Monday One Stop Poetry form - Villanelle guest post by Luke Prater

One Stop Poetry Form

We want to encourage you to explore different poetry forms over the weeks and months to come. We will spend the first "session" describing the poetic form and the second week will be a time for the individual poet to do exercises with the form and an experienced poet. Please have fun and remember we are learning together! 

Welcome to our second Villanelle Monday!

For part two of our Villanelle class, I would like to introduce Luke Prater.
Many of you will know him already from One Shot Wednesdays. Luke was also featured several months ago on One Stop Poetry with one of his Villanelles. Luke has written many Villanelles and is very familiar with different forms of poetry.

Luke, I want to say a big "Thank you" for doing this. I very much appreciate your hard work for putting this together for us.

~ Claudia

Now I'd like to hand you over to Luke...enjoy..

I avoided poetry throughout my teens and wrote prose instead (occasionally; I was very lazy), but when I finally got to University/College to do my Bachelor's in English Lit with Creative Writing, poetry really grabbed me by the scruff of the neck. When we learnt about the villanelle form, it stood out immediately as being both evocative and compelling due to the repetition, and in possession of far more musicality than most other forms I had encountered. The repetition of the two alternating refrains being one reason, but two other aural poetic devices are also very much present: rhyme, and meter/rhythm. Being a musician as well as a poet, aural device has always won me over, as opposed to visual device (metaphor, simile, personification, etc, though of course these are important also). It's a case of the 'three Rs' - Rhythm, Rhyme, Repetition.

Varying one of the refrains (the second (A2), preferably), can be very effective, however. It depends on context/theme/tone, and can lend the Narrative aesthetically pleasing variety and more sense of movement. A favourite villanelle, Elizabeth Bishop's One Art, does just that, and it's worth mentioning that varying/semi-repeating a refrain isn't out of the question, yielding fine results in many cases. As you can see here, it allows the piece to progress and be wrapped up with a varied A2 refrain appropriate for the closure.

   

One Art

by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident

the art of losing's not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

I am a poet who tries as many forms/genres as possible to stretch myself; many I will never return to, but I will always come back to the villanelle. I'll leave you with one of mine that you may not have seen, and that also isn't inappropriate in theme/tone/language (!)… in fact it's a rewrite of my very first I wrote at University all those years  ago, re-versifying it in iambic meter (pentameter), which, if you can manage it, will guarantee a smooth flow, and leave the reader in no doubt whatsoever as to how your lines are to be spoken/read rhythmically. This is why iambic meter become so popular, and the norm with form poets in English; also because it is the closest meter to how we naturally speak, with its lilting alternation of unstressed and stressed syllables.

An example for iambic pentameter (5 beats) would be:

do NOT | go GEN | tle IN | to THAT | good NIGHT

        1              2           3           4                    5

The First Day of Spring

by Luke Prater

Embittered Winter cast Himself away

upon a gale, and swept elsewhere on it.

The Sun shone brightly, Summer’s bold foreplay.

I wished the madding Springtime to betray

His colder cousin, knowing time befit;

embittered Winter cast Himself away.

The trees, they danced in wonderful ballet;

the singing breeze was happy to admit

the Sun shone brightly, Summer’s bold foreplay.

The Birds, they felt the change by break of day,

and joined the breeze in strains, pale-morning lit.

Embittered Winter cast Himself away.

And you and I, socks off, we tread the way

across the grass, and under trees we sit.

The Sun shone brightly, Summer’s bold foreplay..

Old man, invigorated, bright, though grey,

he mumbled praises like some Jesuit.

Embittered Winter cast Himself away;

the Sun shone brightly, Summer’s bold foreplay.

We are learning together..

Last week we said, we would take one of the Villanelles, have a closer look and give detailed feedback.
Adam Dustus (of One Stop Poetry) volunteered with the very first Villanelle he has written and Luke took the time for a detailed critique.

