Now I know why I've not kept a blog before. I don't have the time.
This week I've been reading William Carlos Williams - Spring and all - for the course. Wrote a commentary tonight and sent it off. There is more I could say.
Since I last updated the blog I've written and re-written a poem inspired by the Bath House at Barmouth. The resulting poem was much improved with the help of comments from my fewllo writers on the Grail.
I've had another go at the Guy Russell poem although it still needs more work. Sent it off with a health warning to the tutor. He agreed it needed more revision - still a few adjectives doing more than they need to. Shall look at that when I get a moment.
Have sent four poems off to competition - three to one and one to another.
Also heard back from Sarah Willans, the new poetry editor at Writers Forum magazine. She's going to critique one of my poems from the OU course last year for possible inclusion in a problem poems page. Even if it doesn't get included I'll get a free critique some time next week.
Friday 28 September 2007
Friday 14 September 2007
Quiet
I've been busy at work the last couple of days so not had any time for writing or poetry. Hopefully catch up this evening.
Wednesday 12 September 2007
Toddington Poetry
Went to a poetry reading in Luton last night hosted by the Toddington Poetry Society
http://www.toddingtonpoetrysociety.co.uk/
The reading was given by my friend Guy Russell. One of those strange things happened when you know someone at a social level through work but have not discovered the depth of the person that hearing their poetry brings.
http://www.toddingtonpoetrysociety.co.uk/
The reading was given by my friend Guy Russell. One of those strange things happened when you know someone at a social level through work but have not discovered the depth of the person that hearing their poetry brings.
Tuesday 11 September 2007
Couple of Poems
I had a go at several poems last night. At the moment I'm not that happy with any of them. I'm not at work tomorrow so will hopefully have the time to polish one enough to send it off.
Heaven for Lyn
We’ve never met in real life
so I can’t summon her up
as a physical presence for you
But she writes and believes in her characters
as if they can come right off the page
and follow you around the house talking
She keeps horses and loves dogs
especially the mongrel and unwanted ones
Bouncer is the latest in line
She’s Welsh. I can imagine the lilt
of mid Wales coming out as Lyn talks
and gestures with her hands which are small
Made to hold a pen although these days
she finds a computer faster
and there is that second novel to finish.
She does not declare her age
on her myspace page
which states she is ninety nine.
Bena and Edie
Sisters, my father’s aunts.
Although I called them aunt
they were already old when I was young.
But staying in their house on Salem Stryd
as a child I learned about how
to accommodate your life around obstacles
Edie, a cook, had worked in Windsor
before having to come home.
There was a story
that Bena had loved an airman
called Teddy but he died
in the war.
So Bena devoted herself
to the Sunday School, good works
and family history.
Edie made regular trips
over the road to the bookies
and offie
lent me Dick Francis thrillers
and always had time
to listen.
Heaven for Lyn
We’ve never met in real life
so I can’t summon her up
as a physical presence for you
But she writes and believes in her characters
as if they can come right off the page
and follow you around the house talking
She keeps horses and loves dogs
especially the mongrel and unwanted ones
Bouncer is the latest in line
She’s Welsh. I can imagine the lilt
of mid Wales coming out as Lyn talks
and gestures with her hands which are small
Made to hold a pen although these days
she finds a computer faster
and there is that second novel to finish.
She does not declare her age
on her myspace page
which states she is ninety nine.
Bena and Edie
Sisters, my father’s aunts.
Although I called them aunt
they were already old when I was young.
But staying in their house on Salem Stryd
as a child I learned about how
to accommodate your life around obstacles
Edie, a cook, had worked in Windsor
before having to come home.
There was a story
that Bena had loved an airman
called Teddy but he died
in the war.
So Bena devoted herself
to the Sunday School, good works
and family history.
Edie made regular trips
over the road to the bookies
and offie
lent me Dick Francis thrillers
and always had time
to listen.
Monday 10 September 2007
Pre course exercise
The course got underway on Friday with a two part exercise. We were given two poems to read and comment on. The second part of the exercise was to write your own poem about a family member or a friend.
Spent much of the weekend playing with my children but did find time to read the poems and make notes although didn't get a chance to type them up until today at work. Haven't yet managed to write a poem of my own but have lots of ideas.
Here's my comentary
Comments on Wonder as Wander by Sharon Olds and Daddy by Sylvia Path
This poem is about making the familiar seem unfamiliar as Sharon Olds considers her mother from afar – “and for all my staring, I have not seen her”.
It is 36 lines of free verse, written as a continuous whole without any stanzas. It incorporates a hymn which Olds remembers her mother singing to her when she was small. The hymn has full rhymes but the rest of the poem is written mostly without the use of rhyme apart from the occasional half rhyme such as out and house (lines 1 and 2) and gone and one in line 3.
It took several readings before it gradually dawned on me that this is a portrayal of someone who is suffering from dementia or a similar condition. The mother needs daily helpers to get her through the day, she talks to herself and sometimes suddenly screams.
Although this could be a grim and sad poem about a bewildered old woman Olds lightens it with the use of alliteration the gilded gleamy in line 11 and song she sang in line 14. Olds imagines that her mother is experiencing another life than the one she is living and
I hold fast/ to the thought of her, wandering in her house.
