This is Metamorphosis 2 and takes me back to the days when we were doing The Hidden Woman Project in Oxford. I always loved the poem Chuma wrote to go with it so I've just used it again for my 'How to write a poem' post in Hastings Online Times. It's called 'Eyes'.
What does that mean - I've 'used' it. 'Use' is a funny word. Makes me think that anything I 'use' will wear out. I can't take and take and take from it without it changing into something less. Like a dishcloth, for instance, or a broom. Or a bicycle. This digital picture should last forever but maybe it won't. The real picture will wear out. It already is doing. It's fading.
The post talks about using a picture as a stimulus for a poem. But although this picture is part of my past, it's also part of my present. A picture is not time limited like a story. Pictures just sit there and become part of any time that anyone is in when they look at them.
Stories are difficult. They are always set in some sort of time. So far, all my stories have been set in the past so I've had some idea of a backdrop even if it was only one small piece of backdrop. Time somewhere. But not the new story. The Aulani story starts in the past. Round about 2010 but soon it edges into our present time and that's when it gets hard. My character Aulani is walking out of the past to catch up with me here. She's left Papua New Guinea and is already in Melbourne.
I know she's going back to Port Moresby but I know, too, that she will go to Oxford and come to Hastings, Fact and fiction are going to get dangerously close.
Meanwhile, I'll enjoy reading the poems I put in today's post for HOT. I love 'Hang in there' by Johhn D. Robinson. It's comforting and I'm always in need of comfort. Have a look at it.
Bookchat - How to write a poem- 1
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