Post It Note Poetry 2020

2020 is the 8th year of Post-It Note Poetry. Not bad for something that started as a dare to write bad poetry on Post-it notes between two friends.

The JAR Writers’ Collective will host the month-long poetry event this year, co-ordinated by Jodi CLeghorn, in league with fellow Collective members myself and Rus VanWestervelt, and ably supported by eight brilliant Post-It Note Poetry Ambassadors.

𝗔𝗕𝗢𝗨𝗧 𝗣𝗢𝗦𝗧-𝗜𝗧 𝗡𝗢𝗧𝗘 𝗣𝗢𝗘𝗧𝗥𝗬

Post-It Note Poetry runs every day in February and is designed with two broad aims in mind:

1. To encourage people of all skills sets and persuasions to explore and have fun with poetry – whether they are seasoned poets or curious souls attempting poetry for the first time since their teenage years.

2. To create within a confined physical space (the size of a post-it note) as a positive limitation. It is also a way of making poetry composition possible for 29 consecutive days.

“𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗥𝗨𝗟𝗘𝗦”

The rules are simple for those who’d like to play along at home (at work, on the bus or in any of those in between places perfect for scribbling poetic words on small squares of sticky paper).

🖊 Write/build/create a poem every day of February.

🖊 Poems must fit on a post-it note (or be an equivalent sized poem – ie. no more than 8 lines on a larger backing).

🖊Poems must adhere to the original light-hearted spirit of permission to write badly – in which poems can tackle serious content, but internal editors/critics all get a break over February.

🖊Post poems to social media with the hashtag #pinp20.

🖊Follow the hashtag and enjoy what others are creating.

We look forward to introducing our ambassadors in the coming days.

All questions or inquiries can be directed to me!!

If you’d like to join the Facebook group – you can do so here.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/460406284024429/

Post It Note Poetry 2017 Part 2

Curating the next instalment of Post It Note Poetry. There’s a few more days left of the month so I’ll see how I go.

Stranger

Words

Dyptych 1

Dyptych 2

A Kite’s Construction

Misinterpretation 

Untitled

Collaboration

Sand

Post It Note Poetry 2017

Post It Note Poetry began in 2013. It began as a dare. Since then, each February you will find people grabbing a pile of Post It Notes, a pen and permission to write, scribble, opine, wield, and bleed poetry. 

You can find this year’s start up on Sean Wright’s blog HERE. Sean is a brilliant poet.

I haven’t been up to date this year but here are my current offerings. Please excuse the dodgy images as the camera on my phone is cactus and dirty. Maybe I should run it through a few filters and declare it “arty”.

Follow the hashtag #pinp17 on Twitter or Instagram. See you there.

Create Even When You Have To Use Someone Else’s Tools

Late last year I came across Storybird. I posted about it here and here.

Normally during the month of February I engage and indulge in Post It Note Poetry (follow the hashtag #pinp16 on Twitter). This year I am not doing it. Things are chaotic with work right now so the opportunity to use someone else’s tools to create is a shortcut to keeping my creativity on the boil. 

Simply select an image, you are given some random words and go forth and create. This is the genius of it. It’s someone else’s tools to use and make them work for you.

Here are some recent additions.

A different take on Post It Note Poetry this year.

On Fear and Its Perception

“I write in order that I may travel with my soul into the places I fear and I may have a friend to share the journey.”

I wrote and posted this on Twitter the other day and very soon after clicking the “Tweet” button I questioned and doubted the validity and veracity of my statement.

I have written before about how I believe fear holds me back from exploring the creative life I want. The above statement is in contradiction to my manifesto and vision for why I write.

Or is it?

I have no clear answer; more a series of random reflections which may or may not lead to a clear answer. It’s like cleaning your glasses only to have them dirtier than when you started.

What follows is simply scraps of thoughts about what I wrote and differing perceptions of it. I am not sure I am right; nor am I sure I am wrong. I will contradict myself, provoke myself, push and question myself. And you can have your addition in the comments.

