Blog – Page 5 – Alwyn Marriage

Digital communication and social media

Published February 14, 2014

I’ve been blogging for over a year now, and enjoying Facebook for longer; so I thought I’d offer some personal reflections on the various forms of digital communication and social media.

First, an admission: I am not, and have never been, much of a telephone person. I don’t like ‘phoning people, because it seems rude to interrupt what they’re doing just because I want to grab their attention; and although I always love to hear from my nearest and dearest family or my best friends, other ‘phone calls can be irritating if I’m concentrating on work or enjoying leisure. Also, we depend on so many cues when we talk to people face to face. We see whether they are smiling or looking fierce, we detect love or coldness in their eyes, we notice if they are giving us their full attention or tapping away at a computer at the same time. All these cues are, of course, absent when our only contact is audial. I like to be able to put out my hand and touch the person I’m talking to, if the mood takes me.

Overheard (Poetry Society)

Mobile ‘phones, of course, compound my reticence. I do possess a mobile ‘phone (or a handy, as a German friend calls it), and occasionally I turn it on; but most people find me unsocially unavailable most of the time. Those who were present at my reading at the Poetry Society AGM last Autumn may recognise this photo.

Even worse than calling someone on a mobile ‘phone is texting. I deeply dislike predictive text, and find myself challenged to the point of exasperation by trying to find the correct keys to give me the punctuation I want. I am also saddened to see young people unable to lift their eyes from their mobile ‘phones, even when stepping out into busy roads or meeting socially.

Fortunately it is possible to send text messages by Skype, using a normal computer keyboard, so I do occasionally send a text to someone’s mobile by this method. Speaking of Skype, I am more than happy with this wonderful mode of communication. It gets round several of the difficulties that result from the lack of cues mentioned above, and it has absolutely transformed the accessibility and relationships of people separated by distance.

I can remember my first astonishing experience of faxing. I was in the IT department at the university when I needed to sign a contract with one of my publishers. I had a conversation with them on the telephone, then watched in amazement as the contract was spewed out of the fax machine before my eyes. It really did seem like magic in those days before all the wonders of digital communication made us blasé. But faxes, of course, had a restricted life, as new technologies tumbled over each other, challenging us to keep abreast of the developments.

I took to email like a duck to water. This was so much more satisfactory than telephoning without knowing how convenient one’s call was likely to be to the recipient. It was like leaving a message in their pigeon-hole at work, and trusting that they would deal with it when it suited them. Strangely, I think I had one of the first emails in the country: I was editing a journal at the time, and immediately saw the potential for publishing the articles I received, without having to re-type everything. I’ve still got that original email address, though I use some others as well, for different purposes.

In the nineties I was travelling all over the world on business, and wanted to keep in touch with my elderly mother. I therefore acquired a second-hand computer for her and set about teaching her how to use email. She must have been one of the first grey-surfers in the country, and as it was all so new and different from other forms of communication, it was quite a challenge to get to grips with it. I remember her bafflement when she finally succeeded in sending a message, and then found that it was still on her computer – ‘so it couldn’t have gone!’ I was very proud of her internet prowess, and wished there were more websites for her to visit. She would have thoroughly enjoyed the infinite possibilities for surfing that we now enjoy.

Turning to more recent social media, I have to admit that with some of them I am as much at sea as my mother was with her early incursions into emails. The two that for some reason leave me completely cold are Linked in and Twitter.

All sorts of people invite me to be Linked in with them, and quite often, rather than offend them, I comply. That tends to mean that I am connected to all sorts of people on Linked in, whom I don’t know and am never likely to meet. This network seems to pride itself on offering some sort of business advantage, but I think there are better ways to share business ideas and contacts.

But even worse than Linked in is Twitter. In a rash moment I accepted an invitation to join Twitter, and I know that millions of people swear by it. I am assured that it is an essential publicity tool for a writer; but I have to admit that, even after several exploratory incursions into the Twitter-realm, I still don’t get it. Apart from the fact that so many of the tweets appear to be completely inane, there is the huge practical problem of superfluity. Apparently the idea is to have as many Twitter contacts as possible, but that means
a) that there will be a constant and unstoppable stream of tweets arriving into one’s system and I certainly haven’t got time to read them all, and
b) no one is going to have time or inclination to read what I tweet either.
I’m sure that my sparse visits to Twitter (maybe once or twice a month) do not constitute the correct way to treat this miracle of mass communication; but the only way to see even a fraction of the tweets that are posted would be to leave it on all the time, which would mean one was constantly interrupted and would never get a decent day’s work done.

