Ascension by Mark Harris

This is a style of poem is called a villanelle, and it's my first attempt at creating one. It's a French form, consisting of five tercets followed by a quatrain. The rhyme scheme is ABA ABA ABA ABA ABA ABAA; it was a challenge to get everything to fit. The last line of each stanza ( and the last two lines of the last stanza) are repeats of the first and third line of the first stanza. It'll make more sense when you read it. 

Ascension

Fly, fly through the boundless blue

Hark to the call of the sun

So the world will remember you.

Look to the light, keep it in view

Soar through the sky ‘til time is done

Fly, fly through the boundless blue.

No choice but to continue.

Higher, higher, Daedalus son,

So the world will remember you.

Almost time to say adieu,

You climb too high towards the heavens.

Fly, fly through the boundless blue.

The wax of your wings will burn through

Blinded by light, Blind to reason

So the world will remember you.

Icarus, the one who flew,

Scorched by the flames of the sun.

Fly, fly through the boundless blue,

The world will remember you.

Guest Post - 'Memories of a Life', by Joshua Akinbami

Clinging to memories like leaves on trees;

In autumn, let them fall and rest to bed,

As a mind on regret cannot be free,

For if I worry they will wreck my head.

They cut deep like words from a loved one,

Nesting themselves in your very fabric,

Waiting for a moment to sing a song

Which vibrates to your very being, so tragic.

But you must dance with fate and meet your doom,

For within it is the beauty of Daphne:

Opium of the gods, so do not gloom,

Be joyous and happy for what now you see.

What lies in your mind is all poetic,

Deny this fact and live to regret it.

'Hrothgar and the Trolls (lines 5-84)' by Ben Garry

This is the recently redrafted version of my poem, 'Hrothgar and the Trolls'. It is written in Old English alliterative verse, which I learned after reading the unfinished work by J. R. R. Tolkien, 'The Fall of Arthur', and the accompanying essay on Old English alliterative verse. I do not pretend that my attempt at this old alliterative style is perfect, given that I've learnt it from a short essay, but there is something attractive about it that makes it my favourite poetic style. It is a very Anglo/Germanic style of poetry, with rhyme being introduced later by the Normans, and it is fantastic for telling stories of epic heroes and legends. In this poem, I haven't focused a whole lot on the narrative itself, choosing instead to try and get the poetic style right, but I hope you still enjoy this first section of my poem about a young hero pitting himself against the terrible trolls!

The dawn arrived with deepening mists,

River running cold, rill trickling slow,

Grey mantle blanketing the moors around;

Sun’s countenance skulking behind clouds.

Between the boughs of bowing trees,

A groaning gale gusty blew.

Down below the bowels of earth,

Three monstrous maws did man-flesh crave!

The rushing wind winging brought

The flying scent of the flesh they desired.

Tusked mouths gaped and tongues lolled

With thoughts of human heads rolling

Off a gory trunk. Grizzled all over,

Tawny, towering torsos shaggy

Had they, with muddy, muffled feet.

Slimy nostrils out of stubbed noses flared,

As eyeballs dull stared angry out

From rutted wrinkles ‘neath rancid brows.

The humans lived then in humble dwellings;

Yet nonetheless they yearned for little;

Merry they went in mirth and cheer,

Innocent of the troubles that plague our age.

Hrothgar alone heeded the signs:

Daring to see the danger about.

That same morning, murky dawning

He wandered through woodlands chill,

A sapling still, but strongly growing,

Stealthy sliding o’er scrub and brush

While still the village slumbered on.

Not knowing of all to know there was,

Monsters did ne’er to his mind occur –

The wild may bring a wolf or bear,

Or a stumbling stag straying haply.

He considered not that coming his way

Were trolls through trees trampling hard.

Under cover of the cloudy dawn,

The trolls travelled together on.

Their tree trunk legs the forest trashing,

Village climes closer drawing.

Haply Hrothgar, the hurricane noise,

Timely heard and turned around,

With bow bravely brought about.

On the delicate curved bringer of death,

He fitted a dart, feathered and sharp.

Lying down in lofty grass,

He watched the trolls go wallowing past,

Tearing about them ancient trees,

Quashing earth with quaking steps.

Hesitating not Hrothgar went,

Tracking the trail the trolls had left,

Running with a ready bow,

Valiantly surging for village dear.

Ahead through leaves appeared a hide!

He aimed an arrow to arc towards

The fur and thickly folded skin,

Lodging fast. Loudly roaring,

The troll stumbled. Turning, Hrothgar

Sideways rolled, as with strides checked

The trolls stopped. Stillness descended.

His breathing Hrothgar bound with chains,

Sniffing, the trolls snorting waited.

Meaty mountains, mighty swaying:

Five great foes, furious all,

And burning with hunger for human flesh.

Blood slipped down the big one’s hide,

The arrow lodging ever deep;

An irritant, an irksome pain –

This foul brute was not yelled felled.

Then shooting again from shadowed leaves

Hrothgar aimed higher this time.

A flashing sting flew truly

Into a loutish, lumpy skull.

A deadly wound dealt at least;

Brought low the beast to bracken fell.

Slyly skipping, slipping clear,

Hrothgar evaded the hands of his foes,

As they turned again for the town.

Guest Post: 'Passion' by Joshua Akinbami

Is it wrong to want to be immortal?

Time reminds me that this body is weak;

It shall go back to the earth, it’s mortal.
I have not long to become what I seek.
Full devotion to thy highest passion;
Dionysian sacrifice to art;
What my heart beats to, saneness in question.
This I love shall kill me, this my escort
Through varied dimensions, through history;
It may seem hubris but can I not live?
My life fading away in a hurry.
I long to awaken and feel alive, 
Before my bones dry and my soul is dead,
I must create art, it is this I wed.

