Tag: Books

Daily Haibun, August 14th – A reading writer

To become a good writer you have to be an avid reader they say. And I always thought to myself, well I got that down pat. Having read a small library’s worth.

What I haven’t realised is that I don’t know how to read whit an eye for how it’s done. Sure I’ve analysed books for an review or for writing litterateur paper’s at uni. And I might know why I think a book is no good. But I’ve never given why a book is really good any thought. I’ve just enjoyed them.

So now I have to learn how to read a book analysing how it’s done. Why it’s good, or bad. Picking its components apart to see how they work. That will be a learning experience even for such an avid reader as me.

In cold autumn nights

Books is warming company

Friends for the lonely

© RedCat

Read other Haibun’s written for the monthly dVerse prompt by me here.

Read other Daily Haibun’s here.

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Written in the book of dust (2020 Re-post)

© RedCat

Written in the book of dust
Between worlds
In the midnight days
The wind on the moon
Prophecy good omens
Stardust from the bones of the Moon
Fall over smoke and mirrors
The garden of shadows
Where seekers await
The lovedeath-rebirth
Of goddess initiation

© RedCat
Photo by Guilherme Rossi on Pexels.com

Re-post comment:

As I sit here wondering what books I’ll be required to read this year. And what stories I’ll be privileged to read in the text critique groups. I suddenly remembered it time for Wandering the Archives Wednesday. So I choose this poem made up of book titels.

Enjoy!

Photo by John-Mark Smith on Unsplash

I’ve done this with song titles before, but not with book titels. Equally fun and tricky.

Posted as response to Finding poems in bookshelves at dVerse.

Photo by Laura Kapfer on Unsplash

GloPoWriMo 2020

DAY 1 – Build a New Start
DAY 2 – Beloved Bookstore
DAY 3 – Sunshine and Hail
DAY 4 – Isolation Dating
DAY 5 –Staring out a Windowpane
DAY 6 – Casanova Comes Closer
DAY 7 – Swirling Colors of my Mind
DAY 8 – White – Red – Black
DAY 9 – Different World After
DAY 10 – Spring Hay(na)ku
DAY 11 – Love – Hay(na)ku
DAY 12 – Make Art – Triolet inspired
by Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell
DAY 13 – What did you think would happen
to a child left on my doorstep?
DAY 14 – Ballad of the Lost Poet
DAY 15 – Writer’s class – Hay(na)ku
DAY 16 – What is a Nomad without a Tribe?
DAY 17 – Pale Spring, Here Again, Nature Awake
DAY 18 – Spring Day in the Garden
DAY 19 – Close Couplets
DAY 20 – Lost in Love’s First Flush
DAY 21 – She Tasted Like Memory
DAY 22 – Struggling Mind
DAY 23 – Written in the book of dust
DAY 24 – At the end of every week, Friday-Cozy!
DAY 25 – Slip, Crack, Shatter
DAY 26 – Humans Really Don’t Know
DAY 27 – April Rain
DAY 28 – Greeting the Watch Horse
DAY 29 – Letter of Hope
DAY 30 – Witches Walpurgis Night Preparation

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Daily Haibun, August 3rd – Nervous energy

I’m fully of nervous energy. Running around in circles, but getting nowhere and getting nothing done. Started a gazillion things but finished nothing but the absolutely necessary like cooking. The rest have been left unfinished. Including the writing I was planning to do.

Days like this I have to practice being kind to myself. Instead of being hard and mean to myself. Accept it’s one of those days. That I can start again tomorrow. Tell myself that if reading is all I can concentrate on, then at least I can focus on one thing that is rewarding and educating.

Circling like a moth

Around again and again

Fear loving the flame

© RedCat

Read other Haibun’s written for the monthly dVerse prompt by me here.

Read other Daily Haibun’s here.

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Bedtime stories

What kind of stories do you want to be told?

Of magical creatures and knights of old

Or modern heroes with ingenious gadgets

Maybe of vampires that sleep with maggots

Whatevers your taste

Take your time, bedtime is not for haste

Sleep well my sweet

Mother will watch keep

© RedCat
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The Anthropocene Hymnal – An Experiments in Fiction Publication. Out now!

