Poetry Portfolio

[inkstainedruth]

@Ted Nashe Thanks for the info!  I was not familiar with this form (I think I've maybe written two sonnets in my entire life) and generally tend to write "modern" stuff that doesn't rhyme in general.  

I'm rather fond of tanka (think "haiku" but with two additional lines of seven syllables, so a format of 5-7-5-7-7) because I find that they're a little less limited than haiku, and also do well in multi-stanza poems).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Ted Nashe]

22 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

I'm rather fond of tanka (think "haiku" but with two additional lines of seven syllables, so a format of 5-7-5-7-7) because I find that they're a little less limited than haiku, and also do well in multi-stanza poems).

 

Hi, Ruth💐

 

Yes, I'm familiar with the tanka form. If you've written any, post them up here. I'd love to read them, and I know others would too. The more poetry the better, as far as I'm concerned. 🙃

 

Write on.

Ted

[inkstainedruth]

Well, I'm always a little hesitant to post stuff like that online.  I knew someone who'd had her artwork swiped, even though it was under copyright.  Plus, a lot of places consider posting stuff online as "prior publication" these days....

But here's a tanka I wrote about 5-1/2 years ago: 

 

Siberian Squill

                                                                           gleeful shrieking squill

                                                                           flee the confines of their beds

                                                                           escape into lawns

                                                                           giddy, playful as children

                                                                           at the end of the schoolyear

 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Ted Nashe]

@inkstainedruth I love it, Ruth! Well done.🏆👍 I'm rubbish at writing them.☹️ I think I'll steal yours now. 🙃

 

As far as publishers are concerned, they're far too fussy, in my opinion, about what they determine as 'previously published'. 'Previously published' should mean something that's appeared in a magazine or a book not something that's been posted up on Facebook or even here on the FPN. Still, what can we do? I will say though that if a poem is copied out with a pen and then posted as a photograph it doesn't show up in any Google searches an over-zealous publisher may care to make. The problem of unscrupulous Villains😠 nicking it would still exist, however, and we can't guard against that, so you're probably right to be careful about posting. I have a friend whose had a few of her poems stolen. She no longer posts anything on line now. ☹️

[LizEF]

On 10/25/2023 at 6:33 PM, Sailor Kenshin said:

With sincere apologies:

 

 

There was a young man from Nantucket

Who poured Baystate Blue in a bucket

When the bucket dissolved

He was filled with resolve

To jackhammer his floor and then chuck it

[Ted Nashe]

2 minutes ago, LizEF said:

 

🤣🤣🤣

[inkstainedruth]

On 10/14/2025 at 8:46 PM, Ted Nashe said:

@inkstainedruth I love it, Ruth! Well done.🏆👍 I'm rubbish at writing them.☹️ I think I'll steal yours now. 🙃

 

As far as publishers are concerned, they're far too fussy, in my opinion, about what they determine as 'previously published'. 'Previously published' should mean something that's appeared in a magazine or a book not something that's been posted up on Facebook or even here on the FPN. Still, what can we do? I will say though that if a poem is copied out with a pen and then posted as a photograph it doesn't show up in any Google searches an over-zealous publisher may care to make. The problem of unscrupulous Villains😠 nicking it would still exist, however, and we can't guard against that, so you're probably right to be careful about posting. I have a friend whose had a few of her poems stolen. She no longer posts anything on line now. ☹️

I've had a (former) friend had her artwork swiped online -- mostly by AI programs.  And she hates AI "art" with a passion to begin with.  

I have considered sending some pieces to a place that I went to a poetry reading at years ago (before I got married).  The woman who ran that rag acted as if she liked the pieces I read -- but wanted me to be her (unpaid) art director.  And at that point I was maybe still in college (or had just graduated) and even though art jobs pay poorly, at least if I worked for what everyone in the art department that I worked at for a couple of summer in college and then for a while after college -- while looking for a better job -- called "The Pennyslaver" (it was regional things sent out to people in different towns in the mail that ran classified ads and display ads) and the pay was LOUSY but at least I WAS getting paid.  But when I said, "No sorry -- I can't afford to do it for free!" the woman rejected the pieces I sent.  I was SERIOUSLY tempted, years later, to send her pieces I'd written since then, under my married name.  Including one from one of the NaPoWriMo prompts which is from the point of view of the goddess Athena (who of course was patroness of the Arts in Greek Mythology).

Hmmmm.  Apparently that one is NOT in a file on my laptop (I just scrolled through stuff that I thought was good enough to try to hawk).  So I'll have to spend some time digging through old composition books to see if I can find it (I remember checking a few years ago when I wrote it to see if that rag was still in existence -- but I'm guessing that at this point it's been so long that she might not be running it anymore....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Ted Nashe]

On 10/16/2025 at 6:29 PM, inkstainedruth said:

But when I said, "No sorry -- I can't afford to do it for free!" the woman rejected the pieces I sent.

 

Tut! Some people in the art world are beneath contempt.😠 My sympathies. If that mag has gone bump, it serves her right with an attitude like that. 

