Look at it this way ...

At school we had one particular teacher (let's call her Miss Watson) who had an unfailingly positive attitude; no matter what the problem, however poor the outlook, she would smile, take a deep breath and say "Now girls, here's a challenge for us! How are we going to deal with this one?" Later in life, when I read some "motivational" books, I could imagine her as their author, penning the relentless message to look for the opportunities in every untoward situation, to determine how to make a silk purse out of whatever pig's ear life had dumped in your lap. When I had a take-away Chinese meal the evening before last, I found a similar exhortation in a fortune cookie; after a "challenging" couple of weeks, I was in no mood to be so chivied along!

But perhaps as writers we need the odd kick up the backside, the odd reminder that we can salvage at least something from almost any venture that's gone awry - and maybe that something could turn out to be more than second best. For a variety of reasons, life has got the better of me lately, and writing plans have certainly been derailed; but rather than trying to pick up the pieces, I've left them be, as it were, and resurrected a couple of older, shelved projects. Amazing how looking at things with fresh eyes can rejuvenate discarded ideas and plans! I think Miss Watson might have been on to something after all ...

Going into orbit

We had a great evening yesterday at the Holst Museum in Cheltenham. As part of the Cheltenham Literature Festival, the "Literature Crawl" included a "Planets" poetry event; individuals and groups visited the different rooms in the museum to listen to specially written poems inspired by the composer's interest in astrology and his famous "Planet Suite". The museum proved a popular venue on the Crawl and we had a very appreciative response to the poems. My contribution was on Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age, and my friend and poetry group colleague Frances March read her very moving and thought-provoking piece on Venus, the Bringer of Peace - much needed in the present climate.

I've written before of my gratitude to my poetry and writing groups - they provide me with tremendous support and the kind of constructive criticism we all need in our writing lives. So I was delighted to hear last night that Frances had been shortlisted for this year's Indigo Dreams First Pamphlet competition, and that our poetry group colleague Belinda Rimmer had actually won the award. That's another plus point about group membership - whilst we're certainly there to commiserate with each other over rejections and setbacks, we definitely get to celebrate each other's successes too!

... and I had the Servant's Room!

Frances March, reading in the kitchen ...

 

National Poetry Day 2018

We celebrated National Poetry Day at NHSound today with the visit of three Monmouthshire poets, Ric Hool, Ann Drysdale and Angela Platt. The discussions and their readings were complemented by songs that were all based on poems - from Fairport Convention's "To Althea, From Prison" (from Richard Lovelace's poem of 1642) to Donovan singing Edward Lear's "The Owl And The Pussycat"! An interesting and an entertaining morning, with some fantastic poetry from our guests - many thanks to them for giving their time so freely.

I'm fascinated to read of the variety of events nationwide to celebrate National Poetry Day, which takes as its theme this year "Change". One event that particularly caught my attention was Her 100 Cerdd, the Literature Wales venture that involves four poets writing 100 poems in Welsh in 24 hours. To achieve the target the four of them - Manon Awst. Caryl Bryn, Morgan Owen and Osian Owen - will each have to come up with at least one poem an hour for every hour in the day. Challenging or what?! But it's apparently been done five times before so, if you're interested to see what they produce, check out the Literature Wales blog. And if you're doing something a little less ambitious to celebrate the day - enjoy it your way!