 Adam's original poem:

Once we have learned our lonely dreams can be
Oh God not knowing where or how to start
When all I ever want is you and me

Blank canvas drips like a soaked willow tree
Save in found comfort assembling shared parts
Once we have learned our lonely dreams can be

Until feeling lost can’t tell you are free
No flow chart off course for a bleeding heart
When all I ever want is you and me

Rudderless ships carry skeleton keys
Her lip-curled smile trumps my so-called art
Once we have learned our lonely dreams can be

Our last taken breaths, which death guarantees
Molecules boil over, anger departs
When all I ever want is you and me

Vision focused now, our present to see
For love a sincere gift, fair will imparts
Once we have learned our lonely dreams can be
When all I ever want is you and me

Hi Adam -

The central aspect here which, in my humble opinion, needs addressing, is the meter. Your two refrains flow well and scan five (pentameter) fine.

'Blank canvas drips like a soaked willow tree' (line four) > it took me several attempts to be able to speak/read this as five stresses. It's not obvious at all where the stresses should fall. Some may try and force the third stress onto 'a', which certainly doesn't want to be stressed, 'soaked' is probably what you intended? Viz - 'blank CAN | vas DRIPS | like a SOAKED | WIL low | TREE'. This line would flow better if you stripped one of the two unstressed small words there ('like' or 'a') and made 'soaked' into the continuous tense 'soaking', something like this -

Blank canvas drips; a soaking willow tree [pref; or] Blank canvas drips like soaking willow tree
'Save in found comfort assembling shared parts' (line five) > I'm having real difficulty with this line, metrically/rhythmically. You are relying on either the 'in' to be the first stress (which, being a preposition, it really doesn't want to be - we can only stress in poetry what we naturally stress in our language, or it renders lumpy lines, iambs or not), or 'found', which is OK, but requires the reader to realise that you're starting the line with a trisyllabic foot, like this -

'save in FOUND | COM fort | as SEM | bling SHARED | PARTS' ... this is still unwieldy rhythmically and many readers will be lost on the meter and struggle to feel where the beats fall. The fact that you have two stressed syllables to end on doesn't help either. Suggest (and just a suggestion, as always :) -

Except in comfort assembling shared parts [or] Except in comfort gathering shared parts  [this pref. 'found' is redundant and 'assembling' too many syllables in that particular place in the original version of the line]

'Until feeling lost can’t tell you are free' (line seven) - also struggling with the meter here. To count as five, it requires the first word's stresses to be reversed in relation to how we normally speak them, ie - 'UN til' rather than 'un TIL'. The flow is generally difficult in this line, but if you made a simple change in the right places, it would look completely different, eg

Until you're feeling lost, can’t tell you're free [if you're loathe to use 'you're' twice, substitute the first with another appropriate monosyllabic word]

'Our last taken breaths, which death guarantees' (line thirteen) - the number of stresses here is ambiguous - it could be read as four or five, depending on the reader (such is the problem when writing in meter but not strictly iambs or trochees; often lines depend of being spoken/read a certain way to scan). I assume you mean it to read like this -

OUR last | TA ken | BREATHS which | DEATH gua ran | TEES? but it could easily be read like this -

our last TA | ken BREATHS | which DEATH | gua ran TEES = tetrameter (fours). Think it's ok though, the majority of readers will see it the first way. And either way, it does flow, but 'which' is redundant and it would be less ambiguous regarding how to read/speak it with that word removed, ie -

Our last taken breath, death guarantees [also removed the 's' from 'breaths', it eases the flow and highlights the breath/death internal rhyme]

'For love a sincere gift, fair will imparts' (line seventeen) > this scans fine, but I wonder what you think of the notion of making it smoother by altering the front end slightly to 'For love's sincere gift...' etc? Or does that change the meaning? It eradicates the indefinite article 'a' (always good to rid these small 'filler' words if possible). The line would look like this -
For love's sincere gift, fair will imparts

