My own favourite posts of 2014, a completely different list

This is a completely different list. Mine are personal, uncompromising and mean a lot to me. Probably don't say much to others, but that's ok.

Jan - beautiful-honesty...... digging-with-silver-spoon ....... walking-over-bridge

Feb -i-might-or-might-not-start-another ......... 3-work-placements

Mar -baby-worship-wriggling-and-shifting ..... doing-same-things-3-line-paragraphs .... m4

Apr - sofa-time ...... films-with-my-son-rows ....... government-of-nature-afaa-weaver ....... hilarious-old-post-from-2009

May - a-b-c-of-my-mother

Jun - aint-no-sunshine-when-youre-gone ....... london-2-my-parents-bed ......... if-you-had-to-learn-something-new-what ........ first-public-reading

Jul - who-brings-out-best-in-you ........ conversations-needed .......... i-see-autonomous-home-education .......... being-gentle

Aug - huh-it-seems-to-be-true-that-poetry .......... wow-what-weekend ......... everyday

Sep - change-shitty-stuff ......... just-for-fun-nuf-rof-tsuj ........... i-actually-dont-know-what-home

Oct - being-terrible-maths-teacher .... a-book-flat-lining-emotionally .... sitting-in-jr-car-park-writing-haiku

Nov - page-poems-vs-performance-poems ..... woodstock-poetry-festival-this-weekend .... oh-my-god-london-2-sunday .... 100-word-biography-endlessly-tearful

Dec - london-anselm-keifer-albion ..... 2nd-childhood ..... 2-sons-in-house-again-didcot-station .... full-moon

I have enjoyed choosing these. It has taken a long time. I prefer single topic posts, ones with photos, ones with information about my parents, ones about particularly personal thoughts and ones which remind me of eventful and unpredictable trips to London on my own, free to enjoy myself.

The layout is terrible, sorry about that. I can't think of a better way, yet.

This has been an amazing year. Thank you to the wonderful people I have spent time with and who have changed my life for me. I wish I could introduce you all to each other over a long weekend/life time.

Most Viewed Posts of 2014

I wanted to pick 10, but then fancied the ones just below them, so it is 13, because there were joint 12th places.

1 - i-couldnt-sleep

2 - assimilation

3 - growing-up-with-photo

4 - einstein-and-jesus

5 - determined-to-get-avatar-for-forum

6 - ravensbruck-and-my-new-form

7 - i-am-up-to-three-exchanges-in

8 - being-split-up

9 - i-knew-id-find-it-eventually-one-of-my

10 - london-people-places-decision

11 - we-have-started-fabulous-poetry-group

12 - one-of-my-favourite-posts

12 - i-want-arabichebrew-modpo

Winter visiting

This year it means visiting friends every day. 4 days in a row so far. Other years we have been much more home based or snowed in. My brother even drove up from London today. I'll be with a friend in her studio tomorrow night. This is great. I am handing out more Christmas cards as I go, I did a bit of forward planning. This year the juggernaut that is Christmas is simply rolling on over us all.

My insides don't know what to do with themselves when I hear this: Drift by Caroline Bergvall. I so, so want to get to watch and hear this whole piece. It's a combination of dreading the outcome of any trip in a motor boat and adoring the continuous tension of the humming music crossed by her seagull voice.

The Quiet Compere tour 2014 - Sarah Dixon runs this and is writing it up. Part 1 and Part 2 are published so far. Quite a few names are familiar to me from 52.

Amazingly, she has booked me for a 10 min slot at the Oxford one in May. It's lucky I have enough poems already as I have stopped writing. Why?? Maybe my fingers are too cold and we sit on the sofa watching black and white films until 2am. Too much facebook, or too little? Not enough trouble coming my way? Not in the mood at some level.

'What shall we do about stale cake?'

'Who were the protest group called 99%?'

'What does that all mean?'

Pascal Petit's blog: I think she is the one for me, poetry and the Tate Modern. Look down the list of previous blog posts on the right hand side of her page. She is coming to Oxford for a workshop on Sat 28th Feb.

