Monthly Archives: Oct 2020

Locked Indoors – 5 Poems To Make Quarantine Scarier Than It Already Is

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This year has been a rollercoaster to say the least, who would have thought this is how we would be spending Halloween 2020? This year has challenged us all to be creative and think outside of the box, whether you learned how to bake bread at home or figured out a gym routine with bags of sugar as weights. What better way to exercise the muscle that is your mind than to delve into some exceptional horror themed poetry? Here are some of our picks.

<p class="has-black-color has-text-color has-large-font-size" value="<amp-fit-text layout="fixed-height" min-font-size="6" max-font-size="72" height="80"><strong><em>Windigo</em></strong> Windigo

By Louise Edrich

For Angela

The Windigo is a flesh-eating, wintry demon with a man buried deep inside of it. In some Chippewa stories, a young girl vanquishes this monster by forcing boiling lard down its throat, thereby releasing the human at the core of ice.

You knew I was coming for you, little one,

when the kettle jumped into the fire.

Towels flapped on the hooks,

and the dog crept off, groaning,

to the deepest part of the woods.

In the hackles of dry brush a thin laughter started up.

Mother scolded the food warm and smooth in the pot

and called you to eat.

But I spoke in the cold trees:

New one, I have come for you, child hide and lie still.

The sumac pushed sour red cones through the air.

Copper burned in the raw wood.

You saw me drag toward you.

Oh touch me, I murmured, and licked the soles of your feet.

You dug your hands into my pale, melting fur.

I stole you off, a huge thing in my bristling armor.

Steam rolled from my wintry arms, each leaf shivered

from the bushes we passed

until they stood, naked, spread like the cleaned spines of fish.

Then your warm hands hummed over and shoveled themselves full

of the ice and the snow. I would darken and spill

all night running, until at last morning broke the cold earth

and I carried you home,

a river shaking in the sun.

Samhain

By Annie Finch

(The Celtic Halloween)

In the season leaves should love,

since it gives them leave to move

through the wind, towards the ground

they were watching while they hung,

legend says there is a seam

stitching darkness like a name.

Now when dying grasses veil

earth from the sky in one last pale

wave, as autumn dies to bring

winter back, and then the spring,

we who die ourselves can peel

back another kind of veil

that hangs among us like thick smoke.

Tonight at last I feel it shake.

I feel the nights stretching away

thousands long behind the days

till they reach the darkness where

all of me is ancestor.

I move my hand and feel a touch

move with me, and when I brush

my own mind across another,

I am with my mother’s mother.

Sure as footsteps in my waiting

self, I find her, and she brings

arms that carry answers for me,

intimate, a waiting bounty.

“Carry me.” She leaves this trail

through a shudder of the veil,

and leaves, like amber where she stays,

a gift for her perpetual gaze.

Black Cat

By Rainer Maria Rilke

A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place
your sight can knock on, echoing; but here
within this thick black pelt, your strongest gaze
will be absorbed and utterly disappear:

just as a raving madman, when nothing else
can ease him, charges into his dark night
howling, pounds on the padded wall, and feels
the rage being taken in and pacified.

She seems to hide all looks that have ever fallen
into her, so that, like an audience,
she can look them over, menacing and sullen,
and curl to sleep with them. But all at once

as if awakened, she turns her face to yours;
and with a shock, you see yourself, tiny,
inside the golden amber of her eyeballs
suspended, like a prehistoric fly.

To Live in the Zombie Apocalypse

By Burlee Vang

The moon will shine for God
knows how long.
As if it still matters. As if someone

is trying to recall a dream.
Believe the brain is a cage of light
& rage. When it shuts off,

something else switches on.
There’s no better reason than now
to lock the doors, the windows.

Turn off the sprinklers
& porch light. Save the books
for fire. In darkness,

we learn to read
what moves along the horizon,
across the periphery of a gun scope—

the flicker of shadows,
the rustling of trash in the body
of cities long emptied.

Not a soul lives
in this house &
this house & this

house. Go on, stiffen
the heart, quicken
the blood. To live

in a world of flesh
& teeth, you must
learn to kill

what you love,
& love what can die.

Dead Souls Dressed

By Nisha Patel

Dancing in the corridor wings, they boasted of their past lives.

Reincarnated and ready for the Halloween night.

Leather shoes tapped the pumpkin to check if anyone inside was hiding.

The school desks whispered the dreadful fate of their lost students.

Spiders crawled inside tiny holes in the corners.

The school scarecrow outside tried to warn those poor children.

They died in their classrooms from poisoned lunches in 1935.

On a Halloween night that even surprised their teachers.

The candles in their memory on the window ledge teared up in melted wax.

Winds outside howled the pain of their parents, still angry at their loss in heaven.

Those little souls were running through corridors dressed as their teachers.

The only Halloween costumes they had access to.

Today their souls were running free in the untouched corridors.

Their lost souls dressed up, to give the dead a life outside of their clothes.

 

Poems compiled by Gabrielė Platūkis

Writers Talk

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Naush and Suna’s Talk – Tips or Tricks

Rejection and coping with it well, is one of the great tips and tools needed for a writer. They reminded us that it’s important to “welcome rejection.” It may seem like an obvious pro tip, but as writers, when we get so invested in our work it’s the simplest of things we may forget in our writing journey. Rejection is a piece of the experience and not the final picture. Which is important to remember. Those rejections make us better writers in the sense that we explore deeper, where we can really touch the roots of writing. 

