2 blocks closer ....

My Merry Christmas quilt is a little further nearer completion with the final two blocks patched.

Now here's a small challenge: will the corners that don't match show once its quilted?

I don't think so but then I'm very keen to finish this and get on with the next project?

2014 Book group reading list

Here's my book group reading for 2014, decisions made at out December meeting accompanied by very nice goodies and a little wine.

I'm really looking forward to reading the Alice Munro short stories and Maggie O'Farrell's novel and chatting about the Bennett and Lanchester. I've already read both those and I'm now searching for my copies .. no easy task as I'm never sure if they are at Enmatte or in Effingham!

Comments welcome, should I give any of these a miss!       

16-Jan    Lottie Moggach    Kiss me First
       
20-Feb    Alan Bennett    Uncommon Reader
       
20-Mar    Maggie O'Farrell    Instructions for a Heatwave
       
17-Apr    John Williams    The Stoner
       
15-May    Alice Munro    Dear Life
       
19-Jun    Dashiell Hammett    Maltese Falcon
       
17-Jul    John Lanchester    Capital
       
18-Sep    Jojo Moyes    Me before You
       
16-Oct    Jonathan Safran Foe    Extremely Hot and Incredibly close
       
20-Nov    Jean Giono    Man who Planted Trees

Out Walking

Christmas Day at Enmatte, out walking with the dogs  ... our pre present opening exercise, what else

The young lead the way ... as always straining to see what's up ahead.

Cookie checks out the rear ... and provides a slow walking experience from time to time

An Ice Cream War by William Boyd

So disappointed in this book from one of my favourite writers (his Any Human Heart is one of my top ten novels) but I rather think my struggle with this one is more to do with me than the book.

An Ice Cream War by William Boyd is about, well, its about war in (mainly) East Africa and I rarely get through a book like this. Far too much on the work of war in this for me, so I skipped chunks and then finally realised I should give up and, oh how wonderful, time to choose something new to read.

The real winter can arrive now!

In some of those not sure what to do days betwixt Christmas & New Year I've finished and photographed part of my current knitting project. Beanie and mittens from Toft (http://www.thetoftalpacashop.co.uk/) made with their alpaca yarn. 

The aran weight is a powerful yarn, wraps around the needle very well. Now I'm knitting a cowl with chunky yarn and very large needles ... not such a nice feel, I like my knitting to flow from the needle and this is rather a lumpy ride. Never mind, the blessing of chunky yarn and 8 mm needles means it grows very quickly. Only 18 more rows and I'm set for any very cold weather that might come our way.

Working title

I'm reading The Forage House by Tess Taylor, a collection recommended to me by Miriam Nash the tutor on one of the Poetry School online courses I took last term, Miriam thought I would like the quilting and sewing references ... so far I've come across one poem called Crazy Quilt and just love the line 'how her body stores her making'.

I'm making my way through the poems from the beginning (almost) and the work Taylor asks of her titles is impressive. These are plain titles that lead you into the poem so that the poem itself can be just a little obscure. Big Granny is explained in more detail halfway through the poem, but the reader has to work out who 'they' are  ... and for me one mystery in a poem is sufficient so that title is needed.

Page 21 has a found poem that preserves a special type of communication, 1914 is the date in the epigraph ... how good to see poetry as keeper of the important but slight, something that could be forgotten but here for us in this poem, it has been shaped into a small memoir.

These days between Christmas and New Year have a unique flavour for me - a much needed gap that provides a certain space not found at other times. I've used a little of that space today to think about poems that preserve some slow ways of doing things ... slow shopping, slow heating, slow cooking ... ideas for writing, or just ideas, sufficient to be noted in my journal and maybe rest there for a while.

And slow heating requires logs that need to be moved, a very good way of slow heating that I'm about to experience!

Choice & neglect: the writer and reader

A rare quiet holiday season moment to post thoughts after reading two interviews from The Paris Review. I'm one of their twitter followers, one of very many and I often find interesting morning cup of tea reading via their tweets. Ways of finding what we read interest me: so many and so different now with the rise of social media. 

