On the sixth day of Christmas...

I was asked to join in with the Droitwich Arts Network Advent Calendar and it seemed like a great idea. 24 pieces of art are to be displayed throughout Droitwich in various places, like shop windows or the church. 

A number sheet will be attached to the front, and the work itself will be hidden. On the day of December corresponding to the number, the work of art will be revealed and displayed until after Christmas. 

I was pleased because the place I had been allocated was a shop called Jewels, which happens to be run by a very dear friend of mine; Laurie Terry. 

This made it feel even more special, to be producing something for her window display, because her shop is full of stunning gifts and items of jewellery. Every time I go in to buy a gift for someone I end up buying things for myself...there are just too many cool and kooky things inside!

Jewels can be found at 33 High Street Droitwich, WR9 8EJ: you can see my advent calendar box in the window right now, but it won't be open until the 6th...and if you don't live anywhere near Droitwich, well don't worry because there are some pictures below!

   












The Droitwich Arts Network exists to advocate and champion the arts and crafts in Droitwich Spa and to act as a collective voice for the arts.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Two poems in blue...

Halfway Between Sadness and Distress & Iglu

Zoe Murdoch Dead Magpie Blues, 2013

From Abridged Online 'This issue encourages the consideration of the vital connotations of the concept of ‘blue’ to the human condition and the individual’s contemplation of place, purpose, self and essence. The strong association of the colour blue with the natural (the sea and sky), the broken (melancholy) and the forbidden (pornography) have led to said colour concurrently evoking ideas of apparent wholesomeness, failure and seedy delinquency. Blue runs underneath us and domes above us; it is what bore us and what we aspire through imagination to return to: another dimension, another means of perceiving, breathing, moving, experiencing… It is the colour of the most subtle moods of pain, not burning with the disarming immediacy of horror or despair but throbbing in mellow multiplicity and tonal diversity, slowly moving through the depths of reflection. Blue dances with dappled light, altering perception and renewing reflection. In creative discourses we take it from outside us and hold it as our own, making our subtle moods of humanity material by weaving them through its soft, swelling diversity. Blue was our home, to blue we long to return. We wish to wallow in its mellow discontent hoping for a return to the good old days. Days that never did or could have existed: days that define us.'

Peace between all nations...

Anthem for Doomed Youth

By Wilfred Owen


What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
      Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
      Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,
      Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
      And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
      Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
      The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

George Stinney Jr

He was too small to lift the murder weapon.

Josh Aiken performs George Stinney in Edison Theatre in Washington University in St. Louis at the 2012 Poetry Grand Slam.










Lawyers seek new trial for 14-year-old South Carolina boy executed in 1944.



'The request for a new trial points out that at 95 pounds, Stinney likely couldn't have killed the girls and dragged them to the ditch.

The motion also hints at community rumors of a deathbed confession from a white man several years ago and the possibility Stinney either confessed because his family was threatened or he was given ice cream. But the court papers provide little information and the lawyers also wouldn't elaborate.

At 14, Stinney was the youngest person executed in this country in the past 100 years, according to statistics gathered by the Death Penalty Information Center.

Newspaper stories from his execution had witnesses saying the straps to keep him in the electric chair didn't fit around his small frame and an electrode was too big for his leg.''

(Wikipedia)  George Junius Stinney, Jr., (October 21, 1929 – June 16, 1944) was, at age 14, the youngest person executed in the United States in the 20th century.

Stinney was convicted of murdering two pre-teen girls after police said he confessed to the murders. But the question of Stinney's guilt, the validity of his alleged confession, and the judicial process leading to his execution have been criticized as "suspicious at best and a miscarriage of justice at worst" and as an example of the many injustices African-Americans suffered in courtrooms in the United States in the first half of the 20th century.

One Love, One Heart

Let's get together and feel all right...

Poets reading their poems...

