Sunday 28 September 2008

Stricken!

Writer’s Cramp
By Mark Cantrell


Someone once said,
That if you ever write a sentence
You really like, then
Strike it out!
Well, it seemed like sound advice,
So I set about putting word into deed
And sacrificed all the choicest phrases.
Painful, though it was, I sensed the wisdom
In the maxim,
After all, an author must learn, I know,
To butcher the babies born of their pen,
If their words are to thrive
In this callous, cruel Darwinian world.
Survival of the fittest
Demanded the cull,
So I wielded the red-tip scalpel-edged nib
And set to bloody work.
The pain was great, the sacrifice so noble
As the clauses and repetition, the purpled blobs
Of typo-sucked words sloughed free of the bloated manuscript
I so birthed.
The nimble-fingered slicing, slimmed down its girth,
Until the results spoke true of themselves.
I hacked, and I tucked, until the final creation was rendered
Purest perfection.
By the end of this cosmetic anticipation,
With all surplus trimmed,
I beheld the moment of perfection,
And witnessed...

“The End”


Mark Cantrell,
Manchester,
22 August 2008


Copyright © August 2008. All Rights Reserved.

Category: POETRY

Monday 15 September 2008

Dive Into The Talent Pool

Harper Collins baits its net

By Mark Cantrell

THIS is a publisher’s slush pile with one significant difference, according to its creators Harper Collins – at Authonomy.com an author’s manuscript will actually be read. Or so it is said


Saturday 13 September 2008

Telling Tales In York

Fairy tales in old York

The world is coming to York at the end of the month, or rather some of the most renowned of international storytellers will bring the many oral storytelling traditions from cultures across the globe.

Sunday 7 September 2008

As Then, So It Remains


"Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime."

Aristotle (384BC -- 322BC) 


Category: QUOTES

Double up for stagecraft

Get fit for the comedy of sex

THERE’S nothing funny about the battle of the sexes or in battling to keep fit for the fight, or so you might think. Well, a comedy double bill coming to the Carriageworks in Leeds dares to suggest otherwise.

Body Double presents a pairing of short plays written by two Yorkshire playwrights. Fit Piece, written by Helen Shay and directed by Jo McCarey-Egan, while Life Sentence follows it up, written by Michael Yates, and directed by Colin Lewisohn.

Yorkshire Speaking

The Yorkshire Motto
(said tongue in cheek)


‘Ear all, see all, say nowt;
‘Eyt all, sup all, pay nowt;
An if ivver tha does owt fer nowt --
Do it fer thissen!

Presently Speaking

Birthday Present
By Mark Cantrell


On my birthday,
I was given,
Brand-spanking new
And shiny,
A life of my very own.
I never used it.
It stayed on the shelf
And there it remains today,
Not shiny now, but dusty.
You see,
I’ve never understood
How
To switch it on,
Let alone
How to make it
Work.



Mark Cantrell,
Manchester,
11 January 2008


Copyright © January 2008. All Rights Reserved.

Category: POETRY

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