Category: poetry

poems, poetry1 Comment

Not A Poem by Not A Poet

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

  The Village, Spring and Summer 2020 When the world had gone mad And things were so bad And staying at home was the new going out And life shrank to the size of a screen But if we were lucky we still saw some green in the fields and the gardens we passed when we could. Until everything stopped.   No outings, no meetings No seeing our gran, No chatting to besties or folks in the street, unless they were housemates and under our feet. Like a film that has stuck on one frame we were trapped Right here … Continue reading Not A Poem by Not A Poet

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poems, poetry3 Comments

Products of a poetry course

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

FutureLearn took its reputation in its hands by letting me know about its ‘Making a Poem’ course run by Manchester Metropolitan university. It’s just three weeks and covers some basics, including sources of poetic ideas such as random text, images, and individual words, and the protocols governing feedback. For such a short course, it does its job quite well, introducing the elements of poetry and getting participants to engage in a bit of practice. Tutors are Helen Mort and Michael Symmons Roberts whose videos head each section. I’m not sure what they’d make of what I made though! A Found poem … Continue reading Products of a poetry course

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Audio, poetry5 Comments

Unlocked: final three audio tracks from Let Me Tell You A Story

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

So go on, let us do that – we’re ready and waiting. ‘Terminus‘; descent into a room of sly eyes. ‘Puddles Like Pillows’. When gravity stops holding things down & litter fills the skies. Phillippa Yaa de Villiers exceptional poem, ‘Origin’.  From Let Me Tell You a Story available from Amazon. Continue reading Unlocked: final three audio tracks from Let Me Tell You A Story

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Free Audio – poems & short fiction

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Rapture by Phillippa Yaa de Villiers, notable South African poet, performance artist, and PhD candidate with Lancaster university. Rapture was First published in the 2013 anthology For Rhino in a Shrinking World (Ed Harry Owen). Shadow by Lyn Jennings, poet and past Educational Psychotherapist for children with learning difficulties. Shadow is ‘dedicated to our neighbours at Shoreham with respect and sympathy for all who died or suffered in the Air Show disaster [West Sussex 2015]’. Ducks in a Row by Suzanne Conboy-Hill, short story and flash fiction writer. This was also written after a Hawker Hunter jet ploughed through traffic waiting for the lights to change or … Continue reading Free Audio – poems & short fiction

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‘Let Me Tell You a Story’

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

This anthology, which links voice recordings of the short stories and poems directly to the text on the page, is due out in late April. Despite being very simple, this application of the technique may be a world first and has implications for the delivery of essential information to populations whose reading skills are not as perfect as the material often requires. There’s more here at Readalongreads. Continue reading ‘Let Me Tell You a Story’

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Lancaster university, poetry, Vietnamese1 Comment

Book review: The Secret of Hoa Sen by Nguyen Phan Que Mai

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

UPDATE I’ve just received this link to Que Mai’s readings at the Lannan Foundation this March (2015)    When we talk about poets writing from the heart, it’s because we feel their integrity. When I say that Que Mai’s writing hands you her heart and lets you hold it, still beating and bleeding, while she tells her stories, it’s because she keeps nothing back and she trusts us to attend. And you do have to attend, especially if you are coming to this with a Western ear, because the language is more musical, the metaphors more earthy, and the characters and … Continue reading Book review: The Secret of Hoa Sen by Nguyen Phan Que Mai

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poetry, writing7 Comments

Poetry mnemonics – singing up your iambics

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

I am just getting round to the idea that rhythm in prose is a thing and that poetry might hold some clues as to how best to apply it. The trouble is, iambic means nothing to me no matter how many times I look it up; trochaic – same thing, and don’t get me started on anapestic which I still think of as a kind of wallpaper. Whoever invented these monikers surely wanted to keep the whole business in-house like a kind of holy catechism that novitiates have to prove they have learned before being allowed to voice any opinion. … Continue reading Poetry mnemonics – singing up your iambics

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poems, poetry6 Comments

For National Poetry Day: ‘Philosopher Stoned’

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

I wrote this in a poetry workshop so it must be a poem, yes? But when I sent it out into the world to be appraised for publication (I know, delusional) they said it wasn’t really. It’s been hanging around on my blog ever since, puffing out its chest and posturing to make up for its perceived inadequacies. So in honour of, or more likely a threat to, National Poetry Day, I give you: Philosopher Stoned He is brazenly, brilliantly, brassed off by the polished politics of the righteous right. He heats arguments on pupils bright as buttons of molten … Continue reading For National Poetry Day: ‘Philosopher Stoned’

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