The interview with Joan Didion led me to writing in my pen to page journal about how as a reader I find writers and what I neglect. Didion's novels, for example, I don;t know at all, coming to her writing as I did after reading what she wrote after the deaths of her daughter and husband.

 

I noted down some reasons for neglect 

- firstly and simply, not knowing, and this means that there is then 'discovery', so hearing about the novel The Wife and being told about Brenda Shaunessy's poetry bought a novelist and poet,  previously  unkown writers, into my reading life.

- then some writers, some titles dash through the mind, don't settle there, its the wrong time, why am I only now reading the short stories of  Flannery O'Connor?

and then there is the not enough time, too much else going on type of negelect, the not the right poem at this moment for me sort of negect - this is just the start of a list, but it encouraged me to think about trying to read poets I have neglected ... so many, how to choose ... start small, just start, thats the important thing, to start. 

Then I read an interview with May Sarton, such a revealation, here is a writer I have dipped into regularly, someone who writes so well in many genres and I know so little about her as a person. 

Does this matter? Will it change how I read her? Should it? ... and might this especially apply to her journals and memoirs? She has said that it is different writing a journal for the readers out there, that most definitely someone, other than yourself, will read ... 

So finally, watching the BBC News review of potlicial books of the year, there's a discussion about the final diaries of Tony Benn, written for a. n. other reader, written to be read ... what else is wriitng for? well, there's a rather large question.

And before I close, I have just re-read the above, edited it a little ... because, of course, I hope it will be read!

Poems in the midst of family, builders & Christmas

A quiet moment in the whirl of a family Christmas, we are waiting for the plumber, déjà vu there, its a sunny day so it's not too bad without heating in the main part of the house.

Earlier I read a poem called Passing on by Carol Steve's Kner from Issue 31 of The Dark Horse. A quiet poem, appealing in its engagement with an ordinary, practical act (signing a will)  with very  light flights of history, geography and mythology. Mostly after reading this poem I am left with a sense of of the two end rhymes in each of the 7 stanzas. Why, I asked myself in my pen to paper journal entry today. Why chose to do this. Why choose to have two end rhyme lines, in different places in each stanza? To draw attention? To add a small surprise, or regularity? Does it matter why? I liked it, the way care had been taken, and I had been drawn to the almost not a pattern unless you pay attention. Which is of course, why reading poetry is rewarding, the art of paying attention pays.

The shortest day, or the longest night of 2013, has passed. It was great to be reminded of how Iranians celebrate the point in the year when light triumphs over darkness. They come together to  keep evil at bay as s/he has lots of time to cause havoc in all those dark hours. Each person makes a wish and then reads from the poetry of  Hafez to interpret the wish.

What a great tradition, all those people reading poetry at a party.  Perhaps it's time to start a trend, to follow by example a way that poetry can be a central part of an annual celebration for everyone, people reading poetry, not poets or people who would usually read poetry but everyone. A wonderful thought.

Time to check on the mince pies. I hear plumbing work in action so maybe the burner will be back in place soon. Then we can bring the furniture back into the one part of the front of the house and decorate the tree - half a room  is better than none and we still have the temporary kitchen to keep us in good food and washing up.

A fresh look at poetry in print ..

Well, its fresh to me. The 'extra' poetry magazine I'm subscribing to this year is The Dark Horse which impressed me after reading website pieces selected from the latest issue. And it arrived very quickly so I've already dipped into it and its now in my luggage soon to be en route to Enmatte. So far its the reviews section that has struck me as different ... so my excerpt from yesterday's pen on paper poetry journal is

 - better reviews in The Dark Horse, not just a list as in catalogue of contents more an appraisal with some evidence based praise for the writing -  thank you Helena Nelson

and after reading Christian McEwen in conversation with Mathhew Dickman, I wrote

.... who are my influences, I need to consider this, who writes about the everyday, Heaney, for example. 

see more at http://www.thedarkhorsemagazine.com/newissue.html

Finally, before I do the passport, euros, cases will close OK final check, so wonderful to hear Gillian Clarke on Desert Island Discs this morning .... Seamus Heaney and Leonard Cohen; such great choices, and lets hope someone sponsors that new anthology she hopes to have ready in time for her island experience.

Back tomorrow from the other side of the Channel ...