The Forward prize tried to add glamour or celebrity by bringing in actors to read the poems. As if the poets, lacking in a Rada training course, could not inject the right meaning or excitement to their own words. Don't get me wrong, I love listening to actors read, or rather act, out lines that other people have written.

But there is something very interesting and intimate hearing the inflection the poet chooses to put into their own words, the pauses, the emphasis on certain words I might have skimmed when reading it on a page. Plus, the pleasure of their personal accent, tone, personality that then becomes attached to the poem when I read it in the future and still hear the poet's voice in my head.

Elizabethan purse

Frog purse, courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

getting ready for National Poetry Day tomorrow...

By John William Waterhouse

I am going to be doing poetry activities with the children at the local school tomorrow. The theme is 'Water' so I have had an enjoyable day today reading different poetry anthologies and wallowing in various water themed poems, collecting some together to read with the children. For the reception class I have made the top half of a mermaid and I am going to get them to help me make her scales and write words on that they think describes life under the sea.

The Mermaid

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

I.

Who would be
A mermaid fair,
Singing alone,
Combing her hair
Under the sea,
In a golden curl
With a comb of pearl,
On a throne?

Season 4 GOT: I want Arya to get her assassin face on...

Arya's theme music in my mind...

Use the coin, kill all your enemies
(don't kill the Hound though, I like him!)

Sagrad: Grimes

love love love this music

I love my rejection slips. They show me I try.

Young boy in Baltimore slum area, July 1938

Original Photograph by John Vachon
Colorized by Jay (photojacker on Reddit) | Photo Chopshop on Facebook

Honor the Treaties

design by Shepard Fairey

'Honor the Treaties is an organization dedicated to amplifying the voices of Indigenous communities through art and advocacy. We do that by funding collaborations between Native artists and Native advocacy groups so that their messages can reach a wider audience'

Natalie Merchant: incredible TED talk

TED talks are always interesting and inspiring...but this one was haunting and beautiful. Natalie Merchant sings old poems back to life. Her voice has a wonderful, dangerous edge. Like a beautiful, sharp, ornate dagger.You could hold it in your hand and marvel at the silver beauty of it but if you slip it will cut you.

'Natalie Merchant sings from her new album, Leave Your Sleep. Lyrics from near-forgotten 19th-century poetry pair with her unmistakable voice for a performance that brought the TED audience to its feet.'


I especially like how she sings the Sleepy Giant. Her voice transforms the words and imbues it with a different meaning to me, something regretful about past love affairs and it is deeply sensual.  

 The Sleepy Giant

Charles E. Carryl (1841 – 1920)


My age is three hundred and seventy-two,
And I think, with the deepest regret,
How I used to pick up and voraciously chew
The dear little boys whom I met.

I’ve eaten them raw, in their holiday suits;
I’ve eaten them curried with rice;
I’ve eaten them baked, in their jackets and boots,
And found them exceedingly nice.

But now that my jaws are too weak for such fare,
I think it exceedingly rude
To do such a thing, when I’m quite well aware
Little boys do not like to be chewed.

And so I contentedly live upon eels,
And try to do nothing amiss,
And I pass all the time I can spare from my meals
In innocent slumber—like this.

Antique shop cat

I love antique shops, especially ones that are overflowing with things. Piles of maps, pyramids of old china and glassware. Dust and corners where people can't quite reach and the items lie undisturbed. I really like vintage photographs although I find them emotional to look at. All those once loved faces, long dead and forgotten and not cherished in a family album but stacked in a shop of curios. Their names are sometimes written on the back but mostly they are anonymous.

Whilst I was at Much Wenlock poetry festival this year I spent a happy half an hour looking at a rack of photographs. I wanted to buy quite a few but I resisted as I collect too much clutter and I had just had a clearout before I left. However, this small picture (it is the size of a large stamp) could not be left behind.

