Season's Greetings

Hard as it is with so much awful international news and the forthcoming car crash scenario our own country faces, as a damp, mild Christmas Day dawned here and I got underway with the usual chores (and cooking is a chore for me!), so many fond memories of past Christmas Days came to mind - and fervent hopes for brighter times to come. If your year hasn't been great either, if this season isn't your favourite time - I hope it can be in some way positive for you, that you can find something in it to celebrate, to hold on to, to take forward. Here's to a better future for us all.

Christmas is coming ...

Call me Scrooge, but I can't be doing with all the Christmas hype from the beginning of December - and much earlier still in most of the shops this year. As a child I was used to the tree and the decorations going up on Christmas Eve, a tradition I continued with my own children (despite their plaintive objections - "Everyone else has got theirs up!"). But this year my nearest radio broadcast to Christmas was on the 20th so I broke the habit of a lifetime; I played Christmas tracks and read Christmas stories and poems just those few days earlier - and the sky didn't fall in and I actually enjoyed it!

I hope my two guests enjoyed it too. Tony Lawrence and Andy Phillips joined me from Newport Writers, a very active group who meet at the Riverside on the banks of the Usk on Saturday mornings. They brought with them a couple of great stories - one about an unexpected Father Christmas proposal to a lonely woman and another about a young boy transported back to the 1914 Christmas truce on the Western Front. It was good to welcome them to the station and we hope to have more input from the group in the next few months.

For my "Book of the Week" for the programme I'd chosen "Christmas in Wales", an anthology edited by Dewi Roberts. I'd discovered it during the Christmas holiday last year - it's a lovely collection of poetry and prose from the country's leading writers, both past and present. If you're still looking for a present for someone who really enjoys a good read - especially someone who has an affection for Wales - this might be just the thing. It's published by Seren. (And make sure you have a quick look on page 79 at the excerpt from Kilvert's Diary about his Christmas Day bath in 1870 ...!)

Andy Phillips

Tony Lawrence

Let's hear it for the oldies!

So often now I'm meeting writers who, like myself, have taken up the craft in later years - perhaps having dabbled in their youth, perhaps having written "professionally", but only coming to being truly creative in later life. By which time, of course, they (we!) have so much more to write from - years of experience of work, family life, people, places, the everyday and often the extra-ordinary too. And often I find the realisation of a shrinking  time frame focuses the mind sharply - let's get on with it whilst we have the time to do so! I've read many authors who have been prolific in later life and who have enjoyed commercial success too; Mary Wesley was well into her sixties before she started to write fiction and she became a best seller in her seventies. A great role model for all of us "oldies"!

U3A's (Universities of the Third Age) around the world have become focal points for many retired and semi-retired people in recent years and often have very active creative writing groups. This morning I had four members of Newport U3A Creative Writers as my guests on The Writer's Room at NHSound - Pam Cocchiara, Ian Lumley, Glyn Sutton and Martyn Vaughan. The group recently published 'Musings', an anthology of their work, which I'm much looking forward to reading. Their contributions today included poems that had us laughing out loud and short stories that prompted much deeper thought.

I do hope our visitors enjoyed their visit as much as the listeners and I enjoyed hearing about their lives and their writing and listening to some fascinating work - it was a very interesting morning.

Pam Cocchiara

Ian Lumley

Glynn Sutton

Martyn Vaughan

Keep up the good work!

You can do it ...!

We're nearly two thirds of the way through the month and I'm delighted to hear from writing friends and colleagues how many of them are still going strong with NaNoWriMo. With fairly challenging personal circumstances just now, I've absented myself from the undertaking this year - it really is a mammoth task, especially for the majority of people who are juggling home and work commitments alongside their writing at the best of times. But for those still in the game - you've broken the back of it now, good luck for the next ten days!

Understanding your narrative

An interesting morning yesterday at The Peak Arts Centre in Crickhowell - a workshop run by Helena Attlee, intriguingly entitled "Understanding your narrative". Helena is a largely non-fiction writer and a consultant fellow of the Royal Literary Fund who offers training to a wide variety of different groups. Our group yesterday saw a mixture of writers and artists - textile specialists, sculptors, painters and photographers - taking time out to look at their work and to consider how best to write about it.

Inventive exercises to focus on projects already underway or still at the planning stage were certainly useful - "If this work was an animal, what would it be and why?", "If it was a meal, what would it be and why?; but an important part of the workshop for me was listening to and gaining some understanding of people working in other creative disciplines. Many of the challenges and problems discussed appeared to be common to us all. Writers often spend a lot of their time with other writers; I feel I learned a lot from getting even a small insight into how other creative artists function - perhaps more joint ventures would prove beneficial all round.

Helena Attlee

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!

Readings in the rain

After a busy and at times rather difficult week following a family bereavement, I was really looking forward to the Ways to Peace Festival at Tintern Abbey at the weekend. And the event itself didn't disappoint - though the weather certainly did! If you know the Abbey ruins - where, as the custodian put it, "the sky is our roof" - you'll understand why Saturday's torrential rain made for a less than ideal setting for readings and meditations.

