New service: handwritten poems

My partner is always on the look-out for excuses to use his fountains pens and the lovely collection of coloured inks he has. Writing my poems is kind of a zen exercise for him.

This is the first one he made for me, lovingly embraced by one of our housemates. I’m afraid the sloth is not for sale, but you can choose any poem from my website or my books and ask for a quotation.

Based on postage, delivery time, length of the poem and any other things that may be relevant to what you want the poem to like like, we can work out a price together. This is a brand new service so at the moment I’m as clueless about what to charge as you might be on what you think is a good price. My experience with the pricing of my coaching services is that there’s always something that works for both of us.

Message me at angela at procrastinationcoach.net (or on Facebook, or on Twitter, or whatever place that you know I hang out and that works for you).

 

Draft2Digital try-out

When I saw Norm’s door post today, I was relieved to see a lot of beautiful street art. I took this picture because I want to share it with you, but I’m not even sure it has a door… Luckily, #ThursdayDoors is a flexible place.

Corona times have been a rollercoaster these last months. Lockdown, no work, homeschooling, too much work… Strange and exhausting times even without getting the virus.

I’m slowly finding my way back to some creativity. My mother and I can finally continue the work on the English edition of Meer dan wat het oog ziet. We hope to have it ready for preorder soon.

As an experiment, I’m also making a book to publish through Draft2Digital. My procrastination workbook brought me experience with Amazon and the Google Play Store. For the Dutch edition of the oncoming poetry/photography book I also tried out Blurb, Kobo, and Publish Drive, which got me into the Apple Store and Scribd. This may sound impressive, but don’t forget that being in a store doesn’t automatically means you sell your book. It’s just one in millions, and it needs to find its audience somehow.

Thus far Drive2Digital was missing. All my choices have had to do with which types of file I already had available and which ones I could convert into easily. A long and boring story, but something to watch out for if you ever want to self-publish. In a next post I’ll share some first impressions of the different platforms and distributors. I’ve listened to a lot of podcasts and read a lot of stuff online to figure everything out, but in the end, I like to try everything out to figure out what I like best.

The new book will be called From my skin. At the moment I’m figuring out the lay-out challenges, since a number of the poems that will be in there has an unconventional layout. The poem in the picture beneath is called Ire, and will feature in the book if everything works out well.

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Woven territories – la déroutante

Woven territories #1 – Angela – Utrecht, Dutchland

It took her a little while to take me there.

It’s normal.

One does not take someone to a temple without any preparation, one takes some precautions, it is important to take our time, to prepare, to put on the proper attire – or to remove unnecessary peels -, to cross concentric circles with the slowness necessary to touch what is beautiful and sacred inside, as one would experience an initiation into something larger than oneself. It is a place that we find with caution, or that requires that we refer our attention to it. It is not a very small memory that she gives me, it is an important memory, a kind of gem in a case, and it requires attention, time, care, a particular temporality so that you can approach it and touch it, smell the scent that still exudes. One does not reach the heart of the sanctuary without deserving it. One passes through ante-rooms. We prepare, we prepare who we are to receive something important, even if – above all – we do not know exactly what it is.

United States ? Turkey ? Mountains, famous ruins, historic frescoes? – No. We need something stronger. And for it to be stronger, it has to be weaker. Something shared one day by a few young people on a beach whose name has been forgotten, in a country we ignore. Just a detail in the large canvas of memories printed in the Universe.

She took me to an almost mythical place – a place she has not located on any map. In what she tells me, this place no longer has a name, is no longer really precisely located. There is only her in this place, she and a few others who look like stars whose light still shines, even faintly, and whose glow is still pulsating – I observe an event passed by the telescope, I know that it has passed but it appears to me in the present, as we know of certain galaxies that they have gone out but that we still see shining, witnesses of the passage of time and of its course to us.

… It’s a group of friends on a beach, a falling night, sleeping bags under the stars, and then a midnight swim. A slightly chilly lover, the regret – searing, no doubt – of not really sharing the intensity of this moment in his company, and the water, however transparent, warm, almost electric, sparks between the fingers when they are spread on the surface, the arms which draw large liquid movements around the bodies, the laughter of friends in the water who respond to those of those who stayed on the sand.

My friends Isabelle Guérin, La Déroutante, started a new art project. She asked me for a memory. I wrote to her about a place and time I’ll always remember. Both for what was there, and what wasn’t there. Isabelle too my words in, and then wrote hers. She transformed my memory into a new possibility, where time and place don’t matter, but where feelings, dreams and desires do. Somehow, she turned my personal memory into something universal and timeless.

You can read the rest of her magic here.

 

Blue ribbon justice

The blue blooded bastard
looked green around the gills
when was caught red handed

We were tickled pink
as the yellow bellied bugger
got no red carpet treatment

When we got the green light
to give him the pink slip
you painted the town red

This would not be white washed

Blue toothed behaviour
is not a gray area

#NaPoWriMo may be over, but Thursday Door continues. This weekly online gathering of door lovers often brings more than doors. Beautiful sights. Amazing murals. And Norm, our host, outdid himself this week by adding pictures of urban rooftop farming to his door post.

A revived writer

Each year in April we experience writing,
we bravely venture on a voyage des mots
minutes past midnight, the mad journey starts
we take our soulfluff, our musings through life
and turn them into a bag of anything

Our ordinary thoughts, scrambled not fried
sculpted mexcessively
turn gibberjabber into peacock poetry
(sometimes the other way around)

Even when too full to write,
we move through cosmic rubble, words that cant
we make our musings survive that charmed chaos,
hoping our thoughts of words beget a seven eyed wonder

With life a teacher, we make able fires
arhtistic license frees us, all

Aloha promises forever
My own garden of verse

Today’s prompt at napowrimo.net: “In some past years, I’ve challenged you to write a poem of farewell for our thirtieth day, but this year, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem about something that returns.” Well, each year, our writing for #NaPoWriMo returns, and the joy of reading fellow participants too.

