Brenda Stephens's Blog, page 2

Week Three Theme

Hello again and a huge thanks again to everyone who took part in week two. Week three has arrived. The theme for week three is

“Time Stands Still”

As last week, please refer to our guidelines before submitting your poem. All entries must be in by midnight (GMT) next Thursday August 13th. Please send your poetry to fromthedarkestcorners@gmail.com along with your name and any details you wish to share with your poem.

Looking forward to it.

Bren, Jane and Ellie

P.S. If you are a self published poet and would like to appear on Our Poetry Bookshelf which is a virtual bookshelf featuring your name which links to your bookstore (e.g. amazon, create space etc) please get in touch via our contact form. We have a few limited free spaces left.

Featured Poem/Poet – Week 2 – Moonlit Shore…

Congratulations and thanks to Clive Tern who we have chosen as our featured poet for week two…

A khamsin blew the desert sand for thirty days,

we crossed the erg, we crossed the sink.

Along the way we crept and hid, avoiding gunmen’s eyes,

we crossed the erg, we crossed the sink.

In Tripoli we waited and still the wind blew,

twenty days of whispering dust in our eyes.

We avoided the hunter, the haters, who’d have us die,

twenty days of whispering dust in our eyes.

On a dark still night we stole to the shore,

We boarded a ship to cross the waters.

Cramped and crowded, no chains but our fears,

aboard the ship we nearly crossed the waters.

No food, no water, no privacy, but life,

we rocked and rolled on choppy seas.

Abandoned by crew when navy ships drew near,

we rocked and rolled over in choppy seas.

Once under water, twice under water, third’s an unlucky charm

sightless I seek freedom’s moonlit shore.

Floating in silence, lost in dark seas, alone, alone,

sightless eyes see freedom’s moonlit shore.

©Clive Tern 

Beautifully written. A huge thanks to everyone who entered. Next weeks theme coming soon.

Week Two Theme

Hello again and a huge thanks again to everyone who took part. Now we’re hoping to do it all over again. The theme this time is

“Moonlit Shore”

As last week, please refer to our guidelines before submitting your poem. All entries must be in by midnight (GMT) next Thursday August 6th. Please send your poetry to fromthedarkestcorners@gmail.com along with your name and any details you wish to share with your poem.

Looking forward to it.

Bren, Jane and Ellie

P.S. If you are a self published poet and would like to appear on Our Poetry Bookshelf which is a virtual bookshelf featuring your name which links to your bookstore (e.g. amazon, create space etc) please get in touch via our contact form. We have a few limited free spaces left.

Featured Poem/Poet – I wish… Week 1

Congratulations and thanks to Claire Farman who we have chosen as our featured poet for our first week. Here is her entry.

Sometimes,

When the heavy sky

has hastily

darkened to autumn,

and this house

sits unlit-

I will wish

for you

so hard that I

will repent

ancient sins

to a God I have never served.

© Claire Farman – claire_elizabeth@hotmail.co.uk

A beautiful poem. Huge thanks to everyone who entered. We had an enormous amount of entries, way more than we ever could have hoped for and reading them all has been an absolute pleasure.

I Wish…

Good Morning.

It’s so late it’s early. Submissions closed 20 minutes ago and we want to thank each and every one of you who has taken part and shared what we are doing.

We are also asking you to bear with us. We have had an ASTONISHING amount of poems sent to us and we are probably going to take a little longer than originally planned to read them although we have made a head start by trying to keep up as they arrive.

Again, thank you and very much looking forward to reading and sharing

Bren, Jane and Ellie.

Hello and Welcome…

Hello and welcome.

Poetry is dead, right? Well according to quite a lot of people, yes. It’s not. It’s alive and kicking. And with this blog we aim to prove that. We (SlimySnailsTrails) have created this blog with the soul purpose of finding and sharing beautiful poetry. Our aim is to run a weekly theme where writers can submit their poetry, whether previously published or not and we will select writers to showcase here on the blog and on our Facebook page and twitter feeds.

SlimySnailsTrails consists of myself, Bren, editor Eleanor and Admin, Jane-Louise and Jane is the driving force of this idea. As a poet myself, I know all too well just how hard it is to get your work out there. Sharing is hard. Finding people willing to share your content is even harder but we’re going to give this a go. I see too many talented people just giving up and we’d like to try and change that here.

We’d like to build a network of talented poets who are willing to share and promote each other. But we’d also like to challenge them too. Each week we will set a theme and share a prompt. Submissions will open Sunday at 8pm GMT and close midnight the following Thursday and the featured person will be announced at 6pm on the Friday. Their poem will be published on this blog, our Facebook page and twitter feed along with details of their blog/website/social media accounts/amazon page etc and will be shared over the course of the week.

