The Next Best Thing

THE NEXT BEST THING

The Next Best Thing is an internet based networking idea whereby writers can share their own and each other’s work. The poet, novelist and creative writing tutor, Roselle Angwin, has asked me to take part in this. http://roselle-angwin.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/the-next-big-thing-blog-hop.html

 

These are the questions and my attempt at answers:

 

What is the title of your book?

My new poetry collection is called ‘All the Invisibles’.

 

Do you have a publisher yet for your book, or will it be represented by an agency, or self-published?

It was published in November 2012 by SPM Publications.

http://www.sentinelpoetry.org.uk/publications/alltheinvisibles/

Nnorom Azuonye, the editor, is organising a launch for it in London, probably in March, along with new collections by Afam Akeh and Roger Elkin.

 

Where did the idea for the book come from?

I have always been fascinated by the idea of hidden things, other dimensions, hence the title poem. The setting of the shingle beach is actually Climping in West Sussex, an evocative, atmospheric place that I love going to. I had been leading a writing workshop at a friend’s house nearby, on the theme of ‘Outlines and Overlaps’, and the mood and imagery of Climping found its way into my poem. While I was writing it I was also thinking about the watercolours of Eric Ravilious who was so inspired by the South Downs and in a way he became the one who ‘fell in love/ with the whiteness of chalk, the long slow/curves of a pale-green land, a languorous/stretching of hills.’

 

What genre does your book fall under?

A lot of my poems are rooted in myth, legend or historical events with, hopefully, modern relevance. I like to think they are in the visionary tradition. Many of them are in free verse but there are also ‘form’ poems, particularly the extended terza rima which I enjoy writing.

 

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

I’m not sure who I would choose if I was lucky enough to have a video recording made of my poems. I love the voices of the actor Robert Hardy and the singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen. Also the poet Paul Matthews who inspires my poetry so much. If such a wonderful opportunity ever presented itself I’d have to think carefully!

 

What is the one-sentence synopsis of the book?

Poems that explore dimensions and depths.

 

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your masterpiece?

I have probably been working on this collection for about 3 years.

 

What other books would you compare this story/poems to?

I wouldn’t dream of comparing myself to them but I have many favourite poets whose work I love and who inspire me. Donne, Hopkins and Eliot were probably the first and most important in my life but I am also influenced by Anglo Saxon poetry and the writings of Wyatt, Keats, Shelley and Edward Thomas. Modern poets whom I admire are Vyelwa Carlin, John Burnside, Mark Strand, Christopher Middleton, Robert Hass and G.C Waldrep. I enjoy finding new ‘discoveries’ such as Rita Dove whose poetry I have recently been introduced to.

 

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I have always loved words and was inspired, initially, to develop my skills by writing song lyrics when I was living in South East London and involved in the folk club scene. With my friend, Charles Gaan, who composed the music, I wrote lyrics for over 40 songs, a full length musical for children which was performed with a cast of 100 and several pieces for television. Later, when I found myself absorbed in writing poetry, the lessons I’d learned from lyrics remained with me – the need for the sounds and subtleties of the perfect word for example.

Poetry became my serious, main love towards the end of the 90s. I was encouraged by poets David Morley and Gillian Clarke at writing workshops  and later by David Caddy, editor of ‘Tears in the Fence’. The late Anne Born – a wonderful poet and translator – was the then editor of ‘Oversteps Books’ and offered me publication of my first collection ‘Bee Purple’, and later of ‘Frost Hollow’. In recent years I have been given tremendous support and encouragement by poets Pansy Maurer-Alvarez, Roselle Angwin, Paul Matthews, Jim Bennett, Jane Duran, Jackie Wills and Mimi Khalvati, as well as many friends in writing groups and the online forum ‘The Write Idea’.

