I thought it a good idea - a happy, positive idea - to map the wonderful place I live - its nature and wildlife - in pictures and poetry. Thank you so much to those who encouraged me in the idea.
But Sheppey, where I live, is a complex place, both in itself, and for me. When I first arrived, around five years ago, I found myself in the odd position of both feeling at home, and a complete outsider. It has a mixed reputation. Birders, and many others, love the marshes, the sea and the open spaces - it is a haven for waders and raptors in the cooler months. In the summer they are overtaken by flocks of holidaymakers. People come here to live and to work. And people come here to escape and hide. It is not just one place - it is a lot of small places linked and yet strangely separate. There is not just one landscape, there are myriads. And sometimes they overlap. It is a strange place.
I've spent time over the last few weeks - as I have done ever since I came to the island - walking, looking, taking pictures. There is a great deal of beauty on the island, even in unexpected places, but when I come to write, there appears to me to be an underlying sadness, or sense of loss, which is both real and imagined. And not what I hoped this project would be about. But that happens.To me, anyway.
I've looked back at pictures and poems and notes I've built up over my time here, and found this, which I scribbled about four years ago, coincidentally (!) sitting outside the local caff.
The Outsider
She lived down by the sea, they knew,
and she was always on her own,
but she would smile at passers-by.
That worried them.
Her hair was long and grey and loose,
and round her neck she often had
a camera and snapped away.
That worried them.
She'd sit outside the caff most days
and write things in a little book,
then tuck it safely in her coat.
That worried them.
She'd stand down by the sea and watch
the tide, the sand, the birds, the sky.
The weather didn't bother her.
That worried them.
They didn't know where she'd come from
or what she'd done before she came,
or where she went - just that she'd gone.
That worried them -
but not for long.
All of which is a very long-winded way of saying I've gone a bit off track with my new project. But I have some interesting pics and I'll be tweeting them, and possibly blogging them, sometimes with words, sometimes not, and I'll keep scribbling and see what happens.
Let me know what you think.
I've reached a point - having stood back and looked again at what I was doing, and why - where my 'collection' of poems has resolved itself into a pamphlet, which, if not perfect - could it ever be? - is at least what I intend it to be - and may even venture out into the world.
And another idea, which has been in my mind for a while, is also taking shape. It has been helped on its way by discovering 'Mapping' by Mark Totterdell (Indigo Dreams Publishing). It includes some wonderful poems about birds - and I'm always fascinated by descriptions of birds:
'If the swifts knew how,
they'd build their nests in air,
of air, to float unanchored.'
And it also includes 'one individual's erratic journey with maps through Britain's landscapes'. These are snapshots of different places and the poet's response to them:
'From the motorway, he glimpsed a village,
saw his minstrel self stride into one much like it.
He dreamed of finding, between the sheets of maps,
whole lands free of blue roads, whole green realms of romance.'
And so do I. Recently I've been actively involved trying to preserve some of the 'green realms' near where I live. Others have their own plans of what to do with these areas and as fast as we fight off one destructive idea, they come up with another. The natural beauty and wildlife of the area are of no concern to them. This may be a long fight.
This area provides a backdrop to my poetry and often inspires it directly. It has helped me to map a life. It also features widely in my photographs. I am now looking at how I can celebrate it more fully in my new project - mapping this wonderful place I live and its amazing wildlife with photos, poems and art.
Wish me luck!
Because I've not been sure where I'm going with things recently, I haven't been posting any blogs. This one is a bit random - illustrating my flitting between one thing and another - looking at the things which bring the most joy.
I've been to Leeds Castle again. I love it there - it makes me happy, there's so much to see and it makes me feel safe. It is one of the places (Oare, Dungeness and the seafront on Sheppey are notable others) where I can sit still, but can also walk and walk and see new things and familiar things - birds,butterflies, plants, water - beautiful things. It inspires me.
It's also a wonderful place to take pictures! Just for the fun of it.
What else?
Springwatch is on - and I love that.
Lev Parikian's book 'Why do Birds Suddenly Disappear?' leapfrogged up my list of books to read and I loved that. If you like birding, great writing and want a good laugh, let it leapfrog up your list too.
I've also gone back to some of my favourite poets. Wendy Cope's new collection 'Anecdotal Evidence' and Simon Armitage's 'Flit' are both as brilliant as I just knew they would be. Which is a joy.
I am still loving The Countryman magazine - I can even do the puzzles in it!
I've been exploring parts of Sheppey which I only half-knew, played Bowlingo (arcade bowling) and won, and played crazy golf and lost, but still loved it.
Can you sense a 'but' coming on?
I said at the beginning that I've not been sure where I'm going with things. I don't mean those things which have to be done but aren't much fun - generally I'll just get on with those, though obviously muttering and cursing as I do. I mean that category of things which I thought I wanted to do, but which haven't been making me happy. And I'm torn between persisting with them and giving them up. Taking a break, which is what I've been doing, is fine, but... (oh there it is)
So I'm taking a different route. I'm looking closely at these things and I'm trying to put the joy back into them. And stepping back and seeing what really makes me happy has helped with that. One of these things is writing poetry. I can now see that I've got lost somewhere in other people's views on what poetry should be and its processes and its vanity/insecurity. And I'm going back to where I started, where I know for certain that I was enjoying it, and wasn't trying to fit in with others or please others and where actually it felt good - not easy, but good, and it actually did, incidentally, seem to please others as well as me.
