Story Characterisation: ‘The lip balm indicates that I have chapped lips, and the handcream shows I have dry hands. These are both indications that I don’t drink enough water, so I’m not really looking after my body.’
Author Archives: Amanda
Here is the Beehive by Sarah Crossan
How does Sarah Crossan render trauma in her poetic novel, Here is the Beehive? Book Description: ‘Ana and Connor have been having an affair for three years. In hotel rooms and coffee shops, swiftly deleted texts and briefly snatched weekends, they have built a world with none but the two of them in it. ButContinue reading “Here is the Beehive by Sarah Crossan”
You and Me by Nicola Rayner
‘Fran is a first person narrator who is defined by her lack of credibility to the reader. Her version of events is unreliable. While her unreliability is apparent early on, Rayner still takes time to handle Fran delicately by allowing these traits to build and surface gradually.’
Spring
Oriental lily
stains the wings
of a white butterfly,
golden.
Amber
Above the city
light pollution leaks amber
into the pearl moon.
Star
At dusk
the dim flicker
of a dying star.
Poetics Devices: How the Kenning Works
Kenning I have been working on my poem Blackthorn on and off from March 2019 . During this time, the poem has gone through many changes. The current poem is version twenty-one. In this post, my focus is on the use of the poetic device kenning, which I have utilised on the second line ofContinue reading “Poetics Devices: How the Kenning Works”
Poetic Devices: Omission and Inclusion in Haiku
Subtext In his book of translated Haiku, The Moon in the Pines, Richard Clements says, upon reading a Haiku, the reader is ‘startled into a momentary but full understanding of the poet’s experience’ in that moment of reading. However, the words don’t quite capture the fullness of the moment. Through the inscription of a ‘partialContinue reading “Poetic Devices: Omission and Inclusion in Haiku”
Filigrees
Petal filigrees
press stencil patterns on snow
echoing full bloom.
Butterfly
As I burn your soul
onto paper, a butterfly
lands on my pen.