Mapping Scotland in Poetry - Thanks to link from Kevin Reid (52) - from 15th July 2014

http://stanzapoetry.wordpress.com/2014/07/04/mapping-scotland-in-poetry/

Reading the post about this project to attach a poem to all parts of Scotland set me thinking.

Do I count as sufficiently Scottish to take part? When I first moved back to London from a couple of intense years in Edinburgh and Glasgow I'd glance out of my office window and take the corner of a tall building peeping between two other buildings as a hill before realising that of course it wasn't.

Hill is a euphemism for mountain by the way. Walking is a euphemism for scrambling up slopes and scree, then being in even more discomfort coming down again, hoping the sun wouldn't go down too quickly.

A short time back in London and I got talking to an older man standing on a tube train because I had caught his accent. We stood there and reminisced and named and dreamed together. No one else on the train talked to each other because we just don't down here, but we almost fell into each other's arms!

Only a couple of days ago I caught a driver's accent at the garage, asked where in Scotland he was from, ... Glasgow again.. So we talked and talked about places, events, the city. There's a happiness about being able to love a place from afar and share that with others.

The land doesn't change, the names of the streets stay the same, so we can share the exact same memories. I love the fact that I know the accent so well. Mine is totally Southern, but I understand it perfectly.

I'm stressing about whether to make the long drive north to see my parents' holiday house in Galloway for the first time. It is so far, who will look after the household for the length of time I'd want to be away for? Why can't I just go for a few weeks and not need permission and debates? Wanting to step off the world for a bit. Just because other people drive or fly up in one day then back soon, doesn't mean I want to, at all.

Damn, if I want to go there I have to shift myself and get through all these worries.

My best bits of the year so far - from 12th July 2014

Still my best song: Sonnentanz

52 facebook group closed group

Iowa poetry writing class, on now

5R down in Upper Basildon

Lower Shaw Farm, Swindon

Sutton Courtenay Environmental Education Centre

My own closed poetry group, just set one up, 1 2 3 go..

Unexpected free Thursdays = Back Room Poets, I wouldn't have had the chance otherwise

Reading in public, did I really do that?

My Arabic dictionary, but I don't expect anyone else to see the joy!

The beautiful 60's/70's Festival Hall and Saison Poetry Library

Going out to cafes/restaurants with people I enjoy being with, what a change

Biodanza here and there in Oxford

Working with endlessly interesting people

--

How enthusiastic and happy this sounds. A lot of it was due to my decision to prepare for full time paid work by volunteering in several different places. That opened up my world such a lot. I need to be sociable and busy doing physical activities in the open air as much as possible. Planning and execution plus chat = happy Sarah.

16th June 2017

Previous Julys - from 9th July 2014

This blog goes back to 2009.

2013 Still quoting whole poems, unaware of copyright law; clearly busy learning Arabic: T leaves school.

2012 Poetry Parnassus and considering 2007; start of interest in poetry.

2011 Considering 2007.

2010 An acquaintance escaped from hospital in Oxford and jumped off Beachy Head; my aunt died from cancer.

2009 My father nearly died.

--

Well, since then:

2014 Gaza bombings all summer, live streams looking over towards Gaza at night; meeting head of LVS which will be H's new school.

2015 Listening to the Proms each evening in my little place in Blewbury, writing 2 poems per night, our little group meets weekly to teach each other Arabic in my friend's garden in Cowley.

2016 Into dance music, at home all the time, sorting out renting out my new place, difficult times.

2017 Soon to move again, all being well.

16th June 2017

2 line poems - Robert Hass - 7th July 2014

I made myself cry this afternoon, unintentionally. If you have ever written something that makes you cry as you are writing it, then hi from me. No one ever told me that could happen.

If you are curious, and if I want to note it down so I remember what those 2 lines actually were, here they are:

Family life
------------


What will the next lecture/inspiration bring? As it happens a totally different discussion by 2 different people.

