Spring

What a wonderful surprise to catch a few days of sunshine in London and this beautiful spring offering on Eel Brook Common. 

I managed to go to a poetry reading at the Royal Academy, based on the architectural exhibition Sensing Spaces, that's on at the moment. Called Wandering Words, it was Pop Up Poetry, a first for me, and the poets popped up all over the place. The problem was that they'd usually popped down again before I, and many others, could get to hear them. The acoustics didn't help and visitors to the exhibition were milling around chatting at the same time. The exhibition was spread between various rooms and some of the exhibits were mazes and passages, which made it even harder. I think it's a brilliant idea but I was disappointed as I'd gone especially to hear Tamar Yoseloff, Robert Peake and Helen Ivory, among others, and it was hard to find them. I'm afraid I gave up and left early.

Just before leaving Portugal, Visual Verse, http://visualverse.org/ asked me to write a poem for their March picture. It was fun to do, but my layout (postmodern apparently) didn't work on ipads/iphones so it looks a bit of a mess. Another lesson learnt ... stick to the left hand margin! I got a bit nervous when I received emails saying Tweets had gone out mentioning my name. I need to learn more about Twitter, although I love following people and it's a wonderful way to find out about poetry events, I'm ashamed to say I don't really know how to Tweet. Take a look at Visual Verse as the idea is wonderful and I'll certainly have another go next month.

This has been a busy few days and I was happy to achieve, at last, the poem I've been trying to write about the shell line at Shingle Street. (You are very lucky to get two pictures today).

It came about through as assignment with my Poetry School online course. This assignment was about Exploding Form. I chose a pantoum as it's the one form I really love and eventually, after days of fiddling around with words and formats, the poem seems to have pulled together and I'm happy with it. That is something I VERY RARELY say about my poems. I may not feel so happy after it has been critiqued.

I got back to Portugal last night with the sun in my wake, so let's hope winter has nearly gone.

I'm so fed up with the rain that I'm not even inspired to think of a title for today's posting. I can see that the UK is having a terrible time, and Portugal is also bowing under the weight of water. The waves have been up to ten metres high, gale force winds and it has rained non-stop since December. Sunday was a red alert day and the winds were scary up here in Sintra.

Writing a poem a week appears to be my normal rhythm. Then hours and weeks of editing go into them, so the writing goes on for a long time.

I've just started a new online course with The Poetry School with Kathryn Maris as the tutor and I'm very excited by it. It's called What are the rules and when can we break them? We've just submitted our first poems for discussion and I had a wonderful time writing a poem, as a sort of free-write, ignoring all the rules that have come my way since I put on a poetry hat. As a result it is the longest poem I've ever written, very different to my previous tidy poems. There's a great feeling of energy within the group and I'm looking forward to the next few weeks.

This posting looks forlorn without a picture so here is photo of clouds on Monday morning after the storms.

Beachcombing

Our Stanza group met today and they've written some fabulous poems inspired by beachcombing. We've had fantastic storms which have really churned up sand and debris, destroyed huts and wrecked beachside restaurants. The idea was to bring photographs of  their finds with a poem/poems about them. I was excited by their work and we are continuing with the same theme for next month's meeting.

Meanwhile plans are afoot again to organise our first public reading here in Portugal, so hopefully more about that later.

No resolutions.

I don't like resolutions as I always break them but I have tried to make some poetry ones.

a) I plan to read more using the time I waste fiddling around with things like templates for my blog and Googling around on my ipad. 

b) I'm going to carry on with the Reading notebook that I used for Lancaster. It stops me dipping in and out of poetry books and magazines in an aimless way and helps me to concentrate on what I'm reading, focus on poems I like, and think about why I like them.

c) build writing time into every week.

d) put all my writing notes into some sort of order.

I think that's enough for a year when I wasn't going to make any resolutions. Anything must be easier than dieting, but I won't talk about that one here.

