#1 of 365 Day Collage Poetry Challenge

Okay, I decided to start afresh. See if I really can go 365 days straight with collage poetry. My head is back in my novel in progress, Diary of the Future. I attended a writing workshop on the weekend and received very encouraging feedback. I have a deadline in a month's time for a contest, so my mind is now with Nicky and her best friend Mel, boyfriend who needs to be renamed, and his ex- Sonya Scrag.

Nicky is a collage poet. She carries bags of words to school with her and makes collage poems at lunch time. I want to include some collage poetry in the novel. This may be one of them:

Copyright 2007 Diane Curran

Teenage public spat

clueless girls dishing it out

performing for public attention

dirty tricks claws are out

Gossiping, snooping, gloating

much of it jealous dead air

a shortage of class

fashion competition

got nothin' to wear

damned silly ostracism

What do I do?

So now I've had a break in the proceedings with the last collage poem on 1st May - what do I do?

Do I start the 365 Days again from today? (yes, I have a poem to post!)


Or do I try to catch up for the missing days?

Comments and suggestions would be appreciated.

Whoops: no poems

Whoops, I hit May 1 and then completely fizzled out. I could say I have collage block but that would not be true (anyway would that require collagic therapy?). I'm exhausted. It's taking all my energy to push the words around a page and to think a coherent thought. Work has been really full on, and today I had the 2 hour commute there and back to help out my father with his accounts, and then grocery shopping - ugh! Don't you just hate real life?

Need an early night now (if you can call 9.45 pm early) because Saturday and Sunday I'm doing a writing workshop on the 10 commandments of writing. I will catch up. Looks like it's turning into an average of a collage poem a day.

Back on Sunday evening.

Pieces of you: #31 of the 365 day collage poetry challenge

I'm in a dark mood today, dark stuff is appearing on the page but before you rush me off to the therapist, I only connect with murder on paper. My sympathy in the following poem is with the victim, and the people she left behind. In fact, I have no idea of who the perpetrator is -- that's probably why I don't write crime novels.

But I have a point to make. The kneejerk reaction of arresting students after handing in essays on violence is crazy. In the first play I wrote when I was 14, I killed off all but two characters (and they were robots) because I didn't know how else to end it. Hey, it worked for Shakespeare! In a later adult version, the two robots became a sexy android and she allowed one of the characters to live to be become her partner.

Teenagers write black brooding soul-tormented angst-ridden prose and poetry. It does not mean that they are going to act on these feelings or their creative urges. So guys, do some research before throwing them in the lock-up! One of them might be a budding Stephen King.

So I think my mood is because I passed a milestone today. 7 years in the one job - who would've thought it?

Copyright 2007 Diane Curran

bloody female body becomes

today's news

pieces of

you on the street

difficult to recognise you

with your

demon makeover

shattered fragile beauty

brutally murdered

terror and the city

girl we've lost you