 

On the subject of NaPoWriMo, do you usually take part in that every April? I do, usually on one of the poetry sites that have a place for it. It's good fun and often the need to write a daily poem can prove an excellent spur to the imagination even if I feel like blobbing out in front of the telly or something.  Sadly, the poetry site to which I was the most frequent visitor closed its doors in May of this year. ☹️ I'll have to find another one for next year, or even start a NaPoWriMo thread here for anyone who's interested. 📝

[inkstainedruth]

Well, I remember looking it up a few years ago, and it does still exist (or at least did then).  But couldn't tell if it was hard copy or just an online thing.  And don't know if it's still the same person running it (after all -- I was at most just out of college at that point, and possibly even before I had graduated).  So over four decades ago at this point.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Ted Nashe]

🖋️

 

 

🌜

 

Pen: Parker Lady Standard (one of my favourite girls🙃).

Ink: Quink Permanent Blue.

Paper: Basildon Bond White P4TO.

📝

[Doc Dan]

3 hours ago, Ted Nashe said:

🖋️

 

 

🌜

 

Pen: Parker Lady Standard (one of my favourite girls🙃).

Ink: Quink Permanent Blue.

Paper: Basildon Bond White P4TO.

📝

Great poem, Ted. I enjoyed it. Death stalks us all and he'll get us sooner or later.

[Doc Dan]

https://www.poetrysoup.com/poem/late_autumn_1658617

 

Here's one.

[Ted Nashe]

19 hours ago, Doc Dan said:

Great poem, Ted. I enjoyed it. Death stalks us all and he'll get us sooner or later.

Cheers, Doc 👍🙃👍

[Ted Nashe]

20 hours ago, Doc Dan said:

https://www.poetrysoup.com/poem/late_autumn_1658617

 

Here's one.

Ha! Nice one, Doc. I love it.👍 It's good to find another formalist in these free-verse times.🙃 Long may our leaves🍁🍁 cling to the tree🌳.

 

Write on

📝

 

[Doc Dan]

3 hours ago, Ted Nashe said:

Ha! Nice one, Doc. I love it.👍 It's good to find another formalist in these free-verse times.🙃 Long may our leaves🍁🍁 cling to the tree🌳.

 

Write on

📝

 

I am not a fan of modern poetry forms. It isn't poetry, just bad prose, to me. 

[Doc Dan]

On 11/22/2025 at 9:12 AM, Ted Nashe said:

Ha! Nice one, Doc. I love it.👍 It's good to find another formalist in these free-verse times.🙃 Long may our leaves🍁🍁 cling to the tree🌳.

 

Write on

📝

 

Your poem illustrates good form with five feet and a rhyme scheme of ababcdcdefegfg. Fourteen good rhyming lines means a sonnet interpretation. Instead of ending in GG in ends with FG.

[Ted Nashe]

9 hours ago, Doc Dan said:

Your poem illustrates good form with five feet and a rhyme scheme of ababcdcdefegfg. Fourteen good rhyming lines means a sonnet interpretation. Instead of ending in GG in ends with FG.

 

Yes. I used an ababcdcd pattern for the first eight lines because I wanted the regular rhyme scheme to represent the steady advance of the Hooded Man's footsteps towards his victim. The final six lines deal with the uncertainty of the victim, however, who doesn't know if his cough is a symptom of something serious, possibly terminal, so I disrupted the regularity of the standard English sonnet rhyme scheme, the better to reflect that uncertainty and avoid ending with the neatness of the usual gg couplet. 

 

That was my reasoning, at least, Doc. I'm pleased that you noticed it.👍

[Ted Nashe]

On 11/22/2025 at 5:13 AM, Doc Dan said:

I am not a fan of modern poetry forms. It isn't poetry, just bad prose, to me. 

 

I tend to agree. Some of it's all right, but it seems a bit samey to me. The poet Gavin Ewart wrote the satirical poem below on the subject. He used the word 'American' in the title, though, which I think is unfair because some of my favourite poets are American, A.E. Stallings for one. 

 

 

All good knockabout fun 🙃

 

 

[Doc Dan]

8 hours ago, Ted Nashe said:

 

I tend to agree. Some of it's all right, but it seems a bit samey to me. The poet Gavin Ewart wrote the satirical poem below on the subject. He used the word 'American' in the title, though, which I think is unfair because some of my favourite poets are American, A.E. Stallings for one. 

 

 

All good knockabout fun 🙃

 

 

Do you belong to Poetry Soup or All Poetry? I am on both as Lanier Thomas.

[TSherbs]

On 11/23/2025 at 10:30 AM, Ted Nashe said:

 

I tend to agree. Some of it's all right, but it seems a bit samey to me....

 

One can be as "samey" in rhyming forms as often (maybe more?) as in non-rhyming forms. 

 

Our personal biases (and I have them, too) are rarely justified by any objective data. We like carrots, or we don't, or we're indifferent to them. But nothing in itself wrong with a carrot.