Wife, mother, Poet, Writer, Art Installationist, Stand Up Comedian, Dog Enthusiast. Spending most of my time being creative in a variety of sometimes quirky ways!
I have suffered in my life, I have had wonderful things occur in my life. Concentrating on the wonderful things makes it easier for me to live a great life.
So, at this particular time in history, we are on the cusp of changing the President of the United States of America. Whatever and whoever you would prefer to have as the actual President come 2021, we have witnessed many words, some false, some true, so spoken with a boasters bluff, some with a humble hope and strength in belief.
I am not a religious person, but when listening to the first speech of President Elect Joe Biden, I was impressed by his words, the way he calmly, but strongly put forward his hopes for all of the people of the United States of America, and for the better future for the whole world. No bragging, just a calm strength of purpose.
If I were to model my own possible life as a public speaker, I would watch this speech, time and time again. If I were able to give my words in such a strong and hopeful way, no rubbish, just truth and hope for better things to some. No bragging about myself, only truth of who I am and what I have done. Not false words on what I will do, if I can’t do it, but words of hope for bigger and better things that may be possible, if I were able to inspire better things for the future.
I can do this!
True words, strong words, hope and care. Can I be that person, to do this? I believe I can, and I know I can and will write and speak words that touch others, I’ve done it before, I can do it again, if and when the moment and inspiration both come, and my chance to speak has come. I can be that person.
I value words, and I am committed to producing words of value, because the words deserve that from all of us, who call ourselves wordsmiths. The words deserve our very best work!
I have an extreme fondness for watching electoral votes come in, and get counted, on the TV, and online. Of course I also have a fondness for getting things done, boxes ticked, and in moving on to the next step. Unfortunately, the electoral process for the US election is the thing that has totally captured me.
I’ve been sitting here, in my main writing seat, laptop on my lap, but not a single word has been written for my novel … Am I sad about that? Yes, I am, I want to get more words written, for sure. Am I going to do something about it then? Hmm, no, not today, I don’t think so.
Today and tonight are going to be US election 2020. It would be silly to think anything else might happen, regarding that book of mine, while the compelling results are up there on the TV, and my laptop screen … It’s a simple fact. Tomorrow though, tomorrow will be a whole new day. I am going out tomorrow, first for a coffee and chat catch up with a friend, (who is keen to hear more about how my book is going), and after that I’ll have an hour or so to fill in, until my writing group meeting begins.
I’ll have my laptop with me, there won’t be any election results happening on my screen, and I will be writing more of my novel, for sure! Letting myself get distracted like this is an annoying thing, in many ways, but hey, I am who I am, and I just like watching it all happening, vote by vote, counting, looking, talking about it, comparing things to the previous election. It’s a part of who I am, that’s all. I can’t help that!
Now the day has gone on, into evening. I’ve had my main meal of the day, and people in America have gone to bed, election business over until tomorrow. And tomorrow as stated above, will bring different things for me to do, away from home and the pernicious TV! I will be having a fun time with a friend, and then writing group business will take over, until I head off home again.
I expect some writing of my novel will happen tomorrow morning, and then some more when I am elsewhere, with my laptop charge up with battery power. It will be a far more useful day tomorrow than I had today, in many ways, I expect – no more election distraction for me!
Yes, this is a bit of a side-step, away from that novel that should be capturing my writing moments. Life is a hurdy-gurdy ride at times, and my life is not different than others, in that. I have medical things, a hound in the house, disability related administrative things to organise, as well as feeding myself, and connecting with my spouse, as needed.
So anyway, here is a small piece I have written, in response to my brain insisting I write something about my best friend at school, Wendy. Could the prompt for this be the fact that my main character in my novel has a best friend, who she has been thinking about, as I’ve been writing this novel? Maybe, it could be the thing that made the call for this.
Anyway,. here it is, a suite of Haiku and then a Tanka. about my best ever friend, Wendy, who knew so much about me, than no-one else may ever know, except for their sordid part played in it.
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Remembering
Wendy and I we vowed to be friends forever – I’m still here …
We were so young, giggling at all life showed us. Oh, so young …
Motherhood a gift given young to her, babe’s life outliving her own.
Those things we did, Unafraid, heedless, bravely stupid. Lucky …
Why do they hit so hard, these middle-aged memories?
Memories soothe us stress us out, nurture in us better things … Between all things and none – haunted until we act …
********** Sometimes there are things that need to be said, written, thought over, help close, or examined and then put away again. And it is done here, now, and I feel better for that. If none of this ends up in the novel I’m writing, it doesn’t matter, it is here in my head, and I know my main character and I know what it means, to have a special childhood friend, who knows things about you that no-one else does.
