“April is the Poetry Writing Month”, T.S. Eliot*

I’ve been participating in national poetry writing month (or NaPoWriMo as it’s lovingly known).

Bee on lilac. Picture from Wikimedia Commons.

Bee on lilac. Picture from Wikimedia Commons.

I love poetry. Poetry has the power to act as a playful riddle and/or as a powerful force for transformation. As Steph Pike puts it on the World Poetry Writing Month website:

“Poetry is shooting up words rather than smoking them. So when poetry engages us it does so profoundly and intensely, and can alter our perception and understanding irreversibly.” from ‘What poetry means to me’

Having been fortunate and seen Steph perform this statement is so apt. Steph’s poetry explores language and communication, including explosive lyrics to express rage at the treatment of Pussy Riot.

Poetry kicks arse!

I’ll start sifting through the lexical rubble after April. There are some poems that need a little tweaking, others that may need recycling completely.

No matter.

Writing something every day, no matter how small, is good exercise. It’s like a master pianist practising scales for her high-profile, three hour recital. Want to write? Then practise, practise, practise. As I put it in one of the poems,

“say three times,
after you’ve read it,

say draft, redraft, redraft
edit.”

—————————–

* Cheeky attribution! Actual lines as follows:
“April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land…”
T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

Notes into Letters

The first few months of this year have been hectic – balancing work, creative freelancing, everyday life, and a degree. It’s good to stop, reflect, and be inspired by music.

My MA is in its final stages and I’ve taken some of the extra-curricular opportunities that it has presented. Some of them have been a bit of a miss: the Rosamund Prize where I failed to find a musician to work with my interpretation of Icarus as an emo teenager. Other experiences have been a hit: the Portico Young Writers’ Project where my highly-talented mentee was commended in a national prize.

Manchester's Bridgewater Hall

Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall

I feel very lucky to be involved in another wonderful project, Notes into Letters, with the Royal Philharmonic Society and the Manchester Writing School. Over the next few weeks I will write responding to classical concerts at the Bridgewater Hall. I have also been given a mystery piece of music to respond to. (I’m approaching this with an open mind, just in case some of it is an atonal polyphonic experience!)

I’m very much looking forward to more experiential scribbling…

Ebb and Flow

Being sad is strange. I find it tidal. It ebbs and flows.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the sea and about poetry. Not in a cheesy, clichéd, picture-postcard-perfect rendition. But in considering the ocean of the future. The ocean after ice melt.

And it’s big, and it’s scary.

Reading about the science, visiting the Scott Polar Museum in Cambridge. Going to a conference and hearing voices from the inuit communities who are already directly affected by climate change. I find it hard to wrap my head around it all. Being safe and dry in a rented house in Stockport, feeling powerless to affect change or do anything to help.

Feeling unable to do anything about climate change, about current local and global injustice. Feeling tired and trapped.

Trying to complete a book review, trying to write without feeling mentally paralysed, trying fight fear of failure – or even success.

Trying.

Spring Cleaning

Daffodils: beautiful, foolish flowers. Picture from www.public-domain-image.com

Daffodils: beautiful, foolish flowers. Picture from http://www.public-domain-image.com

As you can see – this blog has changed.  In an attempt to harness the colours of spring, and possibly mid brain-fart, it’s gone all pink and optimistic. Now that the fallow months are nearly over it’s time to take stock – to clean out. As Larkin put it, to “begin afresh, afresh, afresh”.

Lots of projects coming up in the next few months including: becoming a part-time worker with a publishing & research cooperative I’ve respected for years (VERY exciting); The Odyssey storytelling in April; meeting my new niece in May; story writing, drafting and editing (I must contact my lovely co-author); copy writing; directing my play; and MA poetry portfolio writing (gathering words for this particular project is like herding cats). A lot on!