--

Hmm, I'm confused by this draft post. I don't think I actually did type out those 2 crucial lines which caused me to cry. And I think 'Family Life' is simply a heading for something I wanted to write, but then didn't. The last bit is made up of 2 sentences relating to a happy moment after trying out a video or audio file.

So it's a real hodge podge, but I'll post it anyway. I'm having a clear out and here in 2017 there are no direct costs attached to posting yet more words online.

16th June 2017

Qatar Duty Free Shopping - from 2nd July 2014

I was so happy, I carefully sounded out the letters on the front of my husband's big shiny plastic bag from his travels, and I found Qatar and al souk, which everyone knows means a shopping area. So I have 2 more words for my heap. Each new word goes on a little square of paper, English on one side and Arabic on the other, no transliteration now. I'm not sure about the word which must mean duty free, so I'll ignore that for now.

The other things I'm going through is names of terrorist/political/hostage taking organisations from when I was growing up. Wikipedia gives me the actual meaning of the words, so there's another way of getting simple vocab from my existing knowledge. Amal means hope by the way.

At a friend's house I saw a tin on a high shelf. When she gave it to me I sounded out what I could and finally worked out that I had found 'grammes' so that made me very happy too. Context is all. Next I'll do a bit of looking up and find kilo and metre etc.

How many? - from 1st July 2014

How many poems do you read a day?

I must flash my way through 20 or more. Plus 1/10 or less of a poem in Arabic. So there is a simple guide to my relative language skills. Factor of 200, 300.

Try this if you want 20 minute doses of poetry discussion - from 23rd June 2014

twelve-poets-each-teach-poet

Do a google search to get the texts for the poems up in front of you. I am just on the first teaching session. 'This Room' by John Ashbery.

Your electronic arms, your petrochemical arms, your military arms - from 10th June 2014

What a wonderful song:

Laurie Anderson - O Superman

Why do I like this so much? Because of those words I put in the title. Their calmness.

Good sources of information - draft from 27th May 2014

http://www.academia.edu/3225792/Umm_Kulthum  Page down to the article on Umm Kulthum on page 42 written by Hind Soufi Assaf. There are many details about her life I had not read elsewhere.

http://www.furious.com/perfect/oumkalthoum.html A music buff's (Rudy Meixel) surprisingly in-depth analysis of Umm Kulthum's work.

https://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/201201/um.kulthum.the.lady.s.cairo.htm More info, because there is no such thing as too much! The site has all sorts of other information on it about the Arab World, I haven't even started to explore all that yet.

http://www.haaretz.com/umm-kulthum-in-the-men-s-section-1.6857 Synagogues appear to have male singing sessions, the writer speaks to a singer who mixes Arabic songs with the Hebrew ones.

http://iwsaw.lau.edu.lb/publications/al-raida/ The Institute for Women's Studies in the Arab World web site. It has journals full of articles available to look at as pdfs going back to 1976. Amazing. The first one is simply typed.
http://www.mediafire.com/?mplk01u43exq43whttp://www.mediafire.com/?mplk01u43exq43w

Links - draft from 24th May 2014

People who study arabic tend to be rather serious, at least they appear that way online. I like to keep a link to the sites where students with wonderful language skills share their top tips. It's still close in the memory, so I believe what they say.

http://arabic.desert-sky.net/index.html Learn the plurals so you won't get caught mid-conversation not knowing the plural of 'uncle'.

Paris - draft from 24th April 2014

My parents are off to Paris next week. Might it be their last visit? Who knows? It's their situation, not mine, yet I am the one feeling upset at the concept of never seeing a city again, the one my mother lived in for a year with her grandmother, where my grandmother grew up, where rat was on the menu in the 1870/1871 Siege of Paris.

I know it is just over the Channel and is there all day and night. London is more my passion.

I have fallen in love with one of my books - but haven't started writing in there yet - draft from 22nd March 2014

There is a word which means 'ocean'. More than that, it also means 'dictionary'.

