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!
