Tag Archives: Nina Parmenter

Using form: Refrain; Nina Parmenter, ‘Sense’

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I am a bag of chemicals
with charge for eighty years,
I am a gassy mirage
that winks as oblivion nears.
Around me swill the stars,
my thoughts, the gods and insanity,
and nothing makes sense but this leaf
as it dances, drunk on gravity.

I am a pointless voice track
on a puff piece of DNA,
I am the ooze that awoke
and decided to live anyway.
Around me swings the void,
nirvana and calamity,
and nothing makes sense but the sea
as it dances, drunk on gravity.

*****

Nina Parmenter writes: “In 2021, in my strenuous efforts not to write pandemic poems, I probably wrote a lot of pandemic poems. This one, about focusing on tiny moments in nature to avoid thinking about the big scary things is a great example! I made it a foreword to my collection ‘Split, Twist, Apocalypse‘ because its slightly jolly air of existential dread sets the tone for the book nicely, I think.”

Editor’s comment: As with popular songs as well as verse forms such as the ballade, villanelle, triolet and rondeau, the use of a refrain (whether exact or varied) strengthens the poem by bringing the conclusion of each stanza back to a core image or message.

Nina Parmenter has no time to write poetry, but does it anyway. Her work has appeared in Lighten Up Online, Snakeskin, Light, The New Verse News, Ink, Sweat & Tears, and the Potcake Chapbook ‘Houses and Homes Forever’. Her home, work and family are in Wiltshire.
https://ninaparmenter.com/

“Time Lapse of Stars During Earth’s Rotation” by Image Catalog is marked with CC0 1.0.

Political poem: Nina Parmenter, ‘Led by Donkeys’

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Donkey, show me your big boy teeth,
show me expensive dentistry.
Mine are NHS wonky,
but you’re a donkey.

Donkey, show me your pearly hooves,
stomp them down on my two-bit shoes.
Mine are M&S clonky,
but you’re a donkey.

Donkey, show me your government car
driving to where the dollars are.
Mine is a wee bit shonky.
You’re still a donkey.

Donkey, show me your public school,
show me your passport to ruin us all.
You think it’s your right, but you’re wrong, see,
cos you’re a donkey.

*****

Nina Parmenter writes: “As the world looks on, bewildered, the political stupidity in the UK continues to know no bounds. The title of this poem is borrowed from a group of political activists – they, in turn, borrowed it from a First World War phrase describing British soldiers as ‘Lions led by donkeys’.

Today we have different threats – hunger, a declining health service, fuel poverty – but our leading class of donkeys remain seemingly blinkered to ordinary people’s welfare. Money, after all, is their master.

All this is build up to a rather silly poem in which donkey is proudly rhymed with wonky, clonky and shonky. A quick terminology guide for non-Brits: NHS = National Health Service, M&S = Marks and Spencer (a Very Ordinary Store), and ‘public school’ in the UK means a private school – no, don’t ask, I don’t understand why either. 😉”

Nina Parmenter has no time to write poetry, but does it anyway. Her work has appeared in Lighten Up Online, Snakeskin, Light, The New Verse News, Ink, Sweat & Tears, and the Potcake Chapbook ‘Houses and Homes Forever’. Her home, work and family are in Wiltshire.
https://ninaparmenter.com/

Photo: “Charming” by Another Seb is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Nina Parmenter: ‘The Quantum Fox’

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Have you seen the quantum fox,
the fox in flux, the paradox?
His whereabouts is rare, because
he’s in his den, and in this box.

This hokum locus tends to vex
the best of us; the mind rejects
the concept of his flightiness
as fiction or as foxy hex.

But fiction’s just refocused facts –
a lens that bends, a parallax.
The fact remains that Foxy lacks
a fix, til someone interacts.

See, should you pry inside the box,
you’ll find a fox, or not a fox,
and then this quantum nonsense stops
and everything is orthodox.