Explaining an exchange

On my visit today I got talking to a teacher. Since I have spent some time home educating I find this interesting and personal. She told me of a brief part of a conversation she had with a home educated young woman of about 16. Somehow she asked why she wasn't taking GCSEs or what she would do without GCSEs. The reply was brief, well rehearsed, but didn't get either of them further forward.

I gave my analysis that this was not a casual question. It went straight for the young person's family's deepest fears, hopes and values. It was not safe for her either as a teacher, since she was in effect asking for her own lifetime of study and qualifications to be examined and threshed just like that. Which it had been, in an instant.

I suggested going back and trying to discuss the fact that this had not been a wise topic for conversation, they needed an awful lot more discussion and friendship first. They needed the tools for having such a discussion. They'd have to build those tools during many conversations about a shared love of dogs or the countryside for example.

...

Mmm - this song: Stay High by Tora Lo. H gave me a cd to enjoy in the car and I found this song I knew from somewhere. It's the 'Habits remix'.

Christmas Eve - Angels - Snow

Christmas Eve walk to deliver more cards. Ginger wine with friends in front of their log burner. Explaining 10 to the minus 9, bit by bit. Many different concepts to be explained with my hands in the air and simple words. An amazing still night, trees dark against the last light in the west. The moon partly lit and partly almost invisible. Wood smoke from someone's fire. Steamed up windows in the pub. Total silence.

Midnight Mass, I sat there thinking and wondering why wanting to be fair and kind gets tangled up with a thicket of words. The best bit was singing the carols and greeting all the people I know. Familiarity. Also the gaps, all the people who aren't there.

The photo display on the window sill above my angels is just visible. My parents plus my brother and me. I wonder why my grandfather came over that evening to take a formal photo of us all? My father would have set up the camera on a tripod for him to click.

My mother in law plus all her brothers and both parents, shortly before her mother died in 1939. The other one on the right is my father in law, whom I never met. T and H take turns looking a bit like him as they grow and change.

These little angels were made by my grandmother R ages ago. I assume when my mother and her brother were small. They have survived all this time in 2 boxes which originally held headed writing paper. There are little foil twists, an old version of tinsel, plus see-though plastic icicles and small baubles to hang from the now-vanished small silver tree.

The lacy covers over the coloured paper dresses are made from paper doilies from all those years ago. Very delicate. No one else touches them, only me.

The star, just visible behind the gold bobbles, is cardboard covered in silver and gold foil. The pointy shaped bits are so delicate, but miraculously are still intact. Again, no one else is allowed to touch them for fear of tearing them. Actually, no one has even breathed a word about wanting to get close to them. I have defended them with my life.

And snow. We have the noise of wind tonight, but no snow whatsoever. There is some at uksnow.

Christmas Letter 2014

New Things I Love - 2014

 . The Quiet Compere

 . Woodstock Poetry Festival, reading at a pub on the last night

 . Albion Beatnik Bookstore

 . Trying Dean Kayam's 5R classes at Lake Street

 . Friends of the Hall Writers' Forum

 . Crewing for Catherine Llewellyn's 5R workshops

 . Oxfam Online Bookshop volunteering

 + The Saison Poetry Library on the South Bank

 + Back Room Poets, Thursday nights in Oxford

 + Our Arabic Film Club, such a long list of films to see

 + Reuters News Oratorio by Jude Montague

 + Gardening weekends at Lower Shaw Farm

 + Swindon Poetry Festival, staying at a festival is the best thing

 + Unexpected and compelling short films in various art galleries,(go to TateShots)

 + Being read to in Arabic, even though I don't understand much

 ; Volunteer gardening at the Sutton Courtenay Environmental Education Centre

 ; Having my mother to stay, taking her to be welcomed at the cafe

 ; The Royal Sun Pub, Begbroke, welcoming on days of terrible traffic
 ; The Stare's Nest, poetry blog-zine, edited by Judi Sutherland and Cathy Dreyer

 ; Volunteering at No Two Things in Didcot

 ; IOWA How Writers Write Poetry online course

 ; Department of Continuing Education Oxford, Arabic classes 

 : iamnotasilentpoet, new poetry blog-zine edited by Reuben Woolley

 : Obsessed With Pipework - poetry magazine, I'm in there next August

 : ModPoPlus, Al Filreis's extension of ModPo

 : 52 Facebook group, based on this weekly prompts and fantastic poems blog

 : Robert Pinsky's The Art of Poetry online course
 : My brother arriving to visit, sharing food, heading to the pub
 : Wantage Poetry Festival, reading upstairs at a pub on the Market Place
 : Al-Saqi and Arthur Probsthain/SOAS book shops in London

Best of all: 2 new babies in my family.

