Sally Murphy's Blog, page 37

Spring: A Magnet Poem

And another magnet poem. Enjoy. 

Poetry Friday: A Ferocious Poem

I love challenges, and Donna at Mainly Write  set a wonderful one she’s calling Poetpourri . She asked Poetry Friday regulars to offer some lines for a ferious poem, and then collected those lines and challenged any poet who was keen to use only those lines to create a new poem. So, multiple poets using the same lines to each create their own new poem.

 

Firstly, here are the lines we had to work with, and the people who contributed the, as well as their sources::

Buffy S: “ferocious women who never bring you coffee” – refrigerator magnetic poetry
Donna S (me): “always leave a wild song” – refrigerator magnetic poetry
Linda B: “dreaming women do art in poetry” – from her pile of poetry blocks
Buffy S: “where wizards and wolves rush by in a blur of green and gold and gray” – patched together from Kate Dicamillo’s Where Are You Going Baby Lincoln
Kay: “ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones” from Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five
Linda M: “waking the world to a new day“
Margaret S: “steam that climbs like smoke from a fire” – this was in the comments the first week, and I’m not sure if it is a comment or a line… but I’m using it! 
Carol V: “fearless women reach out, connect, and find joy in life’s intertwined moments” – Connecting the word “fearless” that April had used last week.
Tabatha Y: “little chest to put the Alive in” – Emily Dickinson
Joy: “wear loose clothing and a smile” – from a thought and some connections
Jan GA:  “I feel like there should be more stories out there for girls, and I try to tell them” – a quote from Hope Larson from the book COMICS CONFIDENTIAL.
Mary Lee H: “ferocious women do not exaggerate” – from Mary Oliver’s UPSTREAM on page 109, “I do not exaggerate.”
Brenda H: “make a ferocious dinner then eats masks, drips truth and saves softness for dessert“
Keri L: “radical at their core” from her husband’s magazine, “Guns & Ammo”
Kiesha S: “ferocious women would rather drink the wind” – a line from Mary Oliver’s (Why I Wake Early) titled “The Arrowhead”

16 Diane M: “Out of endurance, exaltation” – a line from the poem “Monadnock” by Robert Francis.

 

Now, here are the rules she set:

You may break the given lines up into phrases, esp. if the line is broken into prepositional phrases.
A word used in a line may be repeated elsewhere as needed.
You may add or change articles (a, an, the…).
You may change tenses, as necessary for meaning.
If you haven’t added a line to the poem, you may not add one now. Others won’t have it to use.
However, if you can create a brand new line using individual words from the given lines, feel free! Do not do that for the whole poem though – that may be another challenge on another day!
Phrases should still be identifiable even though the whole line may not be in one unit still. (for example: “ignore the awful times” may be used in one place and “concentrate on the good ones” may be in another place).
Remember, these are only guidelines, as it IS poetry and we ARE poets…
Rules are meant to be broken.
You may make your own rules if you don’t like these – and that way you aren’t breaking a rule.
Oh, and if we get an unwieldy number of lines in the next week…I may change the rules, but so far, you need to use ALL the submitted lines in some way.
Please copy and paste the list of participants and their lines in your blog so that each is credited, along with some of their sources for the lines!
Link up here on that day also for potential extra traffic to your poem!
There is no 14.  I just didn’t want to stop on 13.

And here’s how I approached it:

I copied each of the lines, in the order given, into a new document, making a menatl note of phrases that jumped out at me – for me the ‘ferocious women’ was echoed by ‘fearless women’ and ‘dreaming women’, each adding a new dimension to the women rather than creating different women.
I started rearranging the lines without changing them – putting together any that seemed linked or to flow into each other.
I started to add in the words I’d chosen to repeat to bring the whole together – ferocious, fearless and dreaming.
As I worked I felt some of the lines needed to be broken up and, of course, the initial order I’d chosen didn’t always work, so I kept moving and tweaking till I had something I felt satisifed with
And, after letting it rest and giving it more tweaks, I got ready to post it. Now, here it is for you to enjoy (or otherwise):

Ferocious Dreaming Poets

ferocious women never bring you coffee

ferocious women would rather drink the wind

ferocious women do not exaggerate

waking the world to a new day

fearless women reach out, connect,

find joy in life’s intertwined moments

fearless ferocious dreaming women do art in poetry

where wizards and wolves rush by in a blur of green and gold and gray

ferocious dreaming women ignore the awful times

fearless women concentrate on the good ones

ferocious women steam like smoke that climbs from a fire

fearless ferocious dreaming women make a little chest to put the Alive in

make ferocious dinners then eat masks, drip truth and save softness for dessert

dreaming women wear loose clothing and a smile

fearless women feel like there should be more stories out there for girls

radical at their core

ferocious dreaming women try to tell them

fearless ferocious dreaming women always leave a wild song

 

(Final poem copyright Sally Murphy)

I can’t wait to see what other poets have come up with for this challenge. Pop over to Donna’s blog today for links to the other responses.

 

And, of course, it’s Poetry Friday, so make sure you visit the Poetry Friday roundup  at Beyond Literacy where Carol is hosting the roundup.

Chocolate: A Magnet Poem

Here’s another magnet poem for your enjoyment (or otherwise).

