Shadow Art

here:

http://imgur.com/a/q3wwF#znvLp

some are almost unbelievable.

Noticing similarities...

...between Darwin's 'tree of life' sketch:

 

and this:

(An elderberry branch after removing berries to make wine)

Stroke Association - 20 Anthology - submissions wanted

see here:
http://pollysworda.wordpress.com/stroke-association-20-anthology/

Light

that begs to be described.

The Gatehouse of Polesworth Abbey

 

 Mary Arden's Farmhouse, Stratford-upon-Avon

 

Workshop with Jo Bell at Dig the Poetry

A four hour poetry workshop with the delightful Jo Bell today at Dig the Poetry

No slacking or daydreaming, just pen-to-paper and us unearthing our own many-layered history.

As Jo said: 

• Concrete.

 

• Concise.

 

• Conviction.

The three 'C's of writing poetry.

Innadaeks by Jen Hadfield

From Woman's Hour, BBC Radio 4. No longer available I think on iplayer, but Jen Hadfield reading Innadaeks can be found here

NaPoWriMo

No, I'm not joining in, though was tempted.

But NaPoWriMo is kicking up a lot of interesting blogs. For example 100poetryforms. Or the poetry form 'The Abnominal', invented by Andrew Philip.

All these are the poetic equivalent of a foot spa for tired words and thought processes.

Robin Robertson reads At Roane Head - video

My favourite poet :)



Thanks to Fiona for finding this.

The New Course

I signed up a while ago to this.

Got the message today - I have homework! Eeek.

To be posted up by Jan 2nd (although there is room for leniancy apparently).

Someone remind me why I do courses.

Just until I win

"How about a scene on a railway platform with characters fencing with umbrellas?" I ask my two older children.

They nod, acknowledging it as a feasible vision, considering the parameters I have already outlined.

I ask them for some fencing terms.

They turn briefly from the computer game they are playing, mutter a few things which I scribble down. It doesn't look much, but it might do.

I return to my laptop. Open up the file. Try to get my characters off the train.

But my characters don't want to get off. No. They want to talk about cathedrals (Nottingham vs Chichester cathedral) and sheep and job-hunting and sleeping with PAs and the death-rate of Managing Directors. They want to shuffle papers. And argue.

Get off! I say. Get off the bloody train! I need you on the platform. You have an appointment with an umbrella fencing battle. And you're late.

The train approaching Platform 1 is the 14.20 to Derby. Change here for Nottingham.

Finally the mad one (or possibly not mad) cooperates. He sees the woman from the bank standing on the platform at Derby station. Plot-wise, she probably - no definitely - shouldn't be there. But I am grateful for her appearance if it gives my characters an incentive to do something other than squabble among themselves. At last they get off the train.

It's a page of A4 dialogue too late.

I've been typing for an hour, and still no fencing scene.

And a bigger problem: I should have changed narrative voice at some point, according to the requirements of my assignment. I don't want to change narrative voice. I am as stubborn as my characters.

I think about writing poetry. But I have this assignment to finish.

I open up a game of solitaire on the laptop. Just one game, I say. Or until I win.

Good things must come to an end

Last night was the last chat night for Jen Hadfield's online poetry course. {Sniff}

I have to say Jen's course has been one of the most productive writing courses I've done in a long time. Out of the five exercises we've done over the ten week course, three or four of them have given me really good material to work with and the other one (or two) were certainly not a waste of time.

The feedback from 'classmates' has been useful too, but for me the best bit has been having quirky exercises to stretch my imagination and help me skirt around those inner police.

Deadlines are a Good Thing.

[For those interested Jen Hadfield's blog is here ]

My daytime poetry course will also finish at the end of this week. It's been wonderful to meet up with other poetry enthusiasts, with a wide range of interests and strengths, to discuss our work and get feedback. It's a shame I can't continue it after Christmas, but doing three courses this term was truly more than I could manage with everything else. Actually all term the everything else has just been left undone. Which, when you have kids and a job and you home educate, isn't ideal.

But I am signed up for another online poetry school course from January with Andrew Philip. Glutton for punishment, me. Ah well.

So, latest news. At the weekend I went to Nottingham. I received my merit prize for runner up in The Nottingham Open Poetry Competition 2011 and read my poem (scary, but at times like this I'm grateful I write short poems).

The poets there - winners and Nottingham Poetry Society members - were lovely, friendly, welcoming. I met Helena Nelson from Happenstance Press, who I've recently sent some work to for feedback. And I met a few other Happenstance poets at a Happenstance poetry reading in Nottingham on the same evening.

Thanks to my poem I will be forever known among Nottingham poets as 'The Radish'. I'm so glad my phallic worm poem didn't get shortlisted {blush}.

Not being known for my people skills, or my general tolerance of hob-nobbing - networking - I think I did ok. At least I didn't go hide under the table, or take a detour to the pub and stagger home drunk.

Someone alert the press. I think I may be turning into a grown up.

I should be...

...starting my assignment (long fiction). But I don't have a novel inside me.

Yes. Ok, ok. I am one of the few people I know who isn't bursting with novel-itis.

I wrote the 'first chapter' of my non-existent novel for a course homework a few weeks back. I confess it was enjoyable. But now, I simply don't know how to continue it. The bit I was interested in, has been written. Why would I want to write more?

But write I must.

