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.

In Focus: War

Leaping the Peace
We are the Peace-keepers
Who walk in desert lands,
We are the Army’s friendly face,
Machine guns in our hands.

We walk the wilderness
Where others fear to tread
In a mine-infested city
Populated by the dead.

We’ve been programmed to destroy
We’re itching for the kill
So whilst we’re winning hearts and minds
The hunger lingers still.

When politicians wash their hands
Of torture and of shame
When lethal weapons blow you up
Then we’re the ones you blame.

We are all the young men
And women you despise
Who bear the guilt of nations
In the bleakness of our eyes.

And when in uniform display
Our coffins high are borne,
We are your sacrifice
Your slaughtered lambs come home.


by Lynne Colgrave, UK


Source: http://www.voicesnet.org/displayonepoem.aspx?poemid=193746

In Focus: Malaysian Poet, Wong Phui Nam

These are further examples of both form, style and content. To date, Wong Phui Nam remains a favourite poet of mine. His style, in my opinion, especially his description of the landscape carries such love that can only be compared to one of the earliest Indian poets to write in English - Rabindranath Tagore.

HOW THE HILLS ARE DISTANT

Even the film-makers will have to admit,
the Malay annals upon the people’s consciousness
would wash like the tide
piling jetsam upon the jetty steps,
you said, as the car hit
ninety, beetling into the obsessive shell
of a parched landscape. And K.L. hours behind.
Dodging the disappearances and appearances
of the road, the cradled ego growing blind
against the body’s chafing would hide
from the terrible squashing of the sun,
threshing in daydream played out in the street…
of the Capitan China, the one
who, befogged in private vision,
laid down his law and had his women,
drove through the town in his carriage and eight –
for our forefathers left much behind
bringing mostly, when they came, the body
to contend with, did not notice the landscape,
the nodding vacuity of a malformed head.

At year’s end, the sense of annunciation touched only
the windows of the solitary.
And at the garden party, the bishop,
between meeting the community’s leaders,
picked at his beard, thinking perhaps of his study,
colonnades… the cathedral town…
The Capitan’s horses go clip-clop,
passing like the breeze down the midnight streets.

Our conversation petering out… silences…
Daydreams settle into laterite and gibberish of vegetation,
which made nonsense of Saint Francis’ mission.
De Sequiera’s troops over the ridge
forgot the meaning of their Christ and King.
Under the flare of the sun’s declension
the hills ignited. We passed the region
of the dead, the circular descent of those
who died and had committed nothing.

Our room’s on the second floor.
I am rather tired after today;
I feel the darkness of Babylon at the door.

NOCTURNES AND BAGATELLES

The river grows harsh at the bend,
speech broken onto boulders, tears at root-ends
of strong reeds. A lizard moves 
and crawls in the mimosa 
which spread and trail leafless 
across the rough stones of my heart.  
This is not the season 
when the wind blows wet 
and in the night rumours of water fowl 
but of the lonely sun 
when anger withers on the stoney bank, 
its branches bare
against the sky that holds your absence.

by Wong Phui Nam

**Read more about Wong Phui Nam here

YOU DON'T NEED GOOD ENGLISH. YOU JUST NEED TO WRITE :)

Editor's Note:

What is this? This is the slogan for our first event and my brainchild. To encourage other Malaysians who love writing poetry and those who want get published, my fellow editors and I have organised this event where we want people to write poetry and well, tell their story.

This occurred to me one day, when I just told myself that I am going to self-publish an anthology of poems, but then again, I thought it would be far more interesting if we published a poetry anthology for Malaysian youth by Malaysians beacause our generation is most unique and diverse with different understandings of race, politics, culture and much more. And I thought, why not poetry?

Poetry is a dying art, and although it thrives in different parts of the world, in Malaysia there is a sad lack of appreciation for poetry. Most Malaysians wirte poetry as pasttime but do not seek to develop their raw efforts that sometimes give off a glimmer of a potential work of art. What we seek to do here is to gather these different voices and give space for talented Malaysians to get published and a platform to speak to the world.

 Regulations

1. Theme: Our theme is "Love"

Although our theme is "Love", what we want to do here is to promote young Malaysians to think outside the box by considering other types of love - the unconventional "love" that is not necessarily pure and enduring.

Think of:

The politics of sexuality,
the age divide,
Cultural erosion,
Political reform,
Drug abuse,
trangsgender issues,
postcolonial identities,
Love of fashion,
Marriage,
Entering the working world,
family,
Love as defined by things etc...




2. Wordcount: More than 50 words.


3.You may write in English, Malay or a mixture of English and Malay. You are allowed to use culture specific words such as "vibuthi" (Tamil) and the same for Chinese - but the author is responsible to provide an explanation for the said word in a footnote.


4. Heavy cultural significance and usage is would be very welcome (although it is not a criterion in the selection process).


5. Should you wish to include previously published poetry, kindly check with your publisher regarding copyright issues.

6. Any person is allowed to submit up to four poems.

Submission

To submit, download our cover page from http://www.mediafire.com/?zmolz5re6gew7sh

Dateline is 31st November 2011.

All entries are to be emailed to writinghive@gmail.com.

Notifications

All selected poems will be published in the poetry anthology.  There is no prize. In fact, winners may have to contribute to printing costs, but we will try to get some sponsors and maybe some donations.

Winners will be notified via email and their names will be published on this blog.

Tips and the kind of poems we are looking for will also be published on the blog.

Queries

Please email us all queries, questions and curiosities with the subject titled 'Query'.

If you have a group of more than five people who are interested to participate, we are willing to conduct short poetry writing classes to show the different ways literary devices can be used to achieve effect. The coaching is free of charge.

All the best. Carpe diem.

With love,

Loe.

Welcome to the Writing Hive

If you are a dreamer whose dreams are measureless before reality, if words mean more to you than just ink on paper and instead, in an endless stream of words, you see a world of infinite possibilities and a hint of truth, than you a writer.

We, here at the Writing Hive, love all forms of writing - some more than others, to be honest. There are different kinds of writing - experimental writing, prose, verse, using collage to tell a story. But most importantly, one must have a story to tell.

A story does not have to be of particular significance, or of political value. A story can be the steram of thoughts going through your mind at the speed of a bullet train while eating nasi lemak for breakfast. Writing is to me, the breath of life. Without a story, one may still live and yet remain lifeless.

Some people, or rather, most people seem to think that writing requires particular skill or knowledge but really all you need is a story and an initiative to tell that story.

And if you want to say something but you are unsure of what it is you are trying to communicate, then perhaps, all you have to do is to ask yourself - Why write?

- Loe