Tag Archives: Geraldine Green

Ways of meeting

16 Thursday Feb 2017

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Where did that blog go?  Things have been looking a bit quiet on Harping On, as I’ve been busy with the OU’s new MA in Creative Writing.  Writing about writing has therefore taken a back seat.  Along with that has come a little bit of a desire to do less in the way of social media – it’s good to create a bit of space sometimes.

In the meantime, the German version of my story ‘Ships that Pass’ has been published in the anthology ‘Vierertreffen’, which means a Meeting of Four.  I haven’t met the other three authors in real life, but perhaps I will some day.  Two of us are from Scotland, two of us are from Ireland – hello to Brian McNeill, Rita Kelly and Micheál Ó Conghaile – and many thanks to Karin Braun and Gabriele Haefs for compiling this volume of four ‘long short stories’.

http://edition-narrenflug.com/vierertreffen-schottland-irland-erzaehlungen/

I’m half way through the first year of the MA course, where I’m studying Poetry as my primary genre and Fiction as my secondary.  This is the opposite way round from what I originally intended – I just thought it would be more interesting to develop the poetry side, as I felt I had a lot to learn about doing it better.  So far, the course material has been stimulating and people are contributing some interesting stuff in the online tutor group.   I’ve been challenged, pushed in a few new directions and received some home truths about improving my focus.  The downside is that it is all online – you don’t meet the tutor or participants, and there is an awful lot of screen work and clicking, which has given me some RSI problems … another reason for being a bit quiet on the blog.

In the pursuit of more poetry-sharing with real people in the real world, I’ll be co-leading a poetry workshop with local poet Geraldine Green on 25th February.  This workshop is one in Geraldine’s ‘Write on the Farm’ series which I’ve been attending for a year or two.  When someone discovered I had a harp they wanted me to bring it to the party, and this workshop is the result!  We’ll be looking at the origins of the instrument, talking about lyric poetry and writing in response to harp music.  Time in the outdoors is always a part of Geraldine’s workshop, as is some quiet writing time in the afternoon.  It is already fully booked!

https://geraldinegreensaltroad.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/write-on-farm-dates-for-2017.html

The lay of the land

20 Tuesday Sep 2016

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I’ve needed a summer break – a chance to reflect on the ups and down of the last year since my cancer diagnosis, and to consider new projects.  I feel very well and apparently look great on my treatment, but I’m constantly monitored and checked, which inevitably makes me edgy. However, I’ve worked out the best way forward is to Keep Calm and Be Normal.  Going out and doing stuff with others and having a project or two helps me forget for increasingly long periods what happened.  Onwards!

Sometimes a special time comes along and all your interests and ideas converge, and this past weekend has been just like that.  Geraldine Green, Writer in Residence at Brantwood, Coniston, who also runs writers’ workshops at a local Cumbrian farmhouse, says it is ‘full moon magic’.  On the day after the full moon, the sun shone for us  for the above the Lune valley, lighting up this year’s particularly prolific rowan berries and plump blackberries in the hedgerows.

rowan

photo by Jane Moss-Luffrum

Among other things, we wrote to prompts on memories and fruit using Marsha de la O’s ‘UnderThe Lemon Tree’.  In the afternoon we wandered out with ‘The Earth is a Living thing’ by Lucille Clifton; the path took us on to the hills overlooking the Lune Valley to pause, contemplate and write.

writing

Photo by Jane Moss-Luffrum

There were more riches for me the following day at a Harps North West workshop.  Over the past year our composer in residence, Karen Marshalsay, has been working with us on a suite of music specially written for Harps North West – all ability levels will be able to join in, and the idea is that the music will reflect who we are and the landscape in which we live.  We have had two workshops in February and June where Karen has tried out her ideas for melodies and taught us some interesting techniques such as bee’s plaits, finger plaits, shoogly finger and gurgly two handed variations.  We now have the finished piece.

karenIt has been fascinating to share in the creative process over a long period and to see that it is very much like writing a poem – the ideas and themes, the refrains, the motifs.  And then there’s the putting away of a work and letting it bubble and marinate, the taking it out and reshaping until it finds its final form.  Karen’s finished suite is entitled ‘The lay of the land’ and her opening section ‘Approaching Lune Gorge’ is about that landscape in which the poets walked on Saturday.

