Character: a poem

Welcome!

Rainbow lorikeet

A bit of a bio: I live in the Adelaide Hills in South Australia, surrounded by gum trees and yellow-flowering acacias, possums, wattle birds, koalas, and a host of other wildlife. The neighbours are reasonably tame though :) I have a family, tropical fish and one chicken. I write for children, young adults and adults in no particular genre (the miscellaneous side of 'literary') but I love to write about what's going on inside people.

Here is a poem for you to enjoy.

Character

I build her up. I begin with the heart,

the core of personality,

layer on layer. Strengths and flaws impel

my character to life. Breath

carries her story.

Layer by layer, scrape the outer crust

face my false imagery.

My characters are organs of my self

slashed from the whole, given birth

to reveal my core.


Don't forget to leave me some feedback or just your thoughts. If you can't get the darn thing to let you leave a comment, email me. I'd love to hear from you!

Until next week...
Claire Belberg

Welcome to Mountain Beautiful - stories and poems by Claire Belberg

Welcome to the Belberg blog! I am planning to share poems and excerpts of stories I have written, for your enjoyment. Let me know which ones hit the spot for you.

A bit of a bio: I live in the Adelaide Hills in South Australia, surrounded by gum trees and yellow-flowering acacias, possums, wattle birds, koalas, and a host of other wildlife. The neighbours are reasonably tame though :) I have a family, tropical fish and one chicken. I write for children, young adults and adults in no particular genre (the miscellaneous side of 'literary') but I love to write about what's going on inside people.

Here's an excerpt from my story 'Head in the Clouds':

'I can't believe this is happening,' Jennifer said out loud for the comfort of hearing something familiar.

            'I can! It's just like I wanted,' piped a young girl's voice from behind her.

            Jennifer jumped. 'Who are you?' she asked, peering at the girl uncertainly.

            'I'm Jennifer. How did you get here?'

            She was a funny little thing, the woman thought. She reminded her of herself as a child, only sweeter in manner. 'Well, isn't that amazing?' she said aloud, her eyebrows raised. 'My name's Jennifer too. I came here on a sailing boat. What about you?'

            'Me too. I never knew sailing would feel so much like flying.' The child held out her arms and spun around.

            'Ooh, careful! How do you know you won't fall through the cloud and out the bottom?' The adult Jennifer hadn't moved yet for fear of that.

            'It's fine. You should try it. It's like . . . like dancing in cottonwool.' Little Jennifer continued her dance in wider and wider circles.

            Jennifer the woman moved gingerly, and found the insubstantial mist to be as firm as land. Relieved, she turned back to the little girl. 'We need to decide on names. We can't both be Jennifer or people will get confused.'

            'What people?' the girl asked, looking around. 'I don't think there are any. What a shame. I'd like to meet the people who live here.'

            'Yes, but names,' the woman repeated. 'Do you have a nickname or do they call you 'Jenny'?'

            'I don't like 'Jenny',' the girl said, frowning, then brightening. 'You could call me Poppet. My granddad calls me that. I didn't like it at first, but he said it was a special name for a special girl.' She did a special girl pirouette. But her words had made the woman shiver.

Well, that's all for this week. There's much more to that story, so let me know if you're interested in reading more of it.

See you next week!

Claire Belberg