Struggles - My Choice by Steven Hardy

‘I wrote this poem this morning as I felt I had to express some of these thoughts. I had recently download for free ‘Stop Motion Studio’ and thought it would be a fun way to share this simple poem. Enjoy!’

The Crooked Stile and The Black Forest by Mark Harris

I've been having a go at poetry over the last week or two, having started it with my uni course, so here's a couple of them. Nothing too fancy here, no iambic pentameter or Old English alliterative verse, just two scenes that came into my head. Enjoy!

The Crooked Stile

                        Stands solemnly

      All on its own

                On it is carved

A heart once red

                    But worn away

The Black Forest

Her grubby, grasping hand reaches through the leaves,

As a cold wind tears through the black forest.

The trees whisper, the wolves howl.

Heart racing, she quickens her pace.

A murder of crows explode from above her,

Black wings beat to a cacophony of chaos.

A lashing branch paints a red line across her cheek.

She cries out with a deadened voice.

On and on she runs through the maze,

Lost and disoriented, as Cimmerian days crawl by.

Eternally running through the black forest,

She runs away from her nightmares.

About Us

Who we are and what we want to achieve

Mark

Hi, I’m Mark Harris and I predominantly write fiction, but I may also try my hand at some poetry now and again. I’ve written a 70,000 word adventure sci-fi novel targeted for young teens called ‘The Vortex’, and currently I’m halfway through a satirical fantasy novel named ‘Stormsrock’. Don’t expect that to be finished anytime soon though. I’ve also written a handful of short stories.

               

Unsurprisingly, I love reading, and I’m open to reading all forms of literature, across all genres, from Homer to Shakespeare to Rowling. I particularly enjoy reading fantasy stories in my free time, and have found inspiration for my current project through writers such as Brandon Sanderson, Joe Abercrombie, Andrzej Sapkowski, Patrick Rothfuss, George RR Martin and of course Tolkien.

               

I’m a first year student at the University of Nottingham, living on campus, studying English with Creative Writing. Other than reading and writing, I like to play piano, bass guitar, ultimate frisbee, video games and go for cycle rides. I’m excited to get this blog running and I hope you can expect great things from it!

Steven

My name is Steven William Hardy; I enjoy the Arts, with a particular focus on writing and acting. I am willing to try my hand at a variety of genres, but especially enjoy the fast page turning action associated with modern teenage fiction and fantasy. My favourite writers range from J.R.R Tolkien and J.K Rowling, to Angela Carter and C.S Lewis.

I enjoy acting, which has led me to consider writing plays and screenplays, something I hope to explore during my time at University. Poetry is a skill I am yet to fully devote myself too; however, I hope that through this blog I can share some rough pieces with you. I have a particular love for how a book becomes a script and a script a film and so on; this stems from a love of literature and of film. There are many people who inspire me; from writers to actors/actresses to musicians to comedians and poets alike.

To contribute a unique gift to someone whether it be through writing, acting or any of the Arts is a profound goal, which I hope to achieve. To make someone laugh, smile, even cry, but fundamentally allow them to relate to the work I create, is a thing of beauty to me.  I write a range of material from comedy all the way to dark literature, but I still have a lot to learn and work on. I hope that through this blog, you can see some of the creative potential ‘floating’ around as we try to redirect it and entertain you!

Ben

Hi, my name’s Ben Garry, and I’ve loved creative writing for as long as I can remember, but it’s very hard to put my finger on what it is that I love about it. Why do I do it? It’s a way to express myself, yes, but often I don’t begin writing something with a particular point to make or aspect to emphasise. I think that more often than not, I write simply to create stories. I’m a big fan of stories. We cannot escape from stories. Our culture is built on stories. They saturate daily life and we all tell them without even thinking about it.

I suppose that what I really love are stories that take you somewhere else: another place or time. Fantasy, science-fiction, myths, legends, that sort of thing. Some people mock this type of fiction for being escapist, but I think that escapism is one of its great strengths. If an author can make their world so believable that you think you’re there, then I reckon they’ve done a good job.

Thus, my inspiration comes from a variety of sources, old and new. On the one hand, I can’t get enough of the ancient stories: Beowulf, the Aeneid, the two Eddas….but on the other hand, more modern authors such as Cormac McCarthy, Tolkien, Terry Brooks and William Blake have all made an impact on my writing. I also have to admit that I’m a bit of a comic geek, and the modest Marvel collection staring at me from my bottom shelf cannot go unmentioned.

In terms of my own writing, I like to experiment a little bit. Normal prose is fun, but I like to play around with what you can do with it, as well as experimenting with different poetic forms, from various rhyme schemes to Old English alliterative verse. I like a bit of everything really. That’s me.

Our Aim

We’re three English students at the University of Nottingham, and our aim is simply to create a platform where we, and, in the future, other students, can share works of creative writing. We feel that a blog of this kind can only be enriched by having a variety of authors; we all have different inspiration, different ways of writing and different views on life, which hopefully will come together in a rich, diverse online space.

Over the coming months, we hope to provide readers with a wide spread of prose, poetry and plays from a variety of different genres. We know that, just as writers all have different styles, readers all have different tastes, and we like to think that, no matter what your preferences, there will be something on this blog that you can truly enjoy. Another possible benefit would be that you may read something a bit different and find that you like it. Perhaps you don’t read poetry, or haven’t really seen fantasy before; it would be awesome if you could find something new to enjoy through this blog.

So stick with us, keep reading, and hopefully you’ll find something you love on this blog over the coming months, because there’s no point in creative writing if no one enjoys it.