Friday evening, however, which started the Festival off with a "music for peace" event, saw a lovely sunset and a dramatic night sky. It was tremendously atmospheric sitting in the nave listening to the sublime music of Sir Karl Jenkins "The Armed Man" sung by Cor Caerdydd and the contributions of two quite magical women on harp and violin.

And at the Saturday event, despite the awful wind and downpours, it was very inspiring and very moving to hear the many ways in which local writers - their ages ranging from 13 to well into the 90s - had interpreted the "Ways to Peace" theme. Peace between nations, peace with the environment, inner peace - poems and prose reflections took us to many places and many times. A young woman reader, a Palestinian refugee who had grown up in camps in Syria, knew only too well the effects of strife. Her peace poems in particular moved me to tears; both she and they have stayed with me and will stay with me for a long while yet.

Over the hills and far away ...

A very busy couple of weeks with little time for writing - but quite a bit for thinking and planning. At the beginning of the month I had a few days walking the next stretch of the Wales Coastal Path - this time from Swansea to Llangennith, around the fabulous Gower coastline. The weather was kind to us and we tramped over clifftops, across beaches, through woods and farmland in warm sunshine; we've now completed 156 miles of the 882 total - so there's only another 726 to go! Should keep us usefully occupied for the rest of our retirement ...

But I've always found walking immensely liberating and inspiring; getting into a steady rhythm seems to simultaneously focus my mind and to free it. So I came back with plenty of ideas and enthusiasm. And being away also gave me some time to catch up on a pile of reading I've had mounting for a while. The message on Octavo's Bookshop wall in Cardiff when I popped in there seemed particularly apt -

Coming back brought the inevitable onslaught of daily life with a vengeance but also ushered in a few welcome activities, including the resumption of our Women For Woman poetry sessions in Hereford and a fascinating lunchtime talk in Penarth by the wonderful Owen Sheers about his poetry films Pink Mist, Green Hollow and To Provide All People. My guest on Thursday morning's NHSound programme proved very interesting too - the Caldicot writer Guy Farrish. If you haven't come across "Wolf!", his modern take on the old fairy tale about the three little pigs, do get hold of a copy - it's available on Amazon and makes for very entertaining (and, in the present climate, very pertinent) reading.

Previews of things to come

On September 6th the Wye Valley Writers will be launching their new anthology at the Chepstow Library and Hub, but we had a preview of its very varied contents on "The Writer's Room" on NHSound yesterday. Four of the group's members came along to talk about their writing, about the support a group can offer, about the stories behind their work. If you didn't catch the programme, do try to get to the launch evening (7pm with light refreshments and an open mic opportunity) - it'll be well worth going.

Karel Dewey and Angela Platt

Zina Pearce-Tomenius

This is the first year for many that I haven't been involved with the Gloucestershire Writers Network competition; my congratulations to the recently announced winners and runners-up, who will of course be reading at the Cheltenham Literature Festival in a few weeks time. I'm delighted to be reading at another event on the Festival, in the Holst Museum on Saturday October 6th, celebrating the composer's Planet Suite. I'm in very august company - with poets including Adam Horowitz, David Clarke and Anna Saunders - so I'm looking forward to it enormously. Tickets for the festival are on sale now. As always, there's a fantastic programme covering all aspects of literature - if only I had unlimited time and money, I know where I'd be spending ten days in October ...

Buses and bookshops

In interesting morning at NHSound last Thursday; Karenne Griffin, a writer from Pontypool, was my guest on "The Writer's Room", talking about her travel books "Bus Pass Holiday - A Short Circuit" and "Bus Pass Holiday # 2 - The Long And The Short Of It". In the peak of the holiday season it was a timely reminder that you don't have to go to far-flung places to see a different world, to meet new people, to widen your horizons. And those of us of a certain age and stage are lucky enough to be able to travel cost-free around our beautiful country! How fortunate we are. Karenne is also the author of two novels - "Beyond The Island" and "Return To The Island" - do check them out; some good holiday reading there.

I spent Sunday afternoon at Octavos Bookshop in Cardiff, relaxing in their great cafe and wine bar and listening to the Bristol poet Elizabeth Parker. The monthly readings and open mics there are well worth getting to - they're free, really welcoming and have some excellent visiting poets. Rhian Edwards will be there in November - something to really look forward to.  If you've not heard her before you can get a flavour of her work listening to her reading on YouTube; she has to be one of my favourite contemporary poets.

Shw'mae Caerdydd!

A great couple of days at the Eisteddfod in Cardiff. I've been learning Welsh (the language of my grandmothers and their forebears) for a year or so, though I'm not a natural linguist and progress has been slow. But the Eisteddfod was a great opportunity to listen and to practice, to enjoy and to play with the language; there was great encouragement for learners and being in such a vibrant, inclusive community has certainly spurred me on.

I spent hours - and a fair amount of cash - in the book tents. I was delighted to find several novels for beginners, proper adult ones; much though I enjoyed reading Fireman Sam and Spot the Dog to my children, I'd rather not have to read them in Welsh for myself now! And Thursday evening saw a tremendous concert with Pendevig - the whole evening in Welsh, no concessions for learners there, but with the music of that band no concessions are necessary!

Even the ice cream cones bore Y Draig Goch
(the Red Dragon)!

