Poetry & Prose: the darling blogs of May

Well hello!  Ah, I can hear my old Primary Seven teacher telling me off for starting a sentence with the word ‘well’, this was, according to her, a rude way to speak.  She still lives in the town where I live and yes, I am still scared of her.  It always amazes me how much those early school experiences stay with us and it can often be seen strongly in the way people feel about reading, writing and performing their writing. Luckily the Poetry and Prose round up is here to encourage you to pick a pen up and give it a go. But before I get to that I should really introduce myself (again  how rude of me!) seeing as this is my first ever post as half the Poetry & Prose Round-up editor team along with the fabulous (and insanely busy – I suspect she has an evil twin) Victoria Welton.

For those of you who do not know me, my name is Stephane and I blog over at Beautiful Misbehaviour where I write about poetry and motherhood and I also host the Virtual Open Mic Night where mothers can get together to share their writing and generally have a good bleather over a glass of wine.  It’s free and open to all so please get in touch if you would like to come along, we would love to see you there and our next night is a special newbie night so no excuses!  As co Poetry & Prose editor I hope to share writing news from the BritMums community and beyond as well as encourage writers new and old with their work. 

So what have the poetry bloggers been up to this month? Well it was post National Poetry Month, where lots of writers were aiming for a dirty thirty – thirty poems in thirty days.  If you missed it and want to give it a go there are some wonderful prompts over at the Mslexia blog.  If you fancy a slower approach then why not dip your toes into the waters of 52, it’s an excellent weekly prompt run by Canal Poet Laureate Jo Bell and it runs all year.  

May  was a great example of the different ways that creative writing can be incorporated into a blog, for example Family Adventure used a poem to talk about their visit to Dubai while andbabymakes3 got all nostalgic with a piece about her childhood summers.  Lots of poets were exploring different styles of writing this month with Emily’s Page exploring the Acrostic form, The Poetry Wagon completing her last poem in an a-z challenge of poetry forms with her Zanilla rhyme (check out her blog to see what other forms she has tackled) and giving us a few last limericks before she takes a bit of a blogging break to write more was Queen of Limerick Land  Writing Bubble.  Other bloggers chose to respond to writing prompts such as mumturnedmom with her piece The Surprise and Lisa’s Life, who shared this funny wee piece about birds.  A few other pieces that caught my eye this month include Rambling Through Parenthood’s passionate take on the changes she sees in Indian culture, a challenge to look  beyond first impressions from The Muddled Manuscript, Secrets of the Sandpit’s response to a published poet, All at Sea returned after a break from writing with another beautiful sea poem and finally there was this gorgeous poem over at Supper & Syntax which won the Poetry and Photo Challenge at Poetry Space.  

Finally a few pieces of good news to share with you.  Ellie from Poetry and Pandaemonium had a poems selected for the Emma Press anthology of Homesickness & Exile, she was also selected along with myself and Sadie Hanson from Older Mum In a Muddle for a mentoring scheme through WoMentoring.  Maddie from Writing Bubble and myself both had limericks chosen for publication by the Iron Press and Aimee Horton published her book Mother’s Ruined, available on Amazon.  Helen from All at Sea, Sarah from Supper & Syntax and Sadie from Older Mum in a Muddle were all chosen as Key Note Speakers at BritMum’s Live and PaperSwans launched its second successful ipamphlet at the start of the month, check out the website to get find out how to submit your writing for publication. 

Before I go I want to leave you with a poem to inspire you.  A difficult choice but I settled on Shake the Dust by Anis Morgani. It is a real powerhouse of a piece that I hope will inspire and uplift you.  Next month Victoria will be on round up duty and don’t forget her Poetry & Prose linky  every Thursday.   Until August keep reading, writing and performing your work!

About Stephanie Arsoska

Stephanie lives in Scotland with her husband and two children where she runs Little Red Theatre Company. As a writer she has had her work published by The Emma Press, Magma, Prole, Lighthouse, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Nutshells & Nuggets and The Open Mouse. She writes about writing, creativity and life in general over at her blog stephaniearsoska.co.uk.

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