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CALEB PARKIN

Poetry. Play. Possibilities.

NaPoWriMo 4.9: Drag Queen Bingo

Apr 11, 2016
1 min

NaPoWriMo 4.9: Drag Queen Bingo

Well then: I’ve written something based on Drag Queen Bingo on Saturday night. But I’ve decided it’s probably too offensive to put on here (such is the joy of Drag humour). The poem takes the form of a Bingo Card, of course – with some very interesting rhymes (some adapted from the calls, some entirely new). I might spruce it up to submit it, should the right publication arise… The numbers on the card were as follows – so I set you the challenge of coming up with your own ris

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NaPoWriMo 4.6: Model

Apr 7, 2016
2 min

NaPoWriMo 4.6: Model

Yup, this is me after my haircut. (NB – OBVIOUSLY IT’S NOT, from my ‘hair model’ Google, it’s apparently the alarmingly-pristine and very-possibly-computer-generated Jerome Kutscher…) I went for ’round two’ of a ‘model’ haircut this afternoon. This does not mean that I was then going to be taken photos of (as in the above illustration), but that I was just a human head, with hair on it (and quite a lot, thanks, at 32), meaning you get a cheap haircut from a (very pleasant) tr

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NaPoWriMo 2.25: Leisure

Apr 27, 2014
1 min

NaPoWriMo 2.25: Leisure

Your orders… Friday’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to write something using anaphora, a way of repeating the same phrase in a poem to explore and expand the different ways it might be read – and of course adding a pleasing repetition and musicality to a piece. There was an excellent article from the Poetry Foundation, which you can read here. One way of using anaphora in a technological way is Google Search Suggestion poetry, which I did a bit of last year – in this post. This time I

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NaPoWriMo 2.17: 310

Apr 17, 2014
1 min

NaPoWriMo 2.17: 310

Our bus across the Yorkshire countryside was not like the Wensleydale Omnibus, alas. http://www.wensleydaleomnibus.co.uk/‎ Final poem of the day… Taking the number prompt from Jo Bell’s 52 today – and thinking about a moment on a bus journey that a friend and I took yesterday, when on our way to Holmfirth. 310 In the top second row, we float through Netherthong, raise an eyebrow and a titter. Two young ‘professionals’ in a dialogue of loud future tense: our shopping list of d

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NaPoWriMo 15: Bloodshot Moons

Apr 17, 2014
1 min

NaPoWriMo 15: Bloodshot Moons

A blood(shot) moon. Further poetry catch-up. Here’s my terza rima from Tuesday…From which I learned that terza rima is HARD to make sense and execute elegantly. I’ve done my best! As you may be able to surmise from the title, it’s about the current tetrad of blood moons – although not in an apocalyptic way – and about eyes. (If you’re reading this and also wear contact lenses, perhaps the odd experience of looking into your eye and wiggling the plastic retina back and forth (

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Oct 6, 2013
1 min

Waterstone’s and Rats

On Tuesday, I’ll be reading alongside other LS13 Anthology writers at Waterstone’s in Leeds city centre, from 7pm. It would be lovely to see you there! And in publication news: one of my Vermin poems – Vermin the Fifth: An Exact Science – is part of an anthology of work on the theme of ‘Otherworldly Mammals’. You can read it at the following link: http://mgversion2datura.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/mgv274-otherworldly-mammals-1013.html More news soon… #writing #rats #CalebParkin #

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Jul 17, 2013
1 min

Love The Words on ELFM

I went along to ELFM Towers yesterday for a chat with the ever-gracious Peter Spafford on his monthly extravaganza of all things wordy, Love The Words. You can hear our conversation and my poems (on topics ranging from red kites to exam invigilating and pirate-spiders) by clicking on this link. I hope you enjoy it, or some of it, or even just click on it to find out… You can also hear an interview on the same programme with excellent Leeds writer Rommi Smith about her residen

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Pirates

Jul 11, 2013
2 min

Pirates

Last Saturday, I went on a workshop with the Canal Laureate, Jo Bell, about whom you can read more here. We spent some time talking about detail – using specific canal-furniture names (boats, bridges, places) in writing – and then moved on to ‘becoming’ various combinations of watery figures. Myself and another writer became a poet and a jogger – both of whom were horrible people. But hey – they’re often more fun to write as (maybe). Another boat-related idea had been flittin

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Snails, or Cycling in Shropshire

May 31, 2013
1 min

Snails, or Cycling in Shropshire

An uphill snail… A brief post, as – after NaPoWriMo – I’ve had a bit of breathing space…But feel like the fallow time is done and the ideas they are a-flowing again. Having just returned from a week in lovely Shropshire (which really is stunningly beautiful), I had a couple of rustic animal-related ideas (I do enjoy writing about animals). It’s a wonderful county and made me appreciate anew how many diverse landscapes we’re lucky enough to have on Our Curious Little Rock in t

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Apr 30, 2013
1 min

Buzz Words and the Bee Ceilidh at Green Man Festival

Buzz Words and the Bee Ceilidh at Green Man Festival Here’s my listing site for Einstein’s Garden at Green Man – take a look! I’m very excited to be going to the festival again and helping create a bit of science-inspired creativity and lunacy 🙂 #writing #festivals #GreenManFestival #creativewriting #poetry #dancing #folkdance #bees #poems #ceilidhdancing

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NaPoWriMo 28: Painting Friends’ Palettes