Photographs were expensive but someone bothered to take a picture of this little cat. I imagine it is marmalade and white and it doesn't look very old. It is watching something/someone. I have been carrying it around in my wallet every since and look at it sometimes imagining the person who owned the cat. Was it a child playing with the camera or an adult who loved their cat? A test shot? It's not a great picture; the cat blends into the lawn and bushes but it is still there, cheating time and death, a surviving image of a long lost cat.

Jenny Hope: Poet

Read her poems here...

Poetry at Ledbury!

I have been enjoying the sunshine so much. After eleven months of gloom and grey skies this is a wonderful change. It has been an incredibly busy month for me. I have completed my MA, finished a PTLLS course, had a dear friend to stay from abroad and gone to Ledbury poetry festival. For a poem obsessed person having the festival on my doorstep has been a luxury.

I helped MC the Writing Squad event, run by Writing West Midlands, at Ledbury poetry festival. I have been a volunteer writer/helper on the squad for the last five months. It's a writing course for 8-11 years run by the poet Jenny Hope. We meet at the Hive once a month and it is lots of fun. My daughter, Pamela read a poem at the event so I was very proud of her. The children were so talented it was a pleasure to see their enthusiasm for poetry.

Then I helped on  the poetry take-away stall. It was run by the poet Tim Clare and he handled a difficult customer with flair and diplomacy, which resulted in a brilliant poem. There was another fine poet called Dave Reeves (Radio Wildfire) also writing poems to order with me. It was fun. Some really unusual poems were requested and I enjoyed the thrill of quick thinking and aiming to please my customer.

After that I went to hear the American poet C.D Wright read. The poems left me quite speechless; they were so good. This is what I love about poetry, hearing a voice I have not heard before and words that thrill me. The poems were written with a fierce, intelligent wit and were saturated in the voice and vivid landscape of her home, Arkansas.I brought the book 'One With Others' and now my life has mellowed out I plan to enjoy reading it in the garden.

Finally I performed as part of the Vaginellas. It was a joint event with the Decadent Divas, who are an awesome group of poets from Birmingham. Over a year ago I read at an open mic event in Kidderminster and after, I was drinking with some of the poets, Jenny Hope, Catherine Crosswell and Sarah James and we were talking about different forms like the villanelle. However someone described it as a vaginelle instead and we all thought it was an excellent slip of the tongue. After, we all emailed each other some tongue in cheek villanelles with vagina themes, just to make each other laugh. This turned into a blog and then a reading for Worcester Literary Festival; the Vaginellas first performance got some very good reviews so I pitched it to Ledbury and we were booked for the Thursday night, after the cider event which boded well for the audience liking our slightly smutty versions of classical forms.

It was a very hot evening and Ledbury looked beautiful. The Divas arrived from Brum, looking radiant and ready for action. The Vaginellas went on first and any worries it may not have a large audience were quashed when we saw the queue outside. It was so full people had to sit upstairs to watch.The atmosphere was excited and it all went without a hitch. The audience reaction was fantastic with lots of wonderful comments. The Divas were hilarious and the last poem by Laura Yates celebrating Birmingham was the perfect poem to end on.

the V's

And we all got a blue Ledbury bowl which, as I told my non-poet friends who were baffled about my illuminated reaction to piece of pottery - 'In the poetry world this is really prestigious.'

Yes, they answered sagely, but in the real world it will be a good bowl to serve nuts in.

by Sue Thompson

V.Press published a chapbook of the Vaginella poems. You can buy the book here...

“Belief and Technique for Modern Prose.” Jack Kerouac

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house
4. Be in love with yr life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29. You're a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

Reading at Ledbury Poetry Festival

Catherine Crosswell, Sarah James, Jenny Hope and me: The Vaginellas

song that is stuck in my head today...

Jesus was a Jewish philosopher
Had a lot of nice ideas
About our existential fears
Much admired by his peers
Short and Jewish and quite political
Often hesitant and very analytical
Praise be to Jesus
Praise be to Woody Allen Jesus,
Woody Allen, Jesus

Tim Minchin

“If Jesus came back and saw what was being done in his name, he'd never stop throwing up.”

