Tagore Poetry Competition

Hello faithful readers of the Hive!

Greetings from Queen Bee and may you produce works as splendorous as the healing magic of royal jelly, my darling busy bees.

Now, some juicy and much needed break - sampad is organising a Tagore poetry competition which ends at the end of the month. This is excellent news for the new year and I do hope that many of you will take part and be a part of this wonderful initiative to ressurect Tagore whom I love.

Tips:
Read some of Tagore's famous works here: http://www.schoolofwisdom.com/history/teachers/rabindranath-tagore/gitanjali/, and look out for the aspects of his poems that you finds endearing or powerful in terms of impact and style.

My list goes like this:
seasons - he makes many references to the seasons and I share that connection with the seasons
journey - he speaks of everyday things and most of his poems seem to have a journey of their own.
speech - the intrusion of speech in between verses reflect real life situation and situate the poem and the persona in real life.

The talking about Tagore, you end up thinking of love because his poetry is laden with love.

This poem was the first thing I wrote since I could not think of a specific topic I wanted to write about yet and so I wrote on love.

On love

The morning mist, sweetened with the fragrance of blooming lilies

Come to me in your cold embrace, causing tingles and shivers

To dance along my spine playfully as you pluck at my heartstrings

And strike a merry tune. “Oh, what a merry fellow!”

A fiend, a thief, a lover, a demon! Your eyes as bright as a newly

Blossomed lotus; what names could I call you but these? My line

Of sight would always seek your form, my ears thirsty for the

Seductive timbre of your voice, your sudden laugh could catapult me

To the heights of Heaven and the depths of despair. “Be still!”

I thump my fist against my chest and hope the drums beating wildly within

My bosom will cease – but they break against my heart slowly, with the teasing lilt

Of his smile, the sway of hips, like the sway of the waves,

You drown me in the sweet misery of young love. 

Please share your thoughts with me or discuss some of your ideas. :)

Notice

Dear faithful followers of the writing hive,
Firstly I apologise for my tardiness. And secondly, which is the matter at hand: updates of the Just Write Project.

Now, as I have been busy with school work amid other commitments, I have not had the time to look into the legal aspects of self-publishing, nor have I started looking for printers. However, I am most disappointed to see so very few entries.

So far, I have had only three people send in their entries, and only one of them is Malaysian.

I cannot convey to you how disappointed I am by this but I am determined to see this project to the end.

I will still be awaiting your entries till the day I send it in to print of give up on it completely.

Forever yours,
Loe.

Smoking in the 2nd Class

Hello my faithful readers,

This is the 'appetizer' for our next post: modern visual poetry.
Feel free to enjoy this 'sumptuous' spread of literary devices and revel in its definition-defying or rather the re-defining of the free form.

To view the poem, open it in a new tab and click on the image to enlarge. 

Mapping the City

The city is the place we live: we weave our lives and experiences around it and it precisely this that makes writing about the city so powerful. Whether in prose (narrative) or verse (poetry), when witing about the city, the writer is able to imbue the city with the values and emotions the want to ascribe it. When mapping a city, you can garb it as majestic, fantastical, unfamiliar, evil, barren, lifeless, rich, poor, tyrannical et cetera.

When mapping a city, it is useful to 'personalise' the city by language (by use of jargon), diction (choice of words), imagery, metaphor or metonymy and not to forget - memory. Memory is a very powerful tool, not only in writing but in any field. The way we perceive things historically, temporally (time) and spatially (space) can alter the ways we perceive the many different elements and experiences.

That is why "walking through the city" is important when writing poetry. It gives an important insight into the everyday life of everyday people - it talks about the politics of place, space and the inhabitants of that space; time  and the passing of time; popular culture and the populace itself ( and potentially a comment on demographics).

Below are links to two different poems that I think maps a city well and there is a lot to be observed and understood from these poems:
In the City and Mumbai.

All the best,
Loe.

Re-imagining and Re-defining Poetry

Our goal here at the Hive is not not just to suggest, address and digest all kinds of writing - although my focus has been largely taken up by the Just Write poetry project. I realise, after going through the few submissions trickling in that many people still do not understand why people write.

People write for many reasons - to express themselves, share thoughts and feelings, but beyond that, we write to problematise and document our everyday struggles and issues we face throughout our lives. Poetry is unique in its approach to persuade, disuade, suggest, portray the different issues through feelings, imagery, word play and sound.

While we're on this track, my main point is this: poetry need not be traditional (same rhyme, same stanza length). Personally, I suggest the free-verse and free-style of poetry as in can be much more liberating and allows for much more creative freedom.

At the same time, by employing certain techniques such as visual poetry (a future topic), palindrome (something like a mirror effect, also a possible future topic) can be more liberating artistically. The results sometimes forces the writer to move out of their comfort zone and write 'outside the box'. At the same time, it can be much more pleasurable to write, as well as to read.

For example,
below is lipogram (where an alphabet is dropped from the entire poem). The alphabet 'a' has been dropped from the poem.

Power is purpose corruptive;
corrosive forces curdling
white into sour milk.

Power is purpose corruptive;
Toy soldiers lumbering below
ruins of empires, broken.

Power is purpose corruptive;
Control too tightly eventually ruptures -

Fright, that flighty fiend has come home.

The poem is polysemic, in the sense that it carries a different meaning to different people. The rhytym does not flow and it is intentional - to disturb the reader, and provoke him or her to question 'power'.

Disclaimer: I am in no way suggesting that the above poem is the best. It is just an example of free form. Also, I would like those of you reading this blog to question the lack of consistent imagery here and how that affects a poem through its impact.

Example: Transgender poetry

The Pink Elephant
(source: http://allpoetry.com/poem/7354667-The_Pink_Elephant-by-teamblake)

It was the pink elephant Just standing in the middle of the living room Waiting to get noticed Hoping to one day be the topic of conversation 

Some days I swear it had polka dots Other days It just blended into the background of the kitchen walls 

We all knew it was there But didn’t know how to approach it So we tiptoed around Hoping not to disturb its slumber 

The thought of truth being spoken Ignited flames to my throat Choking me At the sight of honesty’s release 

Images of dark blue Ripe purple and a burden of black Reminders Covering my chest and back 

A reminder of my differences And keeper of my secrets 

It’s the slurs Thick with hate Thrown across class rooms Bouncing off walls like rubber balls high off caffeine 

Scars so deep Dignity is nowhere to be found Barbie’s host their non-fat fraps with extra whip Whispering 

of sissies and dykes who roam hopelessly With their elephants in tow Their whispers so loud 

They course through the shallow halls Kicked up and passed around By the football team And slammed into the shadows 

The pink elephant It follows me everywhere
It’s kept on a leash Like the secrets resting on the tip of our tongues 

Waiting, waiting to one day 

slip free

In Focus: The Queue

by Lawrence Mainja, Zimbabwe
source: http://www.voicesnet.org/displayonepoem.aspx?poemid=155879

In the queue, sweat drippingTumies rumbling and
The sun’s rage scotching bald heads
Hoping faces just glance
To the wavering horizon
Spitting out grief
This act, like inborn
Draws us to this place
And the question:
Where we are? 

Waiting
Trees are transpirating
Maybe one coughs
Yet we rub our brows and wait
Not forgetting the persona non grata
Heads we nod, and sovereignty we cherish
What lustre these words have
The fuhrer spits venoms
Hands, hoes, spades are torn, clapping
Knowing tomorrow is the queue
In telepathy we agree
That order and power
Endowed with god’s grace
Is to be left wriggling
Till we all shrink