Friday, November 18, 2011

Writing, memory and bells

Lots to think about this week after my poetry tutorial. Also spent time getting to grips with school attainment data and the concept of Value Added which, I think, is the education mantra of the moment of the Coalition Gov., and, in contrast, delighted in a second read of The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox. Thank you Maggie O’Farrell for such a powerful story, told with a light touch –able to make me laugh and cry on the same page. Looking forward to discussing it at book group next week.

I’ve signed up for a second on-line poetry course –the discipline of assignment writing continues to appeal, the one this term has had the very much needed effect of keeping me to the poetry task . I’m collecting my music influenced poems together with the aim of submitting them in January. Are there patterns in my work? Maybe like Anita Desai I have Emily Dickinson’s line in my head –’Memory is a strange bell –jubilee and knell. Seven words that say so much –that sort of reduction is what I am aiming for…

Some words I heard this week. More people died in WW2 from starvation than from a bullet and there’s a strange distribution of aid in Afghanistan  -less to the peaceful north than to the war torn south apparently, asking questions about rewards for insurgency.   How to look at these big issues at a slant … mmm needs thinking about on a long walk I think.

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