Tuesday Poem: Snowdrop

Snowdrop


A pale and pining girl, head bowed, heart gnawed,
whose figure nods and shivers in a shawl
of fine white wool, has suddenly appeared
in the damp woods, as mild and mute as snowfall.
She may not last. She has no strength at all,
but stoops and shakes as if she’d stood all night
on one bare foot, confiding with the moonlight.

One among several hundred clear-eyed ghosts
who get up in the cold and blink and turn
into these trembling emblems of night frosts .........

Alice Oswald*

Snowdrops are usually seen as a sign of hope - the harbingers of spring in the UK, pushing up out of the ground when nothing else seems to be growing at all. The riverbank has been white with them for several weeks now. Alice Oswald is one of the UK’s most acclaimed poets, but I haven’t always found her work sympathetic. It was poetry I admired, but didn’t necessarily ‘feel’. Then I won this collection - Weeds and Wild Flowers - on DoveGreyReader’s book blog. It’s a combination of beautiful grey-scale etchings by Jessica Greenman and poems featuring a variety of wild flowers including some unusual choices such as ‘Bastard Toadflax’, ‘Pale Persicaria’ and ‘Bargeman’s Cabbage’. I was won over by Oswald’s fine observations and startling imagery and her strong control of structure.

‘Snow drop’ has always been one of my favourites. I had chosen this poem to post before the Japanese quake, but already in a rather sad frame of mind following the Christchurch quake and events in the middle east. And then I was reminded that ‘Snowdrop’ is the Russian slang for the bodies of the dead revealed every spring when the winter snow retreats. The poem suddenly took on a more macabre sense - snowdrop not just as a symbol of hope and survival, but also a reminder of the frailty of humanity in the natural world.

The poem ends on an upward swing, with a stress on the snowdrops’ ability to survive the long, hard winter.

‘But what a beauty, what a mighty power
of patience kept intact is now in flower.’

For more Tuesday Poems go to http://www.tuesdaypoem.blogspot.com/

 * I don’t have official permission to quote the whole poem, so can only quote extracts ‘for the purposes of review and comment’.

A Week at Words by the Water

It’s been a busy week at the Lit Fest as well as trying to keep up with my university job and daily life.

I love the Words by the Water event, not just because of the beautiful location, but also because there’s always a friendly atmosphere and you never know who you might bump into over lunch in the Green Room. This year one was likely to trip over Lesley Garrett, Melvyn Bragg, Maureen Lipman, Claire Tomalin, and a host of television journalists and philosophers - including A.C. Grayling. Several of the promised journalists were missing, due to the situation in Libya, but replacements were being ordered.

I was booked to give a couple of creative writing sessions in the Sky Arts Den, which was fun, though there isn’t much you can do in 45 minutes. I hoped just to give people a taste of writing and perhaps get them started on something they might want to finish later.

One of the nice things about the festival is getting a pass to other authors’ events. I went to listen to Cate Haste talk about her new book on Sheila Fell - a painter from Cumbria who was one of the youngest artists (and one of the few women) to be admitted to the Royal Academy. She was incredibly beautiful, a protege of L.S. Lowry, and  died tragically at a very young age. It was a fantastic talk with good images.  Of course I'm slightly biased  -  Sheila Fell was an Old Girl from  my school and she spent her short life painting the landscape I love. 



You can’t go to everything though - there just isn’t time. Apparently Rachel Hewitt was fascinating on the history of the Ordnance Survey map, and I would have loved to hear poet Jackie Kay talk about her Memoirs of an Adopted Daughter.

I did manage to go to a forum on the short story. A new small press called Nightjar is bringing out Chapbooks of limited edition short stories and there seems to be a general revival of interest in the short story form - it was all very encouraging. The editor prints a maximum run of 2-300 and sells them via the internet and a few sympathetic independent bookshops. He aims to break even after printing and editing costs. There’s no money in the short story, which is presumably why so few of the big publishers are producing collections. Literary presses such as Salt are very short of money, but they need to exist if published writing isn’t to be restricted to a choice of predictable commercial fiction and the work of a few celebrity authors.