You have many fine lines here Adam, and overall the premise/message is solid and clear. I particularly like the 'soaked willow' image, and this line is striking and provokes thought: 'Rudderless ships carry skeleton keys'. If it were mine I'd use lowercase at beginnings of lines (bar following a period, obviously, actual or implied by stanza-break); the form is old, but you're writing in modern language (for the most part; phrases like 'fair will imparts' seem a little archaic and slightly incongruous with the tone of the rest), no caps would suit in my opinion but it is merely a taste thing. In the old days poetry was always always capitalised, but most of it now is not. Your refrain -

'Once we have learned our lonely dreams can be' - I'm not sure I understand it. Do you mean 'Once we have learned how lonely dreams can be'?

One or two areas I would consider cliche in phrasing, but that's probably just me :) ('Oh God' and 'bleeding heart' stand out as such, but to some they may be fine). I could go deeper, but I think this is enough on one piece; nice villanelle, sir, especially if it's your first and these are all merely my opinions, to be taken or left as you choose. Thanks for allowing me to take it apart, Adam. I hope it was useful to you.

Are you in for some more practicing on Villanelles?

Once again, you will have the possibility to write a Villanelle and link up with us. Have a look at last week's Villanelle class for details like structure and writing tips.
Luke and I will try to make our way around but may not manage to visit each of you and, as Villanelles are quite complex, we won't manage to give a detailed feedback on all of your linked up poems (form, rhyme, correct meter etc.)

But if you want a detailed and honest feedback, please leave us a comment here in the comment section and we will have a closer look at what you came up with.

Moondustwriter's Thursday - Guest Featuring Poet Samuel Peralta

Welcome to Moondustwriter Thursday. I , Leslie Moon, am pleased to have the opportunity to interview Samuel Peralta. I've been following Samuel for more than a year now (we met on Twitter). I have been impressed with the depth and thoughtfulness of his poetry. 
Please enjoy Samuel Peralta!

Can you give us a short biography of yourself?

Some people have noticed that my writing suggests a science background and a varied cultural landscape – and that’s all true. I was born in Manila, went through school in the Philippines and California, U.S., did a Ph.D. in physics in the U.K., then research in Canada. 

I was the youngest to win a Palanca Award (the Pulitzer equivalent in the Philippines) for my collection “Pacific”. It was heady stuff. I published a chapbook after that, “Moon Leaves”. Later, I was recognized by the U.K. Poetry Society, the B.B.C., and was included in a Best of Anthology by the League of Canadian Poets. Then it ended.

Essentially, I became focused on the corporate world. My production of poetry dropped for years to maybe one poem a year. Having achieved business success, I had lost myself.

In trying to re-discover myself, I turned to songwriting, actually garnering a following on MySpace. Then Twitter arrived, and I began to re-visit poetry, as @Semaphore  http://www.twitter.com/semaphore. To my surprise, in two months, I reached a following in poetry that had taken me two years to achieve in music. Something clicked. Last year I was voted #1 for the Poetry on Twitter, and also named to a list of the Top 100 on-line poets in the world.

Now, with tens of thousands across my social sites, my reach has been greater than all my previous print publications combined. Ashton Kutcher has nothing to fear, but for poetry – the numbers are amazing. Besides my Twitter stream, my poetry is collected on my online journal, “Semaphore” - http://bit.ly/s4poetry.

Since my personal poetry renaissance, I’ve had poems in various journals and anthologies, but recently GOSS183 published my first new chapbook in years, “Sonnets from the Labrador” - http://www.magcloud.com/browse/Issue/106631. It’s a fabulous press, who include Pushcart Prize awardees in their author list; so I’m quite happy to be in that company.

How long have you been writing?

I’ve been writing poetry ever since I can remember; my mother kept presenting me with a notebook where I used to write verse~ couplets mainly. She says I was 5! She’s an artist, and my father a playwright, both well-recognized back home; I was raised to love art and literature. “A Mother” -http://bit.ly/s4amother - is about my mother, and “Pacific” - http://bit.ly./s4pacific - is about my father.