Next up the hierarchy of digital communication is Facebook, and here we come to a form of social media that, once I’d got the hang of it, I found I really rather enjoyed. It is an easy and enjoyable way of staying in touch with friends and family; but it has also turned out that many of my Facebook friends are poets, and through Facebook we inform each other of publications and publishing possibilities and share some of our work. I enjoy some of the humour that is shared on Facebook, and also turn to it to keep me abreast of the news, particularly the news that isn’t considered important by the mass communications industry. The groups within Facebook are useful for selecting who one wants to share material with, as not everything that is posted is of interest to everyone.

Sometimes people send or accept friending invitations and then are never seen on the site again. I can’t help wondering what happens to them. Is it that they read the posts but are too shy to share anything of their own lives, or do they join and then think better of it and abstain from these jolly gatherings in the market place?

Possibly the most enjoyable of these media is Blogging, because while Facebook allows posts of more substance and interest than Twitter, a blog can be quite an extended communication. Because the blogs are longer than the quick messages that characterise the other media, it’s not possible, or advisable, to follow too many. I’ve just looked to see whose blogs I follow most assiduously, and find that they are all, like myself, writers. I suppose that’s why I find them interesting. They include Anthony Wilson, Jo Bell, Kathleen Jones and Elizabeth Stott.

These reflections are, of course, entirely personal, and I mean no disrespect to those who, for instance, enjoy Twitter or use Linked in for their business interactions. And then, most of you will probably agree that at the end of the day the best social interaction is to meet someone for a walk or a drink and talk face to face.

Song of the sentimental cow, the cynical sheep and the stubborn donkey

Published December 23, 2013

As it has been published in various places, including in my last collection, festo: celebrating winter and Christmas, some of you will have read or heard this poem before; but putting it up as a blog seems an appropriate way to wish you all a very happy Christmas.

festo front cover

Off we go to the stable to meet some of the animals.

Celebrations at the Poetry Society

Published November 29, 2013

Anyone who knows me will realise that admin and AGMs aren’t my cup of tea; so you will no doubt be a little surprised to hear that I had a very jolly time at the Poetry Society’s AGM earlier this week.

The venue for the evening was Keats House in Hampstead Heath. This is the house where John Keats lived between 1818 and 1820, and where he fell in love with the girl next door – Fanny Brawne. He wrote ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ here, though I suspect it’s many years now since a nightingale ventured this far into North London. The house is now a museum, dedicated both to the memory of Keats, and also to poetry in general, so it was entirely fitting that the Poetry Society should hold its AGM there.

We were welcomed with wine and nibbles, then Sir Stephen Irwin, the Chair of the Poetry Society, gave a very positive report of the last year at the society. It is no secret that the Poetry Society went through a rough patch a couple of years ago, but over the last year, the dedication, hard work, fortitude and good humour of the staff have pulled the society through and brought it back to full strength. All the staff are once again in place, and what a lovely lot of people they are! The Director, Judith Palmer, who has done so much to bring the society through its difficulties, gave a report of recent activity, and the long list of events and work with young people was impressive.

With the business behind us, we replenished our glasses and then moved on to the poetry reading. Three of us had been invited to read, with an emphasis on celebration to set us thinking about the festive season ahead: R V Bailey, Dannie Abse and me.

Rosie read first, starting with a few general poems before moving on to some of her Christmas poems, which she described, with wry humour, as ‘gloomy’. One of these, ‘At Maison Miller’, is in the voice of an elderly woman at the hairdresser’s trying hard to be enthusiastic about going to stay with her family for Christmas and knowing she is going to end up feeling sad and lonely. Several of the poems Rosie read, including this one, were in Credentials, the collection of her poems published by Oversteps last year.

I read next, and like Rosie I began with some new pieces, festo front cover followed by several of the poems from my collection festo: celebrating winter and Christmas. I thoroughly enjoyed reading to this packed audience of poets who responded with such fantastic warmth and enthusiasm.

When I was a student I went to hear Dannie Abse reading his work and remember being impressed that a practising doctor could at the same time make a name for himself as a poet. Little did I know that this same poet would be writing and performing his poetry many years later, or that I would enjoy the enormous privilege of reading with him at the celebration of his ninetieth birthday.

Dannie has lost none of his dynamism and charm, and his voice is as strong as ever. It was very fitting that after Rosie and I had been presented with huge bouquets of beautiful flowers, the lights were lowered and a birthday cake, twinkling with candles, was brought to the front for Dannie to blow out the candles before the cake was cut and shared with everyone present. As ‘the icing on the cake’ of the evening, it has to be reported that the cake was delicious.

Thank you to all at the Poetry Society for organising such a happy occasion; and thanks to the lovely audience who made it all so worthwhile. And once again, many happy returns to Dannie Abse on his ninetieth birthday.

