Object-ional Poetry

 

Today we were inspired by two objects that one of our poets brought into Artsenta. These found objects are special to him and through their presence and the naming of the objects, have become works of art in their own right. The above object is named the Blue Knight. Our poets were asked to respond to the objects, to describe them and their emotional response, and to imbue them with their own story. Here are the poems for you to enjoy!

BLUE NIGHT

A song is a book of smiles

brought home at the bend

of the road. The blue

angles of the innocent are

in the drifting cloud standing

like trees in the swinging stars

Golden is the end of this river

lost in the night of my eyes

The never ending circles that plunged

my creaking footstep, the silver 

shadows I threw cast into

the well of listening reeds.

By Edward Genet

TIN SOLDIER

War creeps like slow metal

waves on a field of sand.

Glass blown mansions of

wonder. The birds beating

Heaven, stalled in the full

stop of the grave.

The pen is a prow of

resurrection in the emotion

of an hour.

Dragons of the bedraggled

sprinkled the pavement

in a tinsel of bombs.

The sky is a verse of art.

A towering lift in the 

lilt of freedom.

By Edward Genet

BLACK IS BACK

Can you find

a simple spot

of colour?

elevate dark dreariness

rough time, debt to pay, doubt

When you dress to face new days

bring a fragment

to shatter the black

By Karen Judge

BLUE KNIGHT

Payne's Blue
Shady
Metamorphic
Solid but bouyant
Crust
Slab like
Coloured fossils
Oozing
Imitation of nature
The properties of plastic
The shape of a rock
Hard, yet light
And did I mention
It's industrial stardust?

By Matthew Donn

LANDING GEAR

A keel of a meteor
Heavy
Hard
Cold
Defunct
Destroyed
Shrapnel
Shards of a rocket ship
Molten media
Folding layers
Crevices and cracks
Oxidation
As a word of caution
Be very careful handling lead

By Matthew Donn

LANDING GEAR

If you look at the rock made of lead.

Broken ragged edges, smooth bumps.

The belly of the rock is smooth and flat.

As if it was carefully cut.

I imagine this rock is a tiny geological

piece of land. As waves crash into the rock

(aka the smooth slope of bumps)

deeper into the cold waters

where pressure raises and

darkness closes toward the 

ocean floor. I imagine the ragged

edge is the little life existing among

corals, seaweed and sponges.

Who knows? You could see an

imaginary shipwreck!

By Kirstin

Poetry Spotlight #2

Julia is one of our most consistent and passionate poets at Artsenta but she has a range of interests that you can find out about in this selection of poems. It's been amazing seeing Julia develop her writing and her confidence over the years. Thanks for sharing Julia!

ACTING LIFE

Last year I performed on stage

This year I signed up again

I love the idea of doing it again

It gives me the chance

To be social

Show my true self

Meet new people

And have a lot of fun

I performed twice

One at the end of term 2

Another at the end of term 4

To an even bigger crowd

Acting means a lot to me

As it not only gave me the chance

To try something new

But the friends I met the year before

I got to see again

Those friends also introduced me to

Staying up late and having night outs together

I’ve become brave and more social

I am so grateful for Acting Class

 

 

MY INSPIRATION 

He’s a believer 

He’s strong

He gives money to charity 

He keeps on going no matter the hate or love

He works hard every day 

He’s got a big heart

He always tries something new

Takes criticism very calmly and doesn’t fight back

He keeps his friends close

His music brings joy, love, hope and peace into people’s lives

Videos and pictures explain him in a thousand words 

He smiles everywhere he goes 

He just makes you feel strong 

No matter what happens to you 

He would be a wonderful friend 

If I ever get to meet him 

One day 

 

 
A FANTASTIC DAY 

Flying along a sunny sky

I wonder where I could find some yummy food?

As I’m very hungry!

I spot a big Laburnum Tree

Mmm… delicious leaves!

I then thought, I need a shower

The sun vanished and out of nowhere 

Rain came pouring down 

I didn’t want to fly in this rain

So I stayed on the tree

Spread out my wings

and started to wash myself

Who cares what those earthlings think?

I lift up my wings, my tail

Then my head

Once clean I ate more leaves

Until it got dark

So I flew back home

To my friends and family

To tell them about my day

and my shower in the rain

What a fantastic day I had

being a wood pigeon 

 

- Julia Godfrey

Poetry Spotlight #1

We have some wonderful poets at our creative writing group. They've come and gone over the years and some people lead busy lives which means they can't attend every week. But it's wonderful to get to know and appreciate someone's personal style and so we are going to spotlight some of our poets over the next few months. Today we feature MJD who has a story telling vibe and often speaks to a connection with nature. 

I AM THINKING

I am thinking of you my old friend the wind
You howl and bite
But you're not such a bad fella
You bring the breeze
You sing with ease
You speak to me
Ring ring!
Upon beginning my day

I am thinking
I'm thinking of droplets of rain now evaporating
Should I call up before calling in?
I wonder what's worse
Showing up at any given moment
Or never showing up at all

The oaks, the old oaks
They are proud
They're certainly tall
I wonder what they'd think of all my questioning
Probably nothing at all

TAIERI MOUTH MULTI-SPORT

Over the beach
up the river
through the forest
along the coast

Contestants of the race
are spread like butter
over a vast landscape

Once upon a time
it was eels and lamprey
who flocked to the awa
racing upstream

Today bright coloured bibs
line the scenery
like fairy lights
through mud, bush, sand,
gravel, roadside

Racers oozing like blood vessels
over undulating terrain
like a heartrate graph
peaks and troughs
the sky is the limit

Waves crash
sweat beads
seagulls soar
gears grind

If the landscape could talk
it would applaud the people and say;

Well done on returning to your roots,
showing what it means to be alive
free like manu
varied like the ngahere
with the power of Tangaroa

Blessed is the motu
blessed is the awa
blessed is moana
blessed is the maunga

May a gentle breeze
flow over the land
Haumi e, hui e, tāiki e!