In Flanders Field

I've just come back from a fascinating four day trip to Belgium looking at the role of non-combatants (medical and nursing personnel and chaplains) in the First World War. I could certainly have done with the temperature being ten degrees cooler for standing in unshaded cemeteries and the exposed ploughed fields that had once held casualty clearing stations, but I certainly wouldn't have missed the opportunity to go to research the topic. A great deal to think about now and to follow up on for a project on which I'm just embarking.

Whilst I was away I was lent an original copy of the training manual used by the Royal Army Medical Corps at the time of the Great War. I was amazed at the breadth of subject matter covered - in fact, it didn't look that different from the syllabus I covered in my initial nurse training fifty years later! I was saddened to think though how Article 1 of the Geneva Convention - that "ambulances and military hospitals shall be acknowledged to be neutral and as such shall be protected and respected by belligerents so long as any sick or wounded may be therein" - was so blatantly disregarded by both sides (as indeed it is all too often in conflicts to this day). I visited the graves of many medical and nursing personnel killed on duty by shellfire or in air raids. A hundred years on, all of their stories still merit telling; how much we could learn if only we would listen.

On the grave of John McCrae, Canadian surgeon
and "In Flanders Field" poet 

Human vs. machine

Having heard an item on Radio 4 this morning about computer generated poetry (and the apparent difficulty some people have distinguishing between that and the "real thing") I thought I'd try out one of the generating websites. If you have five minutes to spare and want to feel a whole load better about your own work, do try one out. I entered random words on my chosen topic as requested (I'd been looking at the picture below so chose "fields") and the resulting sonnet was hilariously awful ... It certainly gave me a good laugh to start my day!

Writers and radio

I think the idea expressed in that last post - that life was getting back to normal - was just too tempting for Fate! Instead life continues on something of a roller-coaster here and the protracted heatwave doesn't help productivity either, but I know all writers go through fallow patches and usually live to tell the tale ...

Positives over the last couple of weeks though have been visits to local writing groups to talk about opportunities to take part in The Writer's Room on NHSound. It's been great to sit in and listen to some excellent poetry and prose - my thanks to both Caldicot Writers and Newport Writers, who have made me very welcome at their respective meetings. Alyson Rees, a talented young poet from Caldicot and quite a newcomer to the local scene, took part in last Thursday's programme and read some very thought-provoking and insightful work. I'm very much looking forward to contributions to the programme in the next few months from several other writers in both groups. The Wye Valley Writers will be launching their anthology on the programme on August 30th too; Monmouthshire appears alive with creative energy just now!

Ways to Peace

A fortnight of chaos, which I hope is coming to an end! How I envy writers who can work despite the heavens falling in or life aiming a wrecking ball at them ...

But this afternoon I sat looking out over the Wye Valley planning out (very belatedly) my contribution for the three day Ways of Peace event to be held at Tintern Abbey in September in support of the UNESCO International Day of Peace. There will be speakers, music from many cultures, workshops and readings of poetry and prose, much of the weekend free and open to all. The setting could not be bettered - if you're not familiar with the Abbey, a centuries-old ruin that draws pilgrims and tourists alike, do look it up and think about joining us then. It'll be a great event.

Writing the unwritten

A huge "Thank You!" to Nilima Raichoudhrey, who ran a superb writing workshop yesterday at the Abergavenny Arts Festival. We were a small group but benefited enormously from her experience in Zen writing, her time as a scriptwriter and her infectious enthusiasm for words and their expression. So much to think about after the session: about stories under stories, about "essence" - the unspoken in the spoken, the unwritten in the written - about writing as uncovering what you deeply know rather than what you think you know. A fascinating afternoon.

Nilima Raichoudhury (third right) with
Festival volunteers

Moments

My mother calls.
I do not reply.
Watching him walk out of our home, our lives.
The script ripped up.
A car engine overheating on the hills.

What about me?
Suddenly the motorway is empty.
No sadness at the melting doll.
The sky dark with a million stars...

copyright Gill Garrett 2018

Summertime - and the living is easy?!

I don't do well in the heat so have been wilting over the past few days, especially as the heatwave has coincided with a frantically busy patch both work and family-wise. So I'm putting the occasional memory lapse down to the weather and lack of time - but this morning, doing some research for a major prose project I'm currently embarking on, I was amused when I realised that I 'd failed to recognize myself as the author of an article I was finding very useful! To be fair, it had been written a few decades back ...

But there's lots happening poetry-wise at the moment too. I much enjoyed "Shore To Shore", the poetry reading by Carol Ann Duffy, Gillian Clarke, Jackie Kay and Imtiaz Dharker in Penarth last weekend, the first of eight events around the country celebrating Independent Bookshops Week. Tomorrow sees the start of the Ledbury Poetry Festival and I'm delighted to be reading at the Community Showcase event there next Monday, July 2nd, at 10.00. It's a free event - please do come along if you're in the area and do have a good look at the Festival programme, which has some really excellent and exciting inclusions this year. This weekend also sees the Abergavenny Arts Festival with poetry and creative writing sessions alongside marble carving, pottery, painting, textiles, music and loads more besides - mostly free events again.