Imagine an ocean of words, phrases, voices of each person, past and future. All those languages and mothers' sweet names for their children. All those word combinations which result in poetry.

Imagine a dictionary of drops of water, so many as to fill the ocean. All the snow flakes and mist, each with their own history of how they came to be and how they came to lose their being again in the endless water cycle.

I have had a look into it and it appears the word came from Ancient Greek, not that ancient if you think about it, just 2000-2500 years ago. Where did the Greeks get their words from?

Weird day - Wonderful day - draft from 12th March 2014

I went along Piccadilly looking for earrings, finding a beautiful print by Wallace Reynolds at the Royal Academy, finding a cake, but it was simultaneously utterly pointless. I knew no one, was swamped by possible places to go to and just wanted to sit somewhere quiet and feel the warm sun. I had a search for a small notebook, but just found arty items instead.

Going to the same places is like going back in time. Why go on the Victoria Line when I have done this many times already? Why stand on the top floor of the stacks in the London Library wondering at the view right down through the metal grills for the nth time?

Then I was cross with the library for not even having a single item by 2 writers I did a search for. Then I decided it was not amazon, but more like someone's home shelves. It would be ludicrous to be cross that they didn't have something. The whole point is to look around and enjoy what they do have.

Now I am having a moan and am thinking what a great moment this is. I have waved my parents off to the first of 3 dinner parties they have lined up over the next 4 days. Even better I have my feet up with this iPad and my brother is whizzing across London by train to see me. Soon enough we will be deciding where to go out.

I shall fix all the typos later once I am back home.

...

Done. Now I need to fix my jitteriness, too much coffee and wine and general busyness.

This will probably be my only post with the words autism and aspergers in it - draft from 25th Feb 2014

This is why my poetry course is so amazing: Prof Al Filreis and one of my co-participants Daniel Bergmann.

My children's great grandmother - 25th January 2014

I have been peering at my mother in law's photo album from the 1940's and 1950's. We were looking for a photo to send to a relative because her husband died yesterday. I have been photocopying the little photo we found of my mother in law and the relative as little children of 4 and 6 perching on a wooden fence and smiling.

Then we came across a photo of S's Welsh grandparents. I worked out that T and H are their only descendants. No pressure there then! After 2 generations of one child in a family, we are up to two now.

I copied a big family photo of his North Country grandparents, as it happens taken shortly before the grand mother died.

Now I need to dig out lots of data from my side of the family to even things up.

London Library - Draft from 30th December 2013

This is such a pleasure to have books from the London Library again. When I was at Durham University I'd bring up supplies from London. I only lost and had to pay for one book.

I found the American Poetry and the Arabic Literature sections, both small, but how much can I read in a few months until I get back to London again? Also, conveniently almost next to each other.

Much as I love our local library, this takes me right back to when I used to live in London. I don't like being tied to one place. In fact I love the way different libraries have completely different strengths, once I know what I might expect there.

Downside to home education - draft from 22nd December 2013

Being questioned out of the blue by someone. I still find this horrible and difficult to deal with after all these years. I get like an animal which knows it is prey and just sits there being mauled. In my case sitting there and answering questions instead of instantly stating that I had laundry to see to and was going home straight away.

I don't think I had the slightest influence over my questioner. In fact I don't see the point in the questioning as the truths I was trying to explain didn't seem to comfort or reassure the questioner one bit. A while ago I named this sort of event being vomited over emotionally by someone. That's exactly it! Sorry for the imagery, sometimes direct is best.

It has happened so often now I call it being mugged once I get home and can speak openly. Normally I am wary and can spot this coming, but I have been over relaxed due to the summer and a lack of being verbally mugged for a few weeks.

aarrgghh...

--

Q: Do I post this or do I delete it?

A: I think I will edit it, using the word 'someone'.

11th June 2017

John Cage and four letter words - Draft post from 4th November 2013

First of all, John Cage is all about finding ways of freeing himself.