 

The following writers have agreed to take part in The Next Best Thing and answer the questions:

 

Rachel Green (who has also been tagged by Catherine Edmunds) http://whenthedogsbite.blogspot.co.uk/

 

Julie Corbett  http://hulltransforms.blogspot.co.uk/

 

Susan Skinner  http://www.susanskinner.co.uk/Susan/Home.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

Book Review: 

 'Fifteen and Falling' by Susan Holliday. Publisher: Pollinger in Print ISBN 978 1 905665 79 2

A book for older teens - and adults too.

 

 

This is a book that states a message, albeit from a compassionate and non-judgemental point of view, about the ease with which drug taking can entice and wreck young lives. First and foremost though, it is a skilfully written novel and one that is hard to put down.

 

 The first chapter takes us straight into the narrative as Sara wonders if the attraction she feels for Liam could be love. We learn of Liam’s charismatic personality, the problems in his background, Sara’s over-protective mum, the beloved dad who has died and the strong bond of friendship with Ruby. The chapter ends on a note of suspense with Liam saying to Sara ‘There’s something else I want to tell you. It’s important you should know.’ This in turn leads us into the next chapter and Liam’s confession of how he has been drawn into the world of drugs.

 

 All this sets the tone, pace and tension in the book Almost from the start Sara makes attempts to escape, physically and emotionally. The reader wants her to be rescued, wants her to call home, be safe and reunited with her family but each time something gets in the way – a misunderstanding, Liam’s claim that he will kill himself, phone calls that don’t get through.  

 

As I say, ‘Fifteen and Falling’ is a book that is hard to put down.

 

 The young people in this story find themselves inexorably drawn into the world of drugs. Nothing is glamorized here. The idea of living in a squat at first appeals to Sara as something rebellious, free and different but she soon notices that ‘the floor was littered with dirty coffee cups and empty bottles of vodka and dirty syringes and cigarette stubs. A sweet, musty smell hung over the room like a dirty dishcloth.’ Sleeping rough on the embankment near Charing Cross is equally squalid: ‘If they hadn’t been high they would have choked at the smell and sight, old crumpled bodies thrown like broken gargoyles carelessly to the ground.’

 

 The book is rich in symbolism. There are several references to the Minotaur and throughout there is the sense of a labyrinth – one that is easy to walk into but where one may soon get lost. Keeping a grip on good memories is compared to holding on to Ariadne’s thread; when Liam and Si smoke pot they feel they could kill any monster; Sara reflects on how monsters don’t seem dangerous in children’s stories and are always defeated in the end. This is the classic journey theme: the clash between good and evil, a sense of fallen angels and a bottomless pit. Here are beguiling temptations and not many signposts to the straight path.  Along the way there a few guardians: Sara’s Gran, Tom the newsagent, the memory and spirit of Sara’s father, the bonds of family and friends.

 

 This is also a book about communication or the lack of it. Sara’s mum ‘simply didn’t know how to put things into words’. Neither does Sara know how to reach out to her. Her thoughts are ambivalent. ‘I want you to rescue me. I hate you, leave me alone. I love you.’ This lack of communication contributes to Sara running away with Liam, angry with a mother who reads her diary, nags about the state of the bedroom instead of noticing her daughter’s confusion and heartache. In contrast, Sara’s experiences with Liam are ‘intensely, defiantly private.’ They give her a sense of excitement and purpose.

 

 A theme that comes over very strongly in this book is how a person can be influenced by charisma, by the personality of another. Sara is moved when Liam says ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you Sara.’ She needs to be needed, likes someone to take charge, feels a sense of responsibility and ownership. Liam’s words ‘you and I against the world’ are enticing.

 

Yet, ultimately, the consequences of such emotions may be destructive. The reader is left with the image of butterfly and collector: ‘Liam held her as if she was as delicate as the butterflies he had once caught as a child ... he pinned them down, fragile and bright, onto a velvet cushion in a box.’ In the end Sara feels ‘weak and powerless and afraid.’