For now though I shall retreat to the blessed cool of the kitchen to rehydrate ...

Justice - and poems - for Grenfell

Who could fail to be moved by yesterday's display - yet again - of the quiet dignity of the Grenfell bereaved and survivors? For most of us, something beyond words. But sometimes words do go a little way towards expressing the almost inexpressible. I spent yesterday evening in Newport at a "Poems for Grenfell" event at the Dolman Theatre. Some of the 62 poets, of all nationalities and backgrounds, who had contributed to the anthology on which the event was based read to a hushed and humbled audience; the poems of others, who were unable to be there, were read for them. So grim, yet inspiring, a reminder of  a wholly preventable catastrophe that "should be forever seared into our nation's collective memory" (Sadiq Khan).

Available from The Onslaught Press
All royalties go to The Grenfell Foundation

A new venture and old favourites

A chaotic couple of weeks with domestic and family issues holding up progress on most items on the writing front. But there's now the odd glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, and there were two positives towards the end of last week too, the one being my first "Writer's Room" programme for NHSound. My thanks to Nathan and Jake who saw me through the unfamiliar technical bits, and to Bernard John who came into the studio as my first guest, to talk about his writing life and to read from his new poetry collection.

The second high point of the week was something of a blast from the past! A tremendous evening at Newnham on Severn on Saturday for a Fairport Convention gig. It was held in St Peter's Church - complete with bar, burgers and a big crowd - and it was great to see a church being used as a true community centre, as all churches were in the distant (medieval) past. Folk has always been my favourite music genre, I think because it tells stories and in many ways it's so closely akin to poetry; I loved hearing the old songs resurrected amongst more recent ones. And, seeing the vintage of most of the audience, I couldn't help thinking back to a brief poem of mine from a few years ago ...

Children of the 60s

Small the cordite in the air-
we're no spent fireworks, 
marching to overcome,
to make love not war.
Light our blue touchpapers
and retire; after a slow burn
we still give a dazzling display.

(copyright Gill Garrett 2015)

Still magic after all these years ...

Plays and poems

I'm very much a fair weather camper, so I'm not sorry that I'm not under canvas at the Hay Festival this week - though I'm very sorry not to be able to get to some of the events there this year. The town was gearing itself up for its annual invasion when we were there on Wednesday, tents and caravans setting up on the field, Bed and Breakfast establishments welcoming early birds, the marquees awaiting their writing celebs. It was a preview performance of Owen Sheers' "Unicorns, almost" at the Swan Hotel that we had gone to see, and I certainly wouldn't have missed it - beautifully scripted and very convincingly acted.

Yesterday afternoon saw the launch of "Cardiff Boy", the debut poetry collection by one of my Wye Valley Writers colleagues, Bernard John, published by Carys Books. Bernard had a very appreciative audience in the library at Caldicot - the town that was my grandfather's birthplace and my early playground, so it felt an appropriate place to be listening to poems of a 1950s childhood, tin bath by the coal fire, "Family Favourites on the Light ...Woodbines after dinner." I found the pieces about his Irish ancestors, abandoning their starving country in the mid 1800s for a chance of survival across the water, very moving. My favourite in the collection though is "Talking Hands"; Bernard's father worked as an instructor at Remploy, where disabled people were once trained for employment. The tragedy of the demise of that facility is so simply evoked - "Not for him to witness the factory / as it is now; the blue hoarding / conceals the rubble. The men  / he loved scattered and scared / of what their lives may become." Only too apt a description of the fate of many more in the current climate of health and social welfare cuts, I'm afraid.

Bernard John

Poets and times past and present

A good evening last Tuesday at the Hen and Chickens in Abergavenny - their monthly poetry evening showcased the work of four Bristol poets, two of whom (Bob Watson and Elizabeth Parker) I'd met at the Abergavenny Festival of Writing, but two of whom I didn't previously know (Claire Williamson and Ben Banyard). I was particularly taken with Ben Banyard's work; on his collection "We Are All Lucky", a reviewer praises the "accessible poems about the real world with its triumphs and disasters, tragedies and comedies." If you read the wonderful poem "Early Days" on his blog (benbanyard.wordress.com) I'm sure you'll agree.

Saturday saw an interesting couple of hours - at a school reunion. Not my usual venue of choice at a weekend but I was keen to go along to see the memorabilia that's always wheeled out for the occasion; on this occasion it certainly fulfilled a useful function, prompting memories, starting conversations and providing copious notes for the memoir project with which I'm currently underway. The yellowing copies of the school magazines were particularly useful. I was busy making notes from a couple of articles when I suddenly realised they were ones that I'd written - fifty years ago! I was also amused to come across a photo of myself treading the boards in the school production of "Much Ado About Nothing" - although it took an old school friend to point out to me that it actually was me!

