Poems and Ponderings

Yesterday evening I decided to enter one of my poems into a competition. First time ever! So let's see...  I have also been made aware of the fact that a lot of the competition organizers/publishers request material that has not previously been published, web or otherwise, so in future I might only publish bits and pieces of my poetry.

Natalie Goldberg writes in her book -Writing Down the Bones, Shambahala 1983, page 8 'Go for the jugular' If something comes up in your writing that is scary or naked, dive right into it. It probably has lots of energy.... Page 9 ... at the beginning you may feel great emotions and energy that will sweep  you away, but don't stop writing.... I have filled to many journals to count and most of them during my time of grief, when my husband passed away, when my beloved dog passed away, when I went on my 9 months overseas odyssey, filling the pages with my thoughts, my sorrows, my pains, my triumphs and my defeats.  Reading through some of it now I find those pages where heavy tears fell down on them, but I continued writing, there were days when I became so angry I literally threw the book into the next corner, -to much french blood in my veins, lol- but I continued writing. I simply went for the jugular....

Nandini You felt my pain And made it your own You felt my anger And made it your own Until one day Your time had come to go I felt your pain And knew it was time To let you go on to your last journey Heavy lay your head in my hand You amber eyes looking into mine One last time you trusted me As so often you did before To do the right thing To make you whole again Go in peace my friend Until one day You will great me At the rainbow bridge Guiding me again And I will trust you Following your lead As I had done so many times before Freestyle, 2010 © JSZ, Angelique A farewell to my trusted and beloved Ridgeback Nandini, I helped her into this world on the 8. October 2002 and was with her as she left this world on the 27. February 2010. Nandini I am still missing you!

There is so much going on in our lives that we seem to think we don't have time to write, trust me you have time, 10 - 15 minutes a day is all you need. You could get up 10 minutes earlier in the morning, write in the bus, in the train, in your break, after lunch, after dinner, you WILL find time if you WANT to write, trust me. And always, always have a little notebook in your hand/bag, pocket or car. The other day driving to my hardware store, I had a strong sense of my late husband sitting next to me and as I was <talking> to him a few lines for a poem came to mind. I recited it over and over again until I could stop and write it down. Then I kept this little booklet of A6 in my hand, wrote down some more lines with my booklet on the bonnet of my car and  a some more while I was in the hardware store... Looking back it must have looked quite funny, but then again being at the hardware store one could imagine I was writing down my list... lol

Visit wikihow on how to Freewrite at the following link: http://www.wikihow.com/Freewrite I was introduced to Freewriting during workshops I attended and found it to be a valuable tool in opening up to write. Usually I have a vague topic in mind  which I write on top of the page and then I start writing, nothing planned, nothing organized, just allowing the words to flow. Quite often I find I drift away from my chosen topic and that is fine as well as it shows me there is another story lingering in my subconscious mind wanting to come out and be written Freewriting is an exercise to help to get your muse flowing.  Write - do NOT stop until your timer goes off. Do NOT lift your pen from the paper, even if this means writing, "I don't know what to write," over and over again. Write nonsense, write anything, but don't stop writing . Look back over what you've written and see if anything sparks your interest. If so, use it as a point of departure for anoth...