sallymurphy.com.au

Sally Murphy, Australian author

Poem: Selfie

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The topic for  for this week’s  52-week Illustration Challenge is ‘Selfies’. All the clever illustratory folks doing the challenge are posting wonderful self-portraits in all sorts of formats. As you may know, if you follow this blog, I joined the challenge on the proviso that I could write a poem each week rather than draw/paint/sketch, as my artistic skills are really non-existent. I figure that I can try to paint a picture in words, by inspiring mental images.
However, as I said, this week’s topic is ‘selfies’, and I was really stumped as to how I would do this using just words, though many of my poems are, at some level, about me.  Then, as I cleaned my desk today I moved my magnet words and whiteboard and remembered writing a poem about myself with them last year. Rather than reuse that poem, I put my thinking cap on – and  came up with something both visual and word-based. Hope you like it.

Caravan

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Here’s my effort for this week’s  52-week Illustration Challenge. The topic this week is caravans.
 
There once was a man named O’Dea
Who wanted to get right away
Hitched his ‘van to the ute
Took the long scenic route
And was soon settled in for his stay. 
Next week’s topic is ‘selfie’. Not yet sure how I’ll paint this one with words – but might post a photo to go with it 🙂

Eggs – and a Challenge

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The lovely Tania McCartney has started a 52 Week Illustration challenge on her blog and on Facebook.
She invited me to join and (after I stopped laughing) I thought ‘why not?’

The thing is, I can’t draw to save myself, and whilst I’ve often heard people say ‘anyone can learn to draw’ I think that’s about as true as ‘anyone can learn to write’ –  ie a bit true, but to do so requires a dedication which I don’t have (in regards to drawing, but not to writing).  I want to be awesome at writing, and trying to get there takes almost all my time, so for the forseeable future I won’t be taking up art.

However, I paint with words, or at least I try to. So I wondered if I could join in the  challenge by contributing a little poem on each week’s topic. Of course Tania, being the lovely person she is, thought that sounded fine, so I’m in.

You can read all about the challenge here or on the Facebook page here.

And, for my first effort, on the topic of eggs, I decided a  haiku migt be appropriate.

Egg

You may look quite plain

but I know your shell  conceals

miracle of life. 

 

A Magnet Poem

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Last year at the Perth Writers Festival family Day  I got a free magnet board and enough letter magnets to spell my name. This year  got a sheet of magnet words. Today I finally opened both – and wrote a poem.



Not a great photo – actually very hard to photograph because of white background and tiny size of words. But lots of fun.

A Morning Poem

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Photo: Tough choice Should I walk 'Round lake? Through bush? Along beach? I have a hard life. (Today I chose the beach)

Tough choice
Should I walk
‘Round lake?
Through bush?
Along beach?

I have a hard life.

(Today I chose the beach)

What Jackie Hosking Likes About Children’s Poetry

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If you’ve been dropping in regularly then you’ll know that all month I’ve been hosting visting bloggers who have been dropping in to help me celebrate the release of Toppling by telling me (and you) what it is that they like about chidlren’s poetry. Please welcome today Jackie Hosking, poet, chidlren’s writer and editor of the Pass It On newsletter. Welcome Jackie.

Why I like poetry.

I’ve always liked white space.

I’ve found, over time, that I am more likely to read a thing if there is less of it. This is not to say that I don’t enjoy reading novels, because I do, but I definitely enjoy reading pages that are broken up into lots of paragraphs more than pages that look like slabs of ants fighting for a parking space. With this in mind, as a reader, the verse novel suits me very well. As a writer, on the other hand, I find the verse novel to be somewhat tricky because I like to write in rhyme. It seems, for me that I am better at novel verse, than I am at verse novels, so thank goodness for authors like Sally Murphy who are able to write them for me.

Pearl Verses the World is the fifth verse novel that I’ve read and I loved it. I loved that Pearl preferred not to write in rhyme because life is not all hats and cats. (By the way I’ve written a couple of rhyming poems about cats but none about hats so thanks for that pearl, Pearl – I’ll get right onto it.) Did you notice my use of humour just then? It was very subtle but I think you’ll agree that it was definitely there. Sally uses Pearl’s aversion to rhyme as a way to add some comic relief to what is a very serious story and I think that this is probably key. While rhyming poetry can be a tool to express ideas of a serious nature, many of my poems aren’t funny at all, free verse tends to lend itself to such matters in a smoother fashion.

Toppling, Sally’s second verse novel published by Walker Books, tells another serious story. It’s an important book because illness does not just occur in an adult world. Writing such a story as a verse novel, with plenty of white space, allows the reader to take lots of breaths allowing the story to be delivered gently, like a lullaby.

I admire writers of verse novels because of their ability to pare down story to its essential elements. Rhymers do this too but in a more ordered fashion and such is the beauty of verse, free or otherwise – the VERSEatility of it all.

Thanks Sally for allowing me to share why I like poetry with your readers and for saving me the trouble of trying to write a verse novel of my own, thus giving me the freedom to write another rhyming poem about cats…

This one’s called – Bedraggled

A paw in a puddle

A cat in a muddle

She tiptoes in vain

to get out of the rain

And howls at the door

to loudly complain

Wet to the skin

Looking comically thin

We fluff her and puff her

and wrap her in towels

ignoring her howls as

she wriggles and squirms

we each take our turn

to ensure that her fur

is as soft as her purr

~~~~

And if you have a children’s rhyming poem or story that just won’t behave itself, you can contact Jackie’s rhyming manuscript editing service via her blog http://www.jackiehoskingpio.wordpress.com/

Thanks Sally!

Jackie Hosking

Editor/Compiler “PASS IT ON”

http://www.jackiehoskingpio.wordpress.com/

www.versatilityrhymeandrhythm.blogspot.com/

http://www.cbishowcase.blogspot.com/

Thanks for that jackie. I love your poem – and laughed at your jokes, too!

sallymurphy.com.au