On Saturday, I saw Simon Armitage read some of his poems. I haven't read his work since I was fifteen, studying for my GCSEs but when the poet laureate comes to Hunmanby (you won't know it, just google it and you'll see why I'm amazed he went there) you go to Hunmanby to see him. I went with my sister and it was an amazing evening. He was hilarious. I loved everything he read and talked about and I of course got some books signed. I've seen quite a few poets over the years: Carol Ann Duffy John Hegley John Cooper Clarke Hollie McNish Wendy Cope Roger McGough Ian McMillan I wondered who you've all seen live and who was your favourite?

Hear me out: A lot of people tell me that I write 'Rachel poems'. As in: they can spot one of my poems a mile away. I'm not sure how or why but they tell me it's definitely a good thing. I know I say 'I guess' a lot in poems but that's not really a definition of a Rachel poem. I guess I'm curious: do you have 'tells' that a poem is written by you? Or: can you think of 'tells' in other people's poems?

Well, I took a few days off from Cove related activities because my mental health has crashed and burned recently. Mellenial burnout is a very real thing. But I'm back. I will clarify by saying that I'm borrowing this prompt from Sabrina Benaim's Button University poetry course. So, in the last class, we studied Kim Addonizio's 'What Do Women Want'. The poem starts with 'I want a red dress.' It is such a simple opening line. However, Addonizio is a very clever writer and she builds and builds on the imagery of this dress. It's halfway through the poem when she says 'I want to walk like I'm the only woman on earth' and that's the kicker. That's when the poem reveals exactly what Addonizio means from the poem. It's not about the dress at all. It's about how she's perceived by other people and by herself. I'd go so far as to say the title of the poem is a bit misleading. The title almost suggests that it's a 'How To' guide for men to understand women. But that isn't what it is at all. So the prompt is: write a poem about what you want but build on it. Add layers and layers to reveal the true want. I can't wait to see what you come up with!

So I missed last week's prompt because life is hard and I just forgot and to be quite honest with you, I haven't put too much effor into this week's prompt either. However, I think you'll like it. Last night, in Desireé Dallagiacomo's Undercurrent workshop, we studied the poem 'It Was' by Maja Lukic. In the poem, the speaker reflects on a relationship. We discussed what type of relationship it was and when it was set. Some people interpreted the poem as being set during the pandemic. All of that aside, the most notable poetic device is the repetition of 'It was'. This is known as 'anaphora'. So, I invite you to consider a relationship (any kind of relationship, not necessarily romantic) and write a poem using anaphora. It doesn't have to be 'It was'. It could be 'And then' or 'I remember' or 'The next day'. I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Hello Covers! I've been thinking. In my NaPoWriMo post, I suggested having virtual write ins to help us get through the challenge and I wondered if that should be a thing regardless of NaPoWriMo. Let me explain. When I do NaNoWriMo, I usually participate in virtual write ins. They're usually done in 'sprints' where you write as much as you can for fifteen minutes. This doesn't really work for poetry (certainly not the vibe I'm looking for for these 'circles'). But I found being with other people (even virtually) and writing at the same time to be really useful. I even found an online study group that just has an ongoing zoom that you can join (no mics/chat) so you can be with other people studying at the same time. It helps me stay focussed on whatever I'm working on. So my suggestion for the Cove: a weekly (or maybe a couple of times a week) 'writing circle' probably on Discord where you can come and write the poem you've been working on for a while or edit your chapbook or read some poetry (I don't do that as much as I should!) Does that sound like something Covers are interested in?

Here we are again with another poem pulled from the Poetry Foundation. Let's get into it: Love Has Stained by Mirabai Love has stained my body to the color of the One Who Holds Up Mountains. When I dressed in the world's five fabrics, I only played hide and seek— For disguised though I was, the Lifting One caught me. And seeing his beauty, I offered him all that I am. Friends, let those whose Beloved is absent write letters— Mine dwells in the heart, and neither enters nor leaves. Mira has given herself to her Lord Giridhara. Day or night, she serves only Him. There's a lot of religious imagery/language here but on the whole, I'm not entirely certain what's happening. What do you think?

