Readings and Records

It was a really good evening at Smokey Joes on Wednesday at Poetry Cafe Refreshed. Jennie Farley read beautifully from her collection "My Grandmother Skating". Her poems are alive with lovers and wolves, cousins and monkeys, riding in horse-drawn carriages, seeking sanctuary in churches, playing with peg dolls in allotments - closely drawn characters in richly imagined landscapes as disparate as pre-revolutionary Russia and the family home territory of Lincolnshire. But I particularly enjoyed a preview of her new "gymslip" poems about her boarding school days; I look forward to hearing, and eventually reading, many more of those.

Jennie Farley

Then yesterday morning saw a group of us examining material from the Gloucester archives - a fascinating exercise. The documents (including court records, school logbooks, county asylum admission registers) are invaluable resources for historians, of course - but have so much potential for creative writers too. In the prison and asylum records from the early Victorian period - the days before photography and the "mug shots" with which we're all familiar - physical descriptions were carefully noted down. These added "flesh" to the names - the Josiahs and Felicias, the Malachis and the Emmelines - and a small leap of the imagination took you into their worlds of truanting, petty theft, acute mania or "moral danger". Rich pickings indeed for poets and story-tellers!

World Poetry Day

Happy World Poetry Day! Irina Bokova, the Director General of UNESCO, which nominated March 21st for the annual celebration back in 1999, writes that "Poetry is a window into the breath-taking diversity of humanity". Certainly every culture on the planet has its poetic tradition and practice, oral or written. Sadly, in Britain we seem to be less concerned with poetry in our everyday lives today than were our predecessors; perhaps days like today, appropriately acknowledged in the media, in our schools and community centres could go some way towards redressing this?

A small step yesterday was Radio 4's broadcasts of short poems at intervals throughout the day to celebrate the spring equinox. Perhaps someone turning on the news caught a few lines that made them think - maybe Philip Larkin's "The recent buds relax and spread / their greenness in a kind of grief" or Alice Oswald's "Birch, oak, rowan,ash / Chinese-whispering the change". You can hear all of the poems there were broadcast at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3yfnHlQT7vscVl7N2Zl9nYm/four-seasons-poetry-for-the-spring-equinox

And tomorrow evening at Smokey Joes in Bennington Street here in Cheltenham, Jennie Farley will be the guest poet at Poetry Cafe Refreshed. A really atmospheric venue and the promise of some great poems - 7pm if you can make it. Come and celebrate poetry with us!

"Can I believe there is a heavenlier world
than this?" Charlotte Mew

International Women's Day 2017

Yesterday saw women unite worldwide for International Women's Day. In many places this was to protest, to strike - against economic inequality, domestic violence, withholding of reproductive rights and so many more gender-based issues - but it was also to celebrate female achievement in all spheres of life. Events great and small brought women together and to the fore - in Italy they were given free access to all museums and cultural sites showcasing art by and about women; on a more local level, here in Cheltenham women gave a celebratory poetry reading at the University of Gloucestershire.

I was very struck by a quote from Malala Yousafzai: "I raise up my voice - not so I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard .. we cannot succeed when half of us are held back." It seems to me that women writers have a particular responsibility here, to use their skills and opportunities to bring out those voices that will not otherwise be heard. We may think that it's hard enough sometimes in countries that do boast "equality" to get our own voices acknowledged (even if they are heard!), but finding ways to help others speak, to raise their profile too, is surely a duty we should be only too pleased and ready to shoulder.

 

Poems and stories

A thoroughly enjoyable evening at Buzzwords on Sunday with the poet and writer Maggie Butt reading and running a short workshop. I was especially taken with some of her poems about the "enemy aliens" imprisoned in Alexandra Palace during the First World War - and amused by some from "Sancti Clandestini - Undercover Saints". I can't say I've ever given much thought before to the patron saints of ugly towns or careless cyclists!

And it was lovely to see so many schools celebrating World Book Day last week, with lots of children going to school dressed as characters from their favourite books. I think I was so fortunate in having a childhood steeped in stories, a bookcase groaning under the weight of children's classics and a well-stocked local library to visit every Saturday afternoon. I still have many of the books from my childhood, read to my children in turn - and held on to perhaps for their children too! Fashions may have changed a bit in content, but many stories are timeless and still give as much pleasure now as they did decades ago - Wind in the Willows, the Beatrix Potter books, the Tolkien sagas (the latter given a tremendous boost of course by the film versions). With the breadth of the curriculum required of them now, some schools seem to find little time to encourage reading for pleasure, which is such a tragedy. I feel that we really impoverish children's lives if that opportunity is lost.

Welsh voices

An early celebration for Dydd Dewi Sant (St. David's Day)! New Bohemians on Friday saw a very pleasant evening with appropriate poetry, a couple of musical interludes, wine, Welsh cakes and bara brith, and a rousing rendition of  Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau. Sharon Larkin Jones was headlining the event, with Adam McGee from Swansea and ex-pats Vicki Hampton and Aled Thomas adding their lyrical voices before the interval; afterwards the open mic continued the Welsh theme. If only Wales had done as well against Scotland at Murrayfield yesterday ...

l to r : Adam McGee, Vicki Hampton,
 Aled Thomas, Sharon Larkin Jones

Surveying the scene

Out with the dog on a local hill this afternoon we followed a slightly different track from that which we normally take and stumbled on a lovely walk, quite new to us despite having lived very close to it for 22 years. What really struck me as we explored the path in some welcome February sunshine was the different slant we then had on a very familiar view out over the Severn valley - and that started me thinking about revising manuscripts, about looking at a familiar piece of work from a different standpoint, getting another perspective on it.

Because revising is what I am now into, having at last finished the first draft of the family chronicles! I actually finished ten days ago but put it aside to have a bit of breathing space before launching into the next phase. Several of the early chapters were written some eighteen months ago and, in the light of how later ones have developed, need some reworking. I can't remember who it was who said "Life can only be understood backwards - the problem is that it has to be lived forwards." For me, though, the same often holds true for a concerted piece of writing - it's only on its completion that the overall picture comes into perspective, that the shape and feel of it become apparent and I can get a proper grip on it! So I'm striking out along that different path now ...

Telling stories

A few years ago I spent many months working with older people in nursing homes and community settings to help them put together their life stories; some chose to do it pictorially, others in written form. It was a fascinating and a humbling experience, to be taken into the confidence of people as they re-lived their lives, the good and the bad days, the happy and far from it.

Sandra and Tony Jeans from the Charlton Kings Community Players have used similar material collected from older people living in Cheltenham to put together a play currently running at St. Edwards School Performance Hall and for which I'm doing Front of House. "Some Sunny Day" is based on the lived and recounted experience of many people from the years around the Second World War, and covers both the everyday occurrences and the outstanding moments. With songs from the war years to join in with and an extensive exhibition of memorabilia to browse, audiences have thoroughly enjoyed the production, the proceeds from which are all going towards two local charities, the Great Western Air Ambulance and Severn Freewheelers.

How important it is that people have the opportunity to tell their stories - and how important it is that these are recorded. There is so much that is extraordinary in ordinary lives - and what a tragedy if that is lost to future generations. I'm hoping to resume work with older people in care settings later this year - and I know that I'll get as much from hearing and writing their stories as they will from telling them.