Author: poetryfest

Submit your Poetry to the Festival. Three Options: 1) To post. 2) To have performed by an actor 3) To be made into a film.

Poetry Movie: What is Love, by Colin Guest

Poetry by Colin Guest

Narration by Becky Shrimpton

Editor & Visual Design by Carey Dieter

Produced by Matthew Toffolo

POETRY 7 questions:

What is the theme of your poem?

Love.

What motivated you to write this poem?

My strong feelings of love for my wife.

How long have you been writing poetry?

I started writing poems back in 1983 while working in Brunei. I have recently written a number of love poems for my wife, with two of them in the final four in WildSound Poetry Festivals, with another of my poems that Julian Ford read out online, in the final four.

If you could have dinner with one person (dead or alive), who would that be?

I think due to my love of writing, it would Le Child, whose writing I think is in a class of its own.

What influenced you to submit to have your poetry performed by a professional actor?

I think the words in my poem would appeal to many people, especially those who do not know the difference between love and desire. Also, by having my poem read out live, it acts to give more publicity to my writing endeavours.

Do you write other works? scripts? Short Stories? Etc..?

I have written and had published two short fiction books, plus one re my life in Turkey where I have lived for over 25 years, and a memoir entitled Follow in the Tigerman’s Footsteps. This covers my working as an expat for nineteen years in fifteen countries spread throughout the Middle, Far East and North Africa. In conjunction with Voyage Media who think my memoir could be used as the basis for a television series, I have written a pitch, which is on a list that Voyage sends out to over 6,000 producers to see if one is interested in using it.

At present, Julian Ford, one of your readers is working on turning my memoir into an audio book. I am presently writing a novel, and had over 14 articles published in online magazines, and one published in a UK expat magazine. I also took part in a live radio show in America re my writing.

What is your passion in life?

My passion is writing and hoping that one day I might have one of my books used as the basis for a film.

Young couple wearing rings hand in hand
Red heart tree

CARTLOADS – Poetry Reading by Sue Barnard

Performed by actor Peter-Mark Raphael

Get to know the writer:

What is the theme of your poem?

It’s a light-hearted parody of a very well-known poem: Cargoes by John Masefield. I updated the topic for a modern-day readership.

What motivated you to write this poem?

The idea just came to me out of the blue when I was pushing a shopping cart around a supermarket. By the time I reached the checkout I’d worked out the poem’s basic structure and thought of some of the lines. I had to keep repeating them over and over to myself until I got home and could write them down!

How long have you been writing poetry?

I’ve dabbled with it for most of my life, but it’s only during the past few years that I’ve started taking my work more seriously.

If you could have dinner with one person (dead or alive), who would that be?

Oh gosh, there are so many. But if I had to choose just one, I think it would have to be William Shakespeare. He was a great and prolific writer, and has influenced much of my own work, including two of my novels (see below). I’d love to ask him what he did during the seven years of his life which are unaccounted for, between leaving Stratford-upon-Avon and arriving in London. And I’d also find out once and for all if he spoke with a regional accent!

What influenced you to submit to have your poetry performed by a professional actor?

It felt like a great opportunity, for which I am most grateful. Thank you.

Do you write other works? Scripts? Short Stories? Etc..?

I’ve written a few short stories which have been published in anthologies, and I’ve also written four novels which are published by Crooked Cat Books. Two of these (The Ghostly Father and The Unkindest Cut of All) are based on works by Shakespeare (respectively Romeo & Juliet and Julius Caesar). The other two are Nice Girls Don’t (a romantic intrigue based on a search for family secrets) and Never on Saturday (a time-slip romance novella based on an old French legend). I currently have two other projects on the go, but they are still in the early stages.

I also do editing work for other writers.

What is your passion in life?

Life itself. It should be lived to the full. Every moment is precious, and will never come again.

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Producer: Matthew Toffolo http://www.matthewtoffolo.com

Director: Kierston Drier
Casting Director: Sean Ballantyne
Editor: John Johnson

Camera Operator: Mary Cox

Read Poetry: I am afraid, by Pam Lewis

 Genre:love, fear,letting go,heart, emotional, unknown,romance.

I am afraid to let you in
I am afraid of what this love would bring
I am scared of this unknown light
So with your love my heart daily fights
I am afraid to let your love be
I am scared to set your love free in me
So i close the eyes of my heart pretending not to see
That your love has completely saturated me
Your love got in without a key
And began loving me softly
I am afraid that your loving me
Is just to much for me……. to be
 

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Read Poetry: Are they still the same?, by Sunil Sharma

 
The streets
the surviving trees and
the wandering moon,

are they still the same
or changed?