4th from left as Don Pedro, mid 1960s

Later today I'm going to watch the preview of Owen Sheers' play "Unicorns, almost" at Hay-on-Wye, where it's playing for the duration of the Literary Festival. It tells the story of the poet Keith Douglas, who was killed in action during the Normandy invasion in June 1944. Like so many schoolchildren in the 1960s, I studied the First World War poets for A level English - Siegfried Sassoon, Edward Thomas, Wilfred Owen; no mention was ever made then of the poets who sadly followed in their footsteps only a generation later. It was years before I came across their work - and the work of women writers at the time of both conflicts (that certainly wouldn't have got a look-in during my school days - they may have been at a girls grammar school, but as aspiring writers we were introduced to no female role models!). If you were similarly brought up on a restricted diet of male authors and poets, do read the two wonderful volumes of women's poetry from Virago, "Scars upon my heart" from the First World War and "Chaos of the night" from the Second. For me it's no exaggeration to say that first readings were revelations.

Writers on the radio

This morning I'm recovering at the desk after yesterday's ten mile charity walk we did in aid of breast cancer research at Velindre Cancer Centre in Cardiff; perhaps I'm not quite the girl I used to be! But the sun shone as we walked the beautiful banks of the River Wye, clambered up Symonds Yat Rock and enjoyed the company of fellow walkers. Hopefully we'll have raised a good amount of money between us (350 walkers on seven different Wye routes) - it's all for an excellent cause.

Now it's down to work on preparing for a new venture I'm starting next month. I was delighted to be asked recently if I would present a fortnightly programme on NHSound, the community radio station in Abergavenny. I've written a lot on this blog about Rona Laycock's programme "The Writer's Room" on Corinium Radio in Cirencester; over the years I've much enjoyed contributing to it and occasionally hosting it. I'm hoping to put together similar programmes for NHSound, to give local writers a platform for their poetry and prose and to promote and discuss local writing-related events. If I can keep my mind on the matter in hand that is! The view from the studio window - looking out over the mountains - is amazing; after the second floor, town centre facilities used by Corinium Radio, where the window has to be kept closed against the traffic and street commotion, it seems luxury indeed.

Bridgend Writers Circle

Over the years, as a teacher and trainer, I've worked in some very varied locations - draughty village halls and damp church rooms, plush hotel conference facilities and busy hospital wards. But until Thursday I'd never taught in a council chamber, complete with honours board, mayoral chain and a horseshoe table with brass ink wells and name card holders for the council members! A very formal setting - but more than offset by the delightful members of Bridgend Writers Circle, who made me very welcome and contributed so enthusiastically to our session on Life Writing. I'd like to thank them all for their invitation and for a very pleasant evening - I enjoyed it a lot.

"Away From Your Desk"

A regular feature in Writing magazine is a page entitled "Away From Your Desk"; every month it suggests writing related activities around the country, events that that might enlarge horizons, facilitate networking, refresh a word-weary brain. Over the last couple of weeks I seem to have taken advantage of every "away" opportunity I've come across and I've thoroughly enjoyed them - the only problem being the return to the desk with all the accumulated minutiae of life (bills, e mails etc) to wade through before being able to crack on with the task in hand!

But I wouldn't have missed the events I was able to get to on the Cheltenham Poetry Festival. Last Tuesday saw our Festival Players performance at the Playhouse. Sadly one of our members was unwell but, at short notice, her place was admirably filled by local poet and author Christine Whittemore. The programme ranged widely over works as diverse as "Ode To A Nightingale" and "The Owl And The Pussycat", covered eighteenth century poets to the very much alive Anne Drysdale and hopefully exemplified "the power of words". The audience certainly appeared very appreciative.

Reading with Robin Gilbert, Frances March,
Christine Whittemore and Peter Wyton

On Saturday David Clarke led a fascinating workshop at the Suffolk Anthology on Poetry and Museums; some excellent writing came out of it and some intriguing ideas were floated. (If you're not familiar with David's work, do read his blog "A Thing For Poetry" and check out his new pamphlet, "Scare Stories" published by V. Press in March) Later on Saturday St. Andrews hosted an inspirational reading by Owen Lowry. Tetraplegic following an accident, Owen, who at 18 was a national judo champion, describes his portable ventilator as "a vanity-case sized thing with batteries, about the size of a Filofax"; his poems are delivered in time with the ventilator's input. My poetry group colleague Christine Griffin read at the same event. Christine's poems are always powerful - thought-provoking and often of real contemporary relevance. Although I had heard it in preparation, "Flight", evoking so vivid a picture of villagers scattering before attackers, moved me to tears. Overall an excellent event.

Christine Griffin

Talks and walks

What skill and insight it takes to make a work of art out of a national tragedy, to retain the horror and sadness but also to uplift and inspire. Yesterday evening I went to hear the poet Owen Sheers talk about writing the script for the film commissioned by the BBC two years ago to mark the 50th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster - something that will forever be in the memories of those of us of a certain age. Watching the film was not an easy experience, nor was listening to Owen talk about his interviews with survivors, rescuers and the families of those who died. But should you ever get the chance to watch "The Green Hollow", don't miss it. The hardback of the film poem, by the same name, was published earlier this month; it is well worth getting hold of.