Invitation: Join Slant 2015 before membership reaches 400 and it is closed

...

H has been reading jokes out to me:

Q: Why did the chicken cross the möbius strip? 
A: To get to the same side.

and

Helium walks into a bar and asks for a drink. The bartender says, "Sorry, we don't serve noble gases here." Helium doesn't react.

London - Anselm Keifer - Albion

Leaving before dawn for London

I was a satisfying feeling to be up and off so early. Breakfast at home, plus greeting my mother in French. She jumped and squeaked, fearing I was a well-dressed French relative who'd just turned up out of the blue, knocking on their bedroom door. I never realised saying 'bonjour' could be so alarming.

Then I had an argument with my father about love and relationships before finishing breakfast, that's a first. We didn't argue after that.

While my parents had a normal Saturday morning I buzzed off to see an exhibition I'd read about in a blog. Striking and bold. There were 2 references to Celan poems, so I'll look at those one day. The best part was looking closely at the surfaces of the paintings, the golden layers were so rough and perfect at the same time.

One room just contained a heap of massive book things plus sunflower heads. Being so big and spread out we could walk under it and look right at it. I don't think in words, just enjoy it all uncritically, like feeling the wind or rain.

There was a tea in the afternoon, I helped with laundry and felt I hadn't done much to benefit the household. It is confusing to come, then go away again. I try to read between the lines, but get nowhere, just get used to the buttons on their washing machine and dryer.

I even managed to lose my mother. She said she was going to get some cash as we walked out of the cafe, she walked off, so I thought, towards the cash point by the market and I did something back at the house then tried to catch up with her. No luck at all, so walked all the way back wondering how she'd gone so far so fast. There is a machine at the corner of the street...

In a way I cause more trouble than help coming to visit. Maybe that is always the way, simply a way of passing the time together and doing more mixed up living. I get to see the workings of the household, not just the elegant surface.

Jo Bell/Will Burns/George Chopping

The drive back went straight to Oxford. It was a surprise to be so suddenly back in my familiar parking place and walking down Observatory Street to get to the Albion Bookstore. Very good to meet some familiar faces again. I suggested I'd do a short review of Life on Easy Street by George Roberts. So my reading is focused on that now.

2 new to me poets read out their work and we all had time to talk in the interval. Hearing Jo Bell is good. I know her stance and delivery so well now. If I read a poem of hers on the page/screen I can hear her consonants and accent.

I wonder whether at a certain point I don't listen to the words' meanings at all, just watch and listen to the voices. I watch sheep and cattle, observe, no more. I don't want to interpret any more, just see each person's ways. Since I don't have to reply or discuss, I can switch off and bathe in their music. So I was starting to learn Will Burns and George Chopping.

Once I am used to that I am able to sense a difference when another emotion kicks in. Watching David Morley change profoundly as he shifted from non-Romany to Romany poems. I could see him become more himself. I wondered why he bothered doing anything apart from the work on his Romany side. The rest seemed so at odds with his deep self. This was on stage at the Swindon Poetry Festival this October.

What's all this fuss about 52?

From the inside of the closed facebook group it has been like this: I see others post their poems, I like them if I like them. I comment, briefly and instantly. I read the other comments. I an not scared of commenting. I say if I don't understand a word or stumble somewhere. If the other wants to they post an edit, or they don't.

I enjoy specifying what I love in a poem. It isn't deeply thought out, but a sudden pointing to a word or phrase. I enjoy putting brief replies, no need for these long correct sentences.

When I write it is usually directly into the facebook box, but I sometimes write into my email drafts, or type out something I have come to after writing in longhand on paper. That is a different process.

There is a sod it moment when I press send. We have shared some intimate writing with each other.

Overall I now have massively high expectations from any poetry group I am part of, since I know what it is like to have such a flow of work and comments to be part of. I find it normal to work alongside people with different lengths of time in the poetry world and different levels of publushed-ness, I mean published-ness. Another wonderous typo: pub, lush, blushed, shed.