• Writing is about exploring your own fears; the fears you have of yourself and of the facets of life you find frightening.
• Fear is lacking an understanding of the unknown, the different, the obtuse, the unfathomable. To understand is to give a name to the fear; to know its place and its where it resides.
• My reader is the companion on the journey. They travel with me through the words on the page. At some time in their life they may, or may not, have experienced the same fear.
• What I write may bring comfort to know someone else has experienced the same fear; it may trigger a response; it may have no effect because the experience related in the story is not connected to their own life experiences.
• The opposite of fear is… what? Hope? Vision? Clarity? Discipline?
• The same chemical that is the basis for fear, adrenaline, is the same chemical that is the basis for excitement. Is fear the way our bodies tell us something new and exciting is about to happen?
• Defining fear as it relates specifically to yourself is the first step. What am I afraid of? Is it personal fear, an internal dialogue, or an external fear of something random outside your control? Is there a topic or issue you do not want to explore because of the fear it generates for yourself or fearful of the consequences of exposing it?

So, no answers. Definitely more questions but I know where my thinking is leading me.

If I rewrote my tweet, I would explore another aspect of why I write, another permutation of thinking about creativity and its purposes.

“I write in order that I may travel with my soul into the places I seek to understand and I may have a friend to share the journey.”

“I write in order that I may travel with my soul into the places I find comfort in and I may have a friend to share the journey.”

“I write in order that I may travel with my soul into the places I want to light a flame of light and life and I may have a friend to share the journey.”

 

What would you say?

The Death of Youth – A Poem

The Death of Youth

This then,
is the death of youth:
the blunt pencil
the dried out pen
the paper, crumpled
and tossed into the bin
untouched

I love twitter as a forum for having conversations, speaking my mind on something and using it as a boundary when writing poetry. It is similar in scope to Post It Note Poetry where the size of the Post It Note defines the length of the poem.

Twitter’s limitation of 140 characters means brevity is the essence of the writing. Make a statement, make it clearly and let it go.

This poem was inspired by another poem I read on twitter and gave me the opening two lines. My mind was asking the question, “What signifies the end of youth?” It echoes a line from my favourite novel, “Maestro” by Peter Goldsworthy, where the narrator, Paul Crabbe says that the end of childhood is when one becomes aware of it.

As a creative person, it was the idea of the death of creativity that connected me with the death of youth. Thus the last image of the untouched piece of paper, unsullied by the first explorations of creativity, or that time in our life when we are told to put away “childish things” that signals the death of youth. 

We can have a child-like enthusiasm for creativity and not lose the spark, and develop a creative maturity so that we do not mourn the death of the thing we love.

 

What To Do When You Doubt Your Creativity

I wrote this last week as Post It Note Poetry was coming to a close. For the month of February I was writing something new every day on the spur of the moment with very little editing or development. Dedicated crafting and revision is not the point of Post It Note Poetry.

Side Note: Post It Note Poetry presents its own set of creative issues and problems. I’ve reflected on them at the end of the month in 2013 (Post It Note Poetry Wrap Up) and 2014 (Lessons Learned from Post It Note Poetry). There is no need to revisit them again.

It has been a long while since I have written something new as I’ve been trying to complete the first drafts on some longer pieces (one of which is the stupid novella I’ve been saying I’ll write for the past 2 years). I have another short story (approx. 3.5K) that still needs work and has been revised and reworked numerous times.

What it all means is the process from idea to first draft, then edits, more drafts and finally, completion, is time consuming.

It’s the long drag between first draft and end of first draft (when you know the work has potential but it’s not yet realised) that makes me doubt. Even the short story mentioned above has been languishing for almost 12 months as I sort through various drafts, comments and plot issues.

Similarly, my novella and verse novel need some serious reworking in terms of plot. I started the novella with an outline but have realised it needs further revision. The verse novel started without an outline (trying different methodologies) and it needs a clear direction and focus. 

On top of that, the latter half of last year was a creative wasteland in some respects. Work demands were a high priority and a creative sink hole as I worked through marking papers, editing students’ major works and completed edits on a friend’s 104K sci-fi novel.

It meant I approached January as a time to rebuild myself creatively. But it didn’t happen. Everything I returned to felt like drinking a cup of sand. It was exhausting. And I seriously contemplated bailing on Post It Note Poetry as I doubted myself and my creative abilities.

What to do, then, if you are beginning to doubt your creativity? I have 2 solutions.

1. Stick with your creative community.

Your creative community is your most valuable asset. I have a group of people I can rely on to listen when I vent, whinge, complain, throw a tantrum, doubt, despair, consider chucking it all in.

They were there either via text or Facebook or messaging. Most of the time they simply listened. Occasionally they offered advice or encouragement. I have a creative colleague at school and we have our “Mea Cuppa” sessions, talking through ideas or talking rubbish while having cups of tea.