I’m always nervous appearing at big festivals like this - I much prefer small intimate venues where you can engage with the audience. But my own events seemed to go well - I had a good audience for the Katherine Mansfield talk - part of which was filmed - and they all seemed to enjoy themselves. Some of them even bought books!


And the following day we all had a lovely afternoon, with a sumptuous tea, at Greta Hall - the historic home of Coleridge and Southey - imagining what it must have been like to live there - though not with Coleridge who was, according to Southey, ‘murderous to all domestic comfort’ after the copious consumption of opiates and brandy.

Greta Hall, Keswick

Those who took part in the writers’ workshop early in the afternoon even had the opportunity to sit and write in some of the historic rooms - Coleridge’s study, Sarah’s bedroom, Southey’s parlour, Hartley’s parlour - and soak up the atmosphere. My favourite part of the house is the hallway, remembering the description of the line of clogs (there were 11 children not to mention all the adults) arranged in order of size all the way from the front door to the kitchen - which still has the original dresser and wood fired range. The current owners have kept all the original features and with 7 children running around, and fires burning in the grates, it feels very much as I imagine it must have done 200 years ago.

And now home to start work on the talks for the next two events I’m booked to do this month, but utterly distracted by the tragic events on the other side of the world. I can hardly bear to switch on the TV to confront the suffering in Libya and now in Japan.

The Writers' First Aid Kit

It's the annual Words by the Water literature festival in Keswick, beginning this weekend.  I'm always excited by this event, because it's the only big literature festival that happens in Cumbria and it brings a lot of writers and media celebrities to this remote part of  England - people you might only get to see if you live in the south east, or one of the big cities.  The festival is held at the Theatre by the Lake with spectacular views over Derwentwater.

This year I'm taking part in several events myself -   on Sunday I'm doing a creative writing workshop in the Sky Arts Den at 4.30pm.  Then a talk on Katherine Mansfield at 12 on Monday.  Then on Tuesday, an afternoon talk on the  Coleridge and Southey women who lived  with the poets at Greta Hall, followed by a creative writing workshop on memory and imagination.

I enjoy doing workshops, because the people who come are always enthusiastic and it gives you a chance to share some of the things you've learned by (sometimes hard!) experience.  Some might call them 'the tricks of the trade'!

One of the things that always helps me is what I call 'The Writers' First Aid Kit'.  It's a kind of thumbnail plot finder, but it also works when you're stuck and haven't a clue what will happen next.  It's just a series of seven questions you have to ask yourself.


Who
What
Where
When
How
Why

- and most important of all WHAT IF?

The answer to WHO is the character, WHAT is the situation/ the action/the event/the object. WHERE is the setting. WHEN is the time line. HOW refers to the basic mechanics of who is going to do what, where and when. WHY is the motivation; why does the character feel as s/he does? why does s/he act like that? etc.

WHAT IF, is the really significant one. You have to ask yourself, what if this or that happened? what if I make this character do something else? what if I change the character? The what-ifs you can ask are endless and the answers sometimes change the entire trajectory of the story.

Cornflower Books

Just found a really good book blog that I'd like to recommend.  It's called Cornflower Books and there's also an online reading group as well.
You can find it at:  http://www.cornflowerbooks.co.uk/

Happy World Book Day!

Tuesday Poem: Baba Marta Day

1st of March is Baba Marta  (Grandmother March) Day in some areas of eastern Europe.  It's a day set aside to honour grandmothers.  So I thought I'd post the poem I wrote about my favourite grandmother.  She was a wonderful person, but very superstitious.  When we were about eleven or twelve we used to have great fun playing the Weedja board with her and she claimed to be able to see spirits and auras and to have second sight.  She taught me to read palms - which I do for fun, though I don't believe in it at all.

