Self-Ashtualisation

Faith: A Short Story by Ashley    Gentle Kentish breeze charmed my nostrils with the smells of fish and chips and salmon steaks. The aromas enabled me to savour the quality time with my daughter on St Mildred’s Bay. A beach whose sight welcomed us with open arms, lighting up the face of the world’s greatest artist and painter, the one and only Faith. Claiming that she was the best was not an exaggeration at all. This claim was supported by the founder of Brilliant Bugs Academy for Special Children, Miss Joanna Bugs. In exactly twenty-four hours, my daughter would be taking her first ever one-to-one lesson with Joanna. A reward for the painting contest. Ah… Happy tears struggled out of the clutches of my eyes each time my mind replayed the moment Faith won the contest. I knew that my daughter’s artistic gift would outshine all the others’. So did Joanna, it seemed, as she confided that in all honesty, she did not expect much from all her other students. I broke down when Joanna offe

I attempted another writing exercise from Stephen Fry's brilliant book on poetry The Ode Less Travelled. As highlighted in the title of this entry, I was required to write two syllabic poems on the subjects of rain and hygiene respectively. The first is a syllabic verse with alternating seven and five-syllable lines; the second, two stanzas of verse running 3, 6, 1, 4, 8, 4, 1, 6, 3. First poem: Rain The sky was no longer blue When rain fell, pouring Staining the torchlight within Especially when The thunder shouted, enraged, Like angry mums who Craved cradles of milk. Painful lullabies that cried Turned my blue eyes grey. Raindrops leaked out from both pipes As the threat to fling My childhood into the well Of stale acid rain Was bellowed out by stunted Adults whose hearts were Crashed by lightning at tender years. Second poem: Hygiene Angels with Dirty faeces were the Names We were given By our older cousins when we Forgot, again, To Brush our

I did it! It's not my best attempt, but my mission's accomplished nonetheless! Feeling really optimistic now. I believe that my poetry will only get better as I've made my commitment to keep writing :) Some of you might wonder, 'This doesn't look like a good poem. Why is Ashley posting this?' I don't know. Maybe you might not. But to be honest I feel that I can write a better poem. Nevertheless, I am actually rather proud of myself as I have completed a writing exercise in Stephen Fry's beautiful book on poetry, The Ode Less Travelled. It's a great book. I'd recommend it to anyone who'd like to brush up on their poetry writing. Here were the things I was expected to do in the writing exercise: * Write a poem in forty-five minutes. * Television is the topic specified by Fry. * The poem needs to be written in mixed metre, containing: - Two quatrains of standard, eight-syllable iambic tetrameter. - Two quatrains of alternating iambic te