 - MJD

Invisible Poetry

Poetry is often a solo affair so it's good to collaborate for a change! This week we took the theme of "invisibility". We all had a piece of paper with a different take on the theme and were then asked to write one line and then pass the paper to the next person to add a line. Each writer was only allowed to see the last line. This can lead to some delightfully random results but also wonderful synergies and a few laughs!

A CLOAK OF SILENCE

Wrapped in stitches of stillness

The stars went out, coffee cold

As the sun rose and the dew set

Everything looking so still

Deadly waters look shallow but run deep

What lies beneath?

A stern look on an empty street

The cold copper sprayed the blurry night light

And lit my face with a soft glow

Hidden in plain sight

Like a treat for sore eyes on a moonlit night

The moon itself stares back

The moon knows me.

I THINK THEREFORE...

I can evaluate

A situation with weight

I loosened my tie

And let out a soft cry

Relaxing through my body

Wellbeing courses lifeblood to my soul

I miss some things

Others were a delightful departure 

But I sank like the moon in no-man's land

Without a ripple in the surface of my mind

Going straight away, very faithful

And truthful, feeling blessed.

TOO SMALL TO SEE

Too quiet for people to take notice of me

I hide behind my fences

Polka dot defences

Ran all over her dress

And seeped into the earth

Looking like a hidden pin

Sharp tack solitude seeping

Downwards toward

The depths of morning

Revealing the truth hidden in the sky

Too big to comprehend, too far to see

Like it's a mile away

I AM INVISIBLE

No one sees me in the room

My feelings tell me gloom and doom

This place feels like I am surrounded by stone

My hands frozen, movements too slow

I caught the feeling like a chill in the rain

It crept up my spine like a spider

Feels like you're closing in on yourself

A prisoner of its own making

Of my own making

The weight on shoulders

Lifted my weightless eyes like a bird in the night

And breathed a sigh of relief.

A DARK NIGHT

The moon lost his way to heaven in the curtain of the night

His thoughts dark, his mind clouded

Can't find his way around

Directionless, stumbling in the dark

Engulfed it seems

In blackness, he seeks

The girl in the white dress with raven tress

Sung to the invisible moon

Hearing howls and growls in the silence

Are they werewolves, or only swearwolves?

Howling, so lonely

But a generous scream.

THE WIND

Breathe, breathe on me

Blow me around

Typhoon, whirlwind, all over town

Swirling up fallen leaves and scattering

Making the day dance

My tapping shoes skipped the gravelly path

Gleeful, grateful 

Feeling free, high in the sky

Pie-eyed dreams and misty eyes

Make my eyes tired

My eyes dance too

Flowing rivers strumming the street

Poetry on Display

 At Artsenta we are lucky to have several opportunities to share our creative writing - at events, on our radio show, in our street front windows, and also in our frames at the Dunedin Hospital. Here's some of the poems on display by our fabulous Writers Group poets.

Zen & the Art of Lawn Mowing

'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' was a hallowed book in the 1970's counter-culture scene. Perhaps not the easiest book to read but it did inspire this week's writing session. Well we couldn't resist once we heard an account from one of our writers about their experience mowing the lawns at their croquet club and the challenges of their ancient ride on mower which sounded more like a cross between a chainsaw and a bucking bronco than a mindful Zen-like experience! So we started with lawns and quickly moved to blossoms which was much more... ahh... Zen. 

SWEET CUT GRASS

Up and down

            round about

Thrust here

            push there

Over and about

            Oh the smell

Of sweet cut grass

Mum did it

Dad did it

            sometimes

At Cherry Farm

            they did it too

And at Shetland Street 

            round and under the trees

Oh how I love listening

            to the loud mower 

            in bed

And it will be back

            again

- by June

SPRING

Cherry blossom

Like clouds passing

In the sky

Fluffy too

And pink 

Marshmallow-yummy

Lightly moving

Individually

How I like to be

Under the dappled shade

Always welcoming me

Heartily Spring

- by June

Writing with handcuffs

This week we imposed restrictions (the handcuffs) on our writing. Known in writing circles as a lipogram, this is where a letter is ruled out of use and to make things challenging ours was the letter 'e'. The last two sentences had 17 e's so you can imagine some trepidation within our group. It's incredible to think that in 1939 Ernest Wright wrote a 50,000 word novel without a single e! How hard can it be? Our second lipogram-like challenge was to 'flatten the dictionary', in other words write a poem with no tall letters - that's b, d, f, h, k, l, t. None of this was easy but we did it and some great work ensued. The first poem below is the no-e number and the next two are the flattened poems.

Hang with human
 
In a room

You saw a human

That is a girl

You walk up towards

To talk to this girl

It's amazing how the girl and you click so fast

You both got a lot in common

All day you hang out

At night

In your room

You think

What a fun day you had

Starting in that room

Spotting that human

 
- Julia Godfrey

exposure

privacy, none

open, exposure

anger    rage   pain

worse case scenario

so many nosey eyes

see me

exposure

privacy gone

- Jenn

a new way

a new way

viewing no anger

owning peace in you

a mirror in me

seeing a new overview

unseen in our now

a vigor as never

was in our scene

- S B P Davis