walking

Photo by Jane Moss-Luffrum

Karen said that getting to know the landscape over the year and in different seasons helped her round the finished piece.

scoreThe lay of the land for me is somewhat different from what it was a year ago.  During the year of my illness and recovery, copies of ‘Shifting Sands’, my book of short stories, have sold well, and I’d like to thank everyone for all the positive comments I’ve received.  I’m delighted to say you can now even buy it on the shops on CalMac Ferries, so check it out over a CalMac cooked breakfast the next time you are sailing to the Hebrides.

janetshiftingsandsBut now it’s time for a new challenge.  I’ve been offered a place on the Open University’s new MA in Creative Writing, and I’m excited to be starting soon.  Initially I thought I would major in fiction, but lately I’ve been pulled in more by poetry and its connection with music, and this past weekend has underlined that choosing poetry as my main genre will be my way forward.  I have some new ideas, and among other things I will be doing a workshop with Geraldine in February on connections between harp and poetry.

Thanks go to Geraldine and all who contributed to the poetry day, particularly Jane Moss-Luffrum for letting me use her wonderful photographs on the blog.  Thanks also go to Karen and all at Harps North West for all the fine music we make together.

layers

Poets in the landscape – Jane Moss-Luffrum

I capture the island

24 Sunday May 2015

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Poetry seems to be my thing this year. Short and snappy, it enables me to focus on one theme and get something written at one sitting. Then there is endless pleasure in returning, tweaking, playing with language, shaping and polishing. The process never ends. So when the sun shone and the opportunity arose to go to a poetry workshop with local poet Geraldine Green on Piel Island at Barrow-in-Furness, I took the opportunity.

Barrow is one of these nearby places I rarely visit ; at the end of a peninsula on the road to nowhere except the sea, there isn’t often a reason. But the poetry workshop spurred me on, as did reading up about this unique island which has its own castle, king and knights as well as a pub that serves good chips. It guards the southern entrance to the channel between Walney Island and Barrow, the bulk of its castle visible for miles across the sands. You access the island by ferry from Roa Island, which is reached by causeway from the mainland.  We arrived at low tide. They’ve just built a new pier, but unfortunately they didn’t build it long enough. This meant that our 10.30 departure didn’t leave till the waves started lapping the pier end at 11.15. However, this was no hardship as we just turned to the sun and took in the enticing views of our destination.

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Once ashore we went camera-mad – the wild flowers, seaweed, ramparts, stones and views through arches were all too enticing.

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Then Geraldine sent us off with notebooks, and a series of apposite prompts – walk, make notes, take it in with your sense, write something …. and  return in an hour. I tried not to feel pressured. The prompt to include the line ‘they capture the island with the cameras’ leapt out at me.  I circled the island and wrote. Once I got home the poem found its own shape, and here’s the result.  It probably needs a bit more tweaking, but this is how it is today.

Island Circles

They grasp the island with their cameras,
teeter from the ferry, slipping on seaweed,
shutters clicking.

I click my rucksack closed, camera asleep inside,
take pictures with my notebook, turn to the
salt air.

I circle the island, ramparts of wind-blown sand
now still, brown as art pastel paper awaiting
brush strokes.

I turn to rocky shore, garlanded with sea campion,
white on white stone, feet crunching mussel shells,
denim blue.

The looping path sings with grasses, indigo speedwell,
a rare patch of bluebells, rough, windblown,
out of place.

My way encircles houses, heads for the keep where
ramparts stand red, enclosing lawns, and children play,
king of their castle.

And at the island’s centre the pond, mysterious,
dark as treacle, moat for an inner, secret island where
no-one goes.

I grasp the island with my notebook, circle like a bird
on the May breeze, upload it to memory and
relive its song.

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You can find out about Piel Island at http://www.pielisland.co.uk/  There is accommodation at the pub, and you can camp if you like that sort of thing.

The castle, as the photograph indicates, is open at ‘any reasonable time’.

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