To me they are all the same, just a more or less anonymous name attached to a poem. I read the poem. Some names are neither male nor female so there's that haziness about the writer too.

I see others deal with their ebb and flow of production. I wait and see where I am going. I get used to the angst of others, let them get on with it.

At the South Bank in the summer I was in a hall full of potential. Had I known the compere I might have asked for an announcement for any 52 members to come to the front to meet each other. Without knowing what we look like, there is a mystery and potential for meeting each other anywhere.

2nd childhood

From what I have glimpsed of it,
it explains many things about being the mother with a small child.

The arrival of body functions at frequent intervals,
no delay, the sun suddenly comes out, or goes in.

The near complete absence of relationship to me,
it's a one way black hole. Protect myself. Also give.

The breakdown of my own life within a few days,
split into moments of this and that.

The ever present present, I stand there saying:
what was I doing, what am I doing?

My swift development of ruses to escape from a world where
requests pile on top of requests.

The pleasure of 5 minutes staring out of a windscreen at
steady hills in the distance.

The impossibility of putting any of it into words,
it all sounds vacuous, trite, plain wrong and misses the point.

The person changes from interaction to interaction,
no description is fair or true, just a bad attempt.

These are my reflections now on how it felt a few weeks ago,
not pretty, but real, intense, unavoidable.

When I had small children I was unaware of all this
and how it is the way things are, I see that now.

I bounced back quickly this time, but it was only a month,
not long years of night and day.

...

I have now given this a good edit. I am still uneasy with it. I'd written in single lines across the post window, but the published window is narrower, so I had to change it all into pairs of lines. Each long single line was meant to stand alone from the next. I could copy it onto a text edit file and print it off for myself as I want it to be.

...

From what I have glimpsed of it, it explains what being the mother is.

The arrival of body functions at intervals, no delay, the sun comes out.

The near absence of relationship to me, a one way black hole. Give.

The breakdown of my own life within a few days, split into moments. 

The ever present present, I stand there saying: what am I doing?

My swift deployment of ruses to escape from a world of requests.

The pleasure of 5 minutes staring out of a windscreen at steady hills.

The impossibility of putting any of it into words, I miss the point.

The person changes from interaction to interaction, no description is true.

These are my reflections now on how it felt a few weeks ago, unavoidable.

When I had small children I was living it, not seeing it.

I bounced back quickly this time, but it was only a month.

...

I like having to chop words out quickly, replacing them with shorter ones, making quick decisions. No version is final, all of them could be played with to make something else entirely.

Years ago, playing an electric guitar at Ovington Square - Brian Turner - My Life as a Foreign Country

Ovington Square

5 to 7

We used to live in the vast space of the studio behind 10 Ovington Square. This was just one part of my grandparents' big house. We moved to our own family house when I was 7. Not as much fun by a long way. The studio was then rented out to various musicians.

16 to 18

One of these musicians let me visit and chat once or twice. He was a guitarist and let me pluck the strings of one electric guitar, while he played another one. He was so good he could play classic songs based on the random notes I picked out. He made me feel like an equal partner in the whole process. A nice feeling.

Another, a pianist, let me visit roughly every two weeks for ages. What was my family thinking? We'd sit and drink coffee and chat for quite a while. I'd smoke or did I just have coffee? Anyway... I was 18. Now I am a mother I am shocked.

Brian Turner - My Life as a Foreign Country

There is a different feel to reading a book by someone I have been to a poetry workshop with. Not only that, but he is so easy to be in the room with. When he asked if we were all ok, did we need anything, I actually said I was cold. He gave me his own jacket to wear. That was kind.

Someone else arrived spectacularly late and he just said now is the perfect time to arrive, welcome. That was Jude Montague. We all went off for coffee afterwards and she gave e a copy of her book. Just like that. And told me she writes everything, no barriers or censorship. I'm not there yet.

