up and pushing this aside. Not today.

My main work-in-progress is a short story. Titled “Hotel Whiskey Papa”, it’s the fourth in my series about Sharon Williams Fonseca, an unconventional CIA agent. The Agency has another, junior agent who shows great promise, dogging her, for they are concerned that she steps over the line from time to time, doing Agency work in an illegal, or at least unethical, way. In a twist, I’m writing this on manuscript, not on computer in The Dungeon. I sit in my reading chair, with only an end table between me and Lynda, and write on the back of already used papers. I typed what I had last weekend, and some on one other day. On my computer the document stands at about 3,800 words. Since then I’ve written another thousand in manuscript, and am approaching the end of the story. I had in mind that these stories should be 4,000 to 6,000 words, so I’m on track. As soon as it’s finished, proofed, edited, and proofed again, I’ll publish it. I’ll make my own cover for this one.

Then, yesterday I actually wrote a poem, something more than a haiku that is. And I’m not denigrating the haiku form or saying it’s easy, but something longer? I haven’t written one in a couple of years, or maybe even five years. I’ve written some song verses in that time, but no stand-alone poems. This one is for an anthology being put together by the present poet laureate at the on-line writers group  Absolute Write. It will be a themed anthology of contributions by AW members, the theme being a traveling carnival. I told her I would contribute anything I had already written, but that I had no inspiration or energy to write something new. When the theme was announced, I had my poem “Magic”, which sort of fit, so I submitted it. But sometime on Tuesday or Wednesday a phrase and plot came to me that would fit the theme. I quickly forgot the phrase, but it came back yesterday morning. As the morning went on I saw a way to write the poem. During the noon hour I started it, and finished it off and on by mid-afternoon. I quickly posted it to the anthology critique forum before I lost my nerve. I’m not saying it’s good, but it’s done, subject to improvement, of course.

What else? I’m trying to get In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People published in print form. I have the book formatted, and am waiting on the cover. Two different people have given me photos of Wrigley Field to use, and two others have said they would do the cover. Alas, when you’re having people work for free, other things get in the way. Hopefully I can get this done next week some time. I may cobble a cover together myself this weekend.

I’m also improving some e-book covers. Recently I received a notice from Smashwords saying that four of my e-book covers did not meet their minimum standards. These are my older covers, made and posted before they had minimum standards. I guess they are just now getting around to enforcing. that. I completed one of them last weekend, or maybe last week some time, and uploaded it. Yesterday I got the word that it was acceptable, and the book—actually a short story—is back in the premium catalog. Only three to go. I’ll hopefully get one done this weekend.

That’s it as far as writing work. I’ll post something here and elsewhere when HWP is published. And, once things change, I’ll write again. Actually, I just thought of one other thing. I’m working on a Bible study to teach in our adult Life Group. But it deserves a post by itself. Maybe that will be next.

poetry, Writing

Poetry No Longer Comes To Me

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I began writing serious poetry on August 31, 2001. Yes, I remember the date, because I was at home, laid up after a heart attack scare (it wasn’t one), and during those days at home decided to try my hand at it. The poem I wrote, “The Spring House”, is included in the one poetry book I’ve published, Daddy-Daughter Day. One person has told me it’s the best poem she’s ever read. Of course, she’s only seen it after it’s gone through much pondering and editing.

But of late, say for the last two years, poetry barely comes to me, either by inspiration or perspiration. I think if I should decide this evening to sit and write a poem, I would be unable to. I’d stare at a blank sheet of paper, perhaps write a title, and then…nothing.  Knowing a poem should consist of images and metaphors, with lines as the defining unit, I’d search my brain for an image or metaphor that would illustrate the title, but then…nothing would pass out of my brain. I’ve even found it impossible to write simple haiku (though, granted, my rules for haiku are somewhat more restrictive than what many people use).

I could speculate long on why this has happened. Is it life closing in on me, squeezing me? Is it the heavy concentration on prose writing over the last four years? Is it the turmoil in the world? Is it any of twenty other things I could write? Or probably the combination of them?

Or, perhaps, I was destined not to be a poet. Perhaps that was a false start on my writing career. Perhaps prose is my field, not verse. I used to sense inspiration on my noon walks, or while commuting to and from work. I’d observe something in nature, and begin a haiku in my mind, without being able to write it. Perhaps one in four or one in five of these might find its way to a completed haiku, and survive until I was back at the office or at home and could write the words on paper. I have dozens of pieces of paper with these haiku on them, waiting to be gathered and put in a retrievable file.

But, as I say, even these simple stanzas eluded me. But yesterday, on the way home, I was thinking about this. Since inspiration wasn’t there, I decided to try perspiration—work at it. I observed the sky. Cumulus clouds were ahead of me, to the north: towering, white, fluffy. The same clouds were to the west, with the lowering sun giving them a back-lit quality. Traffic was more or less normal. My health, well, yesterday was a bad day. I had an increase in sinus drainage and, I think, a high blood sugar episode. I spent half the afternoon simply sitting at my desk, getting nothing done, but being there in case someone needed me.