Sadly, there will be no more Word on the Street. I will collate my notes and stories from this experience. I want the participants’ tales to be told, for other people to understand vulnerable adults’ points of view, their needs, their desires, their hopes for the future. I’ll be running more writing sessions soon with more of an environmental/natural angle, more on this once confirmed…

Speaking of environmental angles, if you haven’t signed the No Dash For Gas petition yet I think you should. It was started by one of the activist’s parents. You can sign it here.

Hope all is well in blogging land, and that your respective lives and projects are going swimmingly?

move the stars

“Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.” Madame Bovary, Gustav Flaubert (1856).

how can we move the stars to pity? giant gaseous spheres without feeling?

shooting stars are mostly space junk; unwanted rubbish no longer required for travelling to the moon or further. too soon we believe the sky is caving in; it’s caving in on itself, maybe chicken little was right? at least shooting stars are kept in sight. any sound they make remains unheard, no rumble, nor grumble as they topple down, could topple cities if there was a plan, as if their location was preordained: a god’s game.

love, like theory or faith, is irrational. a pulsar beats like a heart – light runs through its veins in a smear of colour. Doppler. wishing on stars – stellar desires, like blowing kisses up to the stratosphere who will know? who will hear the smack of lips on the palm of a hand? keep that kiss in your hand. fold it back from your fingertips, hold it between the lines of flesh against the orbit of your golden ring. and things are held so tightly in orbit, kept in captivity between infinite space and earth’s gravity, when they fall will they cause a crater or drop like a stone? skimming the surface then drop deep into a distant sea, unheard.

in the deep and velvet indigo of night the stars of Ursa Major dance light years away.

Learning new words #1

I’m fond of learning. Be it a new skill or knowledge, I love it!*  As a writer, I believe that it’s important to keep your vocabulary fresh. So, I’m going to share some new words that I’ve learned recently. Pow! Increase that word power!

Maybe it’s because I’m a bit nervous about the poetry reading tonight. This is with fellow MMU students (including the excellent Sarah Pepin), The Verb Master Ian McMillan, and Carol Ann Duffy. Actually, nervous doesn’t even begin to cover it. Scared, frightened, terrified?

Ahem…

Anyway, apart from synonyms for being flippin’ petrified, here are some words for you!

  • Libation: an offering to a deity (usually in the form of pouring a drink).
  • Genuflect: to bend the knee (as if in worship).
  • Marmoreal: of, or like, marble.

Have you learned any new words recently?

=======

* Alas, I still cannot turn cartwheels like Beth Tweddle.

Story: The Bargain Bin

A short story for the CAKE.shortandSweet Wednesday Write In

The Bargain Bin

‘Excuse me, madam -’

Excuse me, excuse me. What does he want? Looking like a hard man with that shaved head. He thinks he’s helpful in navy polyester, a knight in branded armour. His voice is a buzz of excuse me, ex-cues-mee.

And I don’t know what she’s got to look at. Fucking tart. I mean, look at her. I don’t know how she can stand herself. I mean, god, she’s not just fat, she’s morbidly obese. Must be. Sweaty Freckles, that’s what I’ll call her this week. A dripping Barbie in a spaghetti string top that is surely two sizes too small for her. Obviously old Freckles didn’t get the memo that brassy hair clashes with harlot scarlet. A semicircle of sweat blooms under her armpits. Her bingo wings are like cookie dough; they wobble when she reaches for the top shelf.

Oh god, what’s that skinhead heavy looking at now? Prick. icks-cooos-mi Whatever.

I know where I’m going, same place every week – the Bargain Bin. Why call it a bin, I don’t know. We pay for the crap that’s in it. Sometimes.

Why is everything so expensive now. Even here. A pound doesn’t get what it used to, or maybe they’ve made shopping trolleys bigger to persuade you to buy more. Everything’s a pound, then you end up spending more than you intended and on crap you didn’t want. There are only so many bags of Haribo I can eat in the morning.

