This is a catch-up blog. I've been working on my Sheppey project (see earlier blogs if this means nothing to you) - out and about locally in all weathers - catching the unseasonal sun, getting drenched in the far more predictable rain, and buffeted by the gale-force winds - trying to pull my ideas together - and it is getting there. More on this soon.
I've also been looking for new and different poetry to read. What I've found (again) is that there are far too many poets for me ever to catch up with and I'm running far behind. It is also an expensive business trying to do so. There are resources online, which is great, and libraries can be a good source - but regrettably not locally. I would love to subscribe to more poetry mags but unfortunately, even though they're usually brilliant and really good value, it's just not possible. And there are great deals on poetry books too, but even so... there is just too much good stuff out there.
Actually, if the poets among you could stop writing for a while - say twenty years or so - I could possibly catch up - and also, it would help me get my own stuff published. Just a thought. (I may have suggested it before, but do they listen?)
Anyway, here is a list of some of the wonderful poetry I've discovered recently. I've tweeted about most of these (and the descriptions are as per the tweets), but the more publicity they get, hopefully the more they will get bought and read, and then the poets can all retire early, leaving the field clear (laughs hysterically). On the other hand, it might just encourage them - oh no!
Starling and Crane - Elspeth Brown - Indigo Dreams Publishing - this really resonated with me - there is something of Sheppey, something of me in it.
Heartwood - Alison Jones - Indigo Dreams Publishing - imagery to wallow in, woven with feeling that is sometimes tangible, sometimes more elusive, but always worth pursuing. Beautiful.
Invisibility for Beginners - Helen Pizzey - Cinnamon Press - 'from the humorous to the tragic' - to quote the cover
Please hear what I'm not saying - compiled and edited by Isabelle Kenyon - heart-wrenching, raw, hopeful - the many voices in the stunning poetry collaboration for MIND.
This is not a spectacle - Isabelle Kenyon - raw, intense, with inspired inner strength.
Also just discovered - Kim Moore - If We Could Speak Like Wolves - Smith/Doorstop Books - still re-reading this - it's wonderful.
And finally, the stunning poems of Eloise CC Shepherd - as featured in Sarasvati (052) from Indigo Dreams Publishing - explicit and tender. (I've found Sarasvati a great place to discover new voices.)
And, having got all that tidied up, I'm now off to finish my Sheppey project, which will turn into a publication quite soon - I'll let you know.
Monday, 11 March 2019
Thursday, 31 January 2019
I fly, settle, fly - Gran Canaria
I've just had a much-needed short break in Gran Canaria:
And it was wonderful:
from fog-grey, sludge-grey, dying-grey,
got to get away grey
to sky-blue, lapis-blue, flying blue,
yes I got away blue
And it was wonderful:
sand shifts, settles, shifts
sea tumbles, settles, tumbles
I fly, settle, fly
Friday, 14 December 2018
My Sheppey Highlights 2018
I'm still exploring Sheppey and mapping it with photos and poems - well, photos and some words that don't actually constitute poems as yet. The following photos were taken all across the island, including in my garden. They are some of my personal favourites of the year (and I've tweeted some of them previously, and made a calendar out of them), but they are just a few of many, and remind me just how much natural wonder can be found on this island (and indeed everywhere!)
I will also take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported me throughout the year - I really do appreciate it. Wishing you all happiness in 2019.
I will also take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported me throughout the year - I really do appreciate it. Wishing you all happiness in 2019.
Monday, 5 November 2018
Climate change
Magma's Climate Change Issue is out now and has some stunning and thought-provoking pieces - looking not just at the possible impact of climate change, but the relationship between this and poetry. There are some remarkable poems here - David Tait's 'Beijing Parakeets', Yvonne Reddick's 'Brent Crude', Harry Man's 'Up in the Woods' and my particular favourite, Nan Craig's 'The loss of birds'. But there are so many I could list.
When the call for submissions to this issue of Magma came, I had just read an article in The Guardian about mass mortality events (MMEs). There are many causes of these, but they can be related to extreme temperature or temperature shifts. In one of the biggest of these MMEs, hundreds of millions of starfish along the coast from Mexico to Alaska were affected by sea star wasting disease and began to 'melt into white gloop'. White cuts appeared on their bodies and some ripped off their infected arms and tried to walk away. But for most the disease was deadly. Some of the species most affected were morning sun stars, giant pink stars, purple stars, sunflower stars and rainbow stars.
Something about this particular case moved me. I wrote a poem and submitted it, but it didn't get accepted - which is fine (not least because it needs seven lines of introduction) - just look at the ones that did! But it still means something to me, so I thought I'd share it anyway (now it has got the intro):
Sea star MME
the sunflower
tore off its petals,
the rainbow
slumped,
the pink and purple
cut to white,
the morning sun
melted
and when night came
the stars
had lost their reflections
And to be honest, anything that inspires us to think and to create, rather than destroy, has to be good - so thank you to Magma for prompting me to think more and for the brilliant issue.
When the call for submissions to this issue of Magma came, I had just read an article in The Guardian about mass mortality events (MMEs). There are many causes of these, but they can be related to extreme temperature or temperature shifts. In one of the biggest of these MMEs, hundreds of millions of starfish along the coast from Mexico to Alaska were affected by sea star wasting disease and began to 'melt into white gloop'. White cuts appeared on their bodies and some ripped off their infected arms and tried to walk away. But for most the disease was deadly. Some of the species most affected were morning sun stars, giant pink stars, purple stars, sunflower stars and rainbow stars.
Something about this particular case moved me. I wrote a poem and submitted it, but it didn't get accepted - which is fine (not least because it needs seven lines of introduction) - just look at the ones that did! But it still means something to me, so I thought I'd share it anyway (now it has got the intro):
Sea star MME
the sunflower
tore off its petals,
the rainbow
slumped,
the pink and purple
cut to white,
the morning sun
melted
and when night came
the stars
had lost their reflections
And to be honest, anything that inspires us to think and to create, rather than destroy, has to be good - so thank you to Magma for prompting me to think more and for the brilliant issue.
Saturday, 29 September 2018
Flight
Sheppey celebrates its place in the history of aviation - open spaces are punctuated by sculptures that surprise - and flight is a key theme for the island - planes, birds, people.
it's a place of flight
to and from - a place to hide
to soar or to crash -
as the vapour trails vanish
so too all hope of escape
Wednesday, 5 September 2018
Off track
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.
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.
Monday, 23 July 2018
Mapping
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!
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!
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