 

 The story of ‘Fifteen and Falling’ reveals how easily things can start out well and so easily go wrong.  Sara is persuaded by Liam into taking increasingly strong drugs knowing ‘she wouldn’t care too much what was happening.’ After a while this is more than a casual habit. ‘Now I can’t stop things happening’, says Sara. ‘They just happen’.

 

 The warning is clear and is spelled out by Sara’s father in a dream. It will begin, he says, as ‘a fellowship with others who are travelling the same way, a sense of belonging, a warmth that protects you from an alien world ... soon that broad and easy path becomes a little, grey, magnetic point.’

 

 This is an important book, for adults as well as older teens. A must for today.

 

 

 

 

 

 



AN IMPOSSIBLE VILLAGE

I have been to the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum in West Sussex several times recently. Always a favourite place of mine I was tempted by two workshop days led by the marvellous poet James Simpson on the themes of Landscape and Nature in today's world.

One of the group referred to the setting as an impossible village and later I wrote a poem with that title:

An Impossible Village

We breathe in acres of air, shuffle through centuries of moods.
Timber and thatch greet a schoolroom of stone,
a medieval water mill is next to a toll keeper's hut.

Did someone take a nap one lazy Sunday afternoon,
confuse a time warp, dream this place?
Did children summon Puck again, imagine
stinging bees and thorn, a blackbird hen
and sleeping geese?

No one lives here, not a thing makes sense;
Tudor candles burn alone.

A movie for the silver screen?
No, it's a painting: a study in the picturesque
with hills and a woodland agreeably
placed; a claude glass view
with gentle, mellow tinge.

Beyond this tree-green tunnel light
weasels creep after prey into burrows;
rivers are dead-fish tins.

Here are a couple of photos: In this one I am stepping out of the past into the sunshine of 2012

 

 

 

2 more photos:

 

 

A re-enactment from the Charcoal Burners' Camp

 

 

 

On the course James Simson was at pains to emphasise that landscape is more than idyllic wilderness with no destructive humans in sight. He referred many times to the book 'Edgelands' by Paul Farley and Michael Symmons-Roberts - I can't recommend it highly enough myself.

I scribbled a few lines, following this line of thought:


Landscape now is its own pastiche:
nostalgic in false green it yearns for wilderness
and a world that never was.

And it's hazardous these fitful days
to write of silver moons and swans, remembered hills or pipes
that flute at dawn.

This river is too fowle says one
who'd rather dig up midden pots, grout
a pale Roman tile, reclaim the country names of gods

than watch the seagull
forage inland or squirrels
dig in brick.

On the course we were encouraged to wander around, being attentive and observant and linking images to personal memories.  It may seem strange that I have taken photos of leaves full of holes but that is one of the things that caught my attention:

 

 

This is what I wrote:

Invisible jaws are at work
in this sweet-pea garden where teasels, neighbourly
as visitors to Shallow's orchard, lean over wattle fences
swopping tales of death.

There is more hole than leaf: it's nibbled
to the stalk like a hoarding on a building site
cut to show the sparkling Thames or an old
churchyard where battered angels lie.

I remember a border of marigolds
an an upward colum of caterpillars, gripped
onto pebbledash as if super-glued.

Wherever did they think they were going?



A couple more photos from the cottage garden:

 

 

This is the third in my trilogy of ‘armchair detective’ articles about events and mysteries in the fifteenth century.
 
Acknowledgments to the Richard  III Society whose books and articles have helped me in my search for the past. 

ACROSS THE RIVER

 My friend to her teenage son: ‘We’re going out for a couple of hours. Want to come?’

 ‘Where to?’ he says.
 'To see if we can find this house where Richard III might have lived.’
 He stares blankly. ‘Why?’

 A good question.

