Standing with Ukraine

Last week I sat in on a Victoria Field workshop entitled Life's Alive!, looking at the dichotomy of the coming of spring at a time of such international turmoil. She spoke of the Seamus Heaney quote - "No lyric has ever stopped a tank" - but reminded us of the tremendous power poetry has to make us more fully ourselves, to prompt us to think, to question, to learn.

After the workshop I started to read some of the writings of Ilya Kaminsky, the deaf Ukrainian poet who now lives and writes in the States. He was a co-founder of Poets for Peace and his work has been a revelation to me. If you haven't read his poems - Gunshot, In a Time of Peace, so many more - do look them up now. They have so much to say to us.

And if you're free and in the area on Saturday, poets and musicians in Ledbury will be holding an all day event in The Barrett Browning Institute to raise money for the Disasters Emergency Committee Fund. I'm already committed to our own event here in Monmouth, but the Ledbury one features a Drop In Art Workshop, a Poetry Clinic, an open mic and a live performance evening. Here's to raising awareness and as much as we all can for such desperately needed assistance for millions of refugees.

A loss and a launch

 

                                                                                                         

Looking through a cupboard this morning I came across some of my children's books from thirty odd years ago - and amongst them was "Out And About" by the great Shirley Hughes, who died yesterday. She must have proved the introduction to reading for thousands and thousands of children. Her beautiful illustrations and wonderful stories captivated my two; she had tremendous talent and such an understanding of the young mind. Today is World Book Day and all over the world, in schools, libraries, bookshops and supermarkets, on YouTube and so many other platforms the aim is to involve today's youngsters, to "change lives through a love of books and shared reading". Shirley Hughes made a huge contribution to doing just that for so many in her time. 

When I lived in Cheltenham for many years, I often had the pleasure of hearing the local poet Alison Brackenbury read. But the reading I heard her give last night at the launch of her new collection "Thorpeness" (Carcanet) was stunning. Her poems ranged over time and place; they encompassed her grandmother's recipe book ("custard seas in which all puddings swam"), finding the shattered remains of willow pattern pottery ("smudged lovers soar unbroken"), the location she'd always wanted to visit but never reached (where "three swallows snatch a gust, a breath"). Fellow Cheltenham poet David Clarke interviewed her after the reading and it was fascinating to hear her speak about her method of working, about how important rhyme and meter are to her, about her admiration for young poets. Of all the sessions on Zoom I've attended in the last two years, yesterday evening's was head and shoulders above the rest.

And still on poetry - I've just booked a place on the Laureate's Library Tour, running over the week at the end of the month that includes World Poetry Day (March 21st), It's part of Simon Armitage's ten year project to read in UK libraries - he's approaching it alphabetically, so this time it's C - D towns and cities! There are sessions in England, Scotland and Wales (the Welsh one in Carmarthen, with the National Poet of Wales, Ifor ap Glyn, which I'm really looking forward to). The sessions are all free on line, and in person in some places. If you aren't aware of them, do look them up, they promise to be well worth attending. As the Director General of UNESCO wrote for World Poetry Day a year ago, poetry has "the power to shake us from everyday life and the power to remind us of the beauty that surrounds us and the resilience of the human spirit" - certainly words for our troubled world just now.

Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus!

Given that Wordsworth was visiting Whitestone in July 1798, he may well not have seen these daffodils trembling in a very chilly breeze as we did this morning! But we were on the Wordsworth Walk near Llandogo where he penned his famous "Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey", that great celebration of nature and its ability to calm the soul (and don't we all need some of that at the moment?). The walk up to the Cleddon Falls has been a favourite of mine for decades now and each year I look out for the three clumps of daffodils just below the viewpoint at the top of the track. And today, for St. David's Day, they seemed especially appropriate.

Works and a workshop

Quite a gap since the last post, with life a little out of hand! But after weeks of noise and disruption with work being done on our house, normality has slowly returned. I really wish that I had some people's ability to work through whatever chaos they find themselves in; I find writing well nigh impossible with a lot going on around me. I don't work well in coffee shops or wherever either, so it's an enormous relief to be back in the peace and quiet of my writing room, catching up and moving forwards with the current projects.

On Monday evening I sat in on a great workshop run by the author Poppy O'Neill on cultivating a compassionate inner voice. As writers I think many of us have not infrequent tussles with our inner critics, and fall prey to "imposter syndrome" every now and again, regardless of the objective successes we may have achieved. Poppy, who has written extensively on this, came up with some very useful strategies and in a very engaging manner. An interesting evening.

New Year, resurrected project

Winter evening and morning skies - my saving grace at this time of year. I'm not in the least a winter person but the fantastic skies we get on clear days cheer me no end. On Friday morning I was visiting a local seaside, doing some research for a particular project; the sea was pounding at the promenade walls. hail was coming down almost horizontally, the dog (coming along for the walk) was like a drowned rat. But by the time I drove home in the evening ...

Another positive last week was the long-awaited publication of the 1921 Census. A biography begun a couple of years ago had to go on the back burner when everything shut down during lockdown - all the archives I needed to visit closed their doors, it wasn't possible to visit people to interview them. Slowly over the last few months those problems have eased but quite a bit of information was still lacking or unauthenticated; the Census has certainly opened more doors there. So it's full steam ahead with that now. In other areas of my life I'm not one for resolutions but it's good to start the New Year with a clear focus on the writing at least! 

Nadolig Llawen i chi!

From a wet and windy South Wales on a Christmas Eve afternoon, I wish you all Nadolig Llawen, a Happy Christmas  - wherever you are, whatever you may be doing over the festive period. It's been another year of problems and uncertainty for so many of us, but perhaps there's a glimmer of hope now that 2022 could see a less stressful, happier and healthier path ahead. 

Back on track

Radio silence for a month further to Covid, I'm afraid. But how thankful I am that both my husband and I were fully vaccinated and escaped lightly. I've been left with some lingering after effects but overall we're both back in the land of the living and have much for which to be grateful. Needless to say, I'm way behind with projects and deadlines, but it's a case of "make haste slowly" at the moment I think

Last week saw the publication of Cheltenham Poetry Society's latest anthology "Inspired By Music" (Eithon Bridge Publications) in which I'm delighted to have three poems. There are contributions from seventeen poets and the anthology has had a couple of excellent reviews, one of which describes it as "an eclectic mixtape from a friend. Tosca gives way to Tool, Mahler to Mama Cass, each track taking you by surprise, stirring memory with a little bit of magic ..." (Oz Hardwick, Professor of English, Leeds Trinity). I always enjoy being involved in joint projects and, with poetry and music having so much in common, this was a fascinating one to take part in.