Time is also significant. Managing your schedule gives you the independence of you will need to acquire as a full time writer in the future. “Carving out time” for yourself as a writer also caters to your writing mood which is beneficial to pay attention to. Especially because a writer is constantly evolving. Writers need to be able to take the time to see the different dimensions of themselves they have put into their work. They will grow with the evolution of their characters over their time. 

Submission windows are the classic example of motivation for a writer. It’s a “great motivation factor” because a writer is working towards something consistently.   Working on good writing is about consistency. In addition to that, having deadlines are a great preparation technique for those less flexible days. It’s a way for a writer to combat any writing fears they may have as those deadlines may push them to go for it. Self discipline is at a strong point when you feel good under pressure. You feel confident enough to meet the deadline in your own time, on time. 

Find a community that will take your work seriously is one of the best pieces of advice these ladies offered us. It’s vital to seek that society of people who are genuine in responding to your work. Critical feedback is essential in progressing your writing. It’s what gives the writer more fuel to win their own race. The feedback that may be the hardest to take in, might be the most helpful advice they have been given to accelerate their narrative. Being critical can be “really fruitful” for making a writer see beyond what they think they can achieve. The possibilities grow when you take the true words of the true critics seriously.

Developing your craft comes from what gets one excited and intrigued as a writer. The passion is a key ingredient in enjoying the experience of writing. Writing about something that keeps your eyes wide open will make you want to build a better engine your story can work from. Reading equally stems from passion. They spoke of how reading poetry magazines can give you a taste of “contemporary poetry.” That kind of reading also keeps a writer up to date on the kind of writing circulating our world today. A writer doesn’t have to change themselves to fit the writing trend, but they should try to understand them. General reading is a necessity. Books bring the writer to life, and give them new words to extract. This an empowering contribution for self development in writing. To create “better readers” and produce more “informed writers.”

The “bubble of motherhood” is an interesting one to talk about. They spoke about how being a mother can be very time consuming on the schedule. This justifies further why a writing community is  useful because it gives writers a place to gather and share similar problems. Assuring yourself your not alone matters, particularly during the Covid era that is about to get spooky this October. 

Written by Nisha Patel

Writers Talk

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1

Naush and Suna’s Talk – Tips or Tricks

Rejection and coping with it well, is one of the great tips and tools needed for a writer. They reminded us that it’s important to “welcome rejection.” It may seem like an obvious pro tip, but as writers, when we get so invested in our work it’s the simplest of things we may forget in our writing journey. Rejection is a piece of the experience and not the final picture. Which is important to remember. Those rejections make us better writers in the sense that we explore deeper, where we can really touch the roots of writing. 

Time is also significant. Managing your schedule gives you the independence of you will need to acquire as a full time writer in the future. “Carving out time” for yourself as a writer also caters to your writing mood which is beneficial to pay attention to. Especially because a writer is constantly evolving. Writers need to be able to take the time to see the different dimensions of themselves they have put into their work. They will grow with the evolution of their characters over their time. 

Submission windows are the classic example of motivation for a writer. It’s a “great motivation factor” because a writer is working towards something consistently.   Working on good writing is about consistency. In addition to that, having deadlines are a great preparation technique for those less flexible days. It’s a way for a writer to combat any writing fears they may have as those deadlines may push them to go for it. Self discipline is at a strong point when you feel good under pressure. You feel confident enough to meet the deadline in your own time, on time. 

Find a community that will take your work seriously is one of the best pieces of advice these ladies offered us. It’s vital to seek that society of people who are genuine in responding to your work. Critical feedback is essential in progressing your writing. It’s what gives the writer more fuel to win their own race. The feedback that may be the hardest to take in, might be the most helpful advice they have been given to accelerate their narrative. Being critical can be “really fruitful” for making a writer see beyond what they think they can achieve. The possibilities grow when you take the true words of the true critics seriously.

Developing your craft comes from what gets one excited and intrigued as a writer. The passion is a key ingredient in enjoying the experience of writing. Writing about something that keeps your eyes wide open will make you want to build a better engine your story can work from. Reading equally stems from passion. They spoke of how reading poetry magazines can give you a taste of “contemporary poetry.” That kind of reading also keeps a writer up to date on the kind of writing circulating our world today. A writer doesn’t have to change themselves to fit the writing trend, but they should try to understand them. General reading is a necessity. Books bring the writer to life, and give them new words to extract. This an empowering contribution for self development in writing. To create “better readers” and produce more “informed writers.”

The “bubble of motherhood” is an interesting one to talk about. They spoke about how being a mother can be very time consuming on the schedule. This justifies further why a writing community is  useful because it gives writers a place to gather and share similar problems. Assuring yourself your not alone matters, particularly during the Covid era that is about to get spooky this October. 

Written by Nisha Patel

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Nisha Patel is a writer dreaming in her own little world. Underneath a tree, looking upon the cities lit by the stars. A second year student studying Creative Writing and English Language at the University of Westminster. She adores writing as her company and loves embracing the warmth of nature while she is sitting in it. Hearing the birds tweet gives her sweetness on a sad day. When sunshine falls in, she falls into the making of a new dream. Notebooks with poems make her heart smile, especially ones that are full up of them!