What inspired you to start writing poetry?

The sound, the musicality, of words, inspired me at the start.  Then, later on, the layers of meaning and emotion you could sculpt with words. Now, as I’ve said before, I am moved by earthquakes and personal tragedies, constellations and war, quantum physics and lost love, forces of nature as seen through the lens of a single person's experience. I write about imagined lives, camouflaging my personal pain and joy among these lives. I like being challenged. Someone once challenged me to write a poem related to shoes – when I finished, I had come up with “War” - http://bit.ly/s4war.

Maybe because of my scientific background, I also do a lot of research on a poem; you’d be surprised at how much. People have written to me about my life in Afghanistan, or Haiti, or my skating experiences. I have never been to those places, and I am a terrible skater. I live vicariously through my poems.

Do you engage in other forms of art?

I used to produce visual art, influenced by my parents’ artistic bent. I still appreciate it, but now I mainly visit galleries or collect, rather than produce visual art.

I still have a moderate following as a songwriter. As a singer, I worked with a professional studio to produce a couple of tracks and still continue to write songs for other bands and singers.

I find that those experiences help enrich my poetry, in terms of visual control and musicality.

What words of advice would you give someone just starting out?

Always be writing – having coffee, taking a walk, dreaming. Strive to make each poem the best you can make it, don’t compromise. If you’re not happy, it’s a work in progress.

Read as much as you can. Re-discover the classic poets. Among my favorites are T.S. Eliot - for his literary erudition; Pablo Neruda - for his sensuousness of language; and Craig Raine - for his incredible use of metaphor. There are many others.

Also, search out new works by new writers – you’d be surprised at what you find. The best poetry books I bought last year were from Billy Collins – the former US laureate – and Shaindel Beers, a relative newcomer.

This is where “One Stop Poetry” excels – in introducing writers to each other’s work, and in encouraging new work. It’s a wonderful community, with talent and enthusiasm, and I’m eager to see it move to the next level of success.

What are you working on at the present?

I continue to write on a regular basis, of course. My life is poetry. Over 200 poems are now collected on my “Semaphore” site.

"Sonata Vampirica", my sonnet-cycle book on that mythology, is being readied for release. I am hoping to follow that up with a collection of love poems and a collection of my renditions of selected poems by the Japanese artist, Kotaro Takamura.

My big project at the moment is a novel-sized verse project. I am 10,000+ words into it, it is consuming most of my time, but I am excited by it. And petrified.

 “The Semaphore Anthology” - http://bit.ly/s4anthology - another online journal I maintain, collects samples of the best (in my humble opinion) from new poets. I don’t solicit poems, I scour the net and then ask for permission to print, with only one criterion, that I read a poem and think, “Damn, I wish I’d written that”.

 I’m thinking about starting another online journal, about the craft of poetry, a behind-the-scenes look at structure and how specific poems were written. It’s a matter of whether I have enough time.


I appreciate that Samuel took time out of his schedule for this interview. One Stop Poetry is about recognizing talent and featuring  both new poets as well as seasoned poets. We hope you've enjoyed this view into Samuel's world of poetry. I know we will enjoy many years of wonder and intensity from this talented man.

Photography attributed to Creative Commons.

Monday One Stop Poetry Form - Villanelle

Welcome to One Stop Poetry Form

We want to encourage you to explore different poetry forms over the weeks and months to come. We will spend the first "session" describing the poetic form and the second week will be a time for the individual poet to do exercises with the form and an experienced poet. Please have fun and remember we are learning together!

For the  next two weeks of  Poetry Form I , Claudia Schönfeld ,would like to introduce you to one of my favorite Poetry forms - the Villanelle.

Are you ready for an excursion to the past with some history and background, for some technical details (no worries - it's not going to be too technical - I'm a very non-technical person myself...), and lastly are you ready to get inspired to try a Villanelle yourself?

Villanelles have a long history

The word “villanelle” comes from the Italian villano (“peasant”) and means "country song".
Originally it was a dance song sung by a Renaissance troubadour with no particular form.
So this means, the first Villanelles were written in italian language. 