*****

Nina Parmenter writes: “I love reading ‘Quantum Fox’ out loud because it’s one of the few poems of mine I reliably know by heart and if performing it, I read it with props (er, a fox and a box funnily enough). Sometimes I  also recite it to myself to distract my brain if it’s overheating! It’s one of the older poems in my book ‘Split, Twist, Apocalypse‘ (relatively – written around 2019 I think) and I can’t remember where the inspiration came from – I think it was just the nice feel of the words ‘Quantum Fox’!”

Nina Parmenter has no time to write poetry, but does it anyway. Her work has appeared in Lighten Up Online, Snakeskin, Light, The New Verse News, Ink, Sweat & Tears, and the Potcake Chapbook ‘Houses and Homes Forever’. Her home, work and family are in Wiltshire.
https://ninaparmenter.com/

“Fennec fox in box” by Joel Abroad is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Launch: Potcake Chapbook 9, ‘Robots and Rockets’

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I’m very happy to announce that the ninth in the series of Potcake Chapbooks has been launched into orbit: ‘Robots and Rockets’ is an SF issue (could you guess?) and has poems by five newcomers to the series: Bruce McGuffin, Juleigh Howard-Hobson, F.J. Bergmann, Julia Griffin and Geoffrey A. Landis – many already known outside SF through Light poetry magazine and other places. Returning poets are Maryann Corbett, Nina Parmenter, Marcus Bales, A.E. Stallings, Martin Elster and myself.

Copies can be ordered from Sampson Low for four or five Pounds or Dollars, including postage worldwide. Enjoy it! It is, of course, a blast(-off)!

Potcake Poet’s Choice: ‘Squelch’ by Nina Parmenter

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I heard the squelch of death again –
or was it just a neuron firing
deep within my boggy brain,

or possibly a cell expiring
down amongst a mucus mess?
It could have been my heart perspiring

(that may be a thing I guess)
or, deep down in the adipose,
the squealing of a fat-lump pressed

to serve as fuel, and I suppose
it might have been a small mutation –
‘Pop!’ (we get a lot of those),

a bronchiole’s sharp inhalation,
‘Hiss!’ a membrane’s gooey breath,
a bile-duct’s bitter salivation…

Probably, it wasn’t death.

Nina Parmenter writes: “I had such a good time writing this poem. For a start, I got to have a lovely little geek-out researching a few anatomical details. I do like writing poems which require a little research, and biology seems to be a favourite subject at the moment. With bronchioles and bile ducts firmly in place, I granted myself permission to fill the rest of the poem with as many gooey, yucky words and noises as I pleased. And who wouldn’t enjoy doing that?

To compound the pleasure, I wrote the poem in terza rima form – such an elegant, flowing puzzle of a form, and one of my favourites to write in.

Honestly, this is one of those poems that I wish had taken me longer, because I didn’t want the (slightly dark) fun to stop.”

Nina Parmenter has no time to write poetry, but does it anyway. Her work has appeared in Lighten Up Online, Snakeskin, Light, The New Verse News and Ink, Sweat & Tears, as well as the newest Potcake Chapbook, ‘Houses and Homes Forever‘. Her home, work and family are in Wiltshire. Her blog can be found at http://www.itallrhymes.com. You can follow the blog on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itallrhymes

Launch: Potcake Chapbook 8, ‘Houses and Homes Forever’

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Home is where you hang your hat, as they say, but it’s more than that. It can be a place of endless work and frustration, or a place of peace and relaxation and deep, strong memories. Houses and homes are part of what makes us who we are.

These poems–all formal, of course!–are as usual in a variety of forms. They were authored by Potcake newcomers Melissa Balmain, Kate Bernadette Benedict, Kathy Lundy Derengowski, Nina Parmenter and Jennifer Reeser, and returning contributors Marcus Bales, Maryann Corbett, Ann Drysdale, Daniel Galef, D A Prince, A.E. Stallings and Tom Vaughan. And well illustrated, as always, by Alban Low.

For the price of a fancy greeting card you can, through the wonders of PayPal, get this 16-page chapbook online for £2.60 + £1.20 P&P to a UK or European address, or £2.60 + £2.20 P&P to a Worldwide address; the seven earlier chapbooks in the series are available as well.

An overview with photos and bios of all the Potcake Chapbook poets is here, all having a home in this big, rambling house.