The evening was part of the Abergavenny Festival of Writing and I much enjoyed the other events I went to over the three days. A highlight (as I'd anticipated) was the riverside poetry walk, led by clare e. potter (and yes, that's the correct rendition of her name!). We walked by the Usk in warm sunshine and listened to Clare reading poems both familiar and new to us, from a childhood favourite of mine - "What is this life" by W. H. Davies - through R. S. Thomas and Fleur Adcock to Rumi. We skimmed pebbles across the clear water towards islands of silt and fern, watched children and dogs paddling in the shallows and pondered other's responses to rivers before writing of our own - "Something is going on with the river, more vital than death" (Ted Hughes), "When you place your finger in a river, you are the end of what has been and the start of what is to come" (Leonardo da Vinci). So many possibilities in the topic - no wonder rivers have featured so large in prose and poetry from time immemorial!

Clare reads our last poem
beneath the castle walls

Out and about

After a few weeks of being desk-bound (where of course the real work gets done!), this week brings the welcome opportunity to get to some great literary happenings. I'm looking forward to several events on the Abergavenny Festival of Writing, one of which combines a walk along part of the Usk Valley with a "Write Me A River" workshop. My favourite walks are always woodland and water trails; I'm just hoping for some decent weather. Last week I joined in several of the events on the Chepstow Walking Festival when we had far from ideal conditions; trudging through mud up to your ankles and getting saturated through your waterproofs is not my idea of a good day out! Conversation with fellow walkers tends to be minimal in those situations but I'd been struggling with some recalcitrant pieces of prose and at least five or six solitary miles give ample opportunity for thinking things through ...

The end of the week sees the beginning of the Cheltenham Poetry Festival, with its usual great line up of national and local talent. Should you be in the area next Tuesday (April 24th), we'd be delighted to see you at the Festival Players reading at the Playhouse, 5.00 - 6.00pm. In keeping with the Festival theme of "Power", all our readings have been chosen to demonstrate the incredible power of words - it promises to be an interesting event.

World Autism Awareness Day

April 2nd marks World Autism Awareness Day. As someone who has had close personal experience of autism, I'm delighted that the day celebrates the unique talents of people who live on the autistic spectrum as well as highlighting the difficulties they so often face in societies that too often misunderstand or misinterpret. Many hugely creative people are now thought to have been on the autistic spectrum - including Emily Dickinson, W. B. Yeats and James Joyce - and I've had the privilege of meeting several "unknowns" who use their highly personal, often quirky, insights into life to great advantage for others as well as themselves. However, this is in no way to downplay the struggles so many individuals and their families face - and I hold them in enormous regard for the ways in which they fight to surmount those hurdles.

An Autistic Child

Fluent at six, you read
as if by instinct,
concentrating for hours,
cocooned within
your world of words.

"A gifted child"
they said.

But to spread your wings,
to interact, you must read
between the lines,
decode the syntax
of expression,
interpret posture,
gesture, space,
leaf through the pages
of the human face.

Not yours the gift that makes
for easy friendship, give and take,
acceptance by the crowd.
Such literacy a mystery to you -
a lesson to be learned
piecemeal over years.

Easier by far
the comfort of your books.


(Copyright Gill Garrett, 2013)

Someone special

I've been fortunate in my life to meet some really special people, people who have inspired and supported me in many different areas - a very charismatic drama teacher at school, several nursing and medical colleagues during my working life, patients too, from whom I learned so much. But in terms of inspiration in my writing life, one person stands out - someone who has taught me, encouraged me, picked me up and dusted me off when things have not gone well and celebrated with me when they have. I owe an enormous debt to Rona Laycock and this week it's been a real pleasure to see her honoured for all the work she has done to further creative writing in Gloucestershire.

Rona with Catchword member Liz Carew

Monday saw a coffee morning in Cirencester to mark Rona's retirement from running Writers in the Brewery, the monthly event which she initiated and at which local writers have been able to meet, to listen to a variety of visiting poets and authors and also to share their own work at the open mic sessions. Ably assisted by her husband Dave - an excellent barman! - she ran the event for several years. Then at the Playhouse on Thursday she was recognised with a Cheltenham Arts Council award for her dedication in running the Gloucestershire Writers Network, particularly in organising the annual competition for the Cheltenham Literature Festival event and overseeing the evening itself. For many of us, reading at the Festival was our first experience of appearing on stage at a major literature event and it was Rona's hard work and encouragement that gave us the opportunity and the confidence to do so.

Rona with her husband at the Playhouse

Inevitably, giving so much of her time and energy to support other people has meant Rona's own work has had to be put on hold occasionally. Hopefully having handed over the baton to others will free her to pursue more of her own writing now. Next month I shall be working with my friend Clare Finnemore from Somewhere Else Writers to present In Focus on Corinium Radio with Rona as our subject. We'll be discussing her achievements and her present and future writing projects - I'll post details of when the programme will air as I'm sure she will most definitely be worth listening to!

Come and join us

Firstly, my thanks to two groups who have made me very welcome at their meetings this week - the Wye Valley Writers in Chepstow on Monday evening and the poetry group at Heffernan House in Hereford on Wednesday. They were both really interesting sessions, which I much enjoyed, and I look forward to spending more time with both groups in the future.