I took all these elements, and over five minutes of driving was able to hack out a haiku, using my rules, which include the 5-7-5 syllables as being the longest allowed, not a fixed amount. I did break one haiku convention, in that the third line is actually a metaphor, whereas haiku are supposed to be images, not metaphorical. I doubt my editor will care.

I thought it wasn’t bad, and said it over and over till I was home. There, I became immediately involved in supper prep and forgot to write it down. It wasn’t till about 10 p.m., more than four hours after the writing, the I realized I needed to commit it to paper. Fortunately I remembered it, found a note pad, and “created” it in tangible form. That means it’s copyrighted, even in manuscript.

It’s still not in a retrievable file yet. Perhaps that will happen tonight. And I’m not saying it’s a good poem. But it was a creation wrought of perspiration, finding a little inspiration from intentional observation. I’ll take it, and maybe build on it. I considered posting it here, but think I’ll not inflict it on my couple of readers.

Daddy Daughter Day, poetry

Daddy-Daughter Day

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CS Cover with green font abt 362x262Well, I did it. After years of having the book done, but wanting to do something a little different with the production, I finally decided this was the time, and published my poetry book Daddy-Daughter Day.

I’ve written about this before, perhaps several times on this blog and my other blog. It was originally titled “Father Daughter Day”, but I was talked into changing the name by a number of people. As I’ve written before, it is a story told in a series of poems. A dad has promised to spend a Saturday with his. He forgot about it. When she reminded him at the crack of dawn, he told her to get lost, then thought better of it, and decided to fulfill his promise to her. The book describes the day they had, the activities they did (to some extent a broad outline of the activities), and how each reacted to those activities and to being together.

A goal I had for the book, or rather for the poems in the book, was that each poem should stand on it’s own as a complete work, and yet should fit seamlessly into the book as part of the whole story. I haven’t yet had any feedback from readers concerning this goal, though the poems I’ve work-shopped on-line seem to have worked in this regard.

Sales are slow, as should be expected, but I’m hoping it will catch on.

 

 

 

Daddy Daughter Day, poetry

Turning It Over

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CS Cover-03 thumbnailOkay, I think I’m going to turn over my cover for Daddy-Daughter Day to someone. Jake has helped me with it so far. We looked at it today to discuss some tweaks. I showed him how some of his letters needed tweaking, to which he agreed. He showed me how some of my color work didn’t quite make the grade, which I could see after he pointed it out. He then said if I would send him the G.I.M.P. file he would see if he could upload it into Photoshop and take care of those few things. He also saw where some of the letters he drew were not on a straight line, which he wanted to fix.

CS Cover with green font 343x263He says he will have it done in about a day. He’s taking a few days of vacation for a stay-cation, with family in, but said he’d have plenty of time to do this. This means I might be able to upload the book to CreateSpace tomorrow, and order a proof copy pretty quick, assuming the cover size is correct. I think I did that correctly.

Turning this over to someone is both a good feeling and a not so good feeling. It feels as if I’m failing at learning how to do something. Yet at the same time it’s a relief not to have to deal with it.

Will I ever learn graphic arts programs enough to where I understand what I’m doing and feel comfortable doing it? I doubt it.

The two photos in this file are the two book covers I’m considering, after the guy’s tweaking. I posted them to Facebook and received comments. The green font one was ahead, but a decent but not comfortable margin. I’m anxious to get this done.

Carlyle, poetry, Writing

Little Snippets

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Clearly my world has changed in the last couple of days, and it’s fall. As I got ready for work this morning, I heard hard pinging on the skylight in the bathroom. At first I thought that strange, because we had no rain in the forecast. Then I realized it was acorns falling from the nearby oak tree. Not many branches extend as far as the skylight, but a couple do. However, this seemed to be too many pings relative to the probable supply of ready-to-fall acorns, and I realized it had to be wind pushing them from other branches onto the skylight.

Sure enough, when I went outside for my commute, a blustery wind greeted me; not strong enough to have been heard in the house, but strong enough to easily move leaves and push acorns. It’s definitely fall.

I got in my pickup and started it, and almost immediately lines for a haiku came to mind. This is my commuting writing endeavor. Either on the way to work or on the way home, though more often the former, a haiku will come to me while I’m driving. Typically the first line and perhaps the third line come right away. As I drive the 15.6 miles to my destination, I work on it in my mind. The second line will eventually come. By the time I get there, I have a completed haiku—subject to further revision, as always.

That’s if I don’t forget it between the time I park and get to a place where I can write it. So often the lines leave me, and another writing idea is lost. Today, however, the lines didn’t leave me. I had worked on them enough, especially massaging the second line, that by the time I got to my desk, then went and weighed and got coffee, came back to my desk, had my devotions, prayed, and woke up my computer, I pulled out one of the prior days from my desk calendar, and on the back of it wrote the haiku. I don’t know that it’s final, but it meets all the criteria I usually put into a haiku.

A haiku isn’t much, but it’s writing. It’s creativity focused. I’ll take it, and be glad for it during the Time Crunch. Just as I’ll take the little bit of research I can do a few days a week, in the letters of Thomas Carlyle, which will work towards a couple of future (maybe) projects.

The Time Crunch will pass and I’ll dedicate more time to writing. Meanwhile, I’ll have to find joy in these small snippets.