Blog : Brett Fish

NaPoWriMo: Day 11 – Sapphics

[Our prompt for today departs from such concerns, however. Today, rather than being casual, I challenge you to get rather classically formal, and compose a poem in Sapphics. These are quatrains whose first three lines have eleven syllables, and the fourth, just five. There is also a very strict meter that alternates trochees (a two-syllable foot, with the first syllable stressed, and the second unstressed) and dactyls (a three-syllable foot, with the first syllable stressed [...]

By brettfish|2015-04-14T08:58:20+02:00April 14th, 2015|poems and other creativity|0 Comments

Meeting Skillet face to face: What question will you ask?

It started with great timing and a Facebook status i stumbled upon: Skillet play at Freedom Festival 27 april, Cape Town Ostrich farm. Want to win tickets from me?? Now to give this some perspective, Skillet have for the longest time been my bonus favourite band... for many years of my life i listed four bands as my top 4: U2, Coldplay, R.E.M., Tree63 and then Skillet was next in line. So understudy in case any of [...]

By brettfish|2015-04-14T00:13:37+02:00April 14th, 2015|activities, and other animals., music|0 Comments

How to overcome our biases by walking boldly towards them [Verna Myers]

i know not everyone has the time or internet capacity to watch video clips online, but if you do then i encourage you to watch this one. It speaks directly into the Americaland conversation at the moment in terms of violence from police offers on black young men but also just a greater focus on the bias of society, and particularly white society when it comes to black young men. i believe it has a [...]

By brettfish|2015-04-13T09:00:00+02:00April 13th, 2015|challenging thorts, change the world, inspire-ations, local news, pain and Hope, things to wrestle with, thorts of other people, world news|0 Comments

NaPoWriMo: Day 10 – Abecedarian

[And now for today’s prompt: Today I challenge you to write an abecedarian poem – a poem with a structure derived from the alphabet. There are a couple of ways of doing this. You could write a poem of 26 words, in which each word begins with a successive letter of the alphabet. You could write a poem of 26 lines, where each line begins with a successive letter.] Making sense of the letters in [...]

By brettfish|2015-04-12T14:43:10+02:00April 12th, 2015|poems and other creativity|0 Comments

NaPoWriMo: Day 9 – Calligram

[Our prompt for the day (optional, as always) plays of our resources. Today, I challenge you to write a visual poem. If that’s not specific enough, perhaps you can try your hand at a calligram? That’s a poem or other text in which the words are arranged into a specific shape or image.] Waterless a drop of water might seem to be inconsequential but in these times of incessant drought even one single solitary drop [...]

By brettfish|2015-04-11T09:44:13+02:00April 11th, 2015|poems and other creativity|0 Comments

NaPoWriMo: Day 8 – Palinode

[And now, without further ado, our prompt (optional as always) for Day Eight: today I challenge you to write a palinode. And what’s that? It’s a poem in which the poet retracts a statement made in an earlier poem.] It has always been you It has been claimed This by myself In previous Aubade, That coffee was The thing i dreamt of When in bed i laid However, when my wife it read She was [...]

By brettfish|2015-04-10T10:08:59+02:00April 10th, 2015|and other animals., poems and other creativity|0 Comments

Tandem Post: Meeting The Queen

Two steps forward and then one to the right. I stand and wait, watching... guarding... carefully listening to my own heavy breathing... I try to remain focused completely on the spaces around me, watching for you, zoning out of the chatter and in on any nearby movement that may be about to occur. This time you will not get by me. I am ready, alert, prepared for the inevitability of your attack. One thing in mind, [...]

By brettfish|2015-04-08T14:00:00+02:00April 8th, 2015|activities, and other animals., fun, games & Stuff, heroes or heroic moments, poems and other creativity, tandem blog post|15 Comments

Poetry with Erik with a K: Lonely Cloud

So sometimes when i'm not myself i become this guy Brad Fish who has a whole series of videos warning people about Dangerous Things You Can Least Expect [DTYCLE] which were either funny or not, depending on whether you found them funny or not. And then today, i discovered that sometimes when i'm not Brad Fish, i might end up becoming Erik [with a K] Erik loves poetry and the soothing effect it has on him [...]

By brettfish|2015-04-08T10:55:07+02:00April 8th, 2015|and other animals., humour'ish, poems and other creativity|0 Comments

NaPoWriMo: Day 7 – Money

[And now our prompt: keeping to the theme of poetry’s value, Wallace Stevens famously wrote that “money is a kind of poetry.” So today, I challenge you to write about money! It could be about not having enough, having too much (a nice kind of problem to have), the smell, or feel, or sensory aspects of money. It could also just be a poem about how we decide what has value or worth.] hidden treasures [...]

By brettfish|2015-04-08T08:51:56+02:00April 8th, 2015|poems and other creativity|0 Comments

One person who gives me hope in South Africa is: Patrick Nel [c/o Alexa Matthews]

It’s Good Friday. I am sitting in a coffee shop. In Manenberg. A community that is often perceived as hopeless, as a being a part of the cycle of violence and structures and things that will not change. Yet, as I sit in this coffee shop hope prevails. Part of the reason for this is that there are hope bringers in this community as much as there are gangs and drugs and violence. One of [...]

By brettfish|2015-04-08T08:49:05+02:00April 8th, 2015|Uncategorized|0 Comments