Ideally we’d like to start this Sunday (26th July). We want to get your poetry out there. So lets kick this off with “I Wish” and no more than 19 lines. You may submit only ONE poem, this must be your own work and must not contain any hate speech or other nasties. Please send your poetry to fromthedarkestcorners@gmail.com and remember to include all your details, links etc. If you are sharing your submission via twitter etc, please use the hashtag #PurelyPoetic so we can find you.

Thanks for reading and lets do this!

Critical Thoughts…

Being a poet is both the easiest and hardest thing in the world. Easy because it’s an entirely blank canvas for you to paint with words as you please. The ability to escape from reality as you please and the freedom to do it entirely your own way. And in my case, that’s the key thing. Entirely my OWN way.

The hard part is getting people to take you seriously. But then if you’re a true writer at heart with a poetic soul that dances in rhyme and the beauty of well placed words, does it actually matter if people take you seriously? This is only my opinion, my thoughts but I really don’t think it matters.

Critique is a word I keep coming across in my world of poetry and frankly it’s a word I hate. The very word itself suggests picking fault. But it’s shady. It almost sounds nice. It’s not. It’s a more polite way of saying “I’m going to criticise your poem and you’re going to be grateful for my thoughts!” Again, let me remind you these are merely my opinions.

As a person who writes and publicly shares poetry, I love feedback. I really do. I’ve received countless messages, emails, questions, cards, nice letters, people approaching me in the street and it inspires discussion. Feedback is wonderful. I even enjoy talking with someone who has hated something I’ve written because it provides another perspective on a subject and it keeps it real. People are, thankfully very different and see things very differently.

Anyway. Back to *that* word and my reasons for writing this. I write almost exclusively for myself. I write about my feelings, thoughts, hopes, fears and dreams. I write about my interpretation of love, of loss and of grief. And that alone is reason enough for me to have a strong dislike of this *critique* malarky. I have written from the heart. I have shared my vision of something that affects me deeply and without sounding full of myself, only I am qualified to decide whether that piece is worthy of sharing. No one can see within me or see it my way. I value opinion but if I was to change my writing to suit someone else’s thoughts then it’s no longer my vision.

Almost daily I see people sharing their poetry only to be shot down by some random on social media because it isn’t to their taste. They then never post a poem again. It’s sad. I spent most of my life being terrified of people’s thoughts on my writing. Was it good enough? Will people like it? Then I realised *I* like it. It reflected exactly where I was in the moment I wrote it and whether people like it or not really does not matter.

This is not a confidence thing. To be perfectly honest, I’m not that confident. I’m just a woman who writes and I have the same fears as any other writer/artist.

I regularly get asked to critique the poetry of others and I always refuse with pretty much the explanation I’ve just given about my own poetry. It’s where a person is in a particular moment and no one but them can translate that. And honestly, who am I, or anyone else for that matter to criticise? If I like something then I like it for what it is. If I can relate to it on a personal/emotional level then fine. If not, it’s no big deal because it wasn’t my moment. I appreciate beautifully written things even if I can’t relate to them. For example, I’m not a romantic person but something written beautifully about love never ceases to inspire.

My issue with all this is there’s masses of totally unknown talent out there. People who can take the mere 140 characters Twitter gives you and turn it into something that can sear your heart. The inspiration is infinite. Criticism is not required. There are too many critics. Can we not instead appreciate the time and thought behind the words rather than merely the words themselves. What they mean to you you may be worlds away from what they mean to the writer. It’s more about vision than anything. And remember, even a heartfelt sentence takes a LOT of courage to share. Blowing someone else’s candle out does not make yours shine any brighter.

GIVEAWAY

Oh! My! God! February! FEBRUARY? Really? And we had such grand plans for using this blog for wonderful things. Oh Dear! Oh well, I’m here now so lets do this. It’s Bren by the way. It’s 1.10 am and I’m sure my partner in crime is tucked up in bed. Right, I’m here because I’d like to do a giveaway. Every time I attempt this on facebook I get a snotty message telling me I’m breaking the rules. It must be a special rule just for me as I see loads of this type of giveaways on my feed daily and nothing is said. So, here’s the deal. I want to give away a signed copy of both Purely Poetic and a signed handmade Harriet’s Ghost. When my facebook page hits 1000 likes I will choose a person at random using my tried and tested method… (two year old picking a name out of a hat/other useful receptacle) 

To be in with a chance, please like and share this post. I don’t mind where you share, be it facebook, twitter, google plus, wordpress, pinterest… just let me know you’ve shared and your name will be added to the draw. The winner must *like* the page on facebook to claim the book. And that’s it :-) 

 

News.

Hello, *blows away cobwebs* Eleanor here, I’m going to be selfish here and steal the spotlight for a second and I’m sure Bren won’t mind. I want to say thank you for the lovely messages that I received via SlimySnailsTrails following the early arrival of my son. I’m very touched and very grateful for your thoughts. We’re both home now and all is well after a pretty dramatic start to his life. Thanks from us both.

