Winning poem

• Bill Condon’s children poem, ‘The Scary Boy’ has won the Adults Writing for Children section of the annual Toolongi Poetry Festival Competition. The announcement was made by Stephen Whiteside, President of the C J Dennis Society, at a ceremony at The Singing Gardens, north-east of Melbourne where CJ Dennis used to live.

Poetry blog

• Poetry Sans Frontiers is a blog dedicated to poetry from all over the world. More recently it has featured Australian author Lesley Gibbes. http://poetrysansfrontieres.weebly.com/beyond-the-barricades—blog-page

Writing Prompt: A Poem and Push Ups

Many writers have a physically active lifestyle, and many of these writers believe that this physical activity aids them in their creative endeavors. I recently started doing this unusual writing prompt and have found it to be a lot of fun. It has equaled some interesting results.

The first thing I do is write down a title and then the number of lines I plan to write. On the side of the page I write down the number for every line. I usually do no more than 12 lines. I often use a piece of paper and not a computer for this prompt because I tend to sweat. Once I write down the line numbers I decide what exercise I am going to do. I usually do something like jumping jacks or squats that are easy to count. I don’t like to do more than one form of exercise because the main point is the writing.

Before I write the first line I have to do 20 jumping jacks, or 30 squats, or 5 pushups, etc, and then I write a line of poetry. For each line of poetry that I write I do the same amount of physical exercise.

It is really strange to go between one activity and the other, but I have found that I am more likely to write poems with a lot of energy and strangeness in them, while doing this prompt. Happy Writing!

© Emily Harstone