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Winchester blog 5: November

Published November 5, 2013

After five fascinating and enjoyable months, I have come to the end of my assignment as Poet in Residence for the Winchester 10 Days festival. From July onwards I visited the city once a month, and my reflections on these visits have appeared on earlier blogs. The final spurt – the actual ten days – meant more visits to Winchester, more obvious excitements and more public appearances.

The launch of 10 Days was on 25th October, and as I was at the Torbay Poetry Festival,
I needed to travel for five hours, on four trains, to get to the launch, stay in a b&b and then return the next day. But it was worth it. There were 400 people there for the launch; and the cathedral, lit predominantly by candlelight, grew huge and seemed to float. I was able to see all the artworks in situ, and meet some of the artists I hadn’t managed to meet before.

My b&b hostess was Alice Kettle, who was one of the artists exhibiting in the cathedral. We got on extremely well, and if anyone ever needs a b&b in Winchester, I would recommend that they go to her. Here is the work on which she collaborated for the exhibition.

It was strange going round the cathedral and finding my poems everywhere. There was a map of the Poetry Trail for people to pick up as they went into the cathedral, but in fact it was quite difficult to miss them. Because they were all displayed so beautifully and so prominently, and also because the portrait Michael Weller painted of me was exhibited, lots of people came up to talk to me, which was fun and interesting.

The poem displayed above was not written specially for the exhibition (in fact it was included in my last collection, festo), but seemed appropriate for this spot in the cathedral, just beside the Holy Hole and under the icons. A few of the other poems in the Poetry Trail were not new – and of course I wrote others while I was working in the cathedral, including one about Jane Austen’s tombstone, which is situated in the north aisle.

Later in the ten days I did a couple of ‘walk-abouts’ in the cathedral. On one of the days there were lots of young French visitors, so I chatted to them, and I also spent time with some of the volunteers who tend the two libraries in the cathedral. They were keen to take a photo of me beside my portrait, so I succumbed.

The other two events of the week were a writing workshop, for which I took the festival theme of Creative Collisions, and then an evening performance which included a new piece by June Boyce-Tillman, a poetry reading by me and finally a discussion with some of the artists with whom I had been collaborating. This was very ably chaired by Stephen Boyce, who set all of us at ease and elicited comments and questions from the audience. The artists who shared in this were Lisa Earley, Sue Wood, Lucy Cass and Penny Burnfield.

2013-10-31 12.48.43

I’ve covered some of these in earlier blogs, so
I’ll just include Penny’s beautiful piece here. Penny used silhouettes of members of her family on the hangings, and then inscribed some of the words from the surrounding monuments over them. The poem I wrote to accompany this piece is called ‘Retrospective’. I wrote it before I met Penny, and it was wonderful how what she had in mind when she was creating the piece and what I wrote for her should have chimed so well together. My poem will now travel with Penny’s artwork when it is exhibited elsewhere.

The last of the works of art I was asked to respond to was a dramatic piece by Anna Sikorska entitled ‘You are very near to us’. It was a huge float, suspended from the ceiling of the cathedral, and was situated at the back end of the nave. This poem had to be written rather quickly before I went off on holiday, so that the printing could be done while I was away. Initially I thought I was going to be stumped by this one, but then the poem, ‘Transition’, came to me, and I even managed to get in all the various themes that Anna suggested to me by email. Normally I go back to edit poems before launching them out into the world, but that wasn’t possible in the time-frame we had available. In view of this, I’m much relieved that all the poems seemed to work out fine, and were greatly appreciated. Whew!

Quite a number of people have requested that there should be a publication so that they can have copies of the poems. The organisers of the festival are keen to do this, but whether it happens or not depends (as so often) on finance. If it does, I’d like to include all the artworks, with my poems on the opposite pages. The festival photographer, Joe Low, has plenty of super photos of everything that went on at the festival. This publication might well not be possible, but if it does come off, I’ll post something to let you know.

I’m immensely grateful to the organisers of the 10 Days Festival for giving me the opportunity to work in this amazing building with such lovely artists. Thanks, too, to all those artists, whose warmth and appreciation made the task so richly fulfilling.

The next poetry excitement for me is reading with Dannie Abse and R V Bailey at the Poetry Society’s AGM. More news anon.

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7 Maltese (K)nights

Published October 23, 2013

Normally early October brings the delights of the Poetry on the Lake Festival at Orta in Italy. Like a number of others, I first attended this festival when I was successful in one of their competitions – and then became addicted. This year, because of other potential arrangements, I wasn’t able to commit to Orta in advance, so decided to take a break from my normal pattern of revising my rudimentary Italian and heading south in the camper van as soon as the first whiff of autumn blew in my direction.

