Brave or nesh

I braved the weather, people say.  The weather here in the north of England was certainly very moody today but I'd be lying if I wrote that I braved it since I walked in the sun, sandwiched by short bus rides, to arrive at Trinity University for a one-day writing festival.  At the end of the day I walked out to driving rain, but after another five minute bus ride there was enough sunshine to walk for ten minutes. Pretty nesh really (look it up, it's a Yorkshire word, I was reminded by Char March today).

Workshop number one was with Debjani Chatterjee - Postcard Voices, giving a chance for some flash fiction work, and the second time I've attended her lovely sessions.  Later a youthful Joanne Clement - definitely a rising star-poet - had us writing ekphrastic poems. The first few lines written today is my offering for NaPoWriMo, as yet untitled, and inspired by Landscape with the fall of Icarus, possibly by Pieter Breughel the Elder. We also referred to the W H Auden poem Musee des Beaux Arts:

When the men in white coats watch
the needles scratch the blue-ish vertical paper
when the bright yellow-edged fishing boats scarper
sails huffing ignoring the catch
                                     of mackerel and sprats
when women gather their gowns, clutch ....

That's your lot today because I intend revising this for submission in the future.

How to describe pain

Day 4 here we come!
This time I've used The Poetry School's prompt of 'pain'.

How to describe pain

Eight out of ten used to be a good mark. 
Now I shoulder it like a burn.
It gets my back up, being told
to sing a number.

I add half.
I am contrary, never
good on bended knee.

Anyway it pools in the brain
unable to find a lexicon.

Colonial past

In early teenage years I, a white British girl, went to live in Hong Kong.  This poem is about part of my experience there.
I used the prompt from here: Poetry Prompts - first love.  I can barely remember him now, and as you will see I am not sure about all the details.  Again, it needs some work:

colony confession

 

Sitting on the wall outside our flats

you came to me in your white shirt and white

trousers/shorts with/without a friend. 

I am half Portuguese you once confessed. 

I didn’t know why it was a confession

except you looked Chinese.  That

wasn’t a problem in itself except

in my mind you were a lower ....

Homage to Margaret Atwood

Wow I've made it to the 3rd day of NaPoWriMo using their prompt of a letter to a celebrity, past or present.  I doubt Margaret Atwood would like to be called a celebrity, and I would call her an outstanding writer for what she writes and how she writes - non-fiction, fiction or poetry.  So, not exactly a letter but ... a poem, and which has borrowed many of her words and phrases.

Sonnet in homage to Margaret Atwood

after various poems in Eating with Fireand with reference to the title of her book, The Edible Woman

You speak, Margaret, an edible tale, the dead’s

good bones that admit the cancer cell

is beautiful, we count them like beads,

you continue still to dig with a shovel

beside the temple to the goddess – politics

and the need for passion...

Coral and kitten-dad

It's NaPoWriMo again this month so I'm having a go and these are the first two efforts since I didn't get round to posting yesterday:

April 1st
The suggestion was a lune, a new form to me.  Three lines of 5-3-5 syllables, or 5-3-5 words.  This is untitled and quite raw, unedited.

Cold coral is like coal

in the mind

not in the solid earth

April 2nd

Family portrait is the theme.  This too has had little in the way of revising, so I'll keep it on file, as it were, for further examination later.

Kitten-dad

Early on mashed banana in porridge

you moved on to fish fingers even though

I wanted you to eat healthy meanwhile nursery

forgot you were off dairy products for two weeks

one mistake plenty of mistakes on

my part too ...

Caveat: ill-health, forgetfulness, lack of creativity, or life - in that order - may stop me posting a new one each day!

Another Place

My 93-year old uncle is a twin and the last of three brothers, one of whom was my dad. Determined to be as independent as possible, he is still in his own home with carers visiting twice a day.  Last week I paid him a visit.  Coaches are my least favourite travel method, but the easiest way to get to his house.

One of the 100 figures

We polished off our ready meals and had a good old chat before I headed off on the bus to Liverpool (England) city centre and the results evening for the Poised Pen poetry competition at The Fly in the Loaf bar. The theme of the competition was Another Place, a sculpture installation of 100 cast iron figures, celebrating its 10th anniversary, permanently on Crosby beach, just up the estuary from Liverpool.  My ambition is to make a return visit - we used to go to the beach along there when we were children.

With James Nash.  Photo: Andy Walker

After a very tasty fish and chips I enjoyed listening to a few other poems, which were excellent in my opinion, and was certain mine wouldn't get in the top three.

So I was completely overwhelmed to find that James Nash, the judge had chosen my poem Digging and Diving as the winner!

I was honoured for several reasons.  I was born and brought up in Liverpool until the age of 12; I like and admire James' poetry; I had worked on this poem for months (on and off).  It'll be coming out in the Poised Pen print anthology - watch this space.

 

Those longlisted were presented with a book of James' poetry, Some Things Matter - 63 sonnets, and Cinema Stories, themed poetry by James Nash and Matthew Hedley Stoppard about the old independent cinemas in Leeds, Yorkshire. Some great poems here!

Long gestation for a Dirty Rat

Now published online, this story was first written about 30 years ago but has been revised several times more recently, and tells of a young girl at a local festival, confused about why she has to wear a costume.  Read it here




 

Arrivals and Departures - out now!

Uprooted from home, a small boy finds himself on a poignant rail journey in Departing, my story, with twenty-seven others, in a month's worth of fiction, memoir and poetry that can be enjoyed during a 20-30 minute public transport commute.
Don't miss this second issue of commuterlit selections: buy it here
Only £9.13  £7.76

Poetry competition success at York Literature Festival

Photograph YorkMix

I would love her was commended and here I am reading at the awards event in March 2014, though somewhat dazzled by the stage lights!  It took place at the Friargate Theatre, a cosy place which hosted all the winners.  And what a lovely bunch of readers and poems we heard - it does make such a difference when you hear poems and see them on the page.  
This poem, inspired by an encounter on Headingley rail station platform, is here for you to read (scroll down low).  The station stands higher than the surrounding allotments and houses - all were covered in deep snow.  A snow figure had been neatly built on one of the red metal seats.  No one else was around when I arrived and all was eerily quiet.

Fairy tale

Though she is bounded by ‘brick fields’ – expanses of half-obliterated houses not cleared after the war – she enjoys their serenity away from the bustle of the shops, the ordnance factory nearby or the din of children in the school playground.  So after her daily visit to the greengrocer’s she puts away potatoes, cabbage and onions into the pantry and ventures out to walk as if she were a Bedouin searching for water in a desert.
An excerpt from my Adult Fairy Tale competition entry to Writing magazine.  I thought it would be fun to try a new genre and it was - but challenging to keep within the boundaries of a traditional form as well as the word count of 1500-1700 words.  
The story follows the trials of a family from the 2nd World War through into the 60s, wrapped up in a magical ending.
I'm glad I've had a go at this even if I don't get anywhere in the comp.  Ok, yes, I would like to see it win too!