― Woody Allen, Hannah and Her Sisters

Zitkala-Ša 'Red Bird'

Zitkala-Ša (1876–1938) (Dakota: pronounced zitkála-ša, which translates to "Red Bird") also known by the missionary-given name Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, was a Sioux writer, editor, musician, teacher and political activist. She wrote several works chronicling her struggles in her youth as she was pulled back and forth between the influences of dominant American culture and her own Native American heritage, as well as books in English that brought traditional Native American stories to a widespread white readership for one of the first times.

Thesis writing is like giving birth

Dramatic post title. Yes, I admit it is but writing my dissertation has felt comparable to one metaphor: childbirth. I have nurtured and agonised over this document for 9 months or more and now the final stages of labour are upon me. It is like being in a black space where the only light and focus is that distant moment when the thing is finished and handed in. It has consumed me. I have been dreaming about different phrases and terminology. My children think I am a grumpy, desk bound misery. This last push is the most painful but then it will be finished and what will I have? Just a certificate. But also another thing ticked off on my list of life challenges. I am going to celebrate loudly on Thursday!

donkeys in a field near our house

Demri & Layne

Power

I have been writing my dissertation about Native American contemporary fiction and one of the books I really enjoyed was written by Linda Hogan: Power. It's about a 16 year old girl called Omishto and I would recommend it as an excellent read. The prose is beautiful and it deals with  important issues of identity and ecology all centered around the death of a Florida Panther. Thoughtful and vivid.

Jaqen H'ghar Daario Naharis: same person?

Only because they both said, 'lovely girl' in that caressing kind of way

and they are both extremely gorgeous.

(men look so much better with long hair)

Fur Traders Descending the Missouri

George Caleb Bingham: 1845

Forgetfulness and faded things

I am overwhelmed at the moment, I have taken on too many tasks. Not only looking after (or visiting or caring for) three small children, husband, parents, grandparents, sisters, sister in law, nieces, nephew and friends...plus neighbours, chickens, dog, guinea pigs, vegetable garden, flower borders...

And don't get me wrong, all of this delights me, I adore my wonderful, sprawling extended family and life, however, right now, with dissertation deadline looming and new teaching course assignments to complete and poetry to read for friends or judge in a poetry democracy comp or CV to write or poetry pamphlet to proof....

Well, I may have a bit too much on at the moment.

I know this because I keep forgetting things. Things I should know. How to make pancakes. What I walked into the room to do. A child coming back to mine for tea. Double booking my days. Thinking I posted an item and then finding it on my desk.

Also I get distracted by small things; the shade of a faded leaf fluttering on the birch tree. The colour of the lettuce plants as they burst through the compost. An old photograph that makes me sit on the stairs and forget why I was going upstairs.

I just remembered I am also reading The Mill on the Floss for book group each night, before I fall asleep and forget the pages I just read.

30: Last day

Been a strange month for poems. When the children were off school I couldn't work on my masters dissertation but I could write a poem so I got the first 12 done. Then they went back to school and I had to concentrate on my studies. I have managed to write poems over the last few days, well, not polished poems, just ideas and thoughts about things.

Jo Bell's prompt for today is to write a love poem. Put everything into it, she said, make it the best you have ever written! It's not the best, but it's an image saturated in love, my love for the object of the poem I suppose, that has played in my mind and I wanted to try and turn it into words.

Framed by the wooden

Gnarled doorframe

Side view, head bowed

Naked from the waist up

Chest and arm tensed

Holding the heavy axe

Gaze heavy and low

Black hair falling over

Brow, dark eyes, straight

Nose, plump lips cannot

Disguise the melancholy

The woodcutter shifts

The axe and shoulders

His sadness until she

Takes him in her arms

And whispers something

29:

Prompt from Carrie Etter today:

Write an ode to your favourite vegetable. For inspiration, here's Pablo Neruda's "Ode to the Artichoke."