The picture is blue string I found on the beach at Christmas. It shows an unravelling, the way of resolutions. I'm meant to be beach-combing for material for a poem for the next stanza meeting but it's been pouring with rain for days. The next sunny day I will go out and comb the beaches, and that's a promise.

So, Happy Resolutions to you all.

Light

I've come back to the most beautiful weather in Portugal and the sunrise was so bright this morning that I thought I'd left a light on all night. The skies are wide and blue with a feeling of space that I was starting to miss in the UK.

Before leaving, I went to my graduation at Lancaster, which was great fun. I wasn't quite the oldest, but getting there. I had to tell myself not to feel foolish. Anyway I enjoyed the whole thing, especially catching up with my tutor group who I'd only met at summer school. We've built up a great rapport over the past two years and can talk writing for hours.

My notebooks are bursting with ideas and so is my brain but they're going to have to stay on the back burner until after Christmas. I like working that way as I'm a slow writer and love thinking time, eventually getting everything onto paper in some sort of order. I couldn't cope without notebooks and take them everywhere.

I'm now going to decorate the tree and see if I can stop it wobbling... and will the lights work this year?

Spells in Norwich

After a week in Portugal I whizzed back to England for a poetry workshop at the Writers' Centre in Norwich. I'd never been to Norwich before and had time to visit the Cathedral which is stunning. Why Norwich? I saw that Esther Morgan was giving a workshop and her book Grace is one of my favourite poetry books. I dip in and out of all the time. In fact I have two copies, one in London and one in Portugal as I got fed up with taking my copy backwards and forwards.

The theme of the workshop was Rituals and we also looked at writing Spells. It was a wonderful day in a fabulous house in the old centre of Norwich. I have a notebook full of ideas generated from this day with Esther. 
I started a spell poem on the bus in London yesterday when I got caught up in the snarl around Chelsea Football Club: Take 5 hairs from a player's leg/bubble in a vat of ivy/at the time of the World Cup/and chant  "off-side off-side". 

Off the subject, but, in my insomniac hours, I noticed that Magma has put a link to my poem '&' on Twitter, that is certainly a first for me and I'm chuffed. I just need to learn how to Tweet although I do have a Twitter account and cheer from the sidelines.

Poetry&Poetry

I've had a poetry bonanza in England for the last few weeks. Firstly with the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival which was as wonderful as ever. It started with a fantastic workshop with Robert Wrigley who, with his charm and humour, had us all writing away. I attended a talk on Poetry Travels with Olivia McCannon and readings by Richie McCaffery, Kim Moore, Shazea Quraishi and Luke Yates. Close Readings, Craft Talks, Discussions and Short Takes. It was exhausting and exhilarating and the only problem was not being able to go to everything.

Back in London it was my turn to read. My first reading in public was at the wonderful Troubadour Cafe for the launch of the latest edition of Magma, number 57, one of my favourite poetry magazines. I had one poem in the magazine called '&' which I read, plus one other poem which I chose, called 'If I were an Animal'. The theme for this edition of Magma was The Shape of the Poem and look at the fabulous cover! It was an exciting evening with lots of poets reading some inventive and wonderful work and the atmosphere was warm and vibrant. I imagined that I would be terrified, and was certainly nervous, but the atmosphere carried me along and I had a fascinating evening.

My second reading, was a few days later, for Second Light, a network of women poets. I'd had a poem commended in their competition which was then published in their magazine Artemis Poetry. I love this magazine for its selection of poetry and for its articles which are hugely informative. I was given a 7 minute reading, which doesn't sound much, but seemed quite a long time to me. Strangely, I found this reading unsettling, as the room was small and the audience very close. I think I galloped my way to the end, but, as with every new experience, I learnt a lot, mostly about how not to read. I found it a very interesting event held at The Art Workers' Guild with some powerful poems being read. Moniza Alvi, who had judged the competition then read from her moving new collection At the Time of Partition.

So now I'm back in Portugal, in the middle of making turkey gravy to freeze for Christmas. There's not much poetry in that.