Not that mornings are much fun. It’s a slippery slope from Kyle to Loose Women, and everyone’s obsessed by sex. Even the ones who don’t deserve benefits are getting sex; their skinny, junky bodies rubbing together like dry sticks. Makes me sick. That’s my tax they’re getting.

Sex and tax: there’s not much left to talk about these days. Except money. There’s not much in the Bargain Bin this week, only a bashed tin without a label. Load of rubbish. Oh well, into the bag it goes.

‘Excuse me, madam – ‘

Oh piss off will you.

(Word count: 343)

"If a tree falls in a park"; Alexandra Park, #Manchester City Council and changes - political, cultural & #climate

Reblogged from manchester climate monthly:

The Save Alexandra Park Trees group has sent out this press release:

Residents of Whalley Range horrified as Manchester City Council arrive today with chainsaws to fell up to 400 trees as part of the Alexandra Park Development.

Residents have been writing and challenging the Council since the extent of felling became known in December 2012.  Residents met with the Council in late December to raise their concerns and draw attention to a petition of now over 2000 signatures objecting to the felling. 

Read more… 398 more words

This report regarding the felling of trees in Manchester shocked me when I saw it the other day. The council does not seem to take the wishes of the local community seriously at all. A pointless loss of healthy trees and fewer places for birds to nest in the Springtime.

Story: Juice

A short story for the CAKE.shortandSweet Wednesday Write In

Juice

Timothy is sat at a breakfast bar in an immaculate kitchen that is not his. The room is fitted to a high-standard like a show-home; the kitchen surfaces have a soft, white sheen and a faint smell of Dettol. In one corner there is a microwave, still covered in cellophane wrap. It is plugged in and the display flashes the wrong time. In another corner there is a food dehydrator. This looks like it has been used; there is a dried red drip clinging to one side.

In front of him there is a white plate, an Ikea original, cheap yet functional crockery. On the plate there are three items equidistant to each other: a silver paring knife, an ornate teaspoon, and a kiwi fruit.

Timothy pauses, then pushes the stool away from the bar. He goes to the sink to wash his hands again, squishes Ecover soap suds between his fingers. There are little bubbles left around the plug hole. The sudden shot of warmed aloe vera is a reminder of Twinkle.

He wonders, not for the first time, whether Twinkle is her real name.

Washing done, he dries his hands on a freshly laundered beige tea towel. He folds, then refolds it, places it back in its holder near the oven. He resumes his place at the bar and considers the kiwi fruit: the leathery skin, its fur coating. He touches the kiwi, watches closely as the small hairs spring back under his fingers. He strokes the fruit with the knife. Through the window, there is a sudden flash of sunshine, the light catches the knife and reflects in his eyes. He winces for a moment, resists rubbing his eyes; he would only have to wash his hands again.

Save for the birdsong in the garden, the quiet of the kitchen is consoling for him. It will not last for long. He continues to score the kiwi fruit; he is an artist with a knife, a master at work.

‘If you think of a fruit when you’re eating a kiwi, then you’ll taste that fruit,’ Twinkle had asserted, ‘strawberry, banana, melon. Anything. The taste transforms if you will it to.’

The knife sinks in further, the skin breaks and juice squirts out – eager to the sharp edge. As the kiwi falls in halves there is a tang of green and two perfect circles with lines of tiny black pips. He scowls at the irreverent juice on the plate, across the surface of the breakfast bar.

Should have used the dehydrator; reduces the water content, reduces the risk of bacteria. He imagines the kiwi heated, shrinking into itself as the temperature rises above 50°C.

He looks at the fruit, one half has rolled away from the other. The kiwi is too green, too wet. He is disgusted by this. His eyes follow the path of the spurted juice from the counter to the laminated floor. Next to the dots of juice are small drips of blood that trail to the front room. The blood spots get bigger as the route goes on into a cream carpeted living room.

Yes, it will not be quiet for long.

(528 words)