English seems to give a particular power to 4 letter words. I keep on finding them and thinking, ah hallo, another one.

John
Cage
Find
Free
Give
Word
Keep
Seem
Four
Blog
Page
Site

--

Was it around this time that I started my 'What the Hell?' poems? Probably.

I'm brewing a new set of poems, the first for a very long time. They might be the Thank You poems. Doing them will be the project, not polishing them or sharing them with anyone else.

I wrote the first in this series about 2 years ago and have lost it. It was written in one go, in pencil, on a full A4 sheet of paper. Laid out partly as a letter and partly as a poem. It said everything I wanted to say and used the word 'release' which in Arabic refers to both freeing and divorce.

26th May 2017

الطيور - الحانة - صورة الزرقاء - Inaccurate translations

أستطيع  السمع للاغنية الطيور - فانه الفجر الان

I can hear the singing of the birds, so it is dawn now

or: I can hear one bird singing, so that tells me that it is dawn

نتكلم ونبتسام ونراى معا - في حديقة وفي حانة

We talk and we smile together in the garden and in the pub

or: We talk and smile together in the garden and indoors in the pub, it is a friendly group, we spend hours out there, 

--

Inaccurate translations mean that the person reading needs to work out which words are accurate and which ones are not. So this makes it more interesting for me.

--

Vera Blagev

Allen Ginsberg - Draft post from 15th Oct 2013

Interview from 1994

Kaddish

The here and now - Draft post from 6th Sept 2013

We have cooler weather, I didn't really believe the forecasts because it was so lovely and warm, a blissful bit of UK summer yesterday.

Our hot water system is broken. We have a kettle and my mother in law's functioning household next door. Do I rush to make calls for another electrician to install a new immersion timer, or simply wait for him to return from holiday to fix it? I'd rather wait peacefully... But then I'd like a warm shower and to be able to do the washing up.

I have polished my older son's bedroom window, including the frame and the gap to the outside world. Too many cobwebs! Now it is fresh and clean. He is on his travels, returning on Saturday.

My husband leaves on Sunday for a very short trip to Hong Kong. It's a good thing I am at home a lot.

Go on: splash out on Amazon - Draft post from 22nd Aug 2013

I have been noting down a massive list of read before you die books in translation from Arabic into English. Many get mentioned time and time again, so they are the ones I think I'll put on my wish list.

http://arablit.wordpress.com/2013/04/30/5-arabic-books-to-read-before-you-die/

The other way of looking at the list is to see it as a challenge to read what's available in English before your Arabic is up to reading in the original. That is some years away for me.

Flylady for whole countries - too simplistic identities - Draft post from 15th Aug 2013

I was wondering what process is simple and powerful enough to help countries when they are in a fix. Flylady has a phrase CHAOS = can't have anyone over syndrome, ie disorder and general quiet mayhem in a household. The 'fly' bit stands for 'finally loving yourself'. How could that scale up to country level?

Do the old cultures have helpful ways of doing this? Countries do get into trouble, it's natural. In fact it's a constant getting into trouble of one sort and another, and a constant business of fixing things. No wonder politicians get grey hair quickly.

Humans may be communal, but what a mess that is! It's so great when it works well. Why is it that we sometimes all band together and sometimes split into 2 fighting camps? What's all the divide and conquer about, pitting one part of society against another.

I like the blurring of boundaries that happens when I make a list of all my identities. I'm even a bit Pagan at heart. I feel various nationalities, but live here at present and speak a very Southern English version of English, which fixes me irrevocably to Sloane Square. Just having one big identity is annoying and limiting, hence my annoyance at myself when I say 'I don't work' instead of something more creative like 'Oooh, I do lots of things...'

Sappho - Draft post from 31st August 2013

I find it hard to choose pieces to quote because the subject matter is very different to my own written blog posts. Yet these books I'm reading and enjoying for the first time are part of being a home educating mother.

