Word Saucery

I couldn’t resist sharing these fields of harvested Yorkshire wheat with you.

A few evenings ago, Tom and I went hunting for bales to photograph. He is making a series of paintings and I just wanted to revel in the golden light, the lengthening end-of-summer shadows.

I have aways particularly loved the fat tubular versions that begin to appear in the fields at this time of year. They stand on the horizon looking solemn and reminding me of ancient monoliths, stone circles, markings. They are already arranging themselves into a poem.

Tom, the son of a corn merchant, took an ear of wheat and tested it between his teeth for mositure content, pronouncing it around 15%, which is apparently good.

Poetry and knitting are more similar than they might at first appear, claims Judith Palmer, director of the Poetry Society.

“With poetry and with knitting, you work line by line, and if something goes wrong you have to unravel it,” Palmer said.

According to this article in The Guardian, more than 800 knitting enthusiasts are currently involved in knitting and crocheting individual letters to create the world’s first giant knitted poem as part of the Society’s centenary celebrations.

The Society ahs been ‘inundated’ with request from eager knitters keen to lend their needles to the project.

“It hasn’t been a matter of trying to persuade people to join in – we’re just trying to manage the huge number who are calling up all the time,” she said. “It’s just spread and spread: there must be 90 knitting blogs writing about it around the world.”

Well, I am adding my blog to those knitting blogs today. Apparently, my recent forays into knitting tea cosies has put me in the eminent company of such poets as Carol Ann Duffy, Jo Shapcott, Seamus Heaney and Emily Dickinson, who are/were all partial to a little knit one, purl one. Who’d have thought it?

Here is Emily Dickinson on the subject:

Autumn—overlooked my Knitting—
Dyes—said He—have I—
Could disparage a Flamingo—
Show Me them—said I—

Cochineal—I chose—for deeming
It resemble Thee—
And the little Border—Dusker—
For resembling Me—

I’m assuming that there are many flamingo-disparaging hues in the individual knitted and crocheted letters flooding into the Poetry Society offices right now. The Society will stitch them into a secret poem, the identity of which will be revealed at the beginning of October. Would Dickinson have approved?

Do you have one? If so, what is it? How do you do it? What have you discovered that does or doesn’t work for you?

Tania Hershman, author of the wonderful The White Road, which was commended in the Orange Prize for new Fiction 2009 didn;t think she had a writing routine until she was asked to write about it here for the Branta: the might of write blog.

I love hearing about other writers’ routines and rituals and Tania’s makes very interesting reading. Here’s a teaser: it involves Lexulous and word prompts. You may like to go and have a nosy and then tell me here in the comments about your writing routine.

I am researching a poem in which I want to write about moths. Here are just some of the names of moths that I found on Wikipedia.

