Characters
Exploring dreams and change in this issue #149 of your weekly dose of fresh poetry
What would be
the characters of my
book, and what would be the roles they play?
Right now, I can only
imagine.
For a long time, I wanted to write a book. A novel, to be precise. Like the great writers I admired so much, and whose books I loved reading. I made several attempts, but never got much further than a couple of pages. Often not even enough for one chapter. It was frustrating in a way. Until I had a blog on which I sometimes also posted a poem. One of these poems received a kind and encouraging piece of feedback, which inspired me to reevaluate my book dream. I realised I had not dreamt of a novel, but of the ability to hold a physical book with content that I had created. And this encouraging piece of feedback helped me realize that novel writing might not be my talent, but poetry could very well be.
So, I set out, in 2012, to write and publish a poem each day. From the 366 poems - 2012 was a leap year - I used 52 (a poem each week) for my first poetry book. I self-published it and there it was: my book dream realised. By listening to my audience, and learning from what they saw as my strengths, I managed to reach a dream goal I had held for a very long time.
Dream. Dream big. But be very sure you understand your dream and that you can use your strengths and talent to reach the goals you dream of.
What is your dream?
Three ways to support this Inbox Poetry Magazine:
Poetics in life
Last week I shared about the Litterati. Caring for the planet, being aware of how we pollute Mother Earth, and acting on what you can do to make a change for the better, are things I find important. They are also values I would love to see our children holding dear. So, it is with enormous pride that I share with you this project by our son of 9 years old. He has created a piece of art with things he would otherwise discard: a piece of packaging and some plastic scoubidou laces he got in a party bag. Then he asked me to make an NFT out of it. While discussing the brief for this assignment, we also discussed potential earnings, and the opportunity to use some of it to make positive change. He immediately decided to pledge 75% of his earnings to planting trees. So, with all he will earn from his NFT, three-quarters will be used to plant trees. We have found a great organisation that accepts donations in crypto, and we have launched an open edition. This means that everybody who wants to can mint an edition of my son’s art, for only 2 $XTZ on the Tezos blockchain. Of these 2 Tezos, which is just under 2 Euro, 1.5 will be donated to planting mangrove trees in Africa.
The open edition runs until Tuesday 11 July, so you still have time to mint your edition.
Poetry elsewhere
Earlier this year, at the NFT Paris conference, I spoke with Michelangelo, a poet who creates poems in asemic writing. I found it extremely intriguing. Asemic writing is the use of lines and symbols that resemble letters, but have no meaning. Meaning is not only put into it by the poet but very much also by the reader. The work I saw there is titled Manifesto. Looking at the work itself gives you a sense of where the poet wants to take you, but if you use the Artivive AR app, you can see the translation into ‘normal’ writing, which reveals a Manifesto about the liberty of thought.
Another piece of asemic poetry I really enjoyed is Guillage by Andrea Paoli. The colourful figures used in combination with words create a visual piece that draws you in to explore the meaning of it. Like a puzzle. You can experience Guillage below, and explore more works in the collection Decentrage by clicking the button below the image.
Next to symbols and figures, colour can also play a role.
has shared three haiku exploring colour recently, which are very interesting. Especially because colour plays a role in all three, but only gets mentioned in one.
Thanks for the mention!