TEMPTING FATE

For Annie Sutherland

She kept a broom behind the door
to sweep away unwanted guests
and sprinkled spilt salt over
her left shoulder for the Devil,

avoided the green coat
bought before her husband died,
touched wood and counted magpies —
one for sorrow, two for joy.

White heather on the mantlepiece,
May blossom always outside
red and white flowers never
in the same vase or someone died
before the moon waned.

Two teaspoons on a saucer,
tripping upstairs meant
something borrowed, something blue —
but never marry in black
or wish yourself back.

The year the clock stopped
and she put her own foot first
through the door on New Year's Eve
she knew would bring the black-haired man
with owls' feathers in his pockets
to steal her soul.


© Kathleen Jones

For more Tuesday Poems please go to http://www.tuesdaypoem.blogspot.com/

'Even the Rain' in Berlin

“Not to believe in the possibility of dramatic change is to forget that things have changed, not enough of course, but enough to show what is possible. We have been surprised before in history. Indeed, we can do the surprising.”

[Historian Howard Zinn.]

I've spent the last few days in front of the television watching either the latest news from Christchurch, or the unfolding events in the Middle East, with very troubled feelings. The Avaaz organisation are asking for money to provide mobile phones and communcations equipment for the protestors. Do I contribute, as I would like to, or does that make me a terrorist? Under the strict definition of the term, I suppose the answer would have to be yes. Personal beliefs (even in Human Rights) are no defence against the support of insurgency against a regime in power, though hopefully Gaddafi is not going to arrest me!    

In between I've been watching the Bafta saga with a certain amount of incredulity. Our mainstream cinema seems to largely ignore what's going on in the world around us. The Kings Speech is a large helping of chocolate cake; the Social Network a quirky docu-drama.   A bit of light relief is very welcome, but it's hard not to wonder, sometimes, if Hollywood exists in a golden bubble.  You have to go elsewhere to find films that reflect what's happening to the human species.

A small budget film, 'Even the Rain', has just won the Audience Award at the Berlin Film Festival.

Set in Bolivia, it’s a film within a film. It tells the story of a director who goes to Bolivia to make a film about the colonisation of South America by the west. But the people he’s filming amongst are caught up in a battle fuelled by the government’s desire to tax the water supply - the so-called ‘Water Wars’. It’s about a different kind of exploitation - economic colonialism. The two stories parallel each other, providing some interesting insights. The film is topical because it’s also about the power of the people to fight for what is right and escape from the clutches of clinically insane, psychopathic dictators.

Update from Christchurch

Have just managed to talk to my daughter - a great relief!  Meredith is camping out in the garden in a tent because it simply isn't safe to be in the house.  Two friends whose own house was completely demolished are there as well.  There's intermittent power, but no water or sewage.  Thanks to the dress rehearsal in September (though no one knew it was back then) she had emergency supplies in the garden shed and so they are managing to survive.  A lucky escape though - she had just driven through the centre to drop someone off in the square.  Half an hour later .......  
So, fortunately she was giving the kids lunch in the dining room when she felt the first rumble, instinctively knew this wasn't just another aftershock, grabbed the kids and dragged them straight out of the french doors into the garden.  We had all found out in September that if you don't get out in the first seconds you're unable to move at all.  I have terrible memories of being unable to even roll out of bed, while Meredith was on the floor trying to reach the children's bedroom.
This time her husband was on a business trip to Auckland - a very long way away.  No flights or trains, so he has had to hire a car and drive.  24 hours after the quake he still hadn't arrived, but was hoping to make it within a few more hours.
Meredith told me about things that had happened to her friends - too awful to repeat here.  There is obviously considerable loss of life in the suburbs, not just in the city centre.  Every family is affected in some way by loss of life, injury or property damage.  There isn't a single person in the city whose life will be the same.   My heart goes out to all of them - one feels very helpless -   if only thoughts were actions.....