Picture This

I'm excited to be reading some of my poems at the Didsbury Arts Festival this year - this is the publicity photo for the event.

Beltane - again!

Today Boots offered me Double Points for the whole of May - my birthday month -
Woohoo!!
I might go a bit quiet again now because I'm going to concentrate on Underwater Gardener for a while.

Is this the way to Amaryllis?

Who are you? I hear you whisper.

Apologies for such long absences. Over the last twelve months I've not done one single outdoor swim. And very few indoor ones, come to think of it. Also, precious little writing.
However, I have been putting effort into promoting my back catalogue, finding homes for poems already written. It has been a bit of a wilderness time, but productive, and a few of my poems are now very well placed. I feel quite the Mrs Bennett, with my daughters out there, making their way in the world.

I also know, if I didn't before, that when I'm swimming, my writing benefits and vice versa. This dry period has seemed like a  phase I've needed to go through, so now I feel like I want to be writing more again, and swimming. I hope that means I'll be posting on the blog again. I've continued reading blogs, all the while, but writing is the exercise that begets more writing.........

I've also had some good adventures, been across to Dun Laoghaire twice, soaking up the literature festival last September, and enjoying a number of great poetry events back here in England. Our eldest daughter (real life, not a poem - Happy Birthday Nell !!) is also on an adventure at the moment, teaching English in South Korea, so as you might imagine, that is keeping us right on the edge of our seats .......

All in all, a lively time, even if somewhat quiet here on the western front .......

Why the strange title for this post? Oh, I bought an amaryllis bulb at Xmas and the photo above shows it now. It's so beautiful I have to sing that song (customized words) every time I walk past it. As I seem to have lost my way of late, Amaryllis seems as good a direction to be heading in as any ........

Two Sink Three Float

Not long back from seeing Two Sink Three Float in St Peter Basin at Salford Quays.
Part of the Urban Moves dance festival here in Manchester. Don't miss it if it's at a festival near you.
Tonight - thanks to the heavens opening - we went home as wet as the dancers. And happy!

You might be interested.....

.....that I've started a new blog! With a theme of gardening.

Follow the link to take a peek!

Turn Moss Lake

If you look on a map you won't find this lake but it's not a figment of my imagination. When the rain is heavy - as it's been of late - this lake appears on the meadows where I walk Dash. It was beautiful yesterday with the seagulls competing with the crows to make an almighty racket.

If you're a poet with some poems on the theme of water, you might be interested in this competition. It's only £5 to enter up to 3 poems, which seems quite reasonable as the cash prizes are good. The judges are John Burnside and WN Herbert, but the closing date is this coming Friday - so get your skates (or fins) on!

December Dip

Rain, rain, rain will it ever stop?

You'd think I'd be used to it after all these years in Rainy City. 

We gave up the battle to stay dry this afternoon and row - row - rowed our boat down to the Aquatic Centre to swim a mile. 

Finish the year as you mean to start the next one - that's what I say! 

So here's to a great year of swimming and writing in 2012!! 

HAPPY NEW YEAR AND GOD BLESS US ONE AND ALL!!

A (Student) Poet's Life

I've not dropped off the face of the earth in case you were wondering.

This term I've started studying for an MA in poetry at the Centre for New Writing at Manchester University, so there've been major new demands on my time and a steepish learning curve adjusting to the (part-time) student life...

This semester's module has been Writing Poems with John McAuliffe. I've already met John at Poetry School - as I've said before he's a knowledgeable and inspiring teacher. 

The routine has been one poem a week, come rain or shine, submitted to the group by 12 noon Friday for critiquing. There's been a wealth of articles about poetry to read and digest, and guest workshops and readings by Sean O'Brien, Lavinia Greenlaw, John Glenday and Michael Schmidt. 

There's also been a series of very inspiring presentations by the centre's new professor, Colm Toibin. In one of these he talked at some length about Elizabeth  Bishop and her amazing poem The Moose. Colm is such an engaging speaker, after his talk I just wanted to go away and write - job done, I'd say, for a professor of writing!

So now, from my folder of ten workshopped poems I have to present a portfolio of six - the first draft, the final draft and a short commentary. This will be my assessment for this term's work, so they need to be the best possible as they'll be reviewed by three experienced readers. John also wants us to get them out into the world, so they'll be winging their way to poetry mags by the middle of January.....

But for now, a moment or two to get my breath back and catch up with life, maybe a bit more time for blogging - who knows?!! 

Silver Birch

Our neighbours have given us a Himalayan Birch as a silver wedding present - how lovely is that?! Last year under the weight of all the snow, our beautiful blue Ceanothus which we'd trained into a tree shape, split down the middle. So we'll probably plant the birch in that spot. 

But I like where it's currently standing - in the hall, scraping the ceiling. It gives the place a woodland feel...

Birches


When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust--
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
(Now am I free to be poetical?)
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows--
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches. 


Robert Frost

Silver Windermere

We're in the Lakes at Low Wood for a little silver honeymoon and this is the view of Windermere from our room. We've swum in that very spot!

Pete gave me Penguin's Poems for Love and it's an incredible book which I'll be reading over the next few days - and beyond - up here in Wordsworth Country.

The poems are all truly wonderful, but here are three which take my breath away

Let me put it this way:
if you came to lay


your sleeping head
against my arm or sleeve,


and if my arm went dead,
or if I had to take my leave


at midnight, I should rather
cleave it from the joint or seam


than make a scene
or bring you round.