When I read a poetry collection, I will often flitter from page to page, until I have touched on enough for a moment, then come back to the book at a later time, to read another few poems, and repeat that until I have read all of the poems I wish to read there, which, unless the poems I’ve read were not of interest to me, will be the whole of the collection.
If the poems are light and fluffy, with little needed in the way of deeper thought, I can easily gobble down the entire book in one sitting. This poetry collection by Poet David Ritter, is certainly not one of those light and fluffy books to be gobbled down quickly.
Instead, this poetry collection ‘Bottled Memories’ is a harrowing thing, a book full of thoughts, realisations, memories mainly unwanted, of a man who has certainly lived a life. If one is to write a poetry collection about personal things that have happened, they most certainly have lived a life, to be able to pen something worth reading. And on reading this collection, I knew I was reading the words of a person whose life had been well and truly lived.
Good things, but so many more bad things, happened in this poet’s life, and he brings to the reader a poetic and narrative tale of a life lived, not well, but very badly. From the very beginning, there are the perils of living with an addiction to alcohol, with many of the bad things this might bring to the life of one suffering from the effects of this addiction.
Loneliness, friendlessness, addiction, booze, drugs, offending, jail, they are all there. But this narrative has a happier ending than the lives of others so afflicted might have. Ultimately, this is a poetry collection that speaks of finding the one friend this man needed, the one who invited him into his life, and saved him from himself.
I am not a religious person, but I can see that the friend who came into David Ritter’s life, was the friend David needed. Jesus was that friend, and though I am not a close friend to Jesus, I can see much worth in the life of Jesus, and if having a close relationship with Jesus helps in a person’s life, I say, well done both to Jesus and to the person who has asked for and received Jesus’s loving help.
David Ritter is unashamedly a writer of rhyming poetry, and there is nothing wrong with that. His poems are full of details of a life of sordid doings, to begin with, and then much more beautiful material, as his new life with Jesus brings hope into a life he’d thought was without hope. The final poem is an outright call to the reader to let the light of God shine into every person’s life, and I can see the worth of that light, that shines a light to inspire and bring better things to all in the world.
I found much of interest in this poetry collection, giving, as it does, a candid look into a life I have not travelled myself, but can see the truth of what is written in poetry, through the words written by the one who was living that life himself. I thank the poet for trusting me to share this book with me, and I wish David Ritter well in his life, always.
If these ideas are of interest to you at all, I very much comment this work of poetry, and say well done David, I hope Jesus continues to bring much of worth to your life.
I was sent a book, a poetry collection, with a note asking me to post a review on Amazon. This was after some online discussion with the writer of the book, which is a poetry collection. After reading the poems in the book, I was ready to post such a review.
But Amazon is not a literary organisation, where the written word is a thing of beauty, to be treasured and treated well. Instead, to Amazon, a book is just another thing to sell and make money from. And because I am a mere poet and writer, as well as being a keen library user, I don’t buy books from Amazon, and so they don’t care what I think about any books written by other people, and I couldn’t leave a review.
But I am a blogger, as well as poet, and writer, and so I am going to use this blog, to post my review of the book I was sent, because that will at least be in the spirit of meeting my obligation to the sender of the book. I enjoyed reading this poetry collection, if ‘enjoy’ is the correct word for it. It is a good collection, for many reasons, which I will go into, obviously, in the review I will be writing and posting on this blog, once I have finished writing this post.
So, if you wish to read what I say in my first book review posted on my Writer blog, take a look later on today, and you will see it! Poetry is certainly a genre I feel fully qualified to write a review about. I may not have a degree in literature, but I have read, written and heard much poetry, both contemporary and older. I personally write in many forms of poetry, with no particular preference over rhyming or non rhyming poetry.
I feel that point is a thing a poem will often tell the poet they must use. And some poets hold strongly to the idea that poems must rhyme. I have no further thought on that, beyond the fact of what I do myself. If a poem tells me to use rhyme, I use rhyme, if the poem says free verse, the same, I use what the poem tells me to use.
So now is time to take another swig of my coffee, before it gets cold, and eat some of my delicious lunch of nuts seeds and dried fruit, and then thus fortified, launch into my first book review! (By the way, if you like the review I write, and think you’d like me to review your book, why not send me a copy! My contact details are available on this website.)
So Ciao for now, and I’ll be back soon. I have a review to write!
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Back again, here is the link to the review I wrote and posted to my site. If you have a book you’d like me to review, send a copy to me, and it may well happen!
