National Short Story Week

"The Wish Dog and Other Stories takes you into the realm of the unknown, the ghostly and the gothic, in a colourful kaleidoscope of half-glimpsed shades" said the blurb; not my usual sort of bedtime reading but, with a story in it by Rona Laycock, my mentor and colleague in Catchword, I thought I'd give it a try in National Short Story Week. And, with some from historical perspectives, some sharply contemporary, a really good read the stories have proved to be.

Published by Honno Press 2014

I've always liked short stories and they fit well into my time-limited lifestyle  - compact tales that slot in to a bus journey or a coffee break, take you into a different world for ten minutes but leave that world embedded in your own for you to think about and enjoy during the rest of your day too. But I certainly haven't found them the easy option to write! To create enjoyable, credible scenarios with rounded, 3D characters within a tight word limit is a challenge; knowing where to start and where to stop, allowing the reader to fill in the backstory, the sequel - skills that take a fledgling writer time and practice to perfect!

Sunday Afternoon Tea and Tales

What better way to spend a damp and dismal November afternoon than in a warm and cosy teashop listening to an expert story teller and a great poet over a hot drink and a piece of ginger cake or a scone loaded with cream and jam? That's how I spent yesterday afternoon, at The Burrow Cafe in Sheep Street in Stow on the Wold. Nicholas John regaled us with tales on such unlikely topics as bored elderly gentlemen and recalcitrant recycling and Derek Healey read poems on everything from first love to cricket and fishing. A thoroughly enjoyable afternoon. Next month sees Chloe the Midnight Storyteller entertaining customers with her "adult tales" (sounds promising!) - make a date in your diary for Sunday December 14th at 3pm if you're free to come to hear her.

Remembrance

"In Flanders fields the poppies blow ..." John McCrae

Much discussion this week about the nature of "remembrance" - a lot of it centering on the ceramic poppies at the Tower of London. Are they a fitting memorial to a generation of "glorious dead" or simply a sanitized, sentimental representation of the British losses in a conflict that started a century ago, a conflict that would be better recalled with graphic images of the horror of those four long years? Do they downplay the universal nature of loss and suffering, ignoring the millions from other nations who died both as combatants and civilians?  Views are strongly held on both sides of the debate.

On Friday evening (November 14th) at DeepSpace in Charlton Kings here in Cheltenham poetry will be read and performed by a variety of local poets looking at all angles of remembrance and at the reality of wars past and present. Led by Jennie Farley, Eley Furrell and David Clarke, it should be a thought-provoking evening. I shall be reading the wonderful poem written by the American Sara Teasdale in 1917, "There Will Come Soft Rains"; to me it expresses a salutary truth which we would all do well to ponder.

"There Will Come Soft Rains"

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows calling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild-plum trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

Sara Teasdale

If you are free on Friday evening, do please join us. We'd love to see you there.

The Art In The Everyday

Life has been rather fraught lately with extensive family commitments, but earlier in the week I managed to get to an evening workshop run by the Irish poet C. L. Dallat on "The Art In The Everyday". He spoke about using the minutiae of our every day lives - the things and people on our street, the remains of a meal on the table - as a basis for our poems. Definite food for thought there, as life at present seems nothing but minutiae!

Black Night Dylan

   

It seems that the whole world has been celebrating the centenary of Dylan Thomas' birth this week - and this evening sees our own celebration here in Cheltenham, at the Black Night Dylan event at the Playhouse Theatre, beginning at 19.45. Arranged by Anna Saunders, the Director of the Cheltenham Poetry Festival, we have a great line up of poets, some local (such as Angela France and David Clarke), others from further afield (such as Fay Roberts and Charlie Baxter); all will be reading some of Dylan's poetry, some of their own.

No doubt we shall hear many of the most famous lines ("Do not go gentle...", "It was my thirtieth year to heaven ...") but I shall be reading one of my favourite, though undoubtedly less known, children's poems by the great man - "Song of the Mischievous Dog". Do look it up if you don't know it; I always imagine Dylan walking his dog Mably along the beach at Laugharne reciting it to the amusement of his children - it always amuses me! 

Do join us if you're free and in the area - it promises to be a great night.

"Let Us Remember"

There's still time to get your tickets! If you're free on Thursday or Friday evening this week, do join us for the Charlton Kings Community Players production "Let Us Remember", at St. Edwards Performance Hall in Cheltenham - it's a revue featuring poetry and prose, songs and images from the Great War. I'm delighted to be part of the tremendously enthusiastic team engaged in the venture, reading a dramatised account of the part my uncle played in the decoy ships campaign against U boats on the Western Approaches, leading to his death in action in 1917, aged just 21.

This evening sees our dress rehearsal, but here's a sneak preview - some photos taken yesterday evening at the technical. I'm sure you'll find it an interesting- and a moving - evening if you can make it; we'd love to see you there.

 

Keeping the home fires burning ...

Burlington Bertie, aka Vesta Tilley

"We don't want to lose you but we think you ought to go .."

The army dog handler and a VAD

Waiting for the "Wipers Times"

A Joint Effort

I always enjoy taking part in a group project, everyone working towards a common aim but bringing to the venture their individual interests and skills, their different perspectives. Earlier this year the members of Picaresque, my poetry group, visited Cheltenham Museum and Art Gallery; we each selected two items on display as inspiration to write poems. Yesterday morning we met to share the results of the exercise - and what an interesting morning it proved to be.

Several people had chosen paintings or photographs from a visiting exhibition, others had chosen objects - in my case, medieval floor tiles from Hailes Abbey, a Cisterian foundation a few miles outside the town, now in the care of English Heritage. All of the poems were extremely powerful and I found it a revelation to see works of art growing out of other works of art; all in all a fascinating exercise.

 

Ora pro nobis

The coldest hour of the night;

guttering candlelight sidles

Selection of decorated floor tiles

in beneath the yawning arches

as sightless saints gaze down

upon our cowled file,

sentinels to the litany of intercession

prayed with our sandalled feet.

Richard, Earl of Cornwall

Beatrice of Falkenberg

Sanchia of Provence.

Immortalised in fired clay

in footworn shields and coats of arms,

compass to our shuffling steps

(our eyes cast down, obedient to the Rule),

they guide from cell to sanctuary and shrine

to sing the office in their name.

de Warenne

de Peveril

de Ferrers

Polished by pilgrim's knees

in urgent supplication,

smoothed by prostrate penitents

craving absolution -

these symbols with which

the rich bought back their souls

perpetuate their claim

upon our cloistered lives.

Miserere mei, Deus,

secundum magnam misericordiam tuam.*

*“Have mercy upon me, O God, after thy great goodness” - the opening verse from the night office of Matins.

(Copyright Gill Garrett 2014)