Poem 1 & 2 - April 1st-2nd 2013

Rising to the NaPoWriMo challenge of taking a starting line from another poem and running with it...

Slowly, silently, now the moon

Appears in the clear blue sky at noon;

This way, and that, she peers and sees

Greensward dotted with white daisies;

Flowers night can never match,

Bright colours evening will dispatch.

Closely following Walter de la Mare

and, rather further away

Slowly, silently, now the moon

Evades the grasping skeletal fingers of the trees,

Escapes through the net of scudding gunmetal clouds

Only to drown in the immeasurable depths of space.   

Can't really say I'm happy with either and the first certainly needed to be longer, but there's only so much you can do!

April Fool

As usual, I've fallen for the charms of the well-known super hero Mr. Procrastinator. He's helped me discover that April is NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month) and that the challenge is to write - or at least to make available - a poem a day!

So, as a longtime closet writer of poetry, I think it may be time to refine some poems and write some new ones.

It will also tie in with something else I was considering which was the Stephen Spender Trust's competition for translating poetry, again something that I have been doing for years. Aged seventeen I actually had one of what one of the judges thought was my "impressive dossier" of Catullan poems published. Unfortunately, what's impressive for a teenager may not be when you've doubled the years on your clock!

So, with enthusiasm rather than expertise and a host of things to avoid doing, as well as periods in April when I'll be able to write a poem a day but not post them daily, here I go...

Wish me luck!