The Sideways Door: August Response & September Prompt

Thought I'd wait until August blew over. 

Here's my response to August's villanelle submissions.

And this month, I rewrote my entire column at the last minute, changing the prompt entirely. Yup. I thought short and sweet was the answer to the tribulations of the last two interminable months.

Here's September's prompt.

Get working!

**

A thing I've noticed (since they've begun tracking this stuff at The Daily O) is that more people share the prompts on Facebook than they do on Twitter. I wonder why. I mean, of course I wonder, because I'm not on FB and twitter is where I tend to hang out. And all kinds of stuff gets shared on twitter, so I wonder why the prompts don't.

Not important.

**

I've been reading a bunch of stuff and staying offline and it feels good. Yesterday I called precisely two friends after ages and it struck me as odd later that I apologised to my virtual world for not being around, but it took real effort to do the same thing when I tried it on my present-right-here friends. 

The Sideways Door: August prompt, July response

Oh hello, blog.

The Sideways Door for August is now up. I kind of drag Dr. Seuss in there and I am not sorry at all.

Last month's response column went up ages ago and I don't know where my head was at, I seem to have forgotten to post links here.

The Sideways Door July Prompt

I wrote this month's column and then realise I'd left out Serafini. So I had that put in. It's a strange time of the month and year. Naturally the prompt reflects that.

Here is is: All kinds of strangeness. Am looking forward to entries this month.

I also forgot to link to the June's response column, so that's here.

The Sideways Door June Prompt

Better late than never - counting today, there's 10 days left.

Here.

Yes, I continue to be fascinated by borrowing, conversing and writing back.

The Sideways Door: May Prompt

Perhaps I am sick of sitting in one place using just the tips of my fingers. Or I'm fed up of driving and driving in this heat, doing tasks rather like a worker ant, with no tangible result. Whatever the reason, this month's prompt comes out of that sense of wanting to reconnect with using one's hands.

Here it is: 'The sweetest dream that labor knows'. 

(I have been itching to correct the spelling of the word 'labor' here and on Daily O but since it's a quotation, I'm leaving it.)

Catching up with April: Links to columns

The last two weeks of April were hellish. Two friends died within the space of a few days. Anxieties both specific and general tied in with what appeared to be disaster upon disaster made me want a cave rather badly.

It meant I was offline a lot and did not link to my columns as they appeared. 

So here - rather belatedly, especially now it's time for the next prompt already - are the two things that appeared while I was away.

The April response column at The Sideways Door, in which I wrote about the poems people wrote when they woke up from a deep sleep.

And Part III of my series for Scroll on what makes me write poetry. Or something.

I'm hoping May will be better than April was, but not holding out too many hopes. At any rate, not having watched Avengers, I have Thoughts on what I think the film is, and if I am not too traumatised by this week, I may even air them.

The Sideways Door April Prompt

April has a reputation, probably deserved, for being the cruellest month. And since it's being cruel to me, I don't see why I shouldn't pass that particular parcel of delights on to people reading The Sideways Door.

Here is this month's prompt.

Delay in April's Sideways Door

This month's prompt at The Sideways Door will be delayed by a couple of days.

There's usually a lot of formatting to be done because it's poetry, and that takes time. There are people on leave and the column will go up, therefore, on Monday.

(That's tomorrow).

The Sideways Door: March Prompt Column

This month, with vacations a scarce month away, I am thinking of letters and so this month's prompt column calls for a letter poem.

It takes a line from one my most favourite poems, Primo Levi's ;To My Friends' and you can find it here: 'Stamped by everyone.'

As I was writing this column, I discovered that a poem I had chosen and was quoting in full, by a young girl, was in fact a response to a prompt and so took the entire first stanza from the original. But I was sent this poem without also being told this crucial piece of information. 

Naturally, while I've used that kind of teaching tool in class, I couldn't include a result in a column like this. I might still post that poem separately at some point because even with its similarities to the original, it was still quite good.

The Sideways Door: February Prompt Column

I'm back home and have realised that while I tweeted the prompt column while in Karachi, I failed to post it here.

So with one week left for submissions, here is The Sideways Door's February Prompt Column: The Direct Deed.

The Sideways Door: January Prompt Column

The Sideways Door's first column for 2015 and I go ask people to borrow lines from other poems. 

And make something new of it.

So, you know, marrying ideas to others' words, just like it says in the title.

Oh, the link. Here.

The Sideways Door: December's Prompt

With just a week left to go for submissions to close, I have clearly been remiss in not posting this prompt column here. Serves me right if I get no submissions, right?

But better late than.

Here it is: The Sounds Around You.

The Sideways Door: October's Response & November's Prompt

I have grossly neglected this blog, I know. What can I say? Life is resolutely elsewhere.

But there's no excuse for not putting up links, at least, to the columns as they appear, so:

Here is October's column, in which I respond to the poems sent in.

And here is November's prompt column.

As always, despite all my neglect, if you're still reading this blog, please send in your poems and please tell people you think might be interest.

The Sideways Door: October Prompt

This fortnight, The Sideways Door invites submissions after a prompt. The column is up over here.

Per usual, I can't post the whole column up here until some time has elapsed, but this bit I can post, since it's all about deadlines and so on.

Please keep your poems under 20 lines. Send your poems, written to this month’s prompt, to thesidewaysdoor@gmail.com by October 20, 2014.

 Yeah, I guess that's it for now. But please spread the word, submit, etc?

The Worst Hell There Is

Regret over opportunities lost.

The letter that he wrote?

Here it is.

Or rather, here it isn't.

But go read.

(but why Hyderabad? Why not Philly? Hanh? Philadelphia Cream Cheesy.)

Update: The worst hell there is, 2: two film tickets.

Good good! Hope other people are writing letters as well!