Angle Shades Phlogophora meticulosa
Antler Moth Cerapteryx graminis
Barred Straw Eulithis pyraliata
Bee moth Aphomia sociella
Blood-vein Timandra griseata
Blotched Emerald Comibaena bajularia
Bogong Moth Agrotis infusa
Brick Agrochola circellaris
Bright-line Brown-eye Lacanobia oleracea
Brimstone Moth Opisthograptis luteolata
Broad-barred White Hecatera bicolorata
Brown-tail Euproctis chrysorrhoea
Buff Arches Habrosyne pyritoides
Buff-tip Phalera bucephala
Cabbage Moth Mamestra brassicae
Clay Mythimna ferrago
Clouded Border Lomaspilis marginata
Clouded-bordered Brindle Apamea crenata
Common Carpet Epirrhoe alternata
Common Emerald Hemithea aestivaria
Common Footman Eilema lurideola
Common Wainscot Mythimna pallens
Common Wave Cabera exanthemata
Common White Wave Cabera pusaria
Copper Underwing Amphipyra pyramidea
Coxcomb Prominent Ptilodon capucina
Dark Arches Apamea monoglypha
Dark Dagger Acronicta tridens
Dot Moth Melanchra persicariae
Dotted Border Agriopis marginaria
Double Square-spot Xestia triangulum
Dusky Brocade Apamea remissa
Elephant hawk moth Deilephila elpenor
Eloria noyesi Eloria noyesi
Emperor Moth Pavonia pavonia
Feathered Thorn Colotois pennaria
Flame Axylia putris
Foxglove Pug Eupithecia pulchellata
Garden Carpet Xanthorhoe fluctuata
Garden Dart Euxoa nigricans
Ghost Moth Hepialus humuli
Green Oak Tortrix Tortrix viridana
Grey Pug Eupithecia subfuscata
Heart and Club Agrotis clavis
Heart and Dart Agrotis exclamationis
Hebrew Character Orthosia gothica
Hummingbird Hawk-moth Macroglossum stellatarum
Ingrailed Clay Diarsia mendica
Juniper Carpet Thera juniperata
Latticed Heath Semiothisa clathrata
Lime Hawk-moth Mimas tiliae
Lunar Underwing Omphaloscelis lunosa
May Highflyer Hydriomena impluviata
Miller Acronicta leporina
Minor Shoulder-knot Brachylomia viminalis
Mint moth Pyrausta aurata
Minsmere Crimson Underwing Catocala conjuncta
Mouse Moth Amphipyra tragopoginis
Northern Deep-brown Dart Aporophyla lueneburgensis
November Moth Epirrita dilutata
The Nutmeg Discestra trifolii
Oak Hook-tip Drepana binaria
Pasture Day Moth Apina callisto
Peach Blossom Thyatira batis
Pine Processionary Thaumetopoea pityocampa
Poplar Kitten Furcula bifida
Purple Thorn Selenia tetralunaria
Rustic Shoulder-knot Apamea sordens
Scalloped Hazel Odontopera bidentata
The Shark Cucullia umbratica
Short-cloaked Moth Nola cucullatella
Six-spot Burnet Zygaena filipendulae
Smoky Wainscot Mythimna impura
Snowberry Clearwing Hemaris diffinis
Spinach Eulithis mellinata
Straw Underwing Thalpophila matura
Svensson’s Copper Underwing Amphipyra berbera
True Lover’s Knot Lycophotia porphyrea
Turnip Moth Agrotis segetum
Winter Moth Operophtera brumata
Wormwood Pug Eupithecia absinthiata
Yellow-tail Euproctis similis

(Retrieved from “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_moths”)
Lists can be so beautiful. I can fall in love with paint charts, for example. Is it the hypnotic repetition, the sense of naming things? Is it simply the sounds and rhythms of the words?

It makes me want to write a list poem.

You may have noticed that I have been taking a couple of weeks out from blogging recently - and thank you so much to all those very kind people who enquired after my well-being.

As part of exploring Slow - the Slow Movement, Slow Language (as I wrote about in my last post here) and time to breathe and reflect - I took a little time away from the online buzz and experimented with some new activities.

I have been making lots of poems and I have also been making things with my hands too. Here is my first tea cosy, knitted for my friend Merran’s birthday.

I haven’t knitted anything since I was eleven years old and starting again was very hypnotic. With each stitch, the feel of the wool through my fingers and the click-clak of the needles was powerfully evocative of my white-haired grandma, who taught me how to knit. I could almost feel her presence in the room with me.

I think she would have been a little startled at this teacosy, inspired by a cactus, but she always understood my need to make things.

I Googled the song that has been circling in my head for the last day or so since I finished knitting. Apparently it is from the 1935 film, ‘Come Out of the Pantry’. I must find a copy.

Every nation in creation has its favourite drink,
France is famous for its wine, it’s beer in Germany,
Turkey has its coffee and they serve it blacker than ink,
Russians go for vodka and England loves its tea.

Oh, the factories may be roaring
With a boom-a-lacka, zoom-a-lacka, wee,
But there isn’t any roar when the clock strikes four,
Everything stops for tea.

Oh, a lawyer in the courtroom
In the middle of an alimony plea
Has to stop and help ‘em pour when the clock strikes four.
Everything stops for tea.

It’s a very good English custom
Though the weather be cold or hot
When you need a little pick-up, you’ll find a little tea cup
Will always hit the spot.

You remember Cleopatra
Had a date to meet Mark Anthony at three.
When he came an hour late she said “You’ll have to wait”
For everything stops for tea.

Oh, they may be playing football
And the crowd is yelling “Kill the referee!”
But no matter what the score, when the clock strikes four
Everything stops for tea.

Oh, the golfer may be golfing
And is just about to make a hole-in-three
But it always gets them sore when the clock yells “four!”
Everything stops for tea.

It’s a very good English custom
And a stimulant for the brain.
When you feel a little weary, a cup’ll make you cheery
And it’s cheaper than champagne.