                                                                          *
 
 Tooley Street was the first port of call. There, according to accounts, the Pastons had lived in Sir John Fastolfe’s old home and there two anxious young fugitives had stayed, dreading every unknown step. George and Richard, the children of the Duke of York whose head had been severed from his neck and shoved on a pike with a paper crown. George and Richard, the one fair and fearless and the other dark haired and dark eyed with secrecy and tension. In the house of the good and faithful Pastons with their gift for a fair anecdote, their brother Edward had visited daily, bidding them trust in him, in God and a bright future.
 
So much for expectation.  Of this dwelling – no trace. No plaque, no pub with a sign proclaiming a king had slept there. Even ‘The Duke of Clarence’ was a later model and not golden haired George gasping in Malmsey.

 So we left Tooley Street with the Paston House keeping its secrets and went in search of Crosby Place. This was easier to find.

 There were conkers and yellow leaves in the streets as we walked through, mist and light over the Thames. I stood on the site of Sir Thomas More’s garden and thought about him and Margaret, his daughter and Will Roper, his son-in-law, and it was as if time turned back. I could have reached out my hand and touched those fragile, orchard ghosts.

 
Originally in Billingsgate, Crosby Place was moved, stone by stone in 1910, to Chelsea. Cecily Neville, Richard III’s mother, known poetically as the Rose of Raby, had stayed there.  A lovely name. I can never resist the rose imagery of Plantaganet and Tudor days. She was also known as Proud Cis, so I wonder what she was really like. A rose with prickles probably and hidden stingers. Richard lived there too, as Shakespeare describes, when he was planning his bid for the throne. All within sight of the Tower where the Princes were kept. I wonder  what Cecily Neville thought about it, what she saw. She was their grandmother. Surely she can’t have sat there doing her tapestry or whatever and let them be slaughtered across the water. Maybe she holds the key to the truth.

 Crosby Hall was open to the public then, when I visited. A beautiful place. Rose-red brick and Tudor chimneys, latticed windows glinting in the autumn light. In later years it become a place of sanctuary for university women. Portraits of scholarly female academics stared down intently at us from the walls.

 As we left I was reminded not so much of Richard and Cecily and those lost children, but of women like Dorothy L Sayers, Phyllis Bentley or Vera Britten – the early days of Somerville when students called each other ‘Miss’ until they became good friends and would then make formal request for the honour of using first names. I thought of choir practices and games of lacrosse, chaperones and the peeling of bells.

 The tables in the ancient dining hall at Crosby Place were laid that day – sparsely laid. A knife, a fork, a spoon, a glass tumbler for water. Tables laid for a hundred. I counted them. Who were they for? Who would be there? It was like a ghost room.

CECILY NEVILLE

GEORGE, DUKE OF CLARENCE

EDWARD IV

RICHARD III

CROSBY HALL

This is the second in my 'armchair historian' articles.

THE SEARCH FOR TICKENHILL

 
 When Prince Richard was born, his elder brother Edward was three years old and had just been settled into Ludlow Castle to put the fear of God into the turbulent Welsh. He was a golden haired child, anxious to be a good king, intelligent, virtuous, scared of the dark and suffering badly from toothache.
 
Ludlow Castle stands on high ground overlooking the River Teme. In its day it was large and spacious, new apartments were built for the Prince and sanitary arrangements were adequate – one tower had a privy on each floor. There were rooms of all sizes – a Great Hall, two chapels, towers, battlements, leg-aching stone steps, kitchens and store rooms, windows overlooking the Teme and a magnificent view in every direction – woods, hills and meadows, open fields, common land and a winding blue river.
 
So much to recommend it, but even so the thought of that tiny boy within Ludlow’s cold walls can still cause a shiver. It was a dark castle and once the light had faded only candles and flares could relieve the gloom. There was little furniture except for trestle tables, benches and the occasional stool, huge beds in rooms with bunched up curtains and rushes on the floor, rooms leading into one another separated only by hangings blowing in the chill winds that whipped across the hills from Wales.
 