Well, it's that time of year again. National Poetry Writing Month. The challenge to write one poem everyday for the month of April. We did it here at the Cove last year and, yes, it was exhausting but it was also SO MUCH FUN! So here we are. We have a little less than a month to prep/relax. It's going to be great. I'll be participating again this year and posting my poems everyday. I'll be making a couple of posts closer to the time with advice/motivation but for now, I'm just planning how we can make the most of the challenge. Yes, it's an individual challenge but trust me: it's much easier when you have a team of people cheerleading for you. So here are my current thoughts: Daily prompts Daily word banks (just to prompt a variety of vocabulary) Daily 'reads' or 'listens' - just a reminder that reading/listening/watching poetry will hopefully keep the spark of creativity alive Every few days, posting different methods of writing poetry. Not necessarily advice but if you're a planner, try frewriting a poem instead, that kind of thing I'm also thinking of hosting a few write ins or maybe even mini generative workshopsthroughout April Beginning of May, have a virtual open mic on either zoom or Discord where people can share their NaPoWriMo poems My question to you Covers is: is there anything specific you would like me to include to support/encourage you through the month of April? You're all going to be amazing!

Okay, to be fully transparent with you, I went to poetryfoundation.org as usual to find a poem to discuss and I read about five where I didn't really know what was going on. Perhaps those are the kinds of poems I should be posting here to see if someone can shed some light on them. Maybe next week. I'm not going to lie, I've been feeling a bit tender and anxious considering everything that's happening in the world and I tried to find a comforting poem. I'm not sure this is it but I really like the poem (even though I'm not sure I could explain the poem that well...) Correction: Tonight Is Not the Longest Night in the History of the Earth by Katie Willingham Lately, I've enlisted an app on my phone to keep track of the time that I can't witness—it maps the dark blanket of missing consciousness, a jagged line. Best night/worst night, it says, though I remember neither. I have been blessed with sleep that comes on thick and steadily. Whatever dreaming enters I don't recall. I wake to snow again— sheets of static. I admit I have a soft spot for the apocalypse. Some part of me must be totally rotten. Ever since you introduced me to The Survivor Library, I've been plotting disappearing acts—but green screen isn't a way to go, just a way to fool the light. Blue screen, on the other hand, the Blue Screen of Death, they call it—covered in the white scrawl of encoded error. Enumerated, particular in its lethality. Everyone knows the only answer is to restart. Restart, yes, like the Survivor Library, one man's catalogue of industrial development circa 1800-1900, in case of nuclear detonation, solar flare. It must be true what they say—that pain produces logic. Only five hours ago, the Librarian posts about a near miss, a category 2 flare: This could have been my last post and your last time on the Internet for a generation or more. And across the ocean, in Cambridge, the lights are out at the Center for the Study of Existential Risk. The astrophysicist, philosopher, and computer programmer that make up its ranks are still asleep. The good news—Librarian, again—the good news is we went to the moon with only a slide rule. A slide rule! You can print one off the Internet, tuck it away in a drawer. And eyes, yes, no one's seem to work very well anymore. Note: add something on optometry. If anything, this compendium is proof of our belief in loneliness, in its power—that what we can make we can also stop from coming true. The thing is you're probably asleep by now, but I have no way to verify this without waking you. Spit in the wind near the ocean and which salt returns? How to be sure if you've tasted it before? Remind me, what is it we are still attempting to measure? The apparatus, I assure you, is faulty. The apparatus barely holds a charge anymore. The apparatus keeps forgetting what we've asked it to locate, which universe we inhabit, whether to start with the good news or the bad news, but even the good news could only be the kind that comes with a bad diagnosis. At least you know. At least— Before the string of codes on the screen, a solid color signals the fatal condition, a blue I'm learning to read anew since it was updated from navy to cerulean, from the Latin caelum for heaven, for nothing but sky. Usually, I like to follow up with some of my thoughts but I'm not sure where to start. I know it's a bit of a long poem and there's a lot going on. I like the starting point of using an app on your phone. I do that. But then the speaker drops in 'I have a soft spot for the apocalypse'. Is she wishing for the apocalypse? Does she enjoy apocalyptic movies? But then comes the part that I especially like (which comes up again at the end): she starts discussing what is commonly known as 'the blue screen of death' with computers. 'Everyone knows the only answer is to restart'. Is this looping back to the apocalypse note? I'm not sure I could explain this line by line but I really like the vibe/tone of this poem.

