NaNovWriMo starts very soon

...I am not joining in this year but looking forward to seeing my writing friends taking on the task; I will be cheering them on from the sidelines. 50,000 words in one month. What an epic challenge but I know many of them will succeed.

I am finishing my dissertation instead.  Once it is completed I can then tackle the two novels I have been neglecting for far too long. Also there is a completed poetry collection that needs to be sent out into the world. And a collaboration project with a very talented friend of mine that I am getting rushes of ideas for...

Lots of exciting writing ahead <geek>

my girl, my girl, where will you go?

Lanegan with Kurt singing backing vocals

Thistles by Ted Hughes

Against the rubber tongues of cows and the hoeing hands of men
Thistles spike the summer air
And crackle open under a blue-black pressure.

Every one a revengeful burst
Of resurrection, a grasped fistful
Of splintered weapons and Icelandic frost thrust up

From the underground stain of a decayed Viking.
They are like pale hair and the gutturals of dialects.
Every one manages a plume of blood.

Then they grow grey like men.
Mown down, it is a feud. Their sons appear
Stiff with weapons, fighting back over the same ground.

The Toll House, Avoncroft

So it goes...

pretty version, so pretty

playing with fire, I must have hit the replay button 10 times

First Aid Kit : Play with the Rolling Stones fire

Oh, but the fire went wild

beautiful voice

Natalie Merchant singing old poems back into life

Avoncroft Museum Poetry Trail

I have been involved with a project that has resulted in two of my poems being included in a poetry trail. All the poems are inspired by the historical buildings at the museum. The poets all went along and got ideas. It was the stable and the toll house that caught my gaze. It was an interesting starting point wandering through the empty buildings, strange having them grouped together as museum pieces; haunting and poignant.

Details about the trail HERE

Stargazing: NPD 2012

If you don't have an iphone
you cannot hold it up to the sky
so that it translates the mystery

of the constellations, but instead
you could learn them off by heart,
view them through iris and sharp

memory, not dependant upon
battery power just the cold night
air sucked deep into your lungs;

Ursa Major, Taurus, Andromeda,
Lupus, Sagittarius and Hydra.