I'm heading to Nottingham this weekend and hopefully I'll catch this Happenstance event. Maybe a long dull trip on a train and a spot of poetry listening will cure my lack of second chapter.

Synonyms for locust

It appears there aren't any. Apart from grasshopper and insect and cicada, none of which will do. I might check out the latin name, but I'm not convinced that will cut the mustard either.

What is this for, I hear you ask. It's for the latest exercise in my online poetry course with Jen Hadfield and The Poetry School

I am trying to 'negate' Robin Robertson's 'Drowning in Co Down' and somehow my negation of a poem about water and weight and drink has let me to locusts.

Some days I'm gobsmacked my brain works at all.

TS Eliot Prize Readings at the Southbank Centre 15 January 2012

TS Eliot Prize Readings at the Southbank Centre, Sunday 15 Jan 2012, 7pm

Booking open now

"The T S Eliot Prize Readings herald a brilliant year of poetry at Southbank Centre. Join us to experience the best poetry of the last 12 months, with the shortlisted poets reading their work live, introduced by Ian McMillan, poet and presenter of BBC Radio 3's The Verb. In association with the Poetry Book Society."

10% off before December.

With the 10% off rear stalls are £10.40 a ticket plus booking fee, front stalls are a few quid more.
50% off for concessions.

Nottingham Poetry Competition - poetry merit award

I had a letter this morning telling me that one of my poems had been awarded a merit prize in the Nottingham Open Poetry Competition.

I know from Helena Nelson's post on her Happenstance blog that there were 664 entries in all, three winners and only ten merit prizes.

So, in the words of James Brown 'I feel good'.

Magic Realism

The task: One 'magic realism' short story to write during the next fortnight.

Oh shit.

I've tried.
I am trying (so my friends often tell me).
But I just don't get it.

I was thinking of writing a story about a woman who spent so much time doing housework that she turned into her household implements. Then I realised that this is rather too similar to life writing and we covered that last year.

I am off to boil a litre of water and pour myself out.

Make it Strange - Jen Hadfield

I have a crick in my neck and a stiff back right now, probably because I've been hunched over a laptop all week putting together a poem for this week's exercise of my online poetry course. The course is run by The Poetry School and this course, tutored by one of my favourite poets, Jen Hadfield, is called  'Make it Strange'.

And what is surfacing certainly is strange. But at the same time quite quite magical.

There is a wonderliciously liberating feeling as you grub around on your elbows under the barbed wire of self-censorship and smuggle out a word or two that would never have otherwise got to the page.

Great quote on Fiona Moore's blog

"The progress of any writer is marked by those moments when he manages to outwit his own inner police system"

(Ted Hughes, in What rhymes with ‘secret’?, 1982)


Oh, how true, that is. Have spent the day trying to sneak past my police with a large poetic swag bag slung over my shoulder.

I did it.

I did it. I read poetry. To REAL people.

And, hey, it wasn't so bad after all.

Lovely venue (Hendon Library Cafe) and a very friendly audience.

Hendon Library are hoping to put on more poetry/literary events in the future, so if you're local do check it out.

To go, or not to go.

Last week I received a phone call. It was a member of staff calling from East Barnet Library. My first response was well I'm pretty sure I owe my local library a huge fine for overdue library books but East Barnet Library..? A bit out of my way.

The gentleman said 'Did you enter a poetry competition at East Barnet Library?'

'Probably,' I replied, which was true, but sounded dumb. I have, after all, entered quite a few competitions over the Summer. And there was something familiar about the name East Barnet.

'Can you remember the name of the poem you entered?'

'Er no.' Again, an honest, but stupid-sounding, response. He must think I am a moron. I am a moron.

'Would it have been called "Lifting the lid"?'

'Oh yes!' I say (duh!). 'That one.'

'Well it came runner up in our competion.'

'Really? Oh great.'
(Well, what else can you say when you're mouthing "shut up" at the kids who are beating each other to a pulp (very loudly) on the stairs, while the dog is barking dementedly up and down the hall.)

'We'd like you to come and collect your prize from the poet, Sarah Wardle on xxxxx and read out your poem at our performance poetry evening.'

Er. Did someone say read out my poem? Oh no. no. no. no. no. Did I say no? That was a NO.

'Are you free that evening?'

'Weeell...let me just check the calendar...turning the page...No. Sorry. Can't possibly....I have my course that night...we've only just started the term...would be very difficult...we're a long way away...'

'Oh.'

I have just broken the man's heart.

'Oh.' He says again. He will hate me forever. I will be ostracised from the poetic community for life. And probably throughout the afterlife.

'But if I manage to fix it so that I'm able to come, I'll call you back.' Bugger. Why did I say that?

I AM NOT GOING TO READ MY POEM IN FRONT OF AN AUDIENCE. I DON'T EVEN LIKE MY POEM. IT IS CRAP. I CAN'T DO IT. PEOPLE ARE SCARY. I DON'T DO THINGS LIKE THAT. THEY DO NOT EVEN SELL ALCOHOL IN A LIBRARY. (I can dance after three pints of Stella, so I assume I could probably read poetry too, even if very badly.)

'Right. Well it would be really good if you could come.'

Resist. Resist. Resist. But be polite. 'Ok, well if I change my plans I'll call.' Damn.

I get off the phone. Damn. Damn. Damn.

As Morrisey would say:
"Shyness is nice
Shyness can stop you
from doing all the things in life you want to...'"

Bugger.

I'm going to have to phone him back again.