Now, down to business. This blog has been terribly neglected. Not a criticism though. Bren is very busy in many other ways and due to taking on another role will be even busier. Although I am on maternity leave, I have decided to keep on my role as Bren’s admin and I’d like to put this blog to good use in the promotion of her books and work. I will endeavour to post updates regularly with what we are doing at SlimySnailsTrails and news of what the lady herself is up to with her writing. 

Firstly, we have a confession. We have been rumbled. I would like to confirm, with Bren’s permission that she is indeed the writer behind the initials JBBM. It’s all a bit JK Rowling but without the fame and media attention. There was absolutely nothing sinister behind this, it’s a nom de plume she has used in poetry submission for a while and top marks to those who worked out it was her. 

We have had a number of people asking why public posts to the page have been turned off. We turned off this feature simply because of spam. People were using the page to advertise weight loss tablets, we had a number of rather rude individuals use the page to promote their own. Whilst we love to promote poetry, and we really do, and we will, we will not allow the page to be abused. We will gladly share your work on the page but we have a few terms for sharing. If you would like us to share your poetry, please see our submission guidelines here and message us.

Signed books. If you would like a signed copy of Purely Poetic, please message us, We take payment by cheque and via PayPal. We match amazon’s price and P&P starts at £1.10 for UK postage via Royal Mail. If you have already purchased a copy and would like it signed, again, please message us and we will arrange this for you. Copies of Harriet’s Ghost are still available. These are £3.49 plus 60p P&P and are made to order. Usual procedure, message, cheque, paypal. 

Now some news about the facebook page itself. We need your help. Facebook has these algorithms which block a lot of our posts. Latest statistics show that only around 3-7 percent of the people who *like* the page are actually seeing the posts. This is facebooks attempt to force page owners to pay to promote the page and posts. We have looked into this in great depth and due to really bad feedback and negative comments from page owners who have paid to promote, we have decided that this is not a suitable option for SlimySnailsTrails. Bren’s actual words were “it’ll be a cold day in Hell before facebook sees a penny from me!” So, this leaves us with the problem of how we get around posts being buried. The answer to this is simple. It’s down to you guys. If you like the page, make sure you receive post notifications. That way you won’t miss a post. Go to the like button, hover over it and you’ll get a drop down menu, select notifications and thats you sorted. When you see a post you like, actually click like. If you don’t engage, you’ll lose the page from your feed altogether. Facebook will assume you are not interested and will stop showing our posts in your feed. Interaction from you guys is the key. Talk to us, say hi, we don’t bite. Well, not too hard anyway ;-) 

So far, we have given away six books as a thank you for sharing the page. We did a giveaway at 250 likes, 350 likes, 500 likes and our next one will be at 1000 likes. To be included in the draw to receive TWO signed books, please share the page with your friends and let us know that you have done. We will take a note of your name and add you to the draw. And if this happens around easter, we may throw in an easter egg for you to munch on whilst you read your books. Get sharing

Another question that we regularly get asked by readers of Purely Poetic is “can we write to Bren?” Yes, you can. You can send her an email at brendastephensauthor@gmail.com She loves to receive messages from readers and prints all emails and keeps them in a book. It’s full of cards, pictures of her with her readers and various other memorable dates etc. And messages sent to SlimySnailsTrails are kept too along with tweets, direct messages and any readers poetry she receives. 

And that’s about it for now. Oh, while I’m here I can confirm that Bren WILL be taking part in this years NaPoWriMo challenge in April and is very much looking forward to it. As always, thanks for liking, sharing and your continued support which means the world. And a belated thank you to those of you who warmly welcomed me when I took on the role of admin for Bren. 

Much Love, Ellie x

 

Hello, A Little Update…

Well it’s been a long old while since I’ve written a blog post about anything. Particularly on this blog. But anyway, I’m here now and writing one. Firstly, thank you for the queries and messages regarding my trip to A&E last night. Nothing serious, just a nasty fall and bumps and bruises. Secondly, thanks to those who have bought copies of Harriet’s Ghost. If you enjoyed it and want to leave a comment or feedback, simply click here and you will be redirected to the Harriet’s Ghost page.

My other news is that I have started creating a range of photo cards. These will be available on Amazon, Etsy, directly from me and for the month of October only, they will be on sale along with some of my other bits and bobs in St Austell library. These are greetings cards with a range of my own photographs. I will do a number of photo cards with poems printed inside and if anyone would like their own photos turned into a photo card please get in touch.

I am also making a small range of handmade stationery, hand bound poetry books, bamboo bound scrapbook style poetry and photo books. These will be made to order and available directly from me.

And in the midst of all this, I’m also self publishing my first volume of poetry which will be available as both a handmade paperback and on kindle. I will let you know the publication dates as soon as I can.

So that’s it. All my news. Any questions about any of this, please feel free to drop me a message at my facebook page which you can find by clicking here

I’ll post pictures of a few of the products later.