I’m very proud and happy to tell you that The Anthropocene Hymnal – An Experiments in Fiction Publication. Is out now! I’m as bursting with joy and gratitude today as I where when the editor asked me to participate with two poems. Mother of Creation and Leaves fall to Moulder.
Below you’ll find all purchase information.

The Anthropocene Hymnal is a collection of 63 poems from 34 poets from across the world. Beautifully illustrated by Valdis Stakle and with cover art by Kerfe Roig, the anthology is the brainchild of Ingrid Wilson, and in her own words is “a unique response to an unprecedented crisis.”

…

The second part of the book looks at what hope means in difficult times – what we still have to hold on to – what can still be done. Taking the form of invocation and prayer, these poems cast a thread to find a way through and call on that in us which is bigger than our current crisis.  RedCat’s Mother of Creation gives new names to hope, while Kerfe Roig’s Mercy 1 and 2(after ML Smoker)  speaks of  finding a way back from despair with “You leave a candle burning, / place it in the window.”

Excerpts from the Advance review by Lindi-Ann Hewitt-Coleman

You can find a list with all the contributors here.

For more information and several readings of poems go to Experiments in Fiction.

The waiting is over! You can now purchase The Anthropocene Hymnal in Paperback and Kindle format from Amazon (just select your relevant region).

There is also a PDF version of the book available. The PDF is not sold but revived in response to a donation to the WWF Fundraiser. Once you have made your donation (minimum €3 or equivalent in your currency) please email confirmation to experimentsinfiction@protonmail.com and and the PDF will be sent by return email. The aim is to respond to your email and send you the PDF within 24 hours of receiving it. The editor will also be making regular personal donations of the Amazon royalties as and when I receive them. Please follow my fundraiser page for updates!

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Daily Haibun, June 4th – Contemplating Summer

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

It’s been a busy day. Yet in the back of my mind are questions of summer. For the second year running there are no big holiday plans. Just smaller day outings loosely planned for when and if the pandemic permits. I really hope the warm weather and vaccinations will make a difference and we will be able to do at least some things.

But mostly I’m thinking about writing. Should I write more? Or should I write less? (Meaning only when inspiration strikes.) Should I try to develop an even more structured writing habit? Should I take some time off blogging and try to write something aimed at submitting for publication? 

Do any of the above questions matter as I’ll have two kids at home all summer?!?

I also long for some extra time to read. Poetry, fiction and nonfiction. 
Does anyone have some interesting book tips for books I just have to read?

Writing and reading
Nourishes my mind and soul
A necessity

©RedCat

Read other Haibun’s written for the monthly dVerse prompt by me here.

Read other Daily Haibun’s here.

Photo by Omid Armin on Unsplash
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Daily Haibun – June 2nd

Photo by Zach Plank on Unsplash

Our oldest books are works of art. Bound in supple leather and painstakingly copied by scribes. Then came the first printing presses and books became streamlined in appearance. Later came bigger presses and books became cheap enough for ordinary people. 

When I was little dust jackets were there to protect the book cover underneath. Both the cover and dust jacket usually bore the same print.

Tonight I found myself (again) putting the dust jacket on a shelf to protect it. Because nowadays the cover is only printed on the jacket. The book underneath is plain. It’s cheaper to print that way.

The cover outside
Says nothing of the inside
Of books or people

© RedCat

Read other Haibun’s written for the monthly dVerse prompt by me here.

Read other Daily Haibun’s here.

Gutenberg Bible of the New York Public Library. Bought by James Lenox in 1847.
Photo: NYC Wanderer (Kevin Eng), CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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Daily Haibun – May 27th

Front cover of DEN NYA DAGEN GRYR (THE NEW DAY DAWNS) by Johan Svedjedal

Photo by RedCat

Let me into a bookshop and I can browse forever. Until hunger, thirst or the outer world demands attention. Today it came in the form of my nine year old demanding we go for burgers as promised. But I had already found my prize. A biography of one of my favorite poets. One I didn’t know existed just one week ago. So finding a copy on the sales shelf made my day. 

Between the covers
of a book, a world is bound
happiness is found

©RedCat

Read other Haibun’s written for the monthly dVerse prompt by me here.

Read other Daily Haibun’s here.

Photo by Paolo Chiabrando on Unsplash
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