This is meant to be a blog about writing poetry but somehow the garden keeps sneaking itself in. We have bananas for the second time in 15 years. I've been writing poems about the garden too. I think it's because I've had to spend more time digging and planting since putting the house on the market. Mind you, with one viewing in six months, is it worth it? It has renewed my love affair with the garden, so I suppose the answer is 'yes'.
Summer took over my life with family and visitors so this blog was put to one side. Now September is here, things have quietened down and I seem to have taken on a lot of poetry commitments.
Next week I'm heading off to Moniack Mhor, a writing centre near Inverness, for a tutored poetry retreat with Peter and Ann Sansom. I'm really looking forward to it and have a pile of things I want to work on. I'm going to be going through London just at the time of the Poetry Book Fair so I'm going to go along and pick up some pamphlets. I find pamphlets are a wonderful way of publishing (and reading) poetry and would love my own one day!
Meanwhile I've enrolled on a reading group at the Poetry School for reading Alice Oswald. Kathryn Maris is the tutor, and the first poem she has given us to read is called Dunt and it is quite amazing. A poem like that makes you realise what a wonderful art poetry is. Writing poetry has also taught me to read it, and I wonder what I did with my life without a poetry book tucked into the car, my pocket or a bag, for company.
