How all Writers can learn from Haiku

My article about how all writers can learn from haiku is now up at Epiphany. You can read it here.

Poetry and Novels

Totally Optional Prompts this week asks us to be inspired by novels. To start with here is a haiku review of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See, a novel I read recently:

sworn best friends
write secrets in a fan -
bound feet ache.

Secondly, you can read a poem I wrote inspired by Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels here.

Thirdly you can read my review of Emperor's Babe a novel in verse by Bernadine Evaristo here on the Pink Gun blog.

Finally, the last stanza of this poem was inspired by Chocolat by Joanna Harris

Publishing Update

I am yesterday's guest poet over on Cynthia Marie's blog Epiphany: Amor Habitus Intus Vos. You can read my poem here.

I also have two haiku in the current issue of Blithe Spirit, the journal of the British Haiku Society.

Falco

Dancing to Amadeus
in the dark of a goth club
takes me back to
a vast cemetery in Vienna
where a friend of mine
(though no fan of yours)
dragged me to your grave
where a tall pale
man in black
was laying lilies
whispering your name.

More on Falco

The Emperor's Babe by Bernadine Evaristo

Read my review of this novel in verse over on Pink Gun, here.

Smoke and Mirrors

One of a dying breed
an elegant smoker, you lean
casually against the wall
and watch the room
through the mirror.

You kiss your girlfriend
and whisper - a smokescreen
of lies, while you reflect
on another woman.

Your girlfriend keeps
a voodoo doll in her pocket
savage with pinpricks.

Smoke prickles her to tears.


Smoke and Mirrors for Totally Optional Prompts

Gypsy Dancehall

I dance with Signora Argento in Transylvania -
plates smash
and crash to the floor
the room shimmers with Italian passion
and the imponderable beauty of Romany
songs amid sad violins


She is lost in the dance,
the moment, some inner turmoil.
I am drunk on the music
her beauty in motion.
The touch of her hand
is like some kind of promise.


I wake in a bed
where the sheets are all tangled.
My husband is jealous -
he knows I've been dancing
with Signora Argento.

There's an earlier poem about a dream on this blog here.
And birdwatcher's dreams over at Crafty Green Poet here.
Dreams for Read Write Poem

Change

red traffic light -
I rattle the coins
in my pocket


change for One Single Impression