He also warned us that the moment we found we'd got going on our writing he'd be stopping us to go on to the next topic. So it proved. I have lots of starts from that afternoon. Unlike other workshops, we were not asked to read out to each other or to everyone. Possibly because his big topic is trauma, so we might be focusing at that. I was anyway. Gingerly. Extremely nervously. Not wanting to at all, but trying it a bit anyway, because I needed to. I had only booked my place the day before and had told myself I needn't go along at all if I needed to back out at the last minute. Link.

I wasn't at all sure I'd be at the reading later that day, for the same reason. Instead I might have been lurking in a Japanese restaurant with someone else simply talking and processing the workshop, not being good and polite at a reading.

So, this book. I am not used to the open way the men discuss sex. That is an eye opener. We women just don't, or not yet.. Or maybe only on the 52 facebook group. Maybe I need to get out more.

The landscape shines through the military hardware and technical specifications. He loves his details, the accurate processes the US army uses to do its job. The water buffalo, rivers and birds break through all that, with a simplicity which he may be unaware of.

There is a little knowledge of Arabic literature, but it must be in translation. I had half hoped he would be a fluent speaker by now, maybe he is? At that point he wasn't. I have noted down the references from the notes at the back. More Amazon 2nd hand orders.

I wanted to know more about his wife Ilyse. She is a constant, beautiful, womanly presence. If I were her I'd be entranced.

Since I enjoy blogs, eg George Szirtes, Anthony Wilson, Baroque in Hackney and 365, I am half hoping there will be a blog somewhere of his thoughts and studies now. He teaches and loves it. He studies poetry, which is my thing, so I'd want to read about his life now.

I assume that My Life as a Foreign Country has started to get the shrapnel out of his mind, but maybe it simply allows different shrapnel to start emerging. An unavoidable process.

To what extent has he begun to interact with Iraqis or Iraq or the Middle East in general since leaving the Army? Or is his main relationship with the US itself, via its army and his male family members' involvement in it? Or, going beyond that, is his debate with himself and the world about being a man.

This is a problem with reading writings from several years ago, they don't say much about now. They tell me about then. I want to be up to date, know what happened next, what is happening now.

2 sons in the house again - Didcot station

I can't explain how wonderful it is to have them both here again. I see them chatting at the kitchen table. We roll around Sainsbury's choosing food. There is another cook in the house. The table now has a box of tool kit on it. H and I played a game called First Impressions last night. We are not ready to wrap it up for Christmas yet. T and I went off for an enjoyable trip to put petrol in his car because he couldn't be bothered to go by himself. I stood there watching him do all the actions. He drove me and I paid no attention to the traffic, just let him get on with it.

I give T a huge hug in our kitchen doorway because I am so pleased. We arrange to drive past the car park so he can pick up his car tomorrow morning after a pub trip out this evening. I sit by Didcot Station late at night with yet another book, half reading, half gazing into space thinking my own thoughts as I wait yet again for him to arrive.

Best of all, I can go and have mulled wine at the cafe if I want because T said he'll be my driver! Luxury. We can sit there with our books and while away some time together.

Dravo Jelena/Jelenka/Natasha/Voja and anyone else who knows me

Yes, I have learnt my first word of Serbian. You have to almost shout and be very lively and bouncy. That's how this family language is. It has always gone over my head before, but after 50 years it is time to belt it out. Surely I will have a wonderful accent, since I know it in my bones already.

Dravo means hallo/good health to you

I don't yet know what the reply is. My next trip to London will get me that treasure.

Listen to the French

This is a 3 hour set of tributes to Abdelwahab Meddeb. Pierre Joris' blog linked to it, and I have listened to bits of it. Simply listening to the sound. Each person has a slightly different delivery, but it is all French. It is being spoken more slowly and more reflectively than usual.

He moved from Tunisia to France in 1967 and has a wiki page.

This is like being a beach, every tide brings new people, dead or alive, to get to know a little before the next tide moves in.

The photo is from last November. A friend built a vast bonfire structure up in the air on wooden struts. This is the grass where the embers fell as it started to burn.

Brave souls in Iraq - nuun - ن - نون

I am touched by their determination to support the Christian communities in Iraq this December. See this article, in English, in Al-Shorfar.

The significance of the letter ن : it is pronounced nuun or noon and was marked on the doors of the houses IS were going to get next for having Christian families inside. Even the Financial Times had a leader column article explaining this a few months ago. So the families had to go, fast. 'n' stands for one of the words for Christian, originally from the word 'an-nasira', which means Nazareth.