But the key phrases tell a different story. no one repeats in lines 3 and 4. There is no one left in the mother’s life and in a sense she too is absent. She delays and delays her supper. All the people she has known are absent – her late beloved, her father and her staff. The word staff pulled me up as it has a dual meaning. It could mean the people who look after the mother – the daily helpers from earlier – but it could also mean a wooden support to lean on. I’m sure the double meaning is deliberate.
The poem conveys a sense of affection from Olds towards the mother. This is evident even in the title – Wonder as Wander. Olds still sees the mother as someone to wonder. The last seven lines of the poem include a happy memory from childhood when Olds would squat with her mother in the garden with the Red Queens. I’m not sure whether Red Queens are a name of American butterfly but in a sense my lack of knowledge doesn’t matter because in the poem they are also fairies. The poem ends with the mother and daughter seeing what we/ could see , and not seeing what we could not see.
Plath’s poem in contrast is an angry poem in which she has to kill the father. This is constructed in sixteen stanzas, each of five lines. Plath uses rhyme almost like a hammer blow, you, do shoe and achoo in the first stanza.
The word you repeats throughout the poem including the German du. Plath makes the poem sounds harsh and guttural as some people view the German language and compares her father to a Nazi. This is completely different from Olds’ gentle and loving portrait of her mother. Daddy is also as much about Plath as it is about the father. There are very few personal details about the father. She learn he died when Plath was ten and we can assume from the poem that he was German but the rest of the description is of him as a hate figure. In Olds poem we do get to see the mother wandering in her house, albeit we see her as a distant figure as Olds does.
I enjoyed reading both the poems. I knew of Sylvia Plath’s poem Daddy but had not read it with such close attention before. I think I am going to get a lot out of this course.
Spent much of the weekend playing with my children but did find time to read the poems and make notes although didn't get a chance to type them up until today at work. Haven't yet managed to write a poem of my own but have lots of ideas.
Here's my comentary
Comments on Wonder as Wander by Sharon Olds and Daddy by Sylvia Path
This poem is about making the familiar seem unfamiliar as Sharon Olds considers her mother from afar – “and for all my staring, I have not seen her”.
It is 36 lines of free verse, written as a continuous whole without any stanzas. It incorporates a hymn which Olds remembers her mother singing to her when she was small. The hymn has full rhymes but the rest of the poem is written mostly without the use of rhyme apart from the occasional half rhyme such as out and house (lines 1 and 2) and gone and one in line 3.
It took several readings before it gradually dawned on me that this is a portrayal of someone who is suffering from dementia or a similar condition. The mother needs daily helpers to get her through the day, she talks to herself and sometimes suddenly screams.
Although this could be a grim and sad poem about a bewildered old woman Olds lightens it with the use of alliteration the gilded gleamy in line 11 and song she sang in line 14. Olds imagines that her mother is experiencing another life than the one she is living and
I hold fast/ to the thought of her, wandering in her house.
But the key phrases tell a different story. no one repeats in lines 3 and 4. There is no one left in the mother’s life and in a sense she too is absent. She delays and delays her supper. All the people she has known are absent – her late beloved, her father and her staff. The word staff pulled me up as it has a dual meaning. It could mean the people who look after the mother – the daily helpers from earlier – but it could also mean a wooden support to lean on. I’m sure the double meaning is deliberate.
The poem conveys a sense of affection from Olds towards the mother. This is evident even in the title – Wonder as Wander. Olds still sees the mother as someone to wonder. The last seven lines of the poem include a happy memory from childhood when Olds would squat with her mother in the garden with the Red Queens. I’m not sure whether Red Queens are a name of American butterfly but in a sense my lack of knowledge doesn’t matter because in the poem they are also fairies. The poem ends with the mother and daughter seeing what we/ could see , and not seeing what we could not see.
Plath’s poem in contrast is an angry poem in which she has to kill the father. This is constructed in sixteen stanzas, each of five lines. Plath uses rhyme almost like a hammer blow, you, do shoe and achoo in the first stanza.
The word you repeats throughout the poem including the German du. Plath makes the poem sounds harsh and guttural as some people view the German language and compares her father to a Nazi. This is completely different from Olds’ gentle and loving portrait of her mother. Daddy is also as much about Plath as it is about the father. There are very few personal details about the father. She learn he died when Plath was ten and we can assume from the poem that he was German but the rest of the description is of him as a hate figure. In Olds poem we do get to see the mother wandering in her house, albeit we see her as a distant figure as Olds does.
I enjoyed reading both the poems. I knew of Sylvia Plath’s poem Daddy but had not read it with such close attention before. I think I am going to get a lot out of this course.
Saturday 1 September 2007
Ten days to go
On 10th September I start the Poetry 2 course with poetry kit www.poetrykit.org.uk. I'm going to use this blog to keep track of my work and to provide a place to reflect over the ten weeks of the course.
I've already been reading lots of poetry in preparation; Seamus Heaney and Robert Minhinnick in particular. I can't wait....
I've already been reading lots of poetry in preparation; Seamus Heaney and Robert Minhinnick in particular. I can't wait....
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