I'm not going to lie. I've been very busy and tired the latter half of the week so I don't have anything prepared. As such, today's prompt is very simple: write about your perfect day. Think about the weather, your outfit, your meals. Where would you visit? Who would you want to spend time with, if anyone? Would your perfect day be in an entirely different universe? A fictional universe? Would you have different colour hair, eyes? Some jumping off prompts: Today, I... I wake up and... Nothing went wrong today because... I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Before we get into it, I want to give a trigger warning as there is a reference to suicide in the final stanza. Lavendar by Johanna Fuhrman "Being in a funk" is what the cool people call it. It's the purple that surrounds the scene at the lake. Not sad enough to actually drown. You say, 'Tm in a funk," and I think you think you're too pretty, too well groomed, too stylishly disheveled, to actually sulk. Have you ever tried drinking a milkshake with a girlfriend in a funk? She just stares at the straw as if sucking on it would allow the whole world into her mouth. When a teenager wears baggy sweatpants all February, her math teacher may ask her if she's in a funk. (She's actually just pissed off.) Frogs don't get into funks, but toads do. In the Bible, Abraham thought Sarah was in a funk, but she was actually shaking with grief. When her baby arrived, her 100-year-old flesh quivered like a sliced papaya. There is nothing funky about being in a funk. The Polish biochemist Casimir Funk invented vitamins. How long can you hold on to a mummified cat when the the building is already burning? Sometimes I just want to use my own hands. The golfer Fred Funk wore a pink skirt to settle a bet with Annika Sörenstam. Doing cartwheels or changing the bed sheets are suggested cures for getting out of a funk. To be in a funk is to want to cry, but to be unable to access tears. To be in a funk is to be unable to hear the music in the subway's rattle. If Virginia Woolf had been in a funk, she would have filled her pockets with dead lilacs instead of rocks. I'm finding it hard to put into words why I like this poem so much if I'm perfectly honest. I mean, I guess the most striking thing to me is that the poem lists all the plausible definitions of being in a 'funk'. Right off the bat, the poet actually calls into question how some people treat mental illness as a trend. But then the speaker kind defines a 'funk' as sulking, anger, grief. Then right at the end, the speaker says 'To be in a funk is to want to cry, / but to be unable to access tears.' There is a seriousness and darkness throughout the poem but this line really hammers home the type of 'funk' the poet has been referring to all along.

I can't believe it's that time of the week again but here we are. I invite you to read Unreliable by Sarah Kay. We discussed this poem in my Friday workshop last night and it sparked a lot of interesting discussions around what we, as readers, perceive as the truth and what we, as writers, present as the truth. Right off the bat, the author says that she lies to herself all the time. If we read this as an internal monologue, rather than a conversation with somebody, it throws into question the validity of each line. She uses wonderful images of 'Look at this bird, this childhood memory, / that light falling on his body in the steam.' But then she says 'Boom' as if she brings these things into reality. More than that, she has full confidence that people believe her no matter what. The entire poem is closed with the harrowing question of 'What if what you are is boring / and alive, what are you going to do then?' This question suggests that the speaker wouldn't be satisifed with just being alive. She needs to be more than boring. So, the prompts... I have a couple in mind: Find a word that describes you. In this instance, Sarah used the word 'Unreliable'. It could be funny, clever, daydreamer, whatever. And write a poem exploring how you are a definition of that word. Similarly, think of that word as a prize. What I mean is: the poem opens with 'Where is my prize for most unreliable narrator?' When I wrote my poem last night, I started with 'Where is my prize for most likely to cry?' It would also be fun to explore the idea of the unreliable narrator. Write a poem filled with truths and lies. Prove that you're an unreliable narrator. I can't wait to see what you come up with.

Well, as usual, I found this while perusing The Poetry Foundation which I think is a great resource. Anyway. Personal History by Kareem Tayyar This was in the year when a ship took leave of the water & floated out across the clouds. When the clouds became the opened palms of the angels. The year when the angels strung their wings across the telephone lines like laundry drying in the sun. Only there was no sun. Not that year. That came later, when the children turned first into horses & then into ghosts, when the rain fell in love with a poet, when the poet forgot his own name & then the names for everything else. That was a good year. A year without names. A year when I learned to kneel without my knees ever touching the ground, & where the gods all prayed to us. But I am getting ahead of myself. I should start at the beginning. I really like this poem. It just sounds soft and tranquil. It's got some beautiful imagery. I especially love the imagery of angels hanging their wings out on telephone lines. There's also a certain power held in the line 'A year when I learned to kneel / without my knees ever touching the ground'. There's vulnerability there, too, I think. I can't wait to hear what you think!

