Clock change Sunday

I am so grateful for the extra hour today ... time to catch up after two hectic and long days.

Spent time yesterday in the wonderful Quilters Guild museum http://www.quiltmuseum.org.uk/ in York. Its a long way away but so worth the journey, although the first Saturday of half time was a very bad choice of a date. Crowded stations, trains and streets when these could be avoided by remembering what happens when school is closed for a week!

Peace and quiet were in abundance in the museum and there was so much to see in the current exhibition by the British Quilt Study Group called 'Its all in the Making'. A well curated mix of the very old and very previous, and the very new and arty ... all with interesting and unique features.

I left with the memory of the brilliance of squares of fabric the size of my thumb nail perfectly folded and stitched, then placed to form the canopy of a tree, and a quilt made entirely from clothes labels.  Inspiring work.

We travelled home alongside strong winds and rain ... and I've just tucked down the garden chairs as even higher winds are due today ... autumn is making itself heard and felt.

Finding the next poem

I’m unsure how common this experience is for other poets. I have days of not knowing what to write, mixed with days of ideas crowding in, until eventually every idea has been pushed so much its no longer there, and then, like today, those when one idea that makes a big fuss about coming into the world.

Today is one of those days. There was one idea buzzing around in my head, though in truth it wasn’t really an idea, just a thought I had when I lifted someone's legs so they could get into the car. I wanted to capture the feeling that gave me. It wasn’t a feeling I could put into words. so I tried a poem … and words are what make a poem –and that’s probably why the writing today has been so difficult, Or is it?

As words failed me, I turned to reality, to the doing of something that seemed very lightly connected to my feelings. The result is a very drafty first draft , but I felt more and more as if it could be a poem each time I returned to it. As if neglecting my writing to go to my yoga class, make and eat lunch, do a few rows of knitting, was a positive thing.

The work has mellowed, what needs to be changed, made clearer, what must be removed is being revealed … time to leave it for longer, perhaps in a few days I will see the feelings I couldn’t put into words in the words I put into the poem. Perhaps.

When its raining …

there’s time for finishing projects … or at least two! So I now have a pair of lacy socks to put on during Savasna or corpse pose  -just the way to keep cosy and relax at the end of a yoga class.

And my first attempt at reverse applique is complete. You could call it winter, but that would mean I should think about doing the other seasons, so for now its named stary stary night.

 

Spent yesterday evening at The Troubadour, listening to more great poetry … the first readings of new collections and pamphlets by 8 talented UK poets. And very pleased to report that the Writers Abroad anthology Foreign and Far Away is now for sale on Amazon, 

see  http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_fb_0_20?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=foreign+and+far+away&sprefix=foreign+and+far+away%2Cdvd%2C172&rh=n%3A266239%2Ck%3Aforeign+and+far+away

On page 87 you will find my poem Driftwood, written after my 2010 trip to New Zealand. … so inspiring to see this in print. Thank you Writers Abroad  http://www.writersabroad.com/

Tuesday blog

Nearly missed today's blogging ... now in the break of the Tuesday pm on-line poetry course, so I'll be quick.

Sunny walk and some time on the outside gym equipment  whihc was no bad thing as I went to an   afternoon birthday tea partywith lots of wonderful cakes!

and here's the press release for an anthology with one of my poems -so exciting!   Will have the Amazon link live on Oct 21st so I'll bore you all again then  ... it is a very good charity to support.

Foreign and Far Away: A New Anthology from Writers Abroad

Online writing group Writers Abroad are proud to announce the publication on Monday 21^st October of their new anthology, Foreign and Far Away.

A selection of fiction, non-fiction and poetry has been written by expats (or former expats) around the world to create this collection on the theme of people and places.

Foreign and Far Away, the fourth anthology published by Writers Abroad, explores the relationship between people and the landscapes and settings they live in. An eclectic range of writing evokes the diversities, similarities, connections and misunderstandings of life in foreign places.

Author Amanda Hodgkinson, who has lived in Southwest France since 2002, has written the foreword. Her multi-award-winning debut novel, 22 Britannia Road, was published in 2011. Penguin Books will publish her second novel, Spilt Milk, in February 2014.

Following a call for submissions, Writers Abroad received 219 contributions of which they selected 94 for the anthology. Of these, 23 are contributions from Writers Abroad members. The anthology includes 38 short stories, 37 non-fiction articles and 19 poems. The work to produce Foreign and Far Away was carried out online.  

Book Aid International will benefit from the proceeds of this year’s anthology. This charity increases access to books and supports literacy, education and development in sub-Saharan Africa. They provided 543,280 new books to over 2,000 libraries in 2012 and have sent more than 30 million books to partner libraries since 1954.

Foreign and Far Away is available via Amazon at a price of $10.99, £8.99 or €9.99 from 21^st October 2013, when these links will go live Foreign and Far Away - Amazon.com and Foreign and Far Away - Amazon.co.uk.

To find out more and for a complete list of contributions and authors, please go to the Writers Abroad website, www.writersabroad.com/.

Notes for editors

·        Writers Abroad was founded in 2009. It provides an online forum for expat writers to exchange ideas, views and news on writing and to offer support and constructive feedback on each other’s work. Membership numbers are limited but expat writers may apply to join if they are able to support the group’s initiatives and aims. www.writersabroad.com/.

·        Contributors live in, and have written about, more than 50 countries across every continent.