The Castle seems so spacious, even when full of summer tourists, but in the Middle Ages there was no privacy: people slept where they could – on the spiral staircase, on the hard floor, crouched in window seats – snatching what rest was possible between the cold and damp and constant noise and smell of horses, dogs and men. A hard, bleak place to be when snow fell on the battlements and the Teme was frozen or when icy rain lashed against the stone walls and the wind howled across the hills or when thick, damp fog crept through the narrow windows. No doubt roaring fires, the prayers of his priests and the company of his guardians may have comforted the little boy, but even so it must have been a hard life and there were few women at the Castle.

 I had spent several summers staying near the pretty town of Bewdley in Worcestershire and thought myself familiar with its old streets, picturesque river, soft hills and green fields. The most exciting thing to have shattered the calm of centuries seems to have been during World War II when there were sightings of German parachutists landing in the woods and guns were fired and church bells rung frantically in warning. Germans or bales of hay blowing high?  Bewdley’s veterans know the truth.

 So, casually reading a book about the Princes in the Tower * I was startled to see a reference in the book to Tickenhill Manor in Bewdley as being the summer holiday home of Prince Edward. Here, it seems, he came with his retinue while the Castle had its annual clean up and floors were scrubbed, knives sharpened and the ditches cleaned of sewage.

 I had to find it, know exactly where it was, re-create its life in my own mind.

 As usual, I drew a blank at first. Certainly Tickenhill is mentioned as being a royal residence for the Yorkist and Tudor monarchs. Certainly there are reports of a five hundred year old beam which is all that is left of the original building. Certainly it was used, just a few years after Edward’s disappearance, as the funeral stop-over for poor Prince Arthur who died of the sweating sickness at Ludlow, so leaving the realm and his Spanish bride, Catherine, to the mercies of Bluff King Hal. I scoured second hand bookshops, enlisted the kind help of the Richard III Society, but no – not a mention of my Princes. Also, the exact location of Tickenhill itself was more than a bit in doubt.

 Summer came again and I was once more in the area, this time with a friend who is more than content to go armchair detecting with me. We set off in a car, which was perhaps a mistake, with an armful of maps and our intuition. What were we looking for? All the wrong things as it later turned out – a high hill, a landmark, a ruin, an old sign, a road name – any of these would have helped. A group of hikers was glad to share maps, suggestions and brief companionship with us, but as daylight darkened we were still far from finding Tickenhill.

 In the end we did find it – close to the town, not at all in the hills which had seemed so right. An old pamphlet was unearthed in a dusty room – and there was Tickenhill, upgraded to a Palace by this document, with clear directions to the location, now a private residence and not a ruin at all.

 We trudged round there but it didn’t feel right. An elegant old house in a quiet, residential area. Within the imposing gates large dogs growled unpleasantly. Something was missing – the vibes that had led me to Water Lane in Shrewsbury when I was searching for the birthplace of Richard, Duke of York – they were not here.

 And yet – this was certainly the site of Tickenhill which, in Saxon times, meant ‘hill of the goats’ I could imagine the goats with no trouble and when I thought about Prince Edward I could see him there – just – fishing in streams, safe away from bandits, plagues and wicked uncles, content for the day. And yet ... maybe, after all, Tickenhill is still a quest to be finished.

 
From Ludlow to Bewdley it is not far, even on horseback, and although a generation later someone described the route as ‘the foulest, cold, windy and rainy day and the worst way I have ever seen,’ he was travelling in winter and was part of a funeral procession. In summer it might have been better.

 *Alison Weir ‘The Princes in the Tower’

TICKENHILL

BEWDLEY



PRINCE ARTHUR

I have been writing some 'armchair historian' articles based around events in the fifteenth century, mostly to do with the Princes in the Tower. This, the first article, is about Richard, Duke of York, the younger prince.