There,
how does that sound?


Simon Armitage


Wedding
From time to time our love is like a sail
and when the sail begins to alternate
from tack to tack, it's like a swallowtail
and when the swallow flies it's like a coat;
and if the coat is yours, it has a tear
like a wide mouth and when the mouth begins
to draw the wind, it's like a trumpeter
and when the trumpet blows, it blows like millions. . .
and this, my love, when millions come and go
beyond the need of us, is like a trick;
and when the trick begins, it's like a toe
tip-toeing on a rope, which is like luck;
and when the luck begins, it's like a wedding,
which is like love, which is like everything.


Alice Oswald


Scaffolding
Masons, when they start upon a building,
Are careful to test out the scaffolding;


Make sure that planks won't slip at busy points,
Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.


And yet all this comes down when the job's done
Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.


So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be 
Old bridges breaking between you and me


Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall
Confident that we have built our wall.


Seamus Heaney  

Silver

Today's our 25th Wedding Anniversary - 25 0n the 25th.

Silver

Thin. Hard. Cool. Of high

altitude. Of dark-eyed miners, coca

mountains scraped blue,

ozone and time. Precious,

but not that precious. Of money

the passing of money, the arts 

of bright-fingered androgyns of love

and circuses. Handsome,

scored, nicked, the bewitching

smile of trickery mixing

with desire. Irretrievable. Irresistible.

Of long thumbs and slow hips

silver is not for wedding rings.

Carola Luther

from Walking the Animals (Carcanet)

Sun Goes Down On Salford

Thursday was the last scheduled swim in Salford Docks for this season. Boating, kayaking and other activities will continue, but sadly no more swims till next spring. Boo hoo! 

So, with the fantastic raised temperatures of this Indian Summer, we just had to go and have a final dip before hanging up our wetsuits for the winter. And, having said that, I'm not ruling out the possibility of a swim when we're up in the Lakes at the end of the month. Especially if this weather continues - who knows?

Raised air temperature is a tricky old thing, it lulls you into thinking the water will be balmy too. I considered going in without the wetsuit as it's such a nuisance. However, cowardliness prevailed and I took the plunge, suited up. At 15.3C, it was bracing, definite ice cream headache when I first put my head under, but that soon faded. We did two laps - half a mile -  relishing the sunset and the clean, sweet water. 
And I keep checking the Salford Watersports website, secretly hoping against hope that they'll relent and give us a stay of execution - a couple more chances to enjoy the weather and the water before calling time for 2011.

Twinkle Twinkle Seeing Stars

Who'da thunk it? Two of my favourite things teaming up - Jodrell Bank and Simon Armitage - and right here in Kansas!  

What is she on about, I hear you ask? 

Goosfest.  

Goostrey's annual arts festival in October and Simon's reading under the stars for only £12 per ticket - still some available - if you're quick! 

Promises to be a sparkling evening.......!

Going Underground

Last Saturday we whizzed into Manchester on the Metro and became tourists for the afternoon, joining a guided stroll through Manchester city centre. Except the main attraction of this tour wasn't the opportunity to appreciate amazing architecture and anecdotes about the city's history. Well, not history experienced at street level, at least. 

This tour, Underground Manchester, examines what's occurring below the city streets - the defunct canals, the re-routed rivers: the Tib, Irk, Cornbrook, the £4 million atomic bunker (sadly, you don't get to visit). It concludes with a wander in the dark through the caverns that provided wartime shelter to Manchester's citizens. 
Our guide turned out to be Ed Glinert, an old friend I've not seen for years. Ed has an incredible memory for quirky local history knowledge (of London as well as Manchester) which makes for a very entertaining couple of hours. 
No swimming allowed in the stagnant stretch of canal under Granada Studios - such a disappointment.....(But if, like me, you like (the thought of) that kind of thing, see what you make of Silent UK ..... what a website...)
Down there in the dark you get a sense of the dire misery of air raids and how hellish life during the war must have been.
And this poem by UA Fanthorpe came to my mind.....the secret life of repressed rivers.....

Rising Damp

‘A river can sometimes be diverted but is a very hard thing to lose altogether.’

                                                                    Paper to the Auctioneers’ Institute, 1907

At our feet they lie low,

The little fervent underground

Rivers of London

Effra, Graveney, Falcon, Quaggy,

Wandle, Walbrook, Tyburn, Fleet

Whose names are disfigured,

Frayed, effaced.

These are the Magogs that chewed the clay

To the basin that London nestles in.

These are the currents that chiselled the city,

That washed the clothes and turned the mills,

Where children drank and salmon swam

And wells were holy.

They have gone under.

Boxed, like the magician’s assistant.

Buried alive in earth.

Forgotten, like the dead.

They return spectrally after heavy rain,

Confounding suburban gardens. They infiltrate

Chronic bronchitis statistics. A silken 

Slur haunts dwellings by shrouded

Watercourses, and is taken

For the footing of the dead.

Being of our world, they will return

(Westbourne, caged at Sloane Square,

will jack from his box),

Will deluge cellars, detonate manholes,

Plant effluent on our faces,

Sink the city.

Effra, Graveney, Falcon, Quaggy,

Wandle, Walbrook, Tyburn, Fleet

It is the other rivers that lie

Lower, that touch us only in dreams

That never surface.We feel their tug

As a dowser’s rod bends to the surface below

Phlegethon, Acheron, Lethe, Styx.

U. A. Fanthorpe