My reading helps me broaden my mind and is part of the luxury of having the time and opportunity to read what I choose to. In some sense it helps me not worry about the home educating, because less of my mind is paying attention to the contemporary discussions about it.

In another way it is great because I read of a time when schooling as we know it was not part of life. So I experience the thought processes of a writer, Saphho, who has a grown up daughter, and read her with the unexpected result of seeing her as a fellow home educating mother. Not the usual reason for reading her words!

Clearly PSHE was a vital part of bringing up daughters. This is much more swept under the carpet now. Was I part of any conversations about marriage or about having children? I don't remember any serious ones apart from seeing my aunt breastfeed while she chatted to me and my brother. She must have felt very grown up feeding her first born and looking after us two at the same time in the dining room on her own while the other adults were upstairs. All I remember is feeling shocked that anyone looking in from the street, through the big window, would have been able to see her bra strap. In those days a bra strap was always hidden. I was shocked at seeing it!

Clearances, reoccupations, territorial actions - Just the right interaction - 27th Sept 2013

I have moved much stuff from the kitchen table, window sill, upstairs landing and upstairs window sill.

The space under the kitchen dresser is getting attention now. I guess that the plastic boxes under there have been receiving gifts of bits of mother boards for 10 years. I found a big Monopoly set under there and extra Scrabble tiles.

The house will be emptier looking. More space = fewer crumbs? The dresser in the kitchen has far fewer plastic bottles and tops now.

Motherlode by The Staves

This afternoon I was asked to bake bread items made by our church activity afternoon. So various hedgehogs, snails and snakes were baked while I chatted with a friend in my kitchen.

Then, miraculously, I asked another friend something and we are both able to get on Facebook to support each other. Just what I needed.

Also, I was able to give away my hard-won information about home education. I wrote it in felt pen on the inside of a cardboard box, needs must.

Protests, movements of all sorts - from 17th Sept 2013

This beautiful, emotional song reminds me of the togetherness and freedom of thought I could just see in the youtube coverage.

Ya Al Midan/You The Square by Cairokee

I am so sorry I was not able to get along to London Occupy in front of St Paul's. I honestly thought it would last for longer. When I finally got there after it had gone I walked into St Paul's and in my innocence looked for a table, chairs and place to discuss what the protest had meant and was continuing to mean. There was absolutely nothing, not even a chalk mark on the pavement outside. I was shocked. The pebble falls into the pond and the water flattens out again so soon.

Similarly, I didn't see the execution of Troy Davis coming. I thought it would be delayed, re-examined and then of course stopped. I simply went to sleep that night. That didn't happen and that is why people continue to protest in their own ways. Implacable distrust.

ModPo - Draft post from 14th July 2013

http://jacket2.org/content/poem-talk PoemTalk discussions, long

http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/authors.php List of Authors, links to out loud readings of poems, short

http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Filreis.html Many interviews and discussions by Al Filreis with writers

http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Close-Listening.php Many interviews and discussions by Charles Bernstein with writers

For the record: the 2 demos I have been on - Draft post from 29th April 2013

2012 In front of the Bahraini and Saudi embassies - for Bahrain

2013 In front of Parliament - for Iran

--

B B King - Lucille

Well, I have been on many demos since then. Even doing one woman ones on St Giles in Oxford and opposite Downing Street. In a way I prefer the individual ones. People come up and talk a little bit in a way which doesn't happen when there is a group, or even 2 people. It's just me and the people going past. Nothing else at all. Pure determination. Pure vulnerability too. My attention is 100% on the task and the situation.

I can imagine myself at 90 happily standing in the street or on a little chair with my poster. Maybe not happily, but fiery eyed, calm and serious.

