Waiting expectantly

The odd day of lovely sunshine, then back to the cold and damp of recent weeks! How halting spring's arrival can sometimes be. It certainly was twenty-seven years ago as I awaited my son's birth; we were anxious that his arrival might be as accelerated as the early spring of that year, with consequent difficulties. Fortunately, in the event, those were minimal.

Southmead Hospital, 1987

A mild month fools the shoots,

precipitates premature birthing of buds and blossom,

too-soon deliveries from that dark winter warmth

that incubates nature's new arrivals;

late frosts may sever

the tenuous hold of fragile flowers

unwisely crowning in deceptive sun.

Swaddled safe against such fickle weather,

delay your debut until spring has truly come.

(copyright Gill Garrett 2014)

Daffodils and a death

Last week it was snowdrops - today it's daffodils in flower despite the dreadful winds and teeming rain. A Welshman through and through, my father was always very upset if we didn't have daffodils out in the garden by Dewi Sant (St. David's Day, March 1st); well, ours aren't that far advanced as yet but seeing a whole clump of them in full bloom in a border in Shurdington this morning just made my day.

But yesterday I heard the news of the death of another Welshman, Nigel Jenkins, the acclaimed poet, author and academic who I was privileged to be tutored by on a course at Ty Newydd eighteen months ago. Quite apart from his literary talents - and his wonderful voice (listen to his reading of his poem "Creation" on You Tube!) - he was a lovely, funny, generous person. On our course he led a walk up Tre'r Ceiri, the Iron Age hill fort at the top of the Llyn Peninsula; the weather was typical of  North Wales in August with bursts of rain and mist swirling all around us, but it was the most incredibly atmospheric walk you could imagine. I shall always remember him sitting on his haunches as he ate his picnic, back to what remained of the wall of a 2000 year old homestead, admonishing us to look at and to really feel our surroundings - it engendered some very powerful writing. Thank you for all your encouragement, Nigel, may you rest in peace.

In haste

Far from being a "filler", my poems on postcards project appears to make up the bulk of my writing at present! Just now, for me, is one of those times when life bites your bum and nothing constructive gets done.  The harder I try to fit everything into my day, the more spills over into tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow ..... so a few lines or a mini-saga are about the limit writing-wise.

St. Therese of Lisieux

 

A caged bird, cloistered

with your flock of sisters,

your only flight path

soaring plainsong

on a vapour trail of incense.

France and florists I can understand - 

but the patron saint

of aviators? 


(Copyright Gill Garrett 2014)

Springtime - almost!

Having written last time about a bookshop called "Snowdrop" - I've now seen my first actual snowdrop of the year, which has cheered me considerably! I know that we really shouldn't complain when the poor folk of Somerset are still inundated with flood water and in a really bad way, but the endless rain of recent weeks has been so depressing that even a hint of spring makes the spirit soar.

And this year there's so much to look forward to in the spring - almost wall to wall poetry to start with. The Cheltenham Poetry Festival runs from March 28th to April 6th. but there will be a preview weekend preceeding it at which Picaresque will be performing on March 22nd - we're preparing for that at the moment and I'm also putting together a poetry appreciation presentation to give at five elderly care facilities over the festival period as part of an outreach programme. The week running up to Easter sees a four day poetry course run by Kim Moore in Cumbria and the weekend after Easter is the Much Wenlock Poetry Festival in Shropshire - always a great weekend.

But I must mention a fantastic evening last week - advertised as "A gothic fairytale for a winter night". Jennie Farley gave a superb reading of her verse narrative "Shadow Play" at Deepspace Arts Centre in Charlton Kings complete with sound effects and shadow puppets. The weather outside was foul but it was more than worth braving it to enter into the nursery world she so convincingly (and chillingly!) created.

Poems on postcards

There is a wonderful shop in Worcester, "Snowdrop Books", which sells second hand books and also cards in aid of St. Richards Hospice. I spent a happy hour browsing there last week and bought a whole selection of postcards, with illustrations that vary from the creatures in Beatrix Potter stories to a French illuminated manuscript - not to send to anybody or to decorate my walls, but to write poems on!

When I've got a big piece of work underway it's sometimes nice to "turn off" for a while and just write a few lines or a paragraph or two of something different. I find the correspondence space on the back of a postcard ideal for a mini-saga or a short poem inspired by the picture. I was quite moved by one of the cards I bought last week -  of a marriage quilt worked by a young woman in Allendale in 1860 and now on display at The Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle. The following lines, hopefully written in the style of the time, fit neatly on the back of it.

         Marriage Quilt

        She stitched in youthful love and hope,

        then brought it, the dutiful wife,

        to the conjugal bed they shared throughout

        their fifty year married life.

        It felt the weight of shawl and shroud,

        it knew sickness, passion, pain;

        now gently it covers her still, silent form

        as she takes leave of her home once again.

(Copyright Gill Garrett 2014)

 

The Dymock Poets - plus one?

Living less than twenty miles from Dymock, I have long been an admirer of the six poets who bear the name of that pretty Gloucestershire village, and I'm a member of the Friends of the Dymock Poets (which exists to keep alive their memory and their work). This year sees their centenary - it is a hundred years since that brief but intense period of creativity blossomed and flourished with such superb results.

The Dymock Poets were not always six in number however. The name was first given to four of the poets - Lascelles Abercrombie, Wilfred Gibson, Robert Frost and Edward Thomas - in the 1930s. John Drinkwater and Rupert Brooke were added in the 1950s by the then vicar of Dymock, an enthusiastic local historian. And now it's been proposed that another poet should be added - Eleanor Farjeon.

If you don't know about Eleanor Farjeon - or perhaps only that she wrote "Morning Has Broken" and many plays, stories and poems for children - do look her up and read some of her work. Perhaps her well known friendship with Edward Thomas, to whom she was devoted, has obscured her own achievements. She was an established, published poet before she met the Dymock friends, was a faithful chronicler of some of their meetings and wrote extensively throughout her life.

In the past could it be that her gender stood in the way of her acceptance as a Dymock Poet? I have a strong feeling that that might have been the case; in the forthcoming ballot of Friends to decide the issue, I shall certainly be voting for her adoption.

Clearing the decks!

New Year's Eve. I looked around the study this morning and despaired at the number of folders, notebooks etc. with scribbles of this and that, photos I always meant to use, half-written poems and unfinished stories. All still there though so haphazardly filed (well - abandoned!) it would take a month of Sundays to locate any one item should I need to.

But taking a fresh look at things begun months, if not years, ago has resurrected my interest in some of the projects; others have the potential for a bit of recycling at least (prose that could mutate into verse etc). So it's been a morning for clearing the decks, sorting and putting in order. Needless to say things always look worse before they get better and I'm still knee deep in piles of paper, but by tomorrow I'm hoping January will start with a tidy study and well catalogued folders to spur on the writing year!

A long abandoned child's bike photographed last summer
- there has to be a story in it!