After the autumn school holiday, the light and season switch from cool, brisk and bright to dark, wet and cold. The trees are emptied and the leaves lie limp and blackened in my yard. The change feels sudden and ominous, but I knew it was coming.
Halloween isn't celebrated here in Finland really. Families don't have a reference of when to do things like trick-or-treating so kids have been coming to the door randomly all week. At school we have been studying autumn festivals like Sukkot, Cheosok and Kekri and the kids will take any chance to dress-up. I love that so many autumn holidays are about light and laughter as I feel like we need to store up on both as winter nears.
I've been drawn into my Uni course, trying to focus on that at the weekends, but I managed to write a few poems during the break. I feel like I've hit a dry spell, inspiration-wise, so I'm returning to prompts from various sources. I've also been trying to write poems disconnected from my life, find a new voice and character that isn't me. It feels strange like slipping on someone else's clothes, but I'm hoping it stimulates some new ideas.
It's also NaNoWriMo, national novel writing month, and while I don't write fiction at the moment I thought this micro-fiction prompt list a friend shared looked interesting for poets as well. So I might give this a try as well.
This weekend I appeared on the latest episode of the brilliant poetry podcast Eat the Storms hosted by poet Damien B Donnelly. Other poets in the programme are Molly Twomey, Jamie O’Halloran, Diarmuid Fitzgerald and Janet MacFadyen and it's wonderful to be included with such a talented mix.
A little more light to keep us going through the week. Enjoy.