The dusty locality
with twisted lanes/leaning houses,
the neighbours sitting outside, chatting
in the yellow sun, curs barking, kids fighting
over the ball?

Do the wooden doors always open these days
or shut on your face in alarm?

The summer breeze
evening/night; morning/day/afternoon lazing around

the bends in the uneven streets and crowded bazaars?
Does Ma’s wrinkled visage lights up, when someone
knocks in the late evenings; temple bells chiming in the background; her eyes searching the dim courtyard?

Does she still call out my name in the sedated sleep?

How does the water taste from that rusted hand-pump, near the Tulsi plant?

And the guava tree in the compound?

Do folks automatically smile and greet passing strangers in our dusty town or, have become terrified by the odd looks and dresses worn by them?

Are the old-world courtesies and customs remain the same?
Or, has the sweet town also changed and shut down?
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Bio:
Sunil Sharma is Mumbai-based senior academic, critic, literary editor and author with 18 published books: Six collections of poetry; two of short fiction; one novel; a critical study of the novel, and, eight joint anthologies on prose, poetry and criticism. He is a recipient of the UK-based Destiny Poets’ inaugural Poet of the Year award—2012. His poems were published in the prestigious UN project: Happiness: The Delight-Tree: An Anthology of Contemporary International Poetry, in the year 2015.

Sunil edits the English section of the monthly bilingual journal Setu published from Pittsburgh, USA:
http://www.setumag.com/p/setu-home.html

For more details, please visit the blog:
http://www.drsunilsharma.blogspot.in/
 

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Read Poetry: I Edit my Life, by Michael Lee Johnson

 I edit my life
clothesline pins & clips
hang to dry,
dirty laundry,
I turn poetic hedonistic
in my early 70’s
reviewing the joys
and the sorrows
of my journey.
I find myself wanting
a new review, a new product,
a new time machine,
a new internet space,
a new planet where
we small, wee creative
creatures can grow.

 

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Read Poetry: GRAIN OF CHOICE, by Patrick Turner-Lee

Held in broken silence; a breath
A torn tissue left
Blood in channels flowing
Going to the window
That’s showing eloquent features.

Stepping in golden shoes;
In sunlit meadows
On sandy beaches

Reaching the shore
In shallow silver streams
That trickle between the stones
Thrown by angry voices.
Choices in terms of stagnant emotions.

A commotion of broken glass
Drifting to sea
Not to mention the thoughts in question

Cry at a drop in the ocean
At shards of crystal
A fire
A reaction
A faction of reality will no longer return

Burned by fusing sun and light
Exposed to negative reasons

Crisp in tired response we sleep
Until ideas wreck our slumber
Our number is up
The peace is frozen

May 5th 2017
Patrick Turner-Lee

 

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Read Poetry: Heroin, by Aylana St Luce

 
The blurred vision through cigarette smoke
And the slurred reaction of alcohol.
The art told on bodies,
Where lines and stories intertwine.
Where reality and fantasy keep together to close proximities.
The bodily fluid that are shared
The connection of strangers who don’t know the names of their guest.
Where I lose myself
Where “you” is just a meaningless word
and we soon become one, merged by the push of a wand.
My body somehow found itself lost
And I can feel the precision of your presence on my mind.
I no longer see the world I once was a part of.
You’re toxic tongue has influenced me towards the dark end of a never ending trail.
Somehow I’ve found serenity by the deck of cards that love has gambled in my system.
I am in love.
I am at peace.
 

 

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Read Poetry: Charmcaster’s Spellbook, by Man of Action

 Gwen kept Charmcaster’s spellbook​
As a souvenir​
After she and Ben 10 returned​
Back into their bodies

Charms of Bezel by Man of Action
Hex’s Charms of Bezel​
That he used ​
To bring about the end ​
Of the world

Legendary Voice Actor
The man of many voices​
A real legend​
Who has been in the voice acting​
Community ​
Since forever

Mal’s Spellbook by Josann McGibbon and Sarah Parriott
Maleficent gave Mal​
Her spellbook​
On her way to Auradon Prep​
She had some mischief​
While trying to steal ​
Fairy Godmother’s wand

Lock and Key by Man of Action
A powerful spellbook​
Indeed ​
Kept under ​
Lock and key

His Other Spellbooks
He bought some spellbooks​
To learn how to control his magical powers​
After an advanced magician’s charms​
Awakened his magic of light

His First Spellbook
He later kept the advanced magician’s niece’s ​
Old spellbook as a souvenir along with her old bag​
Of stone golems and additional magic​
Within the dimension of time and space

 

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