 

Storm: A Magnet Poem

Over on our Poetry Tag blog, I’ve just posted four new words for my friend Rebecca.  The challenge is for her to use all four words in a poem. Once she’s done that, she’ll choose some magnet words for me.

While I had the magnets out, I had some fun composing magnet poems of my own., starting my choosing a random word for the title then choosing and rearranging more words till I had something resembling a poem.

 

Here’s the first one – I’ll share the others in coming days.  I’d love to hear what you think.

 

Poetry Friday: My Shadow

It’s Poetry Friday. Hooray! In my thesis, which is (hopefully) nearing completion, one of the things I touch on is how poems made me feel as a child, and how the poems I loved and learned as a child have stayed with me. Yesterday, for no discernible reason, Robert Louis Stevenson’s My Shadow popped into my head, and I found myself reciting it. I then had to look it up to see if I’d got it right – funnily, I had completely forgotten the ‘nursie’ stanza, but the rest I had down-pat. So, of course, I thought today that this should be the poem I share.

My Shadow

by R.L. Stevenson

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,

And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.

He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;

And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

 

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow—

Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;

For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,

And he sometimes gets so little that there’s none of him at all.

 

He hasn’t got a notion of how children ought to play,

And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.

He stays so close beside me, he’s a coward you can see;

I’d think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!

 

One morning, very early, before the sun was up,

I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;

But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,

Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

 

 

(This poem is in the public domain)

 

And, because I missed last Friday because I was at the beach, here’s my shadow last Friday!

Poetry Friday today is hosted by Violet Nesdoly, who has chosen a perfect poem to share today. Head over to see her choice and the Poetry Friday  Roundup.

January Sale

Just a quick note to let you know that I am having a sale of three of my backlist titles over on .

I have Doggy Duo for $5

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pemberthy Bear for $15

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and Snowy’s Christmas for  $10

 

 

 

 

 

 

So head over and pick up a bargain – or, if you’d prefer to by direct, send me an email.

Poetry Friday: Summer Smells

It’s Friday, which means it’s time for Poetry Friday – the first one for 2017 and my first one for a while, having had a busy end to 2016. My resolution for 2017 is to smile more, but I’m also thinking this means I should be trying to make other people smile, so I am going to try to share more poetry this year.

It’s Summer here in Australia, which means trips to the beach, swims in the pool, beautiful blue skies – I could go on. I love summer. But one thing I don’t like is the smell of rubbish bins left out in the sun. On one of my recent beach trips I stopped to put something in the bin. The smell when I lifted the lid was gross: bait, food, rubbish of all kinds. It was like the worst belch ever. It reminded me of this poem, which I wrote a few years back.

Smelly Sentry

Green soldier

standing tall

and alone.

Closed up

you seem so harmless

but still

I approach with caution.

I know

when I lift that lid

your stench

will overpower me

as you belch

last week’s fish

and yesterday’s onions.

 

(Copyright Sally Murphy 2017)

 

Gross hey? Instead of a photo of a stinky bin, I offer you this completely unrelated but pretty awesome video of a dolphin which came to check me out recently. It was a magic moment.

Poetry Friday this week is hosted by Teacher Dance. Head there later for the roundup check out the other poetry goodness on off on the blogosphere.

In the meantime, have a great Friday.

 

Cover Reveal: Looking Up

What a great start to the year! I am loving 2017. Yesterday it was the release of Something Fishy. Today, it’s the discovery that my forthcoming junior novel, Looking Up, is on the Fremantle Press website.

 

So I figured it was a time to do a cover reveal here on the site. So, drumroll please [ba bump ba bump ba bump ba bump ba bump), here, ladies and gentlemen is the beautiful cover of Looking Up:

 

The cover artwork is amazing, isn’t it. The illustrator, Aska, is so very talented!

Every new book is special to me, but there is something super lovely about being published by Fremantle Press. I have been submitting to them ever since I started writing for children. And, finally, I sent them the right book at the right time. Hooray!

Looking Up will be released in April this year. I can’t wait!

Happy New Year and Happy New Book

Welcome to 2017! It really doesn’t seem so long since we were celebrating the arrival of 2016. Or even the year 2000 for that matter. Time flies when you’re busy living life.

In 2017 I plan to be healthier, and to make the most of every day to write, read, share poetry and, beyond that, to enjoy life.

And what better way to start the year than with the release of a new book? That’s right Sage Cookson’s Fishy Surprise is out now! This time Sage (and her parents) are off to the beach – which is quite appropriate because right now is the best time of year for beaching here in Australia, and I’ve been getting my fill, too.

Fishy Surprise is available now from good bookstores, including Booktopia.

 

Happy New Year!

 

A New Diary

Yesterday I bought myself a new, funky diary for the new year which is rapidly approaching.

My next goal is to fill it up with lots of school visits and festivals and lunches and writing workshops and poetry performances. Basically,  I want to spend lots of time in 2017 talking. As you can see from this photo:

I don’t dress like this every day – but sometimes dressing up helps me feel authorly.

 

And this one:

Without an editor, I might still be throwing my hands in the air!

And even this one:

I love getting out and about talking about my books, answering questions, and speaking to audiences big and small, young and not-so young.  So if you’d like me to visit your school, library, writers group, festival, luncheon or anything else you can think of in 2017 (or beyond), now’s the time to get in touch.