My article about Edith Sitwell appeared in Poetry News: http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/content/publications/poetrynews/pn2011/
And Coastival is approaching (http://www.coastival.com/). Some of Edith's most famous poems - Façade - are my least favourite, though they were innovative for their time and surely the fore-runner of today's rap.
My tribute comes in this poem:
Childhood 1
Old Sir Faulk,
unintentionally,
misplaced his wife.
Mollie and Gladys,
little shadows in mourning weeds,
wept their loss at high tea,
- even the chittering song birds knew to chitter no more.
Lady Faulk, lost, gone, for now and for ever.
I imagined my own mother so disposed of
and asked, persistently.
But why, why, why did they cry?
Wednesday
Happy New Year. This season's greeting. Though, of course, it's all rather arbitrary. Some pagans consider Samhain as the New Year, others Midwinter. The Chinese will be celebrating in weeks to come and some Christians haven't even seen Christmas in yet. I could go on.
However, for everyone, there does seem to be a need to mark a completed cycle of time and, perhaps, take a moment for reflection. I am not immune to this. Looking outwards, I hope for peace where there is conflict, relief where there is pain, possibility where there is despair. Personally, 2010 has been good to me and I do not need more from 2011. I wish for love and nurturing relationships and the opportunity to continue to explore my creativity and to make the best use of my talents. I want to encourage a more caring and just way of being for myself and for those I am able to be in contact with. I want the space to make mistakes and the humility to admit them and learn from them.
It is all a work in progress, as the planets make another revolution above our heads, only with very subtle alterations to their course.
However, for everyone, there does seem to be a need to mark a completed cycle of time and, perhaps, take a moment for reflection. I am not immune to this. Looking outwards, I hope for peace where there is conflict, relief where there is pain, possibility where there is despair. Personally, 2010 has been good to me and I do not need more from 2011. I wish for love and nurturing relationships and the opportunity to continue to explore my creativity and to make the best use of my talents. I want to encourage a more caring and just way of being for myself and for those I am able to be in contact with. I want the space to make mistakes and the humility to admit them and learn from them.
It is all a work in progress, as the planets make another revolution above our heads, only with very subtle alterations to their course.
Monday
People who want to write sometimes ask me how they should begin. And I say get a writing journal and write in it everyday for at least ten minutes. This isn't a diary for recording events, it is a place for jotting down, stream-of-consciousness-like, words, ideas, images, feelings, descriptions, quotes...
I was interested to see that Bruce Springsteen has such a journal (Imagine, BBC1, 7th December, 10.35pm). His scribblings become songs. He also described keeping the bits and pieces which didn't at first work in a kind of lyrics junkyard, from which he would salvage them, sometimes a long time after, and explore putting them together in a different way until they do run. A bit like a writer's Scrapheap Challenge.
As with many creative endeavours, often it's knowing when - and being brave enough - to cut. Lenny Henry mentioned this as a crucial skill on Front Row (Radio 4, 8th December, 7.20pm). It's hardest when it's our favoured lines we have to cull. Though it's useful to think of them as not being lost for ever, only rather kept safe for another outing.
I was interested to see that Bruce Springsteen has such a journal (Imagine, BBC1, 7th December, 10.35pm). His scribblings become songs. He also described keeping the bits and pieces which didn't at first work in a kind of lyrics junkyard, from which he would salvage them, sometimes a long time after, and explore putting them together in a different way until they do run. A bit like a writer's Scrapheap Challenge.
As with many creative endeavours, often it's knowing when - and being brave enough - to cut. Lenny Henry mentioned this as a crucial skill on Front Row (Radio 4, 8th December, 7.20pm). It's hardest when it's our favoured lines we have to cull. Though it's useful to think of them as not being lost for ever, only rather kept safe for another outing.
Tuesday
A friend of mine sent me a link to a youtube of opera singing in a shopping arcade's cafe (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXh7JR9oKVE). I like discovering culture in unexpected places.
With a designer colleague, I once cooked up the idea of adorning the doors to our town's loos with poetry - thinking we'd have a captive audience. We have not put any plans into action, but when I was down in Bristol, I got to read poetry about the sea as I used the toilets in the SS Great Britain's visitor centre.
And yet, as I look at the trees stark against the winter sky, I think, nature has got there before us, if we just open our eyes, art is all around.
With a designer colleague, I once cooked up the idea of adorning the doors to our town's loos with poetry - thinking we'd have a captive audience. We have not put any plans into action, but when I was down in Bristol, I got to read poetry about the sea as I used the toilets in the SS Great Britain's visitor centre.
And yet, as I look at the trees stark against the winter sky, I think, nature has got there before us, if we just open our eyes, art is all around.
Monday
I am working on an article which I hope is destined for the European Journal for Qualitative Research. It is a literature review on Writer's Block.
And, as I start to write it, I find myself stymied. I know what stops me, mainly; two thoughts: What have I got to say which anyone wants to read? Will it (I) be good enough? And generally I can work round it.
I have read about Writer's Block from the writer's perspective before, now I am also getting the academic's angle. They appear to put the causes under three headings: cognitive (the rule-laden part of the brain fighting with the imaginative); emotional (the feeling of not being up to the task in some way); and environmental (including the physical, social and political).
Using a completely 'unscientific' method (and having just discovered I have three instead of two followers to my blog), I wondered if any reader out there might be prepared to email me about their experience of Writer's Block (knowing that it might be published, though anonymity could be maintained)? Email: writingourselveswell@tiscali.co.uk
Thank you.
And, as I start to write it, I find myself stymied. I know what stops me, mainly; two thoughts: What have I got to say which anyone wants to read? Will it (I) be good enough? And generally I can work round it.
I have read about Writer's Block from the writer's perspective before, now I am also getting the academic's angle. They appear to put the causes under three headings: cognitive (the rule-laden part of the brain fighting with the imaginative); emotional (the feeling of not being up to the task in some way); and environmental (including the physical, social and political).
Using a completely 'unscientific' method (and having just discovered I have three instead of two followers to my blog), I wondered if any reader out there might be prepared to email me about their experience of Writer's Block (knowing that it might be published, though anonymity could be maintained)? Email: writingourselveswell@tiscali.co.uk
Thank you.
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