"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)