Now things are hotting up for this year's Cheltenham Poetry Festival. If you haven't booked up for events yet, you'll need to do so quickly - tickets are going very well. There's a tremendous variety of things on offer - workshops with David Clarke, Alicia Stubbersfield and Roz Goddard, an exploration of poetry film with Elephant's Footprint, readings by so many gifted poets - including two of my poetry group colleagues, Christine Griffin and Belinda Rimmer. Christine is reading with Owen Lowry on April 28th and Belinda with Gill McEvoy on April 29th. I'll be reading with the Poetry Festival Players at the Cheltenham Playhouse on Tuesday April 24th at 5pm; we'll be performing a wonderful selection of poems expressing "The Power of Words" and we'd love you to join us to hear them! You can find details of all the events, booking etc. on the Festival website.

"Made Strange By Time"

It was a great delight earlier this week to at last get a copy of "Made Strange By Time", the first poetry collection by my friend and Catchword colleague Derek Healy. I've followed its genesis and maturation with great interest and it's lovely to have the finished product to read at leisure. As a reviewer comments, the poems demand repeated reading; there are subtle layers of meaning in seemingly simple lines, lines that owe much to Derek's deft use of the traditional poetic forms which he particularly favours.

I very much enjoy poems that evoke a strong sense of time and place, features that lead into the heart of the subject matter. A particular favourite of mine from Derek's collection is "Weston Beach" where "... our foursome / made its camp, between the pier and Lido / spilling tea and sandwiches in the sand"; the word sketch of his mother as "... stockings off and hoisted skirt / forgetting us she'd wander down the shore" to wade out "lost in some other world beyond my grasp" draws for me such a poignant picture of a 1950s mother. Similarly, "At The Pictures" conjures up so well the tortured memories of anxious adolescent longings, unfulfilled, regretted - "... if only we'd imagined being old / one day, passing each other in the street / as strangers would, without a glance".  But not all the poems look back on the writer's "... change / from boyhood to a grown up life".  The theme of time is carried forward into a sometimes perplexing present and an uncertain future. I find it a path well worth travelling, at times gently comic, sometimes surprising and always thought-provoking.

Available via the Matador website at £6.99

Poems from the heart

Phillippa Slinger introduces
the Speakeasy event

To mark International Women's Day, I visited the Speakeasy at the Left Bank Centre in Hereford today for a women's poetry celebration - and what a celebration. It was run under the auspices of the Ledbury Poetry Festival and saw an enthusiastic audience and some excellent readers. We are only too aware of the difficulty many women had in finding their voices in the past, and we were reminded of the sometimes greater difficult they had getting them heard once found. Look at the vast majority of older poetry anthologies for the evidence, where most woman writers were outnumbered at least ten to one by their male counterparts. But, whilst things may slowly be changing, so many women have still to find their voices today. Encouragement and safe spaces in which to do so remain vital but in the current financial climate many projects, including one of Ledbury Festival's own (the wonderful Women4Women group), are threatened. Given their potential to change lives, I'm convinced that they need fighting for every inch of the way.

Today's event opened with Maya Angelou's great poem "Still I rise" and then the floor was open to the young women of SHYPP, the Supported Housing for Young People Project. Their contributions, co-ordinated by their mentor Toni Cook, covered everything from the Suffragettes to what they'd say to their younger selves, from the realities of living in half way homes to dealing with estrangement from families. In July they'll be reading at the Ledbury Poetry Festival and their place in such an august line-up is richly deserved. SHYPP's mission is to "inspire homeless young people to dream more, learn more, do more and become more"; you can't doubt that poetry is helping these young women to do so.

Other contributions followed the SHYPP poems. One that particularly caught my attention was read by Lesley Ingrams; in addition to a very moving piece of her own, she read a poem by Meg Cox which appears in the "Me Too" anthology (Fair Acre Press) that's launched today. Inspired by the "Me Too" campaign, it has contributions from Pascale Petit, Kim Moore, Liz Lefroy and many other powerful writers wanting, as Emily Dickinson put it, to "tell the truth but tell it slant". I haven't yet managed to get a copy, though I've got one on order and I'm really looking forward to reading it.

Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus!

March 1st: St. David's Day and - officially - the first day of spring. But not one daffodil out in the garden, lambs shivering in the fields, heavy snow, strong winds and biting cold. It's also World Book Day, and it strikes me that indeed the best way to spend it is curled up with a pile of books and plenty of coffee (or something stronger later) in front of the fire.

The book I'm much enjoying at the moment is Helen Dunmore's "Inside The Wave", the final  collection of poetry she published before her death last year and the well deserved winner of the Costa prize. I've always liked her novels - "The Lie" has been a particular favourite - but I was not so familiar with her poetry. Much of it is intensely moving; the ending of her short piece "My life's stem was cut" (I know that I am dying / But why not keep flowering / As long as I can / From my cut stem?) almost reduced me to tears. It's a book well worth reading if you haven't done so.

Gladstone's Library

A couple of years ago I spent a morning at Gladstone's Library in Hawarden in Flintshire at a workshop with the poet Wendy Cope; it was such an atmospheric, inspiring environment that I promised myself a return visit to get to know it a little better. Last weekend I eventually got there - but I really need to go again, preferably for a week, to properly immerse myself in it!

