Summer

I feel cross with myself for letting this blog slide over the summer. When I last wrote I was  just setting off for Lancaster University. Well, summer school was the most amazing week and I don't know what I'd been so nervous about. I met with a wonderful group of people in the real world, as we'd only met virtually before, and some great tutors. I won't wax lyrical or it will never end.

Poetry workshops start up again in a few weeks time. I've changed the meeting place from the church hall, which worked well, but was a bit gloomy, to a fantastic gallery/cafe called 'The House of Wonders', in Cascais. If that doesn't stimulate creativity, nothing will.

The above picture is of Cascais Cemetery. I became fascinated by the Portuguese custom of  digging up bodies after 5 years, cleaning the bones, and putting the remains into little boxes in the wall, to create space. Some of the boxes have windows, like peep shows. Apart from the remains, there are all sorts of things inside: little shoes, photos, plastic flowers, sun hats...as you can imagine, there are quite a few poems evolving out of this.

I'm going north to Porto next week and spending a few days in the Douro Valley, one of the most beautiful places in the world. Let's hope some poems come out of it. I'm not much good at nature poems but love writing about urban environments, so perhaps I'll just read a good book or prepare for the start of the next academic year. I have lots of ideas for poems but not much idea about what area I want to explore next. I've been reading a fascinating book called The Art of The Poetic Line by James Longenbach. I hope it's going to help me to understand enjambment better. I always seem to break the line in the wrong place!

Where Does It Go?

What happens through the door, is it for an arrival or a departure? And what has happened to time since my last blog?

The Aldeburgh music festival came round again and was as fabulous as always...even the sun gave a cheer or two along the way. Now I'm trying to get ready for Summer School at Lancaster. I'm editing all the poems I've written during the year; some are redeemable and some are going, or have gone, to be recycled as cardboard boxes, pulp or perhaps incorporated into a designer handbag and sold for a fortune. Sadly not my fortune, but somebody else's.

To get to Lancaster I have to cross London from Fulham to Euston during the Olympic road race which goes slap down the Fulham Road...I am expecting chaos and will have to trundle my books, poems, pc and hopefully some clothes across London, probably on foot.

Oulipo

I've stepped into new territory this week with an online course at the Poetry School called 'Adventures in Form'. The first assignment was to write an Oulipo (Ouvroir de litterature potentielle or Workshop of Potential Literature) sonnet. This involves choosing a sign or slogan which you use as your title and then writing a sonnet only using the letters available from the title. Does that make sense? I used a well known brand name in my title, not sure if I'm allowed to mention it here, but it was 'Things Go Better With C--- C---' and my first two lines were 'Scene one; a ghost town in Castilla/the off-stage chatter of castanets...' It took hours and I nearly gave up on it. You can play around a bit, and as you can see, I've already cheated in the first lines.

          The second assignment was to write an N +7 poem. This involves replacing every noun in a text with the 7th noun after it in a dictionary. The results are great fun and turn up some great juxtapositions. I used it on a poem I've been trying to write for ages about a boy who thinks he's a super-hero. I couldn't get the right quirkiness, and then using N + 7 it turned up some wonderful words that worked really well. I only chose the ones that I wanted. You can go from N + 1 to any number you want.

(I don't know why my formatting has gone wrong here, but I shall try and work it out!)

Bellbird

I've written three poems about the bellbird and am dissatisfied with them all. The first was a sonnet, the second a villanelle and the third, free verse and really stripped down to the minimum. His song is so ethereal and beautiful that it's hard to put into words. I tried to post my video here of him puffing up to pipe his tune but it took so long that I gave up.
Thanks to my tutor I've been reading Elizabeth Bishop and have fallen in love with her work. The End of March is one that stuns me with its imagery. I'm reading her poems in tandem with her letters in One Art edited by Robert Giroux...it's a feast.

Sydney

Well I've made it through the rainforests of South Island in one piece. Eventually I lost my fear of swing bridges but didn't like the scramble over rocks, with a sheer drop below, while climbing up to Rob Roy glacier in Wanaka.
The next poems have to be about the rainforests. I saw some fantastic birds like Mohua and Rifleman, and was smitten with the huge variety of mosses.
I wanted to upload an image but don't seem able to do it from my iPad. So I'll send more news when I get back to Portugal.

25/3/2012  Nearly home but have managed to upload image of my first swing bridge.

Auckland

I've just landed in New Zealand after hours of flying. Later today I'm flying to Dunedin in South Island to go Eco trekking. Today's blog is an experiment to see how it works on my ipad.
I bought a pay-as-you-go sim card, although the guy in the first shop said that they were sold out in the whole of N.Z. Panic set in...shop number 2 had no problems.

I love writing on planes. I had hours without being disturbed and have drafts for 3 poems. I've gone back into free verse and am trying syllabics. I enjoyed going back into writing the way that comes to me more naturally...I think these poems are a bit crazy...but there you go!

I hope to be able to sort out how to post photos from my iPad so I can put up some of this trip. I'll be in N.Z. for 3 weeks.

Sonnets again...

Whoever told me to write sonnets has a lot to answer for. If the rhyme is right, the volta is in the wrong place, if the volta is right, the rhyme is wrong. There is a domino effect...change one word and the whole poem has to change. I'm not ready to give up yet...
Meanwhile Sintra is basking in winter sunshine, which means a drought must be on the way.

Hockney at the RA

I'm still reeling from the impact of this fantastic exhibition. Hockney is inspirational in the way he is continually experimenting with colour, medium, film etc. His exploration on The Sermon on the Mount, (after Claude) is a window into the way he works. His notebooks show what a great draughtsman he is and his ipad pictures make me want to have a go, although I can't draw to save my life. Try and get tickets if you can as this is a wonderful event and will lift those winter blues.

...the way of most resolutions!

Time seems to have flown again and I've been writing a lot of sonnets and villanelles. Now I'm delving into prose poetry and reading Rimbaud. I can't believe that he was writing in the 1800's and that his work is still so contemporary. We had a 'lively' discussion about prose poetry at the latest poetry workshop; the grey area between prose and poetry. It's a discussion I enjoy. I'm now writing a prose poem about waking up inside a jelly...maybe time for a rest.

Resolution!

Another year and another set of resolutions to break. I've been trying to write in blank verse which I found hard at first but now find I'm getting addicted to the form.
We had a great poetry workshop in December based around William Carlos Williams and his Red Wheelbarrow. For January's meeting we are meant to be writing imagist poetry. It is certainly harder than it looks but I'm having fun with it.
Happy New Year everyone!