The expected appointments didn’t materialise, so at the last minute we made a booking to join our grandchildren and their parents for a half-term holiday week in Malta, which we had never visited before. The weather was perfect all week with temperatures in the mid-30s, and the sea was deliciously warm, so we enjoyed the luxury of swimming several times a day as well as visiting some of the interesting sites on the islands. And, of course, we had lots of fun with the lovely family. We had also made some new friends earlier this year, and it turned out that they are Maltese and spend quite a bit of time back there; so we were able to spend two happy days with them as well.

One of the striking features of Malta is the pale honey-coloured limestone which is quarried on the island, and from which everything, from ornate cathedral to humble dwelling, is built. It gives a gentle relaxed feel to the towns, and looks beautiful from the air. Like our sandstone in places like Lindisfarne, the stone is soft enough to be sculpted by the elements, and takes on fascinating decorative patterns as parts are worn away.

Of course, much of the history of Malta revolves round the Knights of St John. Like so much other history this tends to be rather macho and it’s sometimes tempting to think that the islands were uninhabited by women. However, the knights have left behind some beautiful cathedrals and churches. Like so much from this Baroque era, the insides of these buildings are incredibly ornate, and on entering Valetta Cathedral one is almost dazzled by the extensive gold. But most of it is not as over-the-top as one might have expected. I’ve seen far more excessive Baroque buildings in other countries, especially in Spain, Austria and Brazil. My taste in ecclesiastical architecture normally tends towards the simplicity and grace of the Romanesque; but on this occasion to my surprise, I actually liked much of what I saw, especially in Valetta Cathedral.

Mdina cathedral reduced

The picture on the right is of Mdina Cathedral. Mdina is a beautiful city, surrounded by walls and is so much of a piece that it feels extremely harmonious. It is, of course, highly preserved for tourists, but also seems to operate as a real place as well.

Another impressive church building was in Mosta, which has a huge dome, said to be either the third or the fourth largest in the world.

Bomb

Apparently the inhabitants of the town were all sheltering in this church in the war, when a bomb was dropped and fell straight through the dome and down to where all the people were. By an amazing stroke of good fortune, or what many would call a miracle, the bomb did not explode and nobody was hurt. A replica of that bomb is now on display in the church. Malta suffered terribly during the war, and the whole island was awarded the George Cross by King George VI.

The friend we spent some time with was a child in the war and remembers it quite clearly. The experiences of the Maltese people came alive so vividly for us as he talked: in particular his stories of how his family spent the nights down a large well for safety, and how one uncle who decided he’d had enough of that left the well one night and was killed.

Moving further back in history, St Paul was shipwrecked on Malta, and we passed St Paul’s Island when we took the boat to Comino and Gozo on what turned out to be the only day when the wind got up. It was still sunny and warm, but the seas became pretty rough, and gave us a taste of what St Paul might have experienced a couple of thousand years ago. The story goes that when St Paul landed, he had an unfortunate encounter with a viper, so the locals all expected him to keel over and die. Instead of that, however, he simply shook the viper off into the fire.
Once safely on shore, we found out that the island was called Malta. ²The islanders showed us unusual kindness. They built a fire and welcomed us all because it was raining and cold. ³Paul gathered a pile of brushwood and, as he put it on the fire, a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his hand. ⁴When the islanders saw the snake hanging from his hand, they said to each other, “This man must be a murderer; for though he escaped from the sea, the goddess Justice has not allowed him to live.” ⁵But Paul shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no ill effects. ⁶The people expected him to swell up or suddenly fall dead; but after waiting a long time and seeing nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and said he was a god. (Acts of the Apostles chapter 28).

St Paul reduced There’s a large statue of St Paul and the viper outside the church in Mellieha (see right).

The other treatment of this theme, which I’ve always loved, can be found in St Anselm’s Chapel in Canterbury Cathedral, where the twelfth century artist captures so much of the movement and drama and of the story.

Travelling even further back into history, Malta has some rather impressive pre-historic temples, which are far older than Stonehenge. As with many such early structures in Britain and France, they appear to be aligned in such a way that the sun striking certain stones marks the solstices and equinoxes, thus giving shape to the year and guiding the timing of agricultural activities.

temple stones

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Winchester blog 4: October

Published October 10, 2013

I’ve now made my last visit to Winchester before the Festival starts in earnest at the end of this month. This visit was to finalise the venues and formats for all my poems that form the Poetry Trail through the Cathedral, and then to meet Stephen Boyce to make plans for my Poetry Reading on the evening of November 1st.