If you’re not part of a community, seek one out either in real life or online.

2. Keep turning up to the page as persistence pays off.

Deciding to complete Post It Note Poetry meant I had to turn up to the page Every. Single. Day. to complete a poem. Some poems came easier than others but I was compelled to keep going.

Even if you think you are creating rubbish, it is all about priming and preparing yourself for the next project whether it’s something new or returning to complete something older. It’s like training is for an athlete. Do the practice, complete the exercises in readiness for the main event.

For me, March (and the coming months) brings new vision and clarity for the projects I want to complete and the new ones on the horizon. For right now, I’ll keep turning up to the page and pressing on.

How do you keep your creativity flowing when you have doubts? Leave your ideas in the comments.

Post It Note Poetry Recap Week 4 – The End

Welcome to the end of the official month of Post It Note Poetry (don’t stop writing Post It Note Poetry; I won’t be stopping, only slowing down the production) but its time has come to an end for this year.

28 days of poetry. 28 poems. 1099 words (of questionable merit). In reviewing the poems I wrote, I am proud of many of them. Others have the potential to be developed or refined further. Some should be consigned to the rubbish bin. However, the point of this month was to simply write, and with permission to write badly, so I wrote. 

And now we have come to the last weekly recap. You can find the other weekly recaps here:

Post It Note Poetry Recap Week 1
Post It Note Poetry Recap Week 2
Post It Note Poetry Recap Week 3

At the end of last week’s recap I set myself a challenge to remix my own poems for the final week of Post It Note Poetry. I would take a single line from the poem and use it as the opening line of a new poem. Perhaps not so much a remix as an inspiration. Consequently it has opened up new ideas for next year with found poetry, other remixes and collaborations.

I found myself censoring lines, or thinking which lines might be good for the next day. It was a distraction from the poem at hand but I found the “OFF” switch to allow me to finish the poem. It may be easier to take the line from someone else’s poem because there is not the built in expectation of having to write something worthwhile. Maybe next year I’ll have another remix week where I borrow from other participants’ poems.

The poems are presented here in chronological order so you can see the progression, unlike previous weeks where they have been posted in reverse chronological order.

Thanks for coming along for the ride of Post It Note Poetry. It will be back again next year. I will be writing more Post It Notes poems from time to time. Be sure to check my tumblr, Post It Notes and Poetry, for posts and poetry updates.

Do you have any favourites? Leave yours in the comments.

Post It Note Poetry 2015 Recap Week 3

How have you been going this week? Have you had a chance to write something?

Here is this week’s recap of my Post It Note Poetry. You can also see the recaps for Week 1 and Week 2.

They are posted in reverse order (Sunday 22 Feb – Monday 9 Feb) and I’ve added in the inspiration behind each poem. 

This week involved a lot of trawling through my notebook and pilfering half written ideas.

This poem was sparked by a random song lyric on the radio this morning on my way to playing drums at church this morning. 

This poem came out of a line in my notebook about ourselves being a minotaur, a hybrid of the things we have created, and putting ourselves in a maze we created. 

Another line from my notebook, sparked by one time when I was filling the ice cube tray. Sometimes I fill it cube by cube; other times I cascade the water until it is full. What does that say about my character?

No one remembers milk bars anymore; they are a relic of the past. I love watching the patterns made my shadows. Notebooks for the win for ideas.

Getting my wordy geek on. Finishing off a poem I was going to write last year (at about this time) as a longer exploration. Instead, the brevity worked better.

Another notebook find. I’m not happy with the end section of this poem; it is inconsistent with the first part. 

I do not remember how this one came about as it was not an idea I took from my notebook. A photograph is, for me, a snapshot of one moment, one experience. It serves as a reminder of what was, but doesn’t speak of what will be.

Final Note

For the last week of the official Post It Note Poetry season, I thought I’d go for a remix week. I will take a line from the previous day’s poem as the basis for the next poem. Starting Monday I will write a new poem, and Tuesday will be the first remix.

Post It Note Poetry 2015 Recap Week 2

This week I did not follow a theme for titles or content; I let the ideas sprout where they were sown. I might do a week of another theme or a week of found poetry. Haven’t decided yet. Or I might scatter some more seeds and see what comes out of the compost heap.

You can catch up on Week 1 here.

They are posted in reverse order (Sunday 15 – Sunday 8 February)

 

Which poem strikes a chord with you and why?