Pamphleteering

So I have decided that it's about time to collect my work together into a pamphlet. This is more difficult than it sounds, because although I have had a few poems published by magazines here and there, I have not had anyone look at a collection of poems and tell me that they work like that. This means, basically, that I am completely unsure as to whether any of my poems are really good enough. This is coupled with the unfortunate phenomenon which means that the longer ago I wrote a poem, the less I like it; so my recent habit of not writing means that I don't have many poems I like any more.

So, um, oh dear.

Still, I am getting an entry together to apply to a seminar that might help, and will hopefully send in an application for a Northern Promise award (gotta be in it to win it, however unlikely!) so I have my fingers crossed. Trawling through old poems is hard work. Trying to express why I need help doing it, in order to be in with any chance of help, is even harder. I have been procrastinating all day with Zelda and Pokémon - and cleaning the oven and reading comics and watching Casualty and Star Trek and sorting out photos on Flickr and drinking tea and making Chilli. And now, writing a blog post!

...and even posting a poem! A Renga written with two other members of the Salsa writing workshops, Josephine Scott and Rowan Ferguson:

White light casts no shadows
the sky has been full for days.

I watch a wader
brave the river.
Its purple head-feather bobs.

A pause grabbed mid-morning for champagne
Rushing all day to catch up,
evening poems only dent the surface.

Under the railway bridge
the rain cannot reach me.

We watch the shifting clouds
for a glimpse of the moon-
it doesn't appear.

Now... hop to it! (This isn't part of the poem. And it is addressed to myself. Bye-bye!)