Poetry: trying to make some sense of it

Waking up after a stormy night, its time, I thought, time to do more to unravel my thinking about making poetry. Not just the writing, also the inspiring, the revising, workshop processes, finding and listening to feedback, sending poems into the world of others’ likes, dislikes, and the ways and means by which a decision is made that a particular poem works, whatever that means.

Wow, that was a long sentence … what am I trying to say is that, probably, as much as needing to write more poems (always) I’m ready and have the time to write myself toward a greater understanding of everything that surrounds and inhabits a poem if it is to reach, in all senses of that word, a reader.

Last evening I started a new poetry notebook (a real treat as its a large Moleskin with paper that invites writing) and I took a new Pilot pen … blue ink, the colour of the deep sea, and I wrote about my workshop experience that day with a newish poem and about my reading about the writing of poetry from the notebooks of Adrienne Rich.

I don’t plan to reproduce that here. What I want is to continue to regularly write with that pen on those pages and to follow that by also sharing a little of the result here in the hope of some comments from you, my reader, please. Whoever you are, reading this, poem writer or poem reader and both of those, I liked to hear your thoughts on making sense of poetry. Let’s not leave it to the professional poets to write about this art and craft … there are many of us and increasingly more of us, writing poetry that often stays out of sight, hardly sees the light of day, is glimpsed by only a few.

So here’s two passages from my pen and paper journal

Poetry pulls me … but is dissatisfying, contested, without a sense of knowing what it is about

and via Adrienne Rich  - the idea of setting down words into a force field and that as we read these are words that someone has known.

Reading that raises for me questions about whether I always know the words I set down, do I need to know them, can I arrive with them in that force field, learn about them through the poem. Is that what happened when I write the poem I work-shopped yesterday? Did that matter? Did it make a difference?

I’m aware I’ve committed myself to doing this again, and again: that feels scary, I need space to consider how and what sort of routine. This entry is long enough, there’s a blue sky day out, a day that’s quiet and in need of a little filling with other matters. I’m off to the gym and later on to my book group’s get together to choose books for 2014.

Have a good day, reader, and please, please, leave me a comment.

PS Reference is: Adrienne Rich What is found there, notebooks on poetry and politics W W Norton and Co.New York.

Publication by Andy, Bev & Marilyn

Great news, our family book Walking the Alderney Stones is out, is in print, is available.  Not too much of a challenge to guess what its about. We walked around Alderney visiting Andy Goldsworthy's Stones in March 2012 and through camera, pencil, paint and words this joint memory emerged.
 
So exciting and so much better in reality as produced by Blurb books

than in this picture!   Do let me know if you would like to buy a copy.

Reading the writing

I spent an afternoon this week giving some feedback to a friend who is very bravely self publishing a book of memoir pieces. She had sent me several poems and short pieces of prose asking for comments, and in my usual fashion I had annotated each with my thoughts. As it was the first time I’d done this with this particular friend I really wanted us to meet to share my comments … they just looked far too scrawly, and perhaps a bit stark as written, they needed to be discussed, chewed over together, they needed tea and cake!

Our afternoon went well, it was good to hear her views on her writing and to learn that my comments were not too far away from her thoughts. We talked about writing groups, their power for good or not and of what I would call the scholarship of writing  - often, of course, found through creative writing courses. Said friend is very opposed to such courses, cites examples of  ‘good’ writers she knows personally whose writing has changed for the worse since going on a creative writing diploma etc., have had, her words, all the creativity knocked out of them .

That set me thinking about why, what were these courses for, what I had I gained or lost doing such a course several years ago. Then by wonderful coincidence, through a link via a link via a twitter post I came across the comment that it may well be impossible to teach creative writing, to teach someone to be a better writer (whatever that means!!) but it is possible to teach or at least to help someone learn to be a better reader, and to be a better editor. And that way lies better writing.

Now there is something to ponder on, Its so very true that the writers I admire are clearly readers of note and that robust editing is a skill that adds (or even and often positively subtracts) from the best of good writing. Perhaps, my friend’s examples had not taken all the opportunities offered to become better readers, to enhance their editing skills … maybe, what do you think?