I haven't managed a poem, just a series of thoughts really, about vegetables!


chopping vegetables to make soup is my therapy
as is watching chickens interact with one another
or walking the dog through different weathers
but if I cannnot get outside to talk to hens
or raise my spirts enough to pace the fields,
making soup is there to chase the shadow away
using up what ever vegetables or pulses
i can find feels frugal and pure.
I like them all, mishapen or lumpen
they can all be chopped and boiled
into broth to feed the family
I cannot pick a favourite: I like them all

28:

Today there were eight of them,

sat in the best seats,

sipping the same cappuccino

for hours, until the froth

had flumped.

And all with an infant

crooked in an arm,

flopped on a shoulder.

He sips an espresso so scorching

it scalds his tongue but still

he cannot stop mumbling swear

words under his breath.

Why do they flock here?

The chitter-chatter of mothers

sounds like a pod of dolphins

clicking and splashing, the babies

mewing and squawking until

one by one they disappear

into folds of clothes

attached to nipples;

warm milk on demand

                  and they never pay.

27:

The family in the house
at the end of the lane
left suddenly, leaving
their possessions
and owing rent.

Last night I  looked
into their shed for flowerpots
and saw wedding cards,
broken family pictures
and a grey vibrator.

They had only been
there six months,
seemed happy..their kid
played with ours.

Then the man was on
my doorstep one day, tears
running down his skin:
I didn't let him in.

I sensed if I comforted
him he might never leave
and I hardly knew his ways

as he told me how
she had been having
an affair for five years
and their child was four.

Poem for Sunil Tripathi

Last week I heard the name Sunil Tripathi. It was being flamed all over twitter and the internet as the name of the Boston bomber. He was a 22yr old missing person and his family were desperately searching for him. I took one look at the picture of him and could see it wasn't him. He looked very different to the suspect in the white hat but people were so eager to attach a name, any name, so they could tweet it and feel useful? clever? I don't know.

 I was already feeling furious that only certain types of people (those with brown skin tones) were being circled by over eager amateur detectives. Massive assumptions were being made and one 17yr old had already been put on the front page of a newspaper with implied accusation. I was indignant and appalled that this was happening in the race to find the culprits. As one commentator stated, it became a racist 'where's Wally.'

Once the mistake was realised about Sunil, that he was innocent of any crime, some of the people who had so willingly spread the lie apologised to his family. Meanwhile, his family were still searching for him.They had set up a facebook page, asking people to write a message of love and support to Sunil.

I felt very moved by this situation and added a hand picture, my little boy's hand. I hoped Sunil would come home, hoped he was on a journey and would come back safe.

When I found out yesterday that a body had been recovered from the Providence river I was devastated. It was such a tragic situation for his family and I wished I could reach out and comfort them. Sunil was the youngest son. He had two siblings. Eldest was a daughter, then the two sons. The same as my children. My sons are also dark skinned, with dark brown eyes; I always empathise with any painful situation but this was especially poignant.

 Because it was so unfair that he was falsely accused. Because his family and all those who posted hands of hope were wishing, or praying for a happy ending. I was angry at first, asking why? Why do these things happen, why is there so much pain? There is no answer. Only that life is hard and sometimes becomes too much for people. I have been close to that myself so I understand how someone could choose to end it.

As I thought about it I knew he had been on this earth for a reason. To bring his family joy, even if it was for only a brief time. Each of those 22 years he made a difference in the lives of those around him and they will always remember him. Even people like me, who never met him, will remember him from the words his family used to describe him and the love that burned in their eyes as they talked about him and the pictures of his smile.

His family posted these words:


'This last month has changed our lives forever, and we hope it will change yours too. Take care of one another. Be gentle, be compassionate. Be open to letting someone in when it is you who is faltering. Lend your hand. We need it. The world needs it'




I wrote this poem for Sunil, just a small thing but my way of trying to understand all the feelings I have had over the last week as the search for him occupied my mind. All my thoughts are with his family as they grieve for their brother, son, nephew, friend.