23rd May 2017

Huhne, Pryce and what the Judge said - Draft post from Jan 2013

Maybe I need to read more of the details, but I haven't seen any mention of the fact that both parents of a family have been sent to prison on the very same day. This seems wrong, even if they hate each other's guts. It assumes that there will be no emergency for which one parent would be needed. That is an arrogant view for a judge to take I think. Even warring families have emergencies which cannot be foreseen and broken families need to be respected at a very basic level. I think they should have been imprisoned in succession instead, or for another method of punishment to be chosen.

The summing up remarks by the judge seems to have an awful lot of emotive words in it. I would prefer a much more neutral and fair assessment of the situation. Many others have pointed out the emphasis on Ms Pryce's actions, when the person who should not have been driving so fast in the first place was Mr Huhne.

My brain is all befuddled from the many issued raised and mixed up in this case.

The strangely arrogant and insulting attitude towards the reasonable seeming questions put by the first jury.

The unclear and complex words used to answer those questions, not respecting the people he was responding to, or by extension, us, who are reading and trying to understand both the questions and the answers.

The way Mr Huhne's denials over months, finally shifting to a guilty plea only when facing trial the next day, were not taken into account in Ms Pryce's case. Surely someone unable to stick to his version of the truth and own wishes would behave similarly or worse in private with his wife? I am baffled by the lack of consideration for what sort of a person Ms Pryce was dealing with.

--

Schiller - Ultramarin

Draft post from 17th January 2013

James Foley still missing

Here is an article in the New York Daily News about James Foley, the journalist who is missing in Syria right now.

He was the person who interviewed Matthew Van Dyke when he made a return journey to visit the prison in Tripoli where he had been held.and who made the video about Abu Salim prison in Tripoli being opened up cell door by cell door.

--

Sadly this post was not followed by news of his release and freedom, as we all know. I don't want to delete this draft post though, so I'm posting it, but I have removed the title.

I can't really take myself back to that time, I knew so little then about Syria, and even now I can only take in a small amount.

I let in the amount which I can deal with, in the knowledge or expectation that this process of receiving information about the war and emotions from the people I know and from fb info from people I don't know will continue on and on, like this sentence, drifting on, hurtling on into the dark, hope and despair shifting. How much can I keep myself calm, stable, reliable, when I'm just a real person, not so attentive, necessarily separate? Yet to what extent is that separateness helpful, crucial, and to what extent is it a barrier to understanding?

23rd May 2017

Being a good flatmate - Draft post from 9th January 2013

Things like taking plates to the sink and hanging up your coat have a new name in my house: flatmate skills.

I have noticed that when T and H's father is in charge he can tell them to do certain tasks and they will do them. So sometimes I ask him to teach them to do a household task. I think it goes over so much better when it comes from him.

I am modelling 'washing up is fun' and 'laundry is good to do' with the expectation that one day they will just copy me and do it. I don't want power struggles over household tasks.

One day I may draw up a jobs chart and give us all a week at a particular task, so there is a simple rotation. The thing is there was nothing like this in my house when I was growing up. My brother and I had one job each for a while, but that faded away, probably when exams were more important.

'...il faut cultiver notre jardin.' - Voltaire - Draft post from 5th January 2013

I'm taking this literally and making it particularly easy for myself too. The herb garden is right by the cooker with a jug of water ready to pour into the pots. So far we have some healthy basil plants and some curly parsley.

Outside I have planted about 10 pieces of garlic, some left over from this year's crop and some new pieces from Sainsbury's.

Ever since Christmas Eve I have been on a Twitter-holiday. I thought it would just be for 24 hours, but I feel so much more relaxed without it, even 2 weeks on. Gradually the guilt about not being aware or part of the Twitter activism for Bahrain will continue to increase until I get involved again. Or maybe not?

It is a weird thing to know all is peaceful here and to enjoy that for a long solid 2 weeks. I have been googling 'amnesty bahrain' to check for new actions, so in fact I have been pretty much as involved as usual, but I know it isn't the same and I am accomplishing so much more in the household. I am more available to the children, do tasks more quickly and update my daily to do list as I go along. I have more of a clear focus on the here and now.