Hi friends, today's poem is taken from the poets.org poem a day email list. (It's free - if you're not signed up, you're missing out!) Last Mattress by Marilyn Nelson This $1,600 slice of foam, if it stays firm, will be the last mattress I’ll ever buy. It’s comfortable enough for years of sleeps, for the long, thwarted hours of scribbling sentences, or to step from into the surrey with the fringe on top. Given the choice between flat-lining here, and1,000,000other possibilities for the time when my pronouns and now end— I’d pick my bed, and passing on with good dreams. One jot, on this little blue and green globe where life evolved, and consciousness, and hope. It was such a joy to receive this poem in my inbox the other day. I've read this a few times and seem to find something new each time. 'Slice of foam' is such a beautiful image to describe a mattress. It just makes it sound soft and comfortable. There's also something kind of romantic about 'It's comfortable enough / for years of sleeps'. We all know the comfort of having a good mattress but having one good enough to last years and years just sounds super rested and cosy. More than that, the poet even tells us that she writes in bed. I used to do this and it's not overly comfortable to be honest. Not on my mattress anyway. But she's describing the mattress as being comfortable enough to write on but also private enough to write there, too. I love the 'Oklahoma!' reference. The section beginning 'Given the choice' just makes me feel calm. I know a lot of people want to pass on in bed but the imagery of passing on 'with good dreams' is even more beautiful. I can't wait to hear what you all think!

Okay, as usual, I haven't prepared anything specific for today. Instead, I'm writing this on the heels of last night's workshop where I was first introduced to this poem. The poem in question is Training by Diannely Antigua. I will say right off the bad that there are some very intense interpretations that I'm not going to address too deeply as I don't want to trigger anybody. Anyway, the poem describes the speaker and another person training a new puppy. It's unclear who the other person is and I think that's quite effective. I assumed it was a romantic partner. However, others thought it was maybe a father. Either way, the speaker describes taking stones out of the dog's mouth and clearing up it's mess, strapping a life jacket to her so she could go swimming. All of these things without question, just because the speaker and the other person just because they love the puppy, as shown in the line of 'a kindness / so pure and gentle as that, as a pat on the head / for doing nothing but existing.' This all culminates in the last line as the speaker has to remove the stones from her own body in contrast to her removing the stones from the dog's mouth. There's also an interesting section: 'Here, the world is perpetual March, / and we love a dog as if that’s the only thing we can do, as if / death cannot touch this slice of New England, the trees / growing a canopy of shade just for us.' There was some debate on the meaning of this. Is it referencing the start of the pandemic? Does it mean spring? I'm not familiar with the New England climate but some people suggested March in New England is still cold and wintery. Personally, I see a lot of protection in this passage as if the couple are protecting the puppy from the world. So, what's the prompt? I invite you to think about a time you've been a caretaker. It could be for a person or an animal or a plant. Any time you felt responsible for another thing. And write about that experience. I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Well, it's that time of the week again. And, oh look: Rachel has chosen a poem at random. Kind of. This week, we're looking at 'I Like To Kiss Scars' by Rosa Chavez (translated by Gabriella Ramirez-Chavez) I like to kiss scars there, where the skin grows tougher there, where the memories are visible scars of every shape and size small marks across your lips on your eyelids, in your gaze I like to kiss bodies that are cartographies carved with destiny’s knife I like scars there, pain takes form skin grows again skin and heart become tougher right where the blood was, right at the wound I absolutely adore this poem. I've only just read it right now, two minutes ago, but I desperately want to find more of Rosa's work. This piece, man. As someone who has scars because I'm clumsy and I fell over a lot as a child, this is beautiful. I love the description of bodies being 'cartographies'. That's absolutely beautiful. Thinking of a body as a map of the person's life is phenomenal. There's also a lot of implications on emotional scars as well towards the end of the poem. 'The skin and heart become tougher'. I love it. I can't wait to see what you think.

Happy Saturday Covers! I hope you've all survived January and have had a good start to 2022! So let's get into this week's prompt. I was in a workshop last night and we discussed the poem Sorrow Is Not My Name by Ross Gay. A lot of people knew this poem. However, I hadn't read it before. But it was such a joy to explore this poem with people who were already familiar with it. I invite you to give it a read along with To The Young Who Want to Die by Gwendolyn Brooks which inspired Gay's poem. In Gay's poem, he explores beauty in the world but in an unexpected way. For example, he describes the vulture who looked at him. Personally, I don't find vultures to be very attractive birds but it was the moment of connecting with the bird that was beautiful. He discusses how there are millions of sweet things occuring in the world at this very moment which I think is a beautiful line. I'm also curious about the POV int his poem. For maybe two thirds of the poem, Gay is addressing another person, 'You'. However, towards the end, the poem turns kind of introspective and he is talking about his niece and his neighbour, exploring the beauty in his own unique life. So, think about what beauty is in your life. Right from general experiences that anyone could see right down to situations with your family/neighbours. I can't wait to see what you come up with!