My poem is built out of blog titles. I started by browsing through all featured participants, and after that added other blog titles from the comments and my WordPress reader.

Here are the links to the featured poets at napowrimo.net that pop up in my poem, including the inviting description of their poems (click on the links if you have time!):

Today’s featured participant is 7eyedwonder, where, from Day 3’s rhymes-and-near-rhymes prompt, a mighty ode to bread has risen (like dough…it’s risen…get it?).

Today’s featured participant is Mexcessive, where the concrete poem for Day Nine opens doors (or maybe closes them?).

Today’s featured participant is Scrambled, Not Fried, where Day Thirteen’s theft-inspired prompt resulted in an ode to the joys of the illicit.

Our featured participant today is Bag of Anything, where you will find a bouquet of humorous clerihews in response to Day Fourteen’s inspirational prompt.

Our featured participant today is The Great Unknown, where Day Sixteen’s over-the-top prompt led to a poem rife with onamotapoeia, superlatives, and ebullient sarcasm.

Today’s featured participant is soulfluff, where the “forgotten technology” prompt for Day 17 engendered an ode to typewriters.

Our featured participant today is My Musings Through Life, where the “small pleasures” prompt for Day 18 gives voice to the joy of flowers, time with family, tea, and hearing the birds sing.

Our featured participant for the day is GibberJabber, which brings us a many-lettered appreciation of the beverage that gets so many of us out of bed in the morning, in response to Day 23’s “look-of-the-letter”-based prompt.

Our featured participant today is Voyage des Mots, where the homophonic translation prompt for Day 21 resulted in some atypical motherly advice.

Today’s featured participant is Ordinary Average Thoughts, where Day 26’s “almanac” poem get entwined in the zeitgeist.

Our featured participant today is Minutes Past Midnight, where the “remembered bedroom” prompt for Day 28 led to a detailed yet not entirely comforting remembrance.

Other blogs that unknowingly co-created this poem:

https://wordsthatcant.wordpress.com/

https://cosmicrubble.com/tag/napowrimo/

https://lifeateacher.wordpress.com/tag/poetry-2/

https://arhtisticlicense.com/tag/napowrimo/

https://alohapromisesforever.com/category/poetry-and-poems/

https://revivedwriter.wordpress.com/

https://experiencewriting.com/

https://toofulltowrite.com/napowrimo-2020/

https://mabel-lee.com/poetry/

https://peacockpoetryblog.wordpress.com/

https://myowngardenofverse.wordpress.com/

https://charmedchaos.com/category/poetry/

It would have been nice to have exactly 30 blogs in the poem, honouring 30 days of writing, reading, commenting and sharing poetic space. Maybe next year!

Not playing, hard to get

Not playing
We worship	the ground that she walks on so gracefully
We worship	her bowl of unworthy food
We worship	the bed that she sleeps on, so elegantly
We worship	her bowl of clean water untouched
We worship	her whiskers she twitches so elegantly
We worship	the sight of her play toys untouched
We worship	her fur coat, designed so gracefully
We worship	the sight of our unworthy couch
We worship	her owners she ignores so convincingly
We worship	their unworthy efforts to get touched
We worship	the people who serve her so diligently
We worship	our unrequited attempts to be loved
Hard to get

 

Tantamount

My bedroom is my office
My office is my wardrobe
My wardrobe is my coaching space
My coaching space is a parallel world

In my bedroom I sleep (slept, slept)
In my office I work (worked, worked)
In my wardrobe I search (searched, searched)
In my coaching space I bloom (bloomed, bloomed)

In a parallel world my bedroom is a bedroom

Confessions of a bedroom… I feel there’s too much going on inside me. Normally, I can focus all day on providing a good night’s sleep. These days, I hardly know what’s going on. There’s too much happening to keep track of it all. There are lots of visitors. There’s laughter. There’s crying. There’s lots and lots of sighing. I dream of peace. I dream of quiet. I hope this daymare ends soon. If it doesn’t, I’ll organise protests at night. Walls carrying banners. The lamp shouting slogans. Riot music. Bedrooms unite. Make war for peace.

The prompt today at napowrimo.net was taken from the Emily Dickinson Museum. It says: “Describe a bedroom from your past in a series of descriptive paragraphs or a poem.”

Review

Quality of today
100%
Need to express it in a poem
0%

Forlorn (sage giraffe advice)

Stop shooting sphinxes
Bring back less dead love
Avoid colours blown open
Don’t fear elastic band ballet
Ignore red brick neighbours
Engage in fresh amaryllis play

Play dead mosquito
Play human
Play

Bring us a sunny tower of laughter

The prompt at Napowrimo.net today was to fill out an almanac type of questionnaire, and use the replies for a poem. I remembered that I got a lovely strange poem out of that prompt before. I was eager to try it again, and worried I would come up with something very alike. I didn’t 🙂

I know wonder what an almanac written by all the sage animals in my house would look like. We have at least three sloths. A number of bears. A turtle. Rabbit. Cow. Donald Duck. Endless possibilities to look at the world from a different perspective.

Temporarily unavailable

Document
Evasively ensconced
Somewhere, anywhere, everywhere
Chaos in every pile
Exasperated

The prompt today was too long to summarise here. An interesting one, that invites to dive deep into James Schuyler’sHymn to life.

My hymn to life today has been to just live it. I’m contributing an #elevenie I wrote some time in this period as my poem for today. And a picture of Utrecht, because that was part of my day.