My next blog will probably be on something completely unconnected with the Winchester Festival, but after that I hope to be able to post a final Winchester blog with lots of pictures of the various artworks in situ. The Cathedral is going to be bursting with new and interesting art in the festival, as is the whole city of Winchester. If you can possibly get there between 26th October and 3rd November, I highly recommend a visit.

As on all the other days I’ve made preparatory visits to Winchester over the last few months, the weather was beautiful and I was able to sit on a bench in the peaceful Cathedral Green to eat my sandwich. I then wandered round the side of the cathedral, to visit the Barbara Hepworth sculpture of the Crucifixion. I’ve always loved this piece: it’s one of three casts, and was originally situated against a backdrop of the sea in St Ives, down in Cornwall. The autumn leaves were drifting gently down, there was no sound of traffic and the great ancient cathedral formed a fitting backdrop to the colour and quiet drama of Hepworth’s sculpture.

It has been a very stimulating and enjoyable process working with the artists who will be represented in the Cathedral during the 10 days Festival, including Sue Wood, Lisa Earley, Michael Weller, Lucy Cass, Penny Burnfield and Anna Sikorska. It was easier when I could meet the artists, particularly if I could see something of what they were working on for the Festival. The two poems that came most easily were Listen, for Sue Wood’s sound installation in the Triforium and Sitting for a Portrait to go with Michael Weller’s paintings in the Morley Library. It’s not so very surprising that this latter poem came quite easily, given that I had hours to think about little else as I sat while he painted my portrait.

The most difficult poems to write were those for which I hadn’t met the artist and didn’t have a very clear idea of what the finished artwork was going to look like. The last poem I was asked to produce for the Trail was in response to a huge polystyrene float that will be suspended above the nave. The work is to be called ‘You are very near to us’; and the artist Anna Sikorska sent the following guidance:

The title of the swimming float, lowered through the roof, hovering and waiting, was overheard at the Cathedral as a response to intercessions. It is part of a body of work describing and playing with surfaces and substance, particularly in this case the chalk of the surrounding land, thinking about directness, cleanliness and simply the desire to reach and bubble upwards.
Mark 2.4 (also Acts 10.11 although this is just a coincidence and was not inspiration for the work).
The chalk lands of Winchester and surrounding areas.
Being underwater, and looking/rising up
Place.
He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. (Acts 10 v 11).

All that presented something of a challenge, but I’m glad to say that after several attempts I did manage to reflect most of these themes in the poem, though with its final focus on music, it turned out to be about something very different from what I first anticipated. One strange result is that this piece is the only one of the poems that has a recognisably religious theme, as it reflects on some of the difficulties of prayer. I am told that this particular artwork is likely to be the most controversial, so it’s rather fun that it should turn out this way. I’d like to include a picture of the float here, but as it’s not finished yet, that will have to wait until my next Winchester blog in November.

There will be maps showing the positions of my poems in the Poetry Trail just inside the Cathedral, and Lucy Cass has produced a series of postcards of some of my poems alongside photographs of her artworks. I shall be doing a couple of ‘walk-abouts’ in the Cathedral in the second week, and running a poetry reading and writing workshop at 2.00pm on Thursday 31st October. You need to book for this workshop, but it is free.

Then on Friday 1st November I shall be giving a Poetry Reading in the Epiphany Chapel at 7.00pm. At this event, the musician/performer June-Boyce-Tillman will give a short performance before I read, and afterwards Stephen Boyce will chair a conversation with me and some of the artists with whom I’ve been working. We will talk about our collaboration, and invite comments and discussion with the audience. Do join us if you can.

There is going to be SO much going on during this 10 Days Festival. You certainly won’t be able to get to everything, but I do urge you to try to visit Winchester at least once during the ten days.

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Winchester blog 3: September

Published September 23, 2013

The last month has seen more exciting challenges on the Winchester Poet in Residence front.
I had a message from the organisers asking if they could set up a trail of my poems round the cathedral, with a map showing where each one is situated. It was suggested that as it’s a 10 Day Festival, it would be appropriate to have a trail of ten poems. At that stage I had written only four, so I took a deep breath and started to write more and also to look through my files to see what existing poems I had that might be suitable. Last week I met Trish Bould, the Creative Director of the festival, in the cathedral to discuss where they should all go, and to plan the route for the trail. I have at least three more poems to produce, in response to some more of the artists, and will do my best to come up with something suitable. There are a couple of points in the Trail that will have more than one of my poems as part of the same installation.

My poems for the Fishermen’s Chapel are now finished and incorporated into the artwork by Lisa Earley (pictured left). This chapel contains the attractive altar shown below, and also a memorial to Izaak Walton, who wrote ‘The Complete Angler’. Both Lisa and I are concentrating on the working people who go to sea to catch fish for us to eat, rather than leisure anglers who sit beside rivers with fishing rods.

Lisa had already started working on my poem Those who go down to the sea when I last visited the cathedral. This poem was recently published in the anthology about the sea published by Grey Hen Press, ‘Running before the wind’, and it seemed a suitable choice for a chapel dedicated to those who work in the challenging conditions of sea fishing.

Those who go down to the sea

They hardly ever cross my mind,
certainly never keep me awake
and tossing through the dark hours of the night

wondering if they’ll make it
or whether this time the fury of the open seas
will overwhelm the frailty of their vessel.

Even when I eat fresh fish,
the costly silver harvest
torn from the thundering waves,

I can continue a conversation
as if the delicacy placed before me
had been casually plucked from a bush

by a land-lubber
pausing in a cottage garden
on the way home for tea, unaware

of the raw flesh and watering eyes,
the constant taste of salt,
of fear.

Lisa asked if I would write another poem for her, bringing in the ripples that figure in her installation, and also alluding to the fact that fisherfolk have for centuries made pilgrimages to this chapel in Winchester Cathedral. I therefore wrote a new poem entitled Ripples that will also be incorporated into Lisa’s work and displayed in the Fishermen’s Chapel. Lisa’s plans for the chapel sound really exciting, using textiles to suggest nets with fish that gradually morph into footsteps; and she’ll be using bits of my poems in the installation. I look forward to seeing the finished pieces.

The next artist with whom I was invited to collaborate is Lucy Cass, a recent graduate from Winchester University College of Art. Lucy works with acrylic and resin to produce amazing pieces of sculpture such as this one. This piece will (all being well) be the inspiration for my next poem for the Poetry Trail. The Muse, however, can be remarkably fickle, especially when deadlines are approaching, with the result that all sorts of poems are now competing for my attention. One of the most recent, written at 4.00am on the morning after my visit, was a rather feminist poem inspired by Jane Austen’s tombstone in the cathedral; but as I’m limiting myself to 10, I don’t think that will make it into the final selection.

Lucy is also designing and producing four postcards that incorporate some of her images and some of my poems from the project, and these will be available at various venues in Winchester during the festival.

One of my commitments during the actual week of the festival is a poetry reading in the cathedral on the evening of Friday 1st November. As this event will start with a short performance by the musician June Boyce-Tillman, I had a meeting with her to discuss our plans for the event. After June’s piece, I’ll give my reading, and the evening will conclude with discussion with the poets with whom I’ve been collaborating about our experiences of the process. The Arts Adviser for the festival, Stephen Boyce, will chair this event.

I concluded my visit to Winchester last week by attending a poetry reading by four poets in the Winchester Discovery Centre. Three of the poets had been shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize recently: Annie Freud, David Harsent and Daljit Nagra; and they were joined by the aforementioned Stephen Boyce, as a representative of local Hampshire poets. All the poets gave good readings.

I’ve got more artists to meet and more poems to write, so there’s no time to waste. The dates of the 10 Day Festival are approaching fast: 25th October to 3rd November.

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Winchester blog 2: August

Published August 29, 2013

I spent another day in Winchester as Poet in Residence for the Winchester 10 Days Festival, and once again the sun shone and the city was buzzing with life.

The artist, Michael Weller, had asked if he could paint another portrait of me, so I sat for him in his studio at Brassey Road in the morning. The studio, which is shared with various artists, is light and airy, and Michael had selected some recordings of poetry readings to play to me while I sat for him. They included many well-known poems, and a few that I hadn’t come across before. It is extremely rare to get the opportunity to sit for two and a half hours doing nothing but listen to poetry, and the time passed quite quickly. This portrait, in any case, took less time than the last.

Once again I didn’t see the painting until it was finished. It is very different from the first one, and I’d be interested to know which people think is the best. I prefer this one, which I think captures my eyes better, but one of my daughters thinks the colour is better in the first. I’ll put the two together (chatting to each other?) at the bottom of this blog, so that you can judge for yourselves. I hope some of you will respond with your considered judgement, as I think the artist would appreciate some feed-back.

In the afternoon I spent some time with two of the other artists with whom I’m working in preparation for the festival. Sue Wood is preparing a sound art installation, for which I have written a poem; and she has now made this into a poster to display as part of her installation in the Triforium. As it describes the project, I’ll include it here in full:

Listen
Sound installation in Winchester Triforium

Listen! you probably won’t hear
monks chanting plainsong in the choir
– there are no monks –

nor pad of ghostly feet ascending
and descending night stairs linking
their dormitory and prayer.

If you’re standing, your ears are on are a level
with other visitors talking face to face,
admiring the purity of the exquisite arches;

and if you were to lie down on
the stone floor, monk-like
prostrate yourself, perhaps your ears

would pick up faint reverberations
of passing feet, as a rabbit
bends her ear to catch

vibrations of dog or human
through the earth. But better still,
if you sit awhile, here on this bench,

and close your eyes, your inner ear
will start to catch a rich
cacophony of sounds:

perhaps the clank of workmen
mounting and dismounting
exhibitions,

a mobile telephone that somebody
forgot to turn off, tinkling an inane
tune deep within a pocket,

the drone of a deep authoritative voice
explaining the iconography
of early English architecture,

a girl and boy who’ve found a quiet
corner in which to hide and whisper
secrets of human love and beauty,

the organ playing far away,
footsteps on stone steps, the muffled cry
of a baby, filtered through the stone.

Then in that stillness you may become aware
of the music of your own life-giving
breath, the spirit within, as when

on a still blue summer’s evening
you hear the beat of swallows’ wings
as they fly overhead

and realise that what you’re hearing
is the sound of flight.
That’s right: just pause awhile and listen.

After leaving Sue in the Triforium I peeped into the Morley Library where my portrait will be exhibited during the festival, spent a few precious moments in the cathedral library poring over the beautiful Winchester Bible pages on display, then went downstairs to the Fishermen’s Chapel to meet Lisa Earley. Lisa is a textile artist, and she’s got some exciting plans for our collaboration. She’s already using one of my poems, and I might well write another for her.

I’ll write about Sue’s ideas and the development of her art work in my next blog. There are still some more artists I need to meet, and quite a few more poems that need to be written.

Finally, here are the two portraits. Which do you prefer?

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Festival frenzy in Edinburgh

Published August 14, 2013

Once upon a time there was an international festival of the arts that took place in Edinburgh during the summer. Although it had a good name and drew performers from many countries,it became fiendishly expensive, so another festival, the Fringe Festival, started up. Unfortunately, this soon became too expensive for many people too, so the Free Fringe Festival was born, with hundreds of free events in the city. But that is not all. Edinburgh in summer has become a place (and season) in which many festivals flourish, including the International Book Festival, the Just Festival (formerly the Festival of Peace and Spirituality), the World of Dance Festival, the Political Festival, the Film Festival, the Jazz Festival and, new kid on the block, the Edinburgh e-book festival. So now the city erupts with festival-fever each summer, and there are probably far more events than there are people to attend them.

A walk down the Royal Mile gives a frenetic taste of what is going on. It is fun, lively, crowded gold woman and mostly good-natured. There are jugglers, actors, musicians and every other sort of entertainment imaginable – and many of them are touting for audiences for their shows; so unless hands are firmly kept in pockets, they are soon filled with leaflets about the many and various delights on offer.

saw-playing 2

break dancers Juggling with fire 1
Despite the lively atmospere, I have to admit that there is something vaguely ridiculous about thousands of events being promoted, worked for and in some cases paid for, and then many of them playing to audiences that would shame any self-respecting artist, musician or poet. But having said that, everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, and as long as one could escape from the crowds after due immersion, it was fun.

It was something of a relief, on moving on to the Meadows, to find a quiet poet sitting at a small desk, offering to write a poem to order on a subject chosen by the passer-by. Her name was GennaRose Nethercott and, naturally, I stopped to talk to her and order a poem. She asked me for a subject and, as I was writing about arches myself at that point, I suggested a poem about arches, went off for a coffee, and returned about 20 minutes later. Here is the poem she had written:
Arches
A stone giant bows,
its arms bent like a tulip stem
in wind. Such a strong beast –

how gently it tilts,
like a cat’s arched spine,
like the tip of a paintbrush.

This leviathan is more prayer
than canyon. Brick alight
with wind. Can grace infect
even the hardest of us?

The heaviest rocks?
Soft, even with such a weight?

I thought GennaRose was extremely brave to sit there accepting whatever subjects were thrown at her, and producing fairly decent poems on those subjects in so short a time.

My own reading this year was as part of the Just Festival, and took place in St John’s Church at the west end of Prince’s Street. This is an exciting festival of music, dance, poetry and art, with an international and inter-faith flavour. I read for an hour and sold some books; and it was a particular delight when my grandchildren donned animal masks and joined me for the final poem of the afternoon.

Marquees in Charlotte Square provide the venues for all the events of the International Book Festival. Audiences are in general large, enthusiastic and intelligent.
I booked in advance for two events and, as the large tent theatre was completely full on both occasions, I was glad that I had done so.

The first event was an interview with the wonderful neurophysicist, Susan Greenfield. Susan has written a novel, ‘2121’, which is a dystopian vision of a world in which virtual technology has taken over from reality. But most of the interview, ably conducted by Ruth Wishart, concentrated on Greenfield’s work on Alzheimers and the efforts by her team in their search for a way to stop the destruction of brain cells in that dreadful disease. The hour flashed by, as Susan spoke with passion, erudition and charm.

The next day the theatre was again full to capacity for a conversation between Rowan Williams and Julia Neuberger. I have long been an admirer of Rowan’s and it was good, as ever, to listen to someone with such a huge brain and a gracious manner. Many subjects were covered in the hour, but of particular note, perhaps, were his reflections on the word ‘spirituality’ (which for him involves connectivity with others), the distinction between knowledge and scientific facts (on which he took a fairly Platonic line), and the robustness that should be part of the Christian’s response to criticism (in regard to which he quoted one of his lecturers at university who declared that a good religion is one that trains its own critics).

In the afternoon we took a coach out to Hopetoun House where students from St Andrews were performing ‘The Tempest’ on the beach. The parts of Ariel and Prospero were particularly well-played, but all the actors caught the spirit of this wonderful final play of Shakespeare’s; and the waves of the Forth beside us added to the atmosphere. We moved, enchanted, to various points on the beach as the action progressed; and we drank in the wisdom of the bard, filtered through the modern approach of the young performers.

Amazingly, we had reasonable weather throughout our stay in Edinburgh. Each night at 10.30 the peace was shattered by bangs as the fireworks marked the end of yet another Tattoo performance, and we were even able to catch a glimpse of them from our window.

On now to my next poetry reading, which will be in Norfolk next week.
As ever: ‘Poetry is always moving’.

Winchester blog 1: July

Published July 27, 2013

Earlier this week I made my first visit to Winchester as Poet in Residence for the ’10 days: Creative Collisions Arts Festival’ to take place this autumn. The three purposes of this visit were 1. to sit for a portrait by the artist Michael Weller; 2. to meet the festival organisers in the cathedral; and 3. to meet one of the artists with whom I shall be working in the coming months, to discuss her project.

One of the major aims of the festival is to bring together artists from different disciplines. Over the coming months I shall be working with a few visual artists, but it also seemed like a good idea to agree to have my portrait painted.

I spent the morning in Michael’s studio. I’ve never had my portrait painted before, so this was a new and interesting experience. I sat for nearly three hours, with a few short breaks to avoid getting a stiff neck, as I was requested to maintain the same position throughout. An extremely comfortable chair was provided, and some lovely mp3 tapes of poetry. In the company of John Donne, Tennyson, and then Richard Burton’s wonderful performance of Under Milkwood, the time did not hang heavy, and I really appreciated the unusual luxury of sitting in enforced idleness. The only slight problem I had to struggle a little with by the end of a very hot morning was the tendency to become drowsy.

Michael, who paints in oils, uses a limited palette of black, white, cadmium red light, yellow ochre and ultamarine blue, and with those colours produces a whole world of colours and shades. It is strange to sit under the intense gaze of someone for such a long period of time – very different from being the focus of attention when lecturing or reading poetry. Like a medical practitioner, the artist’s gaze is detached and academic. From time to time Michael would take the painting off the easel and hold it to a mirror in order to see it from a different perspective; and he would periodically clean his palette to avoid the colours merging into each other.

At the end of the morning I was shown the portrait. That, too, was a new experience. It is something of a shock to suddenly come face to face with oneself, and for some reason which I haven’t quite fathomed yet, it is very different from looking at a photograph. After my initial dumbfounded response, I realised that it is a very good portrait, and I actually like it. I’d be interested to know what other people think of it. Michael reckoned that I looked ‘reflective’; but I wondered what else anyone could look if they sat still for three hours. One can hardly grin at the artist for all that time!

Michael would like to do another portrait of me, so we arranged a date for later in the summer. This is likely to be rather different as I’m due to have my ‘annual haircut’ before then! The paintings will be displayed in the cathedral during the festival.

I went on to the cathedral, where I met the organisers and curators of the festival: Trish Bould, Angela Peagram and Jo Bartholomew. A ceramics exhibition was being mounted in the cathedral, so there was quite a lot of noise and activity. It is an exquisite building, and I’m thrilled to be working there.

I mounted to the triforium with Sue Wood, who is one of the artists I shall be working with. Sue’s piece is a sound installation called ‘Listen’, and her intention is to provide a space and incentive for people to sit and listen to the sounds of the cathedral. We spent some time discussing how Sue’s piece will work, and how much she should be present and/or visible while people experience the artwork. I have started writing a poem about her installation, and this, too, will be on display in this space in the triforium during the festival.

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