There is at least one article a day on the Middle East in the Financial Times, so I am cutting them out. They are written in a cool-headed and de-escalatory style. Also compassionate, or I am I merely seeing what I want to see?

Found it at last: Dia'a Al-Abdullah

On one of my trips to my parents' house in London I found a short poem in Arabic and spent a bit of time comparing it with the translation. Then I came back here and left the poem behind totally. I searched and searched online with no luck.

But then.. my mother arrived with that same iPad in her luggage. Lo and behold, there it was. Not even deep in the history, just on the first page I opened.

Dia'a Al-Abdullah - The Crypt
translated by Ghias Aljundi and Mitch Albert
www.penusa.org

It looks as if there is no news since March 2012 when he was taken into a Syrian jail.

David Beispiel's Poetry Wire blog has an article which gives the whole poem, just in translation in English, plus other information. Worth following.

I broke the A34 rule

It is against our rules to hoot, but I did just that at a fast driver who rushed up on the slow lane and dived in front of me in a section of road which is not meant to be fast. H and I were chatting to each other using our German phrases, so I had no idea where my sudden rage came from.

Earlier I'd noticed a lorry in my blind spot, just in time before I put us both under its wheels. Maybe surviving that one meant I was in no mood to be cut up by somebody in a mere car. It's the junction where I get onto the A34 north of Oxford. I have had numerous near misses there, in the rain, in the dark, in the light. Always lorries.

I peer carefully in my mirror each time I join the road, get up to a fast speed, look through the window as well, then that's the moment of truth -- huh - wheels, many many wheels, so very close.

A couple of days ago another Oxford driver did something exceptional at the lights. Moved from the slow lane into the fast lane then in right in front of the car in the slow lane. Then, seeing as the lights still hadn't turned to green, just drove through the red light round the corner to the left. Nothing surprises us any more. No one hooted or flashed their lights. Total calm.

Drat, missed a chance

I was wandering round the Blake exhibition, sort of involved, but feeling ignorant, yet again.

Then I was gripped by turning the pages of a screen which had one of his poetry notebooks in it. Without expecting it in the slightest, I read some words I knew: Rose thou art sick... the original draft plus changes was right there for me to read for myself.

Further back I found Tyger Tyger, right there, in 2 versions, one all messed about with and one all neat.

A woman came along, so I showed her what I'd found and we read them out loud together. I should have asked her for a coffee. Not that I had any time at all, but I should have risked having my car clamped for the chance of a conversation with a like minded soul.

I might well find her again. I'd recognise the way she peered, from a few inches away, at the pictures.

The pictures were good, the reds and the blues were equally warm. I like warmth. The fingers and feet have a particular way about them. He also really likes the vertical. I wouldn't get very far with writing an essay on art would I? Some things don't need to be written about.

The General's Son - Miko Peled

Second half-read book is now finished. The General's Son by Miko Peled

www.justworldbooks.com publish fast, so they can produce political books. Their focus is on the Middle East and the founder, Helena Cobban, was a journalist with the American newspaper Christian Science Monitor. A surprisingly open minded institution.

Christmas present for all - number 1

The Atomic Shrimp

Before you give up on being British and decide to do something terrible with UKIP and start shooting the clouds for being so grey: enjoy this blog, he's funny, off the wall, and writes concisely. With pictures. That's why we don't all drown ourselves in the North Sea.

One down, loads to go

I have finished my first book of the holidays: Journal of an Ordinary Grief (1973) - Mahmoud Darwish, translated by Ibrahim Muhawi.

The chapter on Gaza explains a lot. I hadn't perceived its importance at all, until now. How blind can one be?

You could open the book at random and pick any sentence to write from. I took 2 a while ago and gave them as a writing challenge on a forum I am on. I like starting from somewhere and going somewhere else entirely. The starting point acts as a door or a permission to make a start. It is not meant to hold you to remaining on a topic at all. The words are just that, and can be used freely.

There are 2 further books in the trilogy of memoirs, written later and much later: Memory for Forgetfulness (1985) and In the Presence of Absence (2006). For another time.

