Yep, ’tis Tuesday “and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe…” or somesuch, according to Lewis Carrol.
Tuesday means it’s time for the annual #CoffinHop DEAD POETRY SLAM! Your chance to win some quality dark and dreary poetry by displaying your own mastery, or meager understanding, of the craft of the bards. We all of us, should love poetry – deeply, inherently, and with all of our essence – poetry is what music we make of Life goddammit. I’ve been writing poetry since I was 6 or 7 years old. Much of it awful and derivative, some of it pretty damned good, a couple of them even recognized as worthy of praise. All of them carried a little piece of my heart out into the world to bleed all over the carpet.
This year, we have an extra treat, as many of our #CoffinHop authors belong to a little dark poetry collective, known as The Kintsugi Poets Society. What is a Kintsugi Poets Society, you may well ask? Well here’s a little missive from their Lord and Master, Kim Koning:
Kim Koning founded the Kintsugi Poets Society in 2013. She had belonged to another dark poetry collective called the Undead Poets Society but sadly the Undead Poets Society returned to the graveyard. So in 2013 she decided to put together another dark poetry collective and The Kintsugi Poets Society was born. Pulling in a few fellow Undead Poets from the graveyard, she quickly began recruiting more dark poets who wanted a place and community to pen their dark thoughts. The Kintsugi Poets Society has become a thriving community of Dark Poets.
What is “Kintsugi”:
The story of KINTSUGI may have begun in the late 15th century, when the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa sent a damaged Chinese tea bowl back to China to be fixed. It returned held together with ugly metal staples, launching Japanese craftsmen on a quest for a new form of repair that could make a broken piece look as good as new,
or better. Collectors became so enamored of the new art that some were accused of deliberately smashing valuable pottery so it could be repaired with the gold seams of kintsugi.
Kintsugi ~ That means “golden joinery” or “golden seams” in Japanese, and it refers to the art of fixing broken ceramics with a lacquer resin made to look like solid gold. Chances are, a vessel fixed by kintsugi will look more gorgeous, and more precious, than before it was fractured.
The poetry shared by The Kintsugi Poetry Society is written by poets who have mastered the art of Kintsugi. Each poet has taken the dark, cracked and broken fragments of their own pain and turned them into golden seams of light.
Which is all pretty goddamn cool, if you ask me.
Speaking of Japanesey Poetreezee, I was out at many long-waited appointments with Miz Liz and the boyos yesterday, and The Koj and I had a little Haiku match of our own. So here is #1 son’s amazing offering for this year’s board of fare.
Disturbing noises Creeping Monsters are stirring Halloween is hereHe’s freaking NINE. When I was nine, my poems were, like “Life is a bowlful of cherry pez. Eat em all and you’ll be dedz”. He is a brilliant little bugger. Must get it from his mama.
Here’s my retort:
Skeleton Forest Standing in supplication Gold death in moonlightMiz Liz had some awesome, and per usual, hilarious offerings as well. Hopefully she’ll post them here later.
IN ANY CASE,
Let’s have us a DEAD POETRY SLAM. Leave your short (or long, or whatevs) poems in the comments.
*I, Axel Howerton, and AxelHow.com, hereby decline any rights or reservations on any and all intellectual property shared upon this page, specifically in this post and it’s comments, that I have not created or posted myself, subject to individual copyright to each items original author* just to make you feel better.
The contest will run until Friday, when I will pick winners at random (names in hats kid of deal) for the plethora of prizes I have amassed, including eBook copies of Michelle Scalise’s The Manufacturer of Sorrow, (Michelle was just annouced as HWA’s Poet of the Month)Tom Picirilli’s Forgiving Judas, and Night Shade Vol. 1, put out by fellow Hoppers Katie M. John and Little Bird Publishing House (which just happens to feature a couple of my own dark poems. as well as some stuff by my ol’ pal and partner Red Tash), in addition to those fine tomes, I have also been gifted an eBook package by the beauteous poets of The Kintsugi Poets Society, including:
Part thriller, part crime-fiction, all supernatural horror, The Dark Horde tells of the return of an ancient evil that is neither stoppable nor comprehensible…
SO GET ON YOUR PALE HORSE AND RIDE! GIVE ME YOUR WORDS! PRAY! LET FLY THE PRECIOUS SONGS OF ALL SOULS TORTURED YEARNINGS AND LAY THEM UPON THIS PAGE!
For more info on The Kintsugi Poets and their group check out these links:
Got How? 