And I shall apply the same process to other things I want to do but have got lost in - so that I eliminate the 'shoulds' - suggested/inflicted by others or self-imposed - and try to rediscover the joy in them.
I've written in a previous blog that I can struggle with poetry readings - partly because I like the words in my hands.
Chrys Salt read some of her poetry from 'The Punkawallah's Rope' at the Indigo Dreams Showcase, part of the Cheltenham Poetry Festival. Chrys is an experienced and well-established poet, and that rare thing - a poet who can read her written poetry exceptionally well - in fact the best I've heard.
I didn't just understand what was being said - I could feel it. It came alive. Ironically, I had the words in my hands because I had just bought her book, but obviously I wasn't looking at them. But I could take the words away with me and not just read them now, but really hear them too.
The poetry itself - and I have got to know a lot more of it since the Showcase - is so well-observed, lightly drawn, with humour and humanity. It is touching and beautiful. It has that deceptive simplicity which is so hard to achieve. It tells stories and brings people and places to life. It '...puts its hand out and is understood.' ((for RM), from 'Grass')
You can find out more at www.chryssalt.com
Everyone is on a spectrum - or more than one spectrum, not at a fixed point - but at different points at different times. We have different iterations of ourselves.
I saw Amy Kinsman perform at the Indigo Dreams Showcase at the Cheltenham Poetry Festival. Amy performed (among others) the poem 'iterations of self' from the pamphlet '&'. To quote the blurb on the back of the pamphlet: 'these are poems... where everything hangs in the balance and we must decide who we are and what that means.'
This isn't easy in light of the way we constantly change, and are not just one thing, but many. Is there a 'core'? Something which is fundamentally 'me'? Amy is genderfluid. Does this make it harder to answer? As it says in 'iterations...' : pray tell, which of us is you? But then, doesn't the same question apply to us all in our different iterations?
Amy's performance was both reassuringly nervous and very strong - thus showing the ability to be at more than one point on a spectrum at the same time. I'm very glad I heard it, and got a copy of '&'. And I went away thinking.
And overthinking - about iterations of my self. And in which iteration(s) I'm happy. And is self as poet one of them?
Among the many things I've been thinking about through reading 'How to be a Poet' (Nine Arches Press) (see also earlier post 22/1/18) - is the potential gap between writer and reader - a gap of understanding or preference - or a failing of writer or reader. I'm aware that it has made me insecure at times, both as writer and reader. I started to play with the idea:
I wrote a poem about love.
You hated it.
I wrote a poem about strength.
You said it was weak.
I wrote a poem about sickness.
You hoped I got better.
I wrote a poem about you.
You said I should keep the 'I' out of my poems.
I wrote about my uncertainty.
You said I was getting cocky.
I stopped writing.
I flipped it to see what happened:
You wrote a poem about love.
I hated it.
You wrote a poem about strength.
I said it was weak.
You wrote a poem about sickness.
I hoped you got better.
You wrote a poem about me.
I said you should keep the 'I' out of your poems
You wrote about your uncertainty.
I said you were getting cocky.
You stopped writing? I stopped reading?
I took the 'I' out:
He wrote a poem about love.
She hated it.
He wrote a poem about strength.
She said it was weak.
He wrote a poem about sickness.
She hoped he'd get better.
He wrote a poem about her.
She thought he was taking the mick.
He wrote a poem about his uncertainty.
She said he was a loser.
He stopped writing? She dumped him?
Amazing how big the gap can be between people. Amazing how things can change when you play with words. And for real advice, see How to be a Poet.
Postscript. It occurred to me that this blog could be taken too seriously. I also like the idea of adding 'He dumped her' to the last set of options. I should add that nothing written here represents the views of the authors of How to be a Poet. Or is in any way sensible advice on reviewing one's own or other people's poetry.
I recently read The Gifts of Reading by Robert Macfarlane (author of, among other books, the mind-blowing Landmarks - 'the language of landscape and the landscape of language'). The Gifts of Reading is a wonderful little book and a gift in itself - which keeps on giving. If you read it you'll see what I mean - it just leads you on to more.
I won't give away the secrets of the book and I can't give you the gift of an actual book - because, unlike Facebook, I don't have access to your data, or their vast amounts of money - but I thought I'd at least share the names of some of the books I've enjoyed reading between bouts of poetry:
The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
Midwinter Break by Bernard MacLaverty
Tin Man by Sarah Winman
They're easy to get hold of and the reviews will tell you far more than I could here, and much better.
Despite there being no end of fiction out there, I sometimes struggle to find the right book at the right time. I would be happy to accept the gift of any recommendations. (I am not currently accepting submissions of poetry or nature books as I already have a huge backlog of those!)