The structure we know today took shape after Jean Passerat’s famous 16th century Villanelle, “J’ai perdu ma tourtourelle” (“I Have Lost My Turtle Dove”)

Villanelles appeared in English poetry around 1800.

Today's Villanelles still follow this unique, yet repetitive, rhyme pattern from the 16th century which lends a haunted quality to the Narrative Voice.

Here's a translation of Jean Passerat 's Villanelle from the 16th century (originally written in French.)

I Have Lost My Turtle Dove 
by Jean Passerat

I have lost my turtledove:
Isn’t that her gentle coo?
I will go and find my love.

Here you mourn your mated love;
Oh, God–I am mourning too:
I have lost my turtledove.

If you trust your faithful dove,
Trust my faith is just as true;
I will go and find my love.

Plaintively you speak your love;
All my speech is turned into
“I have lost my turtledove.”

Such a beauty was my dove,
Other beauties will not do;
I will go and find my love.

Death, again entreated of,
Take one who is offered you:
I have lost my turtledove;
I will go and find my love.

The Structure of Villanelle

Villanelles have a rhyme - a rhythm and a structure...

What I love about Villanelles is their musicality; they have a beat - they grip you - they rock you like waves in an ocean and they will worm their way inside your mind and heart because of their rhythm.
It seldom happens to me that I remember the lines of my free verse poems exactly, but I often remember the lines of my Villanelles because they feel more like a song than a poem.

A Villanelle consists of six stanzas with a total of 19 lines ( first five stanzas with three lines each and last stanza with four lines) this structure hasn't changed since 1600..

Villanelles are usually written in 

tetrameter (a line containing four beats/stresses)
Example:

                 A  life like colored drops of rain

Beats:             1            2            3          4 

or

pentameter (a line containing five beats/stresses)
Example:

               Do not go gentle into that good night,

Beats:             1         2       3     4               5


There are two refrains throughout the entire villanelle (A1 and A2) and each of them appears four times - so they should be chosen carefully because they form the backbone of the piece. Think of a refrain like the chorus that is repeated in a song.

Example: How the refrains and rhymes work:

Do not go gentle into that good night,  (A1 - appears 4 times - has to rhyme with A2 and a)
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;  (b - appears once & has only to rhyme with the other b's)
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.  (A2 - appears 4 times - has to rhyme with A1 and a)

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,  (a - appears only once & has to rhyme with A1+A2)
Because their words had forked no lightning they  (b)
Do not go gentle into that good night.  (A1 - this is the second repetition of A1 in the first line)
 

Refrain 1 (A1)
Line 2 (b)
Refrain 2 (A2)

Line 4 (a)
Line 5 (b)
Refrain 1 (A1)

Line 7 (a)
Line 8 (b)
Refrain 2 (A2)

Line 10 (a)
Line 11 (b)
Refrain 1 (A1)

Line 13 (a)
Line 14 (b)
Refrain 2 (A2)

Line 16 (a)
Line 17 (b)
Refrain 1 (A1)
Refrain 2 (A2)
 

Two Famous Villanelles

House on the Hill
by American Poet Edwin Arlington (1869 - 1935)

They are all gone away,
The House is shut and still,
There is nothing more to say.

Through broken walls and gray
The winds blow bleak and shrill.
They are all gone away.

Nor is there one to-day
To speak them good or ill:
There is nothing more to say.

Why is it then we stray
Around the sunken sill?
They are all gone away,

And our poor fancy-play
For them is wasted skill:
There is nothing more to say.

There is ruin and decay
In the House on the Hill:
They are all gone away,
There is nothing more to say.

Mad Girl's Love Song
by American Poet Sylvia Plath (1932 - 1963)

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
 
The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
 
I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
 
God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
 
I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
 
I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

--------

I guess by now you almost can’t wait to start writing?
Got your pen ready and sharpened?
Give it a try, write your first or hundredth Villanelle and link up with us.