NOT IN THE GUIDE BOOK

The sons of Edward IV had brief lives, or so we suppose. Commonly known as the Princes in the Tower, it is their lives that haunt me as much as their deaths. To paraphrase Shakespeare, there must be more to a man’s life than the manner of his leaving it. On a cold, foggy autumn day I set off on a quest.

 It was the younger boy that was hooking me. The older prince, Edward, spent most of his childhood at Ludlow Castle, cared for by a doting retinue, until enticed out by those that would kill him. At least he was safe for a while.

His brother was Richard, Duke of York. Not much is known about him except that he was ‘nimble and merry’ and always ready to play or dance. Also that he was his mother’s pride and joy and she kept him with her, constantly, right up until the terrible day when he was taken away from her into the Tower and the mists of time. It has been suggested by historians that, by her motherly over-protection, Elizabeth denied her younger son the chance of learning the skills of hunting, fighting and masculine conversation and that, had he lived, he would have grown up soft and weak. A medieval wimp. Who knows? He comes down the years as a delightful child and that is all we have to go on.

 His birthplace seemed a good place to begin. Books on the subject were hazy on details but I managed to piece together the information that he was born in Shrewsbury on August 17^th 1473 in the royal quarters of the infirmary attached to the Abbey, at the bottom of Water Lane on the River Severn.

 Trying to instil into my companion a desire to see a place that might no longer exist, we set off early. As it turned out, we had forgotten about motorways, road works, cones and delays. Edward IV and his retinue would probably have made the journey quicker on horseback than we did by car. We arrived in Shrewsbury at five o’ clock in the afternoon as it was getting dark. The streets were choked with cars and ferocious yellow lines. Not too historical.

 I ran into the Tourist Office. Then began the nightmare. I had not realised that a fictitious character lived in Shrewsbury – an imaginary monk called Cadfael who flitted through the pages of medieval whodunits growing herbs. The Tourist Office was full of souvenirs – Cadfael mugs, Cadfael calendars, Cadfael pot porri, notebooks, pencils, videos, rubbers ... no mention of Richard, Duke of York, who was born there, who once was living flesh and blood.

 I returned to the car. My companion was asleep. I studied a guide book. There was an Abbey  – but it was Cadfael’s Abbey, of course. The library – that would have the answers.

 The library was shut. ‘We’re not going to find it,’ I said despondently.

 Oh don’t give up,’ said my friend, refreshed from his sleep. ‘We’ll find it. What have we got?’

 ‘Well, it was at the bottom of Water Lane overlooking the river.’

 ‘That’s easy then. We need a street map.’

 The street map was no problem. However, no Water Lane. There was a Water Street. We headed for that.

 Round by the station is not the most salubrious part of Shrewsbury. Cold and draughty with alleyways and dark tunnels it has scraps of paper blowing about like lost souls. Raven Meadows sounded old and picturesque but turned out to be a warren of traffic lights and un-crossable roads. We couldn’t find Water Street. Shrewsbury seemed to be built on lots of levels. We kept going up steps and down alleys and up slopes and down steps, all the time losing sight of the river. I had this nagging fear that Water Lane had faded with the Middle Ages.

 I became aware that I was on my own. No sign of my companion. Down by the side of a church I found him, smug look on his face, gazing meaningfully at an old street name. I couldn’t believe it. Not just Water Street. Water Lane! He had stumbled across Water Lane.

So there it was, this dark, narrow path, going down and down with red brick walls on either side with traces of arches and bricked up windows and so overgrown above our heads there was hardly any light – but there, through the darkness, so close I could bend down and touch it, was the river, completely deserted, timeless, far from anywhere with the moon shining above it – a tiny pocket of history and I had found it. Near this small stretch of river Elizabeth Woodville’s second son was born.

 There can have been no hint of tragedies to come.