Now I know just why Franz Schubert
Didn’t finish his unfinished symphony.
He might have written more but the clock struck four
And everything stops for tea.

Personally, I have never liked black tea, although I have a big stash of delicious green and herbal teas. But I think the old ritual of sitting down to enjoy a cuppa marked something important. Do we give ourselves that tme now as we ‘grab a quick coffee’ or sit eating our lunchtime sandwich hunched over our computer screens?

In the end, it doesn’t matter what your personal ritual might be, but taking some time each day to enjoy a few moments of calm - knitting or drinking tea or just taking a feew deep breaths - will help to keep your neurons firing and your immune system functioning happily.

I also found it really useful for my poem making to switch creative media for a while and make something that I could hold in my hands.

Have a great afternoon. I’m off to put the kettle on before starting work again.

The recent death of Frank McCourt has prompted this New York Times article on the memoir.

It notes that:

‘The memoir genre has taken plenty of hits from moralists, fact checkers and freelance scolds in the 13 years since “Angela’s Ashes” sold four million copies in hardcover and spent more than two years on the best-seller lists. But it endures as perhaps the dominant genre of contemporary literature…’

It traces the growth of the literary memoir from Tobias Wolff’s ‘This Boy’s Life’ in 1989 through Elizabeth Wurtzel’s “Prozac Nation,” Susanna Kaysen’s “Girl, Interrupted”, Lucy Grealy’s “Autobiography of a Face” and Mary Karr’s “Liar’s Club.” Karr is a particular favourite of mine.

I could also add many earlier memoirs to this list including the ground-breaking ‘A Model Childhood,’ Christa Wolf’s vivid and challenging account of growing up in Nazi Germany, first published in Germany in 1976.

As a poet drawing almost entirely from my own personal experience - I can’t think of a poet who doesn’t - and as a therapist actively engaged in using writing to help people to process, work through or simply celebrate their own personal experiences, I am always fascinated by the way that the media covers issues of memoir and autobiographical writing.

The idea that any kind of memoir writing is ‘true’ - i.e. not in itself a kind of re-imagining or fiction - and therefore must be subject to fact-checking and complex legal manoeuvers, has always seemed a little absurd to me. On the other hand, as writers we often feel inhibited by our responsibilities to our imagined readers, often freeing ourselves to publish our best stories after our loved ones are dead and gone.

The critic Paul John Eakin offers an excellent analysis of what he calls ‘the unseemly profession’ of  life writing in his book ‘How Our Lives Become Stories.’ I know from personal experience that the “I” of my poems is only part of me, a particular self at a particular time.

I think it’s important to distinguish between the process of writing and the process of reading; between the ‘I’ who writes and the ‘I’ on the page; just as it is important to distinguish between our memories as we reimagine,  re-experience and re-read them in therapy and the many different ways that others may have experienced these same memories differently in relation to ourselves.

This way, our memoirs, autobiographies and autobiographical fictions become personal truths, truths that are only as ‘true’ and ‘real’ as they can be to us at a particular time in our lives. And isn’t that a more honest and ultimately responsible undertaking than trying to write The Truth?

I couldn’t resist capturing these fish laid on ice in the market at Olhao. Their scales were almost like sequins in the sunlight.

The lustre and shimmer reminded me of a poem by the wonderful Mark Doty called ‘Favrile,’ (in Sweet Machine.  1998. Cape Poetry), a study of description and making and perhaps imitation, in which he describes the way that:

‘Glassmakers,
at century’s end,
compounded metallic lustres

in reference
to natural sheens (dragonfly
and beetle wings,

marbled light on kerosene)…’

Later in the poem, he writes:

…’art’s a mercuried sheen
in which we may discern,
because it is surface,

clear or vague
suggestions of our depths.
Don’t we need a word

for the lustre
of things which insist
on the fact they’re made,

which announce
their maker’s bravura?’

Yes. And making glass, making a poem, isn’t it the same? Or, as Doty asks, don’t  we need a word:

‘For everything
which begins in limit
(where else might our work

begin?) and ends in grace,
or at least extravagance…’

I am still searching for words to make the poem of these fish; the poem of standing in the market, admiring in their surface lustre the suggestion of everything that is beauty and grace and, yes, extravagance.

Does your life feel too fast right now for writing?