Review ~ Writing the Villanelle

• Think about the meter – tetrameter or pentameter (others are possible as well)

• Once you have decided on a meter, try to feel the beat - does it flow?

• Do the lines read with a good rhythm in four/five beats? It’s a good idea to speak the lines out while writing/editing, maybe even tap the beat with your feet to make sure they count the number of stresses/beats you've decided on.

• Choose your Refrains carefully – they form the backbone of your piece

• Make sure the lines end with a word which rhymes easily

• You can use online rhyme tools like rhymezone.com to find rhyming words

• Think about a topic you would like to write about – but don’t be too focused – let it flow and allow the rhythm, your emotions and the words to drag you

• Have the structure right in front of you – I usually copy the structure to a page and then write like this..

Example:

Refrain 1 (A1)     Do not go gentle into that good night,
Line 2 (b)            Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Refrain 2 (A2)     Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

..and so on...

Next week we may pick some Villanelles as examples and have a closer look, done by an expert who will also share some of his personal experience and knowledge.

Moondustwriter's Thursday -The Duet of Poetry

The Duet of Poetry


What do poets do when they have time on their hands?

Well one of the things we do is Duet!

It is quite fun actually to see what can come on the spot from two poets with different styles.

Many of us duet on Twitter. Each communication becomes a stanza.

This duet with my friend Sean Vessey reminds me of a knight and his lady fair. This poem was impromptu ; there was no plan. I would encourage you to try it. I hope you enjoy the end result. The lady is speaking in the italicized letters in a light contral
to voice and the knight is speaking in his bold and deep baritone voice.

Fair one why do you not speak?

Your flowers have lost their fragrance

My heart is weak 

Oh passionate love moon,

I have missed your heart's blessings,

To enjoy night fantastic

memories loom

I hear your poetic words

a moonlit dance a dream of two

by her golden glow 

I begin to swoon

My voice fair one is yours

for whispers and delights

as lover’s dance 

in Moon's starlights

he hears her whispers  

soft into the misty night

“kiss me my darling

in your dreams hold me tight “

the misty night

is where we play

under star lit moon

until dawning  day

my love please don't sleep

look in my eyes

be captive to love

as time goes by 

look into your eyes my lady fair

I bend for your desires

my love is true

my will to resist you

I cannot do

your  heart I hold in the palm of my hand

I hold it near me

never relinquished

never free 

my heart races to your fair hand

I am yours ~ as a man

bound to your heart

for as long as time stands

I must admit

a spell is cast

to love with you

a lover’s slow dance

the spell is yours

I'm captive it's true

held by passionate sparkling eyes

jewel like eyes of blue

a heart that is bound

faithful and true

magnificent in every way

is what I've found in you 

your gentle grasp

hope, faith, and love

I cannot break

I am yours ~ for all time

Not captive O dear sir

With the moon as witness 

be held tight

of her love be sure 

to be held by one so fair and true

where all dreams ends

for me

for you

my dreams would never die

were I in your arms

my heart would be alive

************

image courtesy creative commons flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/telemax/2732444627/ 

One Stop Spotlight - Anthony Desmond Scott

Hello everyone, I'm Gay Cannon and I'm so excited to tell you I have joined the @onestoppoetry team.  There are exciting new projects planned for the year ahead and it's an honor to have been asked to join the team in bringing them to you. 

I will be doing occasional spotlights and for my first official one, I want to introduce you to Anthony Desmond Scott.  If it hadn't been for Anthony, you wouldn't be reading this from me, I wouldn't know about poetry online, @onestoppoetry or probably even be writing again. Anthony was my first real twitter friend. I had been looking at twitter more or less as a news feed for many months. Then @MyWordWizard started following Anthony and me at about the same time and we were finishing their prompts. Anthony is in all things curious, and even though he writes deep, sometimes dark and very intense poetry; yet, his disposition is easy going,thoroughly likable, always polite and invariably upbeat.