THE PRINCES

SHREWSBURY

I am fascinated by the story of Lyuba, the baby woollly mammoth discovered in Siberia. Here is a poem I have written for her, and some pictures too.

lyuba

(a baby woolly mammoth preserved in permafrost)
 
on that day
her mother suckled her
(there is milk in the contents
of her gut)

 on that day

her mammoth hair
(strawberry-blond the DNA shows)

grew a little bit more

 
on that day
she sipped water from a stream
(at one month old her trunk was long)

 on that day

she lost her tail
(no trace of it was found)

 we do not know the season

or what time of day it was
when she lumbered onto mud

 nor do we know how long it took

for her to be sucked down

 nor how much mud

she swallowed
as she died

 (there was sediment in her mouth

and in her throat)

 all we know

is on that day
she sank in a bog and life for her
was gone
 

and we’ll never know

if her mother searched or grieved and ached
with unusable milk

 later

on that day

Catching up in Spring

Poor neglected Blog. Time, I think, for a round up of fragments.

On the first day of March (World Book Day) I gave a reading and talk about 'The Onion Stone' in my local library. Questions were interesting - mainly about contenders in the authorship issue but also about the writing process itself, the nature of a novella, whether one does a lot of planning or grants freedom to the Muse. Here are a couple of photographs:

Another good thing has been The Stirred Poet competition run by that lovely forum The Write Idea. It had six rounds, one a week and  a public vote. I was lucky enough to win it by three points with many excellent poets chasing after me! It was great fun and there was a lot of goodwill.

The most exciting thing has been an offer from SPM publications, the publishing division of Sentinel Poetry Movement, to publish my next full length collection. It will be called 'All the Invisibles' and should be out on October 1st. So now I have the dilemma of sorting and organising my poems!

I've also been asked to be a regular judge for the  Excel for Charity/Swale Life competitions including the forthcoming one. I love judging competitions so I'm very pleased.

Last weekend I led a morning workshop at St Cuthman's, the beautiful retreat centre in Coolham, West Sussex. The theme was 'Exchange' in all its variations. I haven't yet written any poems prompted by my own material but I had a fine time walking round the lake and the woods and making notes on things that caught my attention. I have written them up into a spring poem:

One April day

This lake is the silver of tin.

Three geese rush on in a whirling of wings,

skid in a kick-up of splash.

Today it’s bright with sparrows and buds.

Daffodils in a downhill tumble

slither and swoop.

Elsewhere the lake is heavy:

conifer-coloured; still. A gravel path

has a twist of violets, half covered up  at the edge.

A bush of holly speckles

with leaves of a small new green. Overhead

are the questions and answers of crows.



Vengeance and a sandpiper

Vengeance refers to a performance I saw a couple of weeks ago, performed by students of King's College, London at the Greenwood Theatre. This was Euripides 'Hecuba' - in Greek but with computer generated subtitles - which didn't always match the action on stage but no matter, the theme was clear enough. I say action but there was little of that except for a bloodcurdling human sacrifice off stage and a blinding in a tent. Fearful stuff which led me into writing a poem of my own on the theme of revenge - giving myself haunting dreams in the process.

The Sandpiper is, of course, Elizabeth Bishop's. I have been reading her poems in preparation for a workshop and came across this video clip of the poem on You Tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZyj3gXEUis  I had read an article about 'Sandpiper' which said how the author kept tightening the focus as if adjusting the eye piece on binoculars or a telescope - and then I saw this clip which had exactly the same idea.

What else - Well the wonderful Alice Oswald who spoke the whole of 'Memorial' at the Purcell Room - completely by heart, looking into a very dark auditorium.  An emotionally  shattering experience.

I have been asked, by the poetry prRO project via poetrypf,  to send 4 poems for translation and broadcasting on Romanian radio, so feel very honoured.

Horse in Armour

My poem 'Horse in Armour' is published on Every Day Poets today. http://www.everydaypoets.com/horse-in-armour-by-mandy-pannett/

I wrote it last summer after visiting Warwick Castle.

Here is my photograph of the horse: