Connect #developingyoureye 5

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Connections come in all shapes and forms. I have been mocked occasionally for my references to friends who I know only online. But those connections have proved more enduring than some so called "irl" ones. The connections are no less real just because they are rooted in the ether.
This poem came to me at work through the post (mail) from the other side of the world - from a connection made online. A palimpsest of sorts. I love that.
The poem is by Jodi Cleghorn. She's a Twitter mate.
To be fair, the photograph is not great. But the connection is.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/blogging-university/developing-your-eye-i-materials/#day5

Bliss #developingyoureye 4

coffee in bed

Morning coffee in bed, drunk at leisure, in peace, undisturbed except for the purring of the cat. #bliss

#developingyoureye 4

Water #developingyoureye 3

Day 3 - you'll notice I am running a little behind!
Our day in Arundel started sunny but with the promise of rain - by the end of the day we had seen more water than we would have liked.

#developingyoureye

Street #developingyoureye 2

A rainy afternoon in Arundel.
Historic town on a steep hill.
Parking is at a premium.

#developingyoureye

Home #developingyoureye 1

I'm on holiday at the moment so difficult to take a picture that represents home. So am cheating a little bit and posting one from last week. It is very apposite though.
This is what we look out for on the way home. Once you spot this on the horizon you know you're almost there...

#developingyoureye

Photo Challenges

A couple of weeks ago I came across a photo challenge blog on wordpress. I've been doing quite a few daily challenges that call for nothing more than to post a picture on a theme each day - which is fun. But this weekly challenge posed a problem. It required a pingback to the original post...which would have been fine if a photo challenge fitted in with my wordpress blog. Dabblewords is all about the words. It has poetry and flash fiction...made up stuff. It does not have the introverted meanderings from the mind of a social network addict. So if I wanted to join in I either posted on blogger and shared it unofficially in the comments...which means not many people will even see it let alone read it...or I found a means to make it about words as well as pictures. And I think I may have cracked it. Taking the weekly theme, I choose a photograph and then I use that as the prompt for a piece of fiction. Presto...Not sure why I didn't think of it sooner! Perfect way to combine my two interests! My first two are up already on https://guerillawriting.wordpress.com/ . Feel free to mosey on over and have a look, leave a comment, or even join in with your own weekly photo...
You can find the link to the Weekly challenge in my previous post... (that's my sneaky way of getting you to read another post...lol!)

#AmWriting

I have been trying to get on top of this writing lark lately. Not very successfully, I might add. As always I have ideas but they never seem to transform themselves into words on a page...and I know!! the words won't actually write themselves, I do have to put some effort in myself. So I have taken myself in hand and am currently submitting to a number of regular challenges. As well as my old favourite Paragraph Planet, I am trying my hand at Three Line Thursday and Ad Hoc Fiction.


PP is a 75 word flash challenge. You can submit to it anytime, on any subject, as the

muse moves you, but your story must be precisely 75 words - no more, no less.

TLT is a weekly picture challenge. You have one day to submit three lines of no more than 10 words per line, inspired by the

featured image. Winners are announced the following Saturday. It's quite a challenge and the standard of entries is high. It is however a very supportive community of writers.

Adhoc is another weekly challenge. This one gives you a generous 150 word maximum, and the only requirement is that you must include the prompt word in your tale. Winning stories for Adhoc Fiction recieve a free chance to enter the longer Bath Flash Fiction Award.




In addition to all these I am also trying to write a poem inspired by science. That's not going so well just yet but it may get there. I have found my friendly scientist (I didn't have to look far to be fair, he's on my friends list!)and we have had a chat about why he thinks science is fab. Now I have a week to kick it into touch and string together some half decent words and ideas. It might happen. Watch this space!

James

Written for the final exercise at the Shepherd's Dene writing workshop I attended last week.
We were given a photograph as a prompt and asked to write something about the person in the picture. The photograph I was given was of a man/woman sitting on a bench in the grounds of the house, looking out across the autumn gardens. The picture was slightly out of focus and taken from behind, so the face could not be seen, the person could have been male or female. I decided on male, and called him James.
This is my piece. Feel free to comment.

James sat, hunched, on the bench. He stared out across the gardens, but he didn't see the trees bathed in their autumn reds and golds. He saw a different scene. A different red.
To the casual observer he could just have been someone enjoying a moment of calm in a busy day, but his calm, still exterior belied the turmoil of his thoughts. Images from earlier in the day crowded in on him. He struggled to make some kind of sense of the events, to find some hint of what he should do next.
How had he gotten involved in it all? He tried to pinpoint the moment when things began to go wrong. Had he done somethingto cause it all? Was it all his fault again?
In his mind he replayed the events of the day. Minute by minute, turning this way and that, trying to see all the angles, every point of view. But he couldn't see it. However he viewed it, it all just seemed inexplicable. He couldn't see that anything he had said or done could have caused the chaos that had errupted.
This time, he was sure. It had not been his fault. This time, someone else was to blame.

A bit of fun, a poem and some astonishment

What do you do after a long week of setting up rooms, moving furniture, cajoling people to come along to meet an author, fretting in case no-one does come (sometimes they almost didn't), or your author doesn't turn up, or, god forbid, too many people turn up?

Obviously, you go to a poetry gig...one where you are in the audience, able to relax and enjoy it, because all the fretting and furniture moving has been done by someone else this time.

That's not quite true. I dragged my husband along, assuring him it would be fun because John Hegley is a nationally renowned poet. He's been on telly and everything. But the Other Half doesn't really do culture. He does sport. So there was an small element of fret. He hasn't really ever recovered from the last bit of culture I dragged him to at Washington Arts Centre

But, to John Hegley. Excellent. Funny. A natural showman. Not slick exactly, words sometimes got tangled and "photographed feet" came out as "potatoed feet"...but as he said, he covered that well. We barely noticed it (no really, it was all part of the act, wasn't it?).

The audience were cajoled (not by me this time) to participate, with singing, and French translation and guillemot arm actions.
And, during the interval with a poetry competition. Just a bit of fun with a copy of the book as the prize, and using something from the evening as a prompt...so maybe potatoes, or dogs, or feet, but also maybe linked to the place.

The room was pretty much full of local poets and writers. There were at least five at the table front of stage.

So for a bit of fun there'd be no shame in joining in and at least being able to say I'd entered into the spirit of the thing?
And as my group at the library know, I only ever manage three lines so a haiku it would have to be.  I shrank from scribing my paltry 18 (I couldn't quite get it to 17) syllables in the corner of the A4 sheets available. I wrote my 3 lines carefully, legibly in my bestest writing on a leaf from the very small notepad in my bag. Two inches by three. A white rectangle holding my tentative words.

I added it to the growing pile on the table. Laughingly admitting to having added the icon of a pair of specs in the top corner in the event of a tie break being needed. Not a chance in hell it would be needed but I liked to show solidarity with Mr Hegley as a fellow specs wearer.

And so it was done. And I felt slightly foolish and not a little unworthy to be placing my words among those of such talented people. I sat back, drank my drink and enjoyed the start of the second half. A couple of the poems were read out; dogs and potatoes featured. The rest were despatched with the judges (two guest poets Silvia Forest and Rowan McCabe, and Eileen, of who's precise role I am uncertain  other than as an impromptu translator of french potato poetry and purveyor of limerick competitions) to be judged and short-listed.
John assured us that even though not all would make it to the short-list or be read out that night, he would take them all and read them after the show. And if they did not make the short-list it was not because they were no good, it was simply that they were not good enough.

When the judges were called back, the pile of short-listed poems was handed to John. Several sheets of A4 and a small white rectangle - about 2 inches by 3.
I swear my heart stopped. Had these three people deemed my three lines good enough?
Then my natural cynicism kicked in and I thought "No way! That's not my piece of paper". Someone else had obviously used their own notepad too...

The three short-listed poems were read out. I heard two of them. I heard the funny dog poem. I heard the laughter. And then Rowan stepped forward and read:

Penshaw Monument
stands guard above the pitheads.
No miners end their shifts.

And I heard an intake of breath, and an "ah!" and an "oh!" and someone said something but I didn't really hear what because the blood was pounding in my ears and my heart was thumping in my chest and I was not actually breathing. And my husband was laughing at the expression on my face.

Three lines apparently can make an impression, even in a room full of proper poets.  They (I) created a "powerful image".

So much so that I now have a signed copy of New and Selected Potatoes by John Hegley that says to me that my poem was good enough. 

Celebrating words - written, spoken, sung, or simply implied...

In November last year the central library where I work celebrated its 21st birthday.

This is, of course, the "new" library on York Road. The "old" library on Clarence Road had been around for considerably longer but we out grew it and so a replacement was conceived and finally born in 1991.

Of course the new building was a bit of a Marmite experience. People either loved it or hated it. The old library was well, old, and quiet, it had that musty book smell and the hushed restrained atmosphere. People whispered while they were in there...it felt like a library. 

