CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

  Due for release in April, 2022, the SECOND EDITION of 366 Days of Poetry is available for pre-order at a number of outlets. You can find links to them at this Books2Read link . What is it About? A poem for every day of the leap year, drawn from the fantastical, the future and the fallout from real life—and written for dreamers everywhere. While most are set in worlds of imagination, there are a few whose roots are buried deep in the disappointments of the real. So, if trolls, fairies, dragons, recovering from workplace bullies, and flying with starships, or dealing with regrets and finding hope—always finding hope—are your thing, then welcome to the wanderings of my mind.   2nd EDITION NOTE: This edition is a renewed version of the first edition, with the main changes being the new cover, new front and back matter, Americanization of spelling, and some minor word changes. Outside those changes, most of the content remains unchanged.  You can find links to 366 D...

Well, life got interesting this week has seen me have to deal with a family member developing a spontaneous pneumo-thorax as well as resigning from my day job, so there will be a fortnight's delay to 365 Days of Poetry, while I catch up with things, and make sure I have the time to care for my family. The poetry in this volume comes in a variety of styles and genres, and is arranged in no particular order. I have played with traditional forms such as the cinquain, and worked with free-form and rhyme. I have written about the world around me, and about worlds that probably don’t exist. I have tried to write poetry from the perspective of someone in the distant future writing about a new world, and I have written poetry with fantasy themes. Welcome to the worlds in my head. Scheduled Release Date: November 15, 2014.

This week, we’re looking at yet another form of cinquain—the Garland Cinquain. Again, it uses either a Crapsey Form 1 or a Crapsey Form 2 as a base, but this time it consists of six separate cinquain verses. The first five verses stand alone, but are linked by the poetical theme. The sixth verse is made up of lines from the verses that came before it, usually taking its first line from the first verse, the second line from the second verse, the third line from the third verse and so on. For those of you who are new to this series, a cinquain is a five-line poem that has a set number of syllables (or word types) per line. Sometimes the title of a cinquain acts as a sixth line. Cinquains were invented by Adelaide Crapsey was an American poet who was inspired by the rules of Japanese poetry to create her own poetical form, the cinquain. Here’s an example, originally written for a poetry collection set to come out later this year: Death of Dreaming Written on April...