·        For more about author Amanda Hodgkinson, see www.amandahodgkinson.com

·        For more about Book Aid International, see www.bookaid.org

Textile and thread galore

I spent the weekend immersed in stitchery things. First on Saturday learning how to do reverse applique … lots of different fabric layers and very careful scissoring needed. I was with friends from Mole Valley Quilters and we all almost finished a small piece of work, each one of them different with some amazing colour effects.

Then on Sunday, to the Knitting and Stitching Show –thread and yarn heaven with inspiring displays of textile art. This year there was a trend for kiln fired buttons and yarn from very special sheep … so much to see and lots of choice.

So now I have one other small piece of work to finish, much more of an idea about what to do for the Members Challenge for our local 2014 Quilting Exhibition and some reading on ways to combine textiles and text.

Back to poetry this evening, the second chat of the Walk the Line course and I am preparing to be told, once again, that I’m hopeless at counting syllables.

Friday's here ...

Back here, in my effort to keep this blog more up to date and to keep writing in diferent ways. Just sent some small stones to http://asmallstone.com. Writing a small stone feels like that very slight change of position in Yoga  - not much muscle movement but it makes all the difference.

A M Homes novel May We Be Forgiven  stirred and steered my book group into a long and diverse discussion last evening... so its probably by that standard a good book group book. Most felt it was a good read, a couple really did not feel the characters were authentic, and there were the unfinishers, but they said they would now read to the end. We also celebrated Alice Munro's Nobel Prize for Literature and added one of her short story collections to our 2014 list. Amazing how many people do not read short stories -perhaps reading AM will change that for some. 

Also submitted to The Emma Press this morning ... 3 poems on motherhood, two written after a workshop at The Foundling museum many years ago. So far these have always been returned so fingers crossed this time.

Now to some more applique ... I'm still making blocks for the Christmas Quilt, its a good job that 25th  December comes around every year!  Hopefully I'll learn a different applique technique at a Penny Armitage workshop tomorrow ... always good to be taught by someone who's work inspires, see http://www.quiltersguild.org.uk/members/page/penny-armitage. Its all about trees tomorrow so very seasonal.   Maybe pics later, or maybe not ...

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

Chosen by one of my Reading Group friends, not sure who but will be interested in their reason when we meet as I cannot find one good thing to say about this book.  It’s a novella, thank goodness as even at that length there is too much dreadful prose, patronising plotting and too many characters without character.

Nothing more to say, except I’ve heard the film is much better!   Lets hope the next choice is more readable.

May we be forgiven by A M Homes

Having read one of Homes’ novels before I was very much looking forward to this 2013 prize winner, and I wasn't disappointed. Its a big book, in very many ways, long, powerful, disturbing and redemptive, and perhaps best of all, very funny.

Once again Homes writes from the point of view of a man and once again, (I had read ‘This book could save your life’) finds the holes in 21C American life, and finds the filling. She excavates the lives of one family, and their many associates, without it seeming prurient or voyeuristic  and in a way that accepts the idiosyncratic ways of people and highlights the irony of the places they find themselves in.The ‘we’ in the title seems to me to be the most important word –these things happen to ordinary people and that could be me or you!  This is a book that reveals the frailty of being human and celebrates the strengths people bring to everyday life. 

More details here http://www.amhomesbooks.com/   and do let me know what you think of the book.

Mark Doty at the Troubadour

I read Doty’s book about paying attention a few years ago and have dipped in and out of his poetry since then. It was a real treat to hear him read and respond to questions about his art and craft on Monday evening. My first time at the Troubadour https://troubadour.co.uk/  and as with all poetry events, it started very close to my bedtime! But it was well worth staying up late (for me) for.

Doty read new work, talked about poetry as translation and sources of his poems. Interesting to read the poem Theory of Narrative in his collection Fire to Fire, having heard him tell the story behind this piece. A perfect example of a poem from out of the ordinary … so no excuse because we all have lots of ordinary in our lives, its just a matter of putting words one after the other and shaping them together. Not much too ask (!) but so very difficult and Doty does it very very well.

For more see http://markdoty.blogspot.co.uk/ and http://www.markdoty.org/

Out and about and writing

Should have blogged days ago but time was not on my side, so catching up with this post and a couple of book reviews to follow. My blog posts are getting to be like buses ..

Visited the Sunbury Millennium Embroidery last Friday, beautifully displayed in the Walled Garden –a work of community art, very well crafted, stitches upon stitches painting faces, birds, water –all very wonderful. For more info see http://www.sunburyembroidery.co.uk

On Sunday some friends and I did the Sussex Bloomsbury tour. First to Charlston –so much recent history in one family home –thank you to the trustees for preserving this for us. Very impressed with the garden –flowing with plants, this way and that, very in keeping with the paintings and spirit of Bell and Grant.

Then onto to Berwick Church –a return visit for me and I am still awed by the murals. Another place to be grateful to those who keep it all safe for the future.

Finally, to Rodmell, and Monks House .. a small powerful place, it feels full of words,written and unwritten, many of them sad, all to be taken notice of. Woolf is a hard writer to read (for me anyway) but its always worth it and it was great to be where she once lived, and wrote and, of course, near to where she drowned. 

We ended our day in a very good local pub, where else, I hear you say!  Hearty food, lots of chat about writing and reading and then we segued to a decision that we should all learn to play Mah Jong. Perhaps more on that later!

As I write here I wonder about trying to keep this blog more up to date, even to do it for a week, but not at the expense of my other writing. I’ve returned to the morning pages habit, not done too badly at setting aside times for poetry –a necessity with two online poetry courses this term. And all inspired by seeing some of my work published on the web,

Enough here for now … more to follow.