The new building was new, bright and airy.  It was ugly and brash and modern, and it has to be said, noisy!  People who had never set foot in the old place came in and talked, noise carried. On top of all this the books had some new-fangled "categorised" shelving system. How were people meant to find what they wanted!? Where was the peace and calm, the quiet solitude that our borrowers expected from their library? In some circles the old building was mourned and the new usurper shunned. 

The Old Library

The old building was also situated at the edge of town, on a traffic island. You took your life in your hands some days crossing the road to get there. The new library was built smack bang in the town centre...nestled among the banks, building societies and wine bars. Right next to the bus-stop and the entrance to the shopping centre. A prime location! When it first opened we had to daft in extra staff to man the counters. We had queues of people waiting to join, waiting to bring books back and take books out, waiting to reserve the latest Catherine Cookson! It was fabulous and exhausting! One member of staff actually brought in a pedometer to measure how far she had to walk in a single day! 

The newly refurbished Central Library

Twenty one years later and it's quieter. We would give our eye-teeth to have those queues back. Well, I would. Not so sure the staff on the front line would appreciate it quite so much. Queueing is seen as a bad thing still. Possibly even more so now than back then. Today if there are more than ten people on a waiting list for a book it is regarded as unacceptable; people start asking why more copies haven't been bought. Back in the day we might have over a hundred waiting for Ms Cookson and there might be 20 copies in stock. Times change. And so do libraries. 

In 1991 we opened our lovely new library with one author event: Ken Follett came and cut the ceremonial ribbon, all the council dignitaries turned out for it. Not so many of the public. Having actual authors in a library rather than just books was a bit new to us back then.

Mari Hannah and Russ Litten 

Twenty one years later, after a much needed and long sought after refurbishment, we celebrated with 21 events over a six week period: authors, song-writers, poets, illustrators. They came, they talked, sang, recited and drew...and they were fabulous. They also said lovely things about libraries - and in particular ours. And they said they'd love to come back and see us again, which is good because we are doing it all again this year...without the 21 theme, obviously. 

Thanks to the following who helped us celebrate! 

Trisha Ashley    Guy Mankowski    

Beda Higgins  Malcolm Green   Elizabeth Gill   

 P A Morbid    Lee Maddison   Mari Hannah and Russ Litten    

Peter Brunton    Dan Smith    Pauline Rowson   Alexander Gordon Smith  

 Paul Torday   Andy Briggs   Valerie Laws    Steve Cole   Phil Dunn  

 Keith Robson  Jeff Price and Aidan Clarke   Sean Cooney

  

Balancing words and images

At the beginning of October I arranged a workshop at the Art Gallery based around the Adrian Gray "Balance" Exhibition. The group worked with Linda Robinson co-author of  Words and Pictures: Photography with a Pen Poetry with a Camera . Below as promised are some of the words inspired by the session. Thanks to the Gallery staff for their help in making the workshop possible.

Stone Sculptures

A life in balance

Are they trying to improve on nature?

Seeking a moment of equipoise,

Feeling the pull of the earth.

and saying “what the hell”
Seeking to make a mystery or magical moment.

Brings a whole new meaning to the word “Rocker”

 

Balancing Stones

I walked the beaches of Hartlepool:

Seaton Carew and the headland.

Seeking rocks for symmetry, balance and equilibrium.

Both natural and of human origin.

And all I found were covered in weed,

Slimy weed, that defies adhesion.

Human waste and industries poisonous pollution.

Green and black and yuck.

If I intend to find a point of balance

I need a wire brush or sandpaper,

To make them clean or pure.

Brian Geddes

All in the Mind

Stone 

on

Stone

in a frozen teeter

Poised

but a reluctant grain,

a scintilla shifts

a grind

as

          plates

                   shift

And new striations

Crack

          On Crack

across the face

Aeons of 

compressed energy

Spurt

From an id

Of repression

  

In the Zen Garden

One white stone on another 

Each stone a promise

Each stone a prayer

Each a memory

Like stones on a Jewish grave

Some stand upright, hard, resistant

Some ground to fragments

          like crushed bones

Some stones like pebbles

Hard, turned 

In

on themselves

Stones as many as the scattered

between

the sweated iron tracks.

Japanese general

Sitting in your Zen garden

Did you meditate this?

Tony Hey

Stoned

In a pink fizz sky

Precariously poised,

A lemon slice.

Contradiction 

Monolithic balance

in solid stone

Strength and weakness

combined.

Denise Sparrowhawk