I have just got around to reading Nick Laird’s wonderful ‘Author, author’ article in last week’s Guardian. The online version is available here.

Laird is a poet, a very good poet, and he writes in praise of slow. He isn’t bemoaning technology in that neo-Luddite way that is suspicious of all things computer and blames the ills of the world on the internet.

Instead, he is writing about something more complex. He seems to be asking - and asking himself just as much as he is asking us -  how we can live in this fast, fast world and make space for writing and reading.

He writes:

‘The level of communication is being changed, and - why not say it? - reduced. We used to read books and newspapers. Now we scan through reams of text for something, or hyperlink between pieces, or search an essay for the salient word. Everything is immediate, impulsive, and getting shorter. Twitter “novels” are less than 140 characters. This is obviously the absurd end of the wedge, but I’ve been trying to read Dr Johnson this week, and engage with syntax of a complexity and subtlety that my mind is simply not used to. I found the same thing initially last year when I read Henry James for the first time since university.’

The feeling that Laird is writing about is something that I have been struggling with for a long time now. And not always slowly. He talks of iPhones and laptops, file-sharing and Facebook, that feel like ‘more and more virtual mouths beeping and chirping and demanding to be fed.’

He talks of the democratisation of writing on the internet but also of the ‘rushed’ feeling of it all; of making so little progress with his last novel that he cut through his internet cable with a pair of scissors after wasting time browsing property sites without really knowing why.

I understand this feeling. I have two blogs, two Twitter accounts, and I run an Online Writing Programme. Sometimes the hungry ‘mouths’ seem to be everywhere. Some of this I love. There is wonderful work that I can do online with committed and interesting and generous writing students; and stimulating discussions I could never otherwise have enjoyed with writers, therapists and people who are simply kind enough to be interested in what I do, living in California, Moscow, Italy, Sydney.

And yet on some days I long for quiet with nothing to do but simply experience being, living, writing rather than this compulsive chattering and filtering and sharing and reporting of experience.

Like Laird, I love the connection with people but I also need the space. I need what Laird calls Slow Language.

I dream of creating a space for others to be together in simple, companionable, creative quiet. There will be opportunities for solitude when required, and the sharing of words and wine and laughter at other times. There will be self-hypnosis exercises, guidance about how to re-member and re-access the realms  of Slow. One day soon, I will make that space happen.

In the meantime, I create a little slow space whenever I can.

I don’t think Nick Laird has a blog and, in a funny way, though I am glad that he does not, I aImost wish that he did.

I am sure that it would be beautifully written, slowly and with craft and care. It would be a place where people could pause for a moment and immerse themselves in the dreaming depths of words.

Perhaps we need a Slow Blog Movement?

I spent a couple of hours on a quiet Thursday evening last week entering some of my books into my new online library at LibraryThing.

In fact, you can now see a nice widget dsiplaying a random selection of them down there in the right hand sidebar of my blog.

LibraryThing is a rather funky site with all kinds of interesting features. Not only do your books look rather beautiful in the Covers view but you can also join Groups and connect with Locals in your area. Sadly, I don’t seem to have any fellow York-dwellers online yet but I am sure that is only a matter of time.

I find it fascinating to see what other people are reading and to trace that book trail between shared favourites to find new suggestions.

I firmly believe that what you read is very important to what you write. Books feed your mind like… erm… tomato salad or a nice slice of tarte au citron or a glass of chilled white wine… or porridge.

Sometimes I even prescribe myself books. A nice fat novel or an inspiring biography or a poem produce very different effects. Now that’s an idea: a book precription service. Maybe I should start one!

This time of year is the time when my favourite flowers, the peonies, are opening. Each year, they continue to take me by surprise. They begin as such tightly furled bud-balls, and then slowly unfold themselves, when I’m not looking, into quiet explosions of petals.

I loved these so much that I just had to set them against the white chair  and take a photo.

And it gives me such pleasure, this bringing together of objects. I suppose that’s also what I’m doing when I write.

Looking into the ruffles of the petals, I’m thinking of a poem by Mary Oliver, which is not about peonies at all, but about moccasin flowers. (In England, I think we might call these flowers ‘lady’s slipper’):

‘But all my life - so far -
I have loved best
how the flowers rise
and open, how

the pink lungs of their bodies
enter the fire of the world
and stand there shining
and willing - ‘

Yes. That’s what I feel this morning when I look at these peonies.