The publicity material for the library describes it as "a unique institution - a residential library and meeting place dedicated to dialogue, debate and learning for open-minded individuals and groups who are looking to explore pressing questions and to pursue study and research in an age of distraction and easy solutions". The four times Victorian prime minister founded the library in 1895; on his death, public subscription paid for the amazing Grade 1 listed building that houses it and Gladstone's family later funded the addition of the residential wing which has now welcomed visitors from all over the world for the last hundred and twelve years. The library itself is free to use and there's a wide variety of courses each year covering everything from literature to theology, philosophy to languages, some running for just a day - or even an evening - others for a week. Many people use the facilities for private writing retreats too - they certainly lend themselves to that sort of activity.

I was there this last weekend for a course with the poet Judy Brown, advertised as a "playful masterclass"; it was certainly most enjoyable. Judy teaches and mentors for the Poetry School and the Poetry Society and was previously a writer-in-residence at the library. There were sixteen of us on the course and we benefited greatly from the one-to-ones on offer as well as the group sessions. Sadly, most of the other writing courses at the library later this year are already sold out - but I'm determined to get back before too long under some pretext (although "Greek in a Week" may not be quite my cup of tea!).

"Village Green Screen"

On Monday I went to the Segments poetry group in Hereford, one of the monthly sessions run by Sara Jane Arbury as part of the Ledbury Poetry Festival outreach service. It was held in the museum and art gallery, where we were working with Faye Claridge's very thought provoking "Village Green Screen" exhibition. From a Morris dancing family herself, Fay's promotional material describes it as "a place to explore the changing context for black face paint in traditional Border Morris" - something that in contemporary society raises deeply-felt issues for many people. For me a number of questions surfaced, mainly about the validity  and the value of tradition. Part of the exhibition was given over to what I can best describe as a huge spider diagram, outlining research into "blacking up" and current comments about the practice. One of the quotes in particular struck a chord - I have written on this in the past but may well be pursing it further now in the future in the light of my own changing perceptions -

Tuesday saw our monthly poetry group in Charlton Kings. A number of us have had personal issues which have affected our writing in recent weeks; once again I was very aware of the value of peer group support in the often tough world of lone endeavour. A group in which people can feel that both they and their work are understood and valued, in which they can be stimulated but not pressurised is invaluable. And it's a great pleasure to be able to celebrate each other's literary achievements - and good to be able to support and commiserate when things don't go so well (the inevitable rejections etc!). We're currently working on some more ekphrastic poems - building on work we did a couple of years ago at the Wilson Museum and Art Gallery that formed the basis of our "Poetry Amongst The Paintings" publication. Using another art form from which to create something new is an area which has interested me for a while. My enthusiasm was initially sparked by the American poet Tamar Yoseloff at a workshop at the Swindon Art Gallery, when a painting by Kyffin Williams prompted "Intrusion". Since then paintings - and to a lesser degree photographs - have been a regular source of inspiration.

Intrusion

The Dark Lake, Kyffin Williams

A winter morning numb with cold; 

we are interlopers in this barren land,

hushed by the echoes

of quarrymen's rough-shod feet

striking out on sunless paths 

of splintered slate.

Their absence haunts each cwm, each crag -

taunts our timorous footsteps 

as we trespass in their slag.

(Copyright Gill Garrett 2013, first published in "Separate Ways" Blue Gates Poets 2013)

"Deeds not words"

Mary Garrett, nee Morgan,
c. 1915

My paternal grandmother was 48 before the law of the land permitted her to cast her vote in a general election.That was in 1918, by which time she had been married for 27 years, given birth to nine children, sacrificed her oldest son to the First World War and her oldest daughter to the influenza pandemic, given decades of selfless service to her church and community. My maternal grandmother, similarly a model citizen but not of the property-owning class, would wait twelve further years before she could cast hers, at the age of 43. Both would be told by their husbands for whom they should vote.

Today, all over the country, the centenary of the Representation of the People Act 1918 is being celebrated and the women who fought so hard for their suffrage are being remembered and honoured. Last night I went to a talk given by Angela V. John, the historian and biographer, on Margaret, Lady Rhondda, a leading suffragette in my home town of Newport in South Wales in the early 20th century. Margaret was a courageous and determined woman - she was certainly an important one, but only one in the long line of courageous and determined women that stretches way back in time and place and still grows now, as women worldwide continue to struggle for true equality.

One historical figure who fascinates me is Olympe de Gouges, who preceded the suffragettes by a century. In revolutionary France - which, in many ways, especially with regard to gender, was very reactionary - she strove for women's freedom from the constraints and expectations of her time. She was a playwright, an abolitionist and the author of "Declaration des Droits des Femmes" (Declaration of the Rights of Women). Like her British sisters a hundred years later, she was fearless in the face of  censure and violence. Witnesses to her execution during the Reign of Terror in November 1793 spoke of the dignity with which she went out to meet her end.
 

Liberté, égalité, solidarité féminine?

They anticipate the thrill of death,

watch and wait in the chill

of this autumn evening.

Flares light their faces.

The walk is not far, nor unexpected,

for one who trod my path,

each step a stride toward

the égalité I sought.

They will allow no words.

My face must speak for my lips,

my composure declare

the verity of my cause,

my courage ignite their hearts.

Denied the right to mount the speaker's platform,

I have the right to mount this scaffold.

(Copyright Gill Garrett 2016)