Anthony discovered blogsites. We both created one and the rest has been a journey in meeting new poets, reading and being read by other poets spurring both of us to read more, write more and to connect.  Because of this I am happy to interview him for the spotlight today.

Anthony, tell us about yourself.

I'm a 19 year old guy with a passion for poetry and music. I've never been the average kid. I've always felt different from just about everyone. Through the years of coming into who I am, I've experienced feeling out of place and such. But with the guidance of my Mother and the will of myself, I learned to embrace all the things I enjoy and love being a true individual.

I know your mother has been a major influence in your life. Tell us something about her.

My mother is the one person who stood by me through everything. She made me the person I am today. My mother's writing evokes her tragic childhood experiences such as sexual and verbal abuse by family members. She could've gone down a destructive path but when she had me at 18 she turned those bad experiences around for the better as a Mom and now as a strong independent woman.

When did you start writing poetry and what and who inspires your writing?

I started writing poetry when I was 16 and fell in love with it. My first complete poem was 'Self'. When I had written that, something clicked inside of me. I knew poetry was my destiny.

Frank Stanford is a big influence for my poems. I love how tragic his poetry was. Yet there was sometimes a small bit of light in the midst of all his pain. I also take inspiration from paintings and music. When it comes down to it, the core of my poetry is the good and bad of life. I express it only in ways that come naturally to me.

I know you were as thrilled as I was to find @Onestoppoetry. What has it meant for you?

I think @Onestoppoetry is amazing because there's no competition, just love. One Stop Poetry gives us so many opportunities to showcase ourselves as the best poet we can be. I appreciate this community and I feel appreciated as well. You can't beat that.

What are you aspirations for the future?

I aspire to be a prolific figure in poetry. After I've lived a long happy successful life, I hope my work will live on and continue to inspire.

I am happy to share these poems of Anthony's with you today.

sElf

I'm staring at a vacant wall full of emptiness

Wondering if I'll finally make it my own

Intimidated by the knives in my soul

Cutting incisions in my flesh

Marking their territory

While hunters tread my grounds

And shoot my guarded veins

My spirit still remains

When the seasons change

Hunters rampage across the bridge

To destroy the light that shines on me

As winter approaches and summer passes

All that's left is a lonely breeze

Hunters put down their rifles

And charge full steam ahead

As pulses of blood rush towards my head

With battle scars resulting as tears

Running out my mind

Next target lies where my memories are confined

My pupils dilate as my eyes

Awaken back to where it began

A wall covered in my deepest secrets

© 2008 Anthony Desmond Scott. All Rights Reserved.

DARE

Rats are almost an equal to men, women, & children

Remove our skin cut it from our flesh

So it falls from heights unimaginable

Shells from shots we've fired

Fill our mouths to keep from swallowing our tongues

As they gauge our eyes & roll them in a pond of lava

Rip our legs off right below the knee

So one can't see over this fake fucking mountain &

Dare to make a judgement on who's better

© 2010 Anthony Desmond Scott. All Rights Reserved.

'Normal Is No Rule'

Cheap carpet harvested my open pores

Laid to rest everynight in the Sahara

Sand flew in my eyes while I made bold attempts to sleep

I wake up with dirt in my mouth

My spit forms a mudslide

That drains through my intestines

I wish to cough up blood in the midst of

Making an over dramatic statement

In regards to the ratio of too much or not enough love

Questions/Reasons

Perfect ways to get to know the honest form of human

Which came from woman on her back

Soft spoken gentle voices tender touch

So much of what I need

I already want but cannot have

I'll stay on my back

© 2010 Anthony Desmond Scott. All Rights Reserved.

You can find Anthony on Twitter @iamEPanthony

His blogsite is http://glassstaircase.blogspot.com

Photography courtesy of creative commons wall Laura Chifirium http://www.flickr.com/photos/lchifi/231115148/

Sands- Alaskan Dude http://www.flickr.com/photos/72213316@N00/4512280393