That’s all from me on this for now. I’m off to a good book and then to wield my editor’s pen on my latest poem!  As for writing ….

Bedside table books

Every so often I just have to de-clutter the piles of books by my bed … usually, as was the case today, because its gown so high that I can no longer see the time on the radio!

Sorting through the pile on my ‘English’ bedside table (yes, there’s another, similar pile by my French bed) I realised that for a while, sometimes a long while, I have collection of readings that are important but frequently neglected. They are often just picked up for my ‘before sleep’ reading, usually  when I have finished a very good book and can’t quite bear to choose another novel … somehow I need some respite, a break, a settling time before the next long haul book.

Its then I turn to the type of book I sorted through just now –May Sarton’s Sarton Selected, Sylvia Plath’s Collected Poetry, Writing Your Self by Killick and Schneider, and an anthology of poems In Gilded Frame that has 3 of my poems and lots more art inspired poetry. In a few months that list will look similar but different, the same but with other titles.

Also in today’s pile is Ann Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek –its been there a while because its not an easy read but its a great read in small doses, not the least because it reminds me to get outside, to walk, to pay attention to what is along the small pathways around and about.

Two reasons then, at least, for that eclectic bedside table book pile – and there are undoubtedly more.

I’m looking forward to very soon seeing what I left by my French bed at the end of the summer and renewing my acquaintance with more books to dip into slowly, regularly and probably slightly incompletely!

Book Review: Dedicated to - compiled by W B Gooderham

I heard about this wonderful, quite unique, book on BBC R4 ... learning of gems like this that makes paying the licence fee so worthwhile.
This is a sharing type of book; here Gooderham shares his collection of 2nd hand book annotations from books as gifts. It's a wonderfully eclectic collection, the printing is beautiful, the cover is lovely. A book to remind us of the value of the book as a gift and the importance of the annotated note from giver to receiver. 
Long live second hand books and the hidden treasures of personal inscription, and thank you,Wayne, for finding these.

Book review: Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver

Every so often I read a book that I really don't want to finish, Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver was firmly in this category. Kingsolver's wonderful writing brings the local and the global together in a compelling, pacey and well researched yet imaginative story.
We share the minutia of Dellarobia's (a young woman with a name that takes some getting used to) life and her journey or, yes, her flight behaviour, and then there are those butterflies ...
This book lives up to the standard set by The Poisonwood Bible, and its already on my read again list.

Recently released poems

A blog, and perhaps a tiny brag, about some poems recently published. 

A big thank you to Kind of Hurricane Press for including 3 poems in their latest anthology In Gilded Frame -available as a digital download or in print, see http://www.kindofahurricanepress.com/2013/12/in-gilded-frame-is-now-available.html

Thanks also to When Women Waken for including my poems in their 2013 Fall issue -http://www.booksbywomen.org/whenwomenwaken/three-poems-by-marilyn-hammick/

Now to update the database with these and the rejections - there's plenty of those but having acceptances as well is very heartening.

You'll find links to my other published poems on the right margin of this page ... do check them out and send me feedback  -what the reader thinks is a vital part of writing for me.

Review: The Wife by Meg Wolitzer

The Wife is a compelling account of the life of a famous man's wife before female equality permeated the world. Wolitzer gives an accurate, authentic and often painful account of how choices made reach so deeply into our lives they can be almost impossible to unpick. Very readable, funny in places, and I liked the way Wolitzer didn't let the real truth reach the surface but let it hover below the churn of Joan's life.

PS ... this blog has been much neglected of late and I'm determined to change that in 2014. Not sure how just yet so any ideas for how to blog more regularly are very welcome.  This year I've managed to get into a 'morning pages' routine and not to neglect my journal as often as I have in the past ... so next year is for the blog!
So there it is  - a public admission and a commitment to be here more often ... meanwhile I've seen The Butler, great film, made progress with the applique blocks for the Merry Christmas quilt (good job there always another Christmas) and been to lots of poetry workshops. All that in between (maybe) too many afternoons playing bridge, a bracing weekend by the sea in Camber, and a few early local Christmas celebrations.
Its nearly time to change homes for a few weeks and to attend to some 2014 resolutions.