A leaf that unfurls for one summer
still had a purpose, for that season
it grew and joined the canopy.

Green and beautiful it made shade
for any resting below, kind respite 
from the harsh burn of the sun.

Autumn, Winter the tree is bare
but the memory of that leaf
is still there: that cannot be undone.

11:

They were so similar nine year old Amy

decided they were robots programmed

to stride along in their bathing suits

with pasted on electronic smiles

and she asked her mother if they

could turn the TV off, her mother

agreed as she wasn't really watching it,

like most of the time it was just background

flickering and Amy was right, Miss World

was very boring, the girls all looked mutinous

as if they secretly wanted to kill the man

who designed the swimwear round.

Amy said, I don't want to win Miss World

and her mother said, very sensible dear.

Prompt for day 11:

'Wikipedia’s Random Button is a great and magical thing. Click it and write about whatever subject comes up.'
I got it from this:
 a massive list of poetry prompts...

Ok, here were some of the fist random pages wiki gave me...

1900–01 Scottish Second Division

 Assa Singh v. Menteri Besar of Johore

Lehel (disambiguation)

Pregnane

so I kept clicking random, although I know that is cheating (the pregnane hormone one could easily inspire a poem about finding out I was pregnant but there has been a lot of personal stuff thus far and trying to move away from it...)


and the next one was Miss World 1996 and that is what I am going to think about and try and turn into a poem.

10:

3 reasons why poetry sucks sometimes*

1: how it can be used as an apology;
like a pretty love poem will wipe away
the scum from the night before,
selfish scabs picked off
with sentimental sloping writing.

2: how cruel and demanding it can be;
like an unsatisfied lover it demands
attention until the poem comes wetly
across the waiting lap.

3: how it attracts and divides;
mostly it creates fierce bonds
between poets but it can also spark
into fire as the words burn one
against another into smoke.

*but I love it anyway

Prompt for day 10

Write a poem that is an actual numbered list, and let the nature of the list come not from the title but the accumulation of details. Some possibilities include: seven regrets without named parties; five historical events I wish I'd been present for and one that I had; my experiences with everyday people in different cities I've visited.

9:

I really enjoyed writing the poem (that became poem 4) from a list of words supplied by Carrie Etter.

I am happy to report she has a whole new list of poetry prompts to inspire people. Here is the one I am using today. 'Use five of the following six words in a poem: dirt, hand(s), path, tree (or a kind of tree), sky, weight.' Here is the poem I made from them. It turned into a love poem of sorts. My kind of love poem anyway.




This is not a fairy-tale
yet he is a woodcutter
and his skin smells of trees.

Leaf under sky and axe
blade against bark;
she meets him on the path

and breathes him in.
Petrol, oil, sawdust and dirt;
wholesome eucalyptus.

Today he was felling
a  gum tree and the logs
are a gift to keep

her fire burning;
His fingers are rough
but his hands are tender.

Abridged 0-29

My little poem Bikkja is included in the latest edition of Abridged magazine. The theme was 'primal' and I grinned when I read that as I thought, yes! my poems fit! It arrived in the post this morning and it made a satisfying thunk as it landed on the carpet. Words and artwork to absorb and enjoy.

8:

a pine desk
hand made by you
to fix my clutter


love is sanded
into the curved edges
and smooth surface

7:

'In the child of the soul the trees wander.'
That's what he whispered to me.

He was the master of pretentious clap
trap: he thought it made him sound

intelligent and mystical but it only
made me want to pull his tongue

from his mouth and preserve it in a jar
with a label that said:  silence is better.

6:

Beyond this moment of Winter
the men seek the first sign of Spring.

They scrape in the frozen earth,
bury the corpses of the villagers

who could not out last the bitter
time when nothing grows except bones.

5: