New Journeys

After so long without a new post, here's a poem I composed about turtles hatching on a beach in India.

New Journeys

The sand begins to move
under a glowing full moon.
Thousands of eggshells
litter underground nests.

The heads appear first,
followed by thrashing flippers,
then the small grey shells
of the new born turtles.

They scuttle for the waves
in one enormous rush,
and blend into the surf
as the moon disappears.

At dawn the beach is empty,
save for one hatchling,
leaving the sand for the sea
and beginning the real journey.

First World War Project Begins

So, as you can see the blog has had some redecoraters in. With so many new things on the horizon, the time has come to make the announcement I promised to make at the start of the week.

I've been talking about doing something to commemorate the centenary of the First World War for the last few months. More specifically, I wanted to commemorate something very specific about the First World War. This means that the project I'm announcing today won't cover the whole of the war, or won't be about the general themes and context which historians have been analysing for the last century. Instead it will be covering something that I've been interested in for a while, and which I'm finally tackling in writing form.

The battle at Mametz Wood as long been a focus of Welsh poets writing about the First World War. It's been written about by poets such as Owen Sheers and of course in the famous 'In Parenthesis' by David Jones who fought in the battle itself. It was a defining moment of the Battle of the Somme, and the assault by the Welsh Regiment upon German trenches in the wood was marked by the extraordinary courage displayed by the soldiers. It will be my task for the next year and a half to compose my own tribute to this little-known part of history. Whether I will succeed is yet to be seen, but I will do my best.

Hope you found this post informative and I'll see you with more poems and other good stuff soon.

NaPoWriMo Defeat

As this is my first post in quite a while, I should start by addressing the obvious. Despite my best efforts, I failed to make it to the end of NaPoWriMo this year. I returned to university after the eighteenth poem and failed to find them time to write any new stuff. As a result I've been taking a short break from poetry but I will be returning to posting new poems very soon.

In other news, my articles about Cowboy Bebop and the First World War are still on the cards. The latter announcement will be made at the end of this week.

Hope you're all having a good week and I'll see you all soon.