Apr 29, 2013
2 min

NaPoWriMo 28: Painting Friends’ Palettes

A lovely iridescent bubble Yesterday’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to write about a colour. So – as it’s nearing the end of the month and I (as I’m sure many others participating in NaPoWriMo!) am lacking a bit of original chutzpah, I ‘outsourced’ some of the legwork… This morning, I asked (via Facebook) what my friends’ favourite colour was and why. Then this evening, once some fine folk had commented, I used the colours and imagery they provided to write a poem: to ‘paint’ each st

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NaPoWriMo 22: Generic Blessings

Apr 22, 2013
1 min

NaPoWriMo 22: Generic Blessings

Temple Newsam House, with its blessing around the roof-line Catching up with some NaPoWriMo prompts: determined to have at least 30 by the end of the month – TOMORROW! So here’s one from earlier in the month – there might be more of it to come, but thought I’d put it up as work in progress. This one’s based on the blessing which runs around the top of Temple Newsam House, just outside Leeds. The idea was to create some ‘Genre Blessings’ (hence the title) for the Hyde Park Pic

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NaPoWriMo 17: Google Search Suggestions on the Day of Thatcher’s Funeral

Apr 17, 2013
2 min

NaPoWriMo 17: Google Search Suggestions on the Day of Thatcher’s Funeral

Indeed she is not. At least we all have death in common though, eh? Off-prompt today, but will be writing a Blessing (after Jo Bell’s prompt) and a Welcome Poem (from NaPoWriMo’s prompt) for a thing I’m doing at Hyde Park Picture House next Sunday. Neither seemed quite right today… For there was a little funeral, as you may have noticed or heard about (I did not want to bless Thatcher’s life or passing, nor welcome the funeral, really – I’m saving those for something else). S

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NaPoWriMo 7: The Pies of Awareness

Apr 9, 2013
2 min

NaPoWriMo 7: The Pies of Awareness

The Pies of Awareness may or may not come from Gregg’s (who feature, by the way, as a Classical Allusion in another poem of mine by a pigeon) Quickfire blog entries! The prompt for NaPoWriMo Day 7 was to write a poem consisting solely of a series of declarative statements, with one question at the end. So, based on some conversations I’ve had recently, here it is – the explanation is kind of involved, so I’ll let you draw your own conclusions. (By the way, days 8 and 9 – the

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NaPoWriMo 5: Unprompted Art Poetry

Apr 6, 2013
2 min

NaPoWriMo 5: Unprompted Art Poetry

Paul Jenkins’ ‘Phenomena Secret Cargo’ – but not as we saw it in the gallery…Which is right? Day 6 of NaPoWriMo – I’m still brewing a cinquain from yesterday (which are HARD!) but here is a non-prompt piece inspired by a visit to the gallery in Cardiff (Wales, where I am today). I’m writing overlooking the Wales Millennium Centre (with its Gwyneth Lewis quote writ large on the front: IN THESE STONES HORIZONS SING) from a lovely cafe called Kemi’s in Cardiff Bay. So my NaPoWri

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Apr 4, 2013
2 min

NaPoWriMo 3: A Sea Shanty for Failed Urban Development

Prompt no. 3 of NaPoWriMo was to write a sea shanty. This pleased me greatly as I’m a part of (when I can make it!) the Ocean Loiners – a sea shanty singing group in Leeds (hence the name: Leeds folk are known as ‘Loiners’)… Here’s a video of us belting out ‘Three Jolly Fishermen’ at the Theatre By the Lake in Bradford in October last year. (I am the lanky one in the blue t-shirt in case you’re wondering!) I’ve turned my attention to the place where I live as the subject for

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NaPoWriMo 2: Lies, All Lies

Apr 3, 2013
2 min

NaPoWriMo 2: Lies, All Lies

Eliot – who never had twin daughters…Or did he? (No, he didn’t). Onward with NaPoWriMo catch-up – now at 66.66% catch-up. We’re entering warp-drive composition speed, here: I’ve got to go and perform some work at Wicked Words (a spoken word night in Leeds) tonight, so best be off soon! Yesterday’s prompt was to write a poem which was all lies, or led up to one big lie. In a quick web-sweep, I found this story about a woman who claimed to be BOTH of T S Eliot’s twin daughters

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NaPoWriMo 1: Borrowed First Line

Apr 3, 2013
1 min

NaPoWriMo 1: Borrowed First Line

This was the most tasteful dead dog I could find. Or maybe it’s asleep – let’s just say it’s asleep. Catching up 33% complete: here’s my first NaPoWriMo effort. High-speed poetry! The prompt was to write a poem using the first line of another poem. I used the Poetry Foundation app to find a random poem – which turned out to be ‘Time of Need’ by Allison Seay – which you can read here. The first line is ‘In the road, a dog. Days dead…’ (As a dog lover, this was a sad one to get

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Mar 27, 2013
1 min

Falcons ‘rapidly evolved hunter skill’

Falcons ‘rapidly evolved hunter skill’ http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/21885659 I love raptors – wrote a poem last year about meeting a falconer (and discussing the falcons’ sometimes-deadly speed) at Warwick Castle, you can read it here. It turns out that missile skull of theirs, as well as other of their hunting perfection, evolved in a relatively-short period of time, in relative terms. They hurtle through evolution, as well as through the air, it seems… One day I shall don th

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Little Shadows

Mar 25, 2013
2 min

Little Shadows

How a bee might see a flower – except, not really, because they *smell shapes* (kind of). I’m brewing a project – a series of workshops and performances – around BEES (I always feel I have to capitalise it) for this summer, called BUZZ WORDS (I credit thanks to Mr Ian Billings for assistance with the title). So, with that in mind I’ve been looking out for bee-related stories, inspiration and reading – and tweeting bee-related excerpts from poems too. (They should show up on

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