There is a concept I hadn't come across before - the Arabic Sentence. By that I think he means the impossibility of expressing the truth in language, yet it is the safest arena for trying to do so. So using Arabic gives him an unchallenged space, which is denied geographically and politically. The language is under his control and is his in an undeniable and permanent way, whatever might happen. The words are the most powerful and permanent weapon. Putting them in sentences wraps them up in an endless series of statements which can't be refused permission or denied existence or status. No one apart from an Arabic speaker can use the language, so it is a plastic, living, unlimitable force.

The preface by the translator doesn't look at it quite like that, but we can see what we like in a work..

Full moon

Even though I had 2 tickets I went on my own
My friend who likes events was already going to see a band

On the way I stopped mid-pavement for ages
To look at a b/w portrait on the front of a book in Oxfam's window

I braced myself for a horrible evening, just in case
Actually the place was packed and noisy :)

The walls were completely covered with Morris coverings
Reminded me of the House of Lords reception rooms

Combined with dramatic pictures
Fantastic backdrop to all the visitors in their finery

After a bit I was glad I was on my own
I could gaze at the gold Warhols

(When I bobbed down I could get the light right on them
The gold went from dull to brilliant, thrilling, no one else did that)

And take in the 2 Electric Chairs
No one else wanted to look at them

A tender photo of Warhol
His head thinking and his wrist reaching out

That was the best element of the whole show
The unexpected and undramatic

One of the photographers nearly got one of me
He said, 'Oops, that didn't work', but didn't try again

2 self portraits, 1 by each artist
A neat pencilled jar in front of a tray behind Morris' head

I gave lots of time to the unblinking gazes
Of the Screen Test films, and ate my apple

I feel as if it is my own house now
Upstairs and down into the basement

The band was so good down stairs
I'd love 5R to have live music, it might work well

(The YouTube video doesn't do the band justice at all
Live was mesmerising, there I was, all happy

Julia Meijer)

End of term capers - Reward for 10 weeks' work

There is Christmas planning and there is holiday reading planning.

My massive stack of poetry and Arabic is calling to me. Where do I start? Do I lay them all out on my rug and take a photo and sit there wondering? Do I start 5 at once and just get 10 pages into each one?

Or write out a neat plan and tell my brother so I can be accountable to him for any stray reading? We are an accountability group of 2, we meet by phone and share what we plan to do. No punishments though.

I could be systematic and pick a male then a female poet, same with the Arabic stuff, go alternately. It's been a very long 10 weeks since I could just read without any homework needing to be done. Wanting a good mark meant doing all of it as carefully as possible.

My vocab was well hidden in the boot of my son's car, so now I can play with that too.

Storytelling Republic - Palestine - Chris Smith

On Monday evening I got out to Oxford and bumped into 2 people I know. We were at the first Story Telling evening for adults at the Albion Beatnik Bookstore.

There are photos already up to show what it was like. They can't show that there was a still silence every so often as we listened extra attentively.

I wondered what Chris Smith had been doing for the 15 years he spent out there. Does he know Jackie Lubeck of Theatre Day Productions who I met online on ModPo?

I am not a silent poet - Reuben Woolley

A friend of mine has just set up a blog-zine for protest poetry. I predict he will be swamped by submissions. But that is a good thing in the long run, so I am mentioning his project here.

I know him via 52, the Facebook poetry group we are both part of. He is also the first 52-er I met in real life, quite by chance, after a poetry reading.

A hidden sonnet - Richard Hayden - Those Winter Sundays

Playing around with form.

Hidden sonnets

Have a look at this sonnet. Richard Hayden - Those Winter Sundays. It has 3 stanzas, a 5 line, then a 4 line, then a 5 line. The last 2 lines are different, a summing up and development. I love the way sonnets are wrangled about to look entirely different, yet when I count lines, as I always like to do, there they are. So often they are not labelled as such. Hidden sonnets.

Indentation

On a forum I am on, I suggested that someone try putting in breaks to emphasise the stanzas of a sonnet. The writer decided to indent the second 4 lines, then revert back to left justification for the next 4 lines. In fact the last 2 lines got the chop too, but it was 14 lines long before this new version. I have never seen, or noticed, that before. Very neat.