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.

Sigh, not that sort of sigh, this sort..emotional, expressive, thankful, appreciative

This is why I spend so much time reading poetry blogs, going to festivals and more:

The woman at the workshop

Why does the word 'sigh' imply entirely the wrong thing? With all its words, English just fails,  and needs phrases instead, lengthy explanations. It has to be created freshly each time in order to actually say anything. How can anyone learn English?

So: the Swindon Poetry Festival 2014

The list of the fabulous things I missed is longer than the list of things I saw.

So many people, chatting, how did you get into poetry, who are you reading, where are you published, are you in a regular workshop, what is your writing like, what has changed for you since this afternoon? How tired are you? Where is my key? Come over here and talk, I am going to sleep now, I had a thought and my shoulder suddenly started hurting, checking out the new men in an instant, going outside to confess our reactions, get it out of our systems. Hmm, my household is so like yours. Wow, I love what you wrote? Instant writing, reading out what we have written, deciding which collections to buy. Showing someone the Arabic alphabet, shoot me, I can't help myself. Endless talking and being with people we already know from sharing our stuff over these past months. A word game out in the sunshine. Sleeping on the sofa, warm blanket, hearing the people talking past me, no internet, just our little, huge world, endless tentacles of other links. Faces, expressions, saying, writing things we didn't know were there.

Reading: Michael Scott and Emily Harrison (wonderful titles)
Reading/Performance: Mohan Rana/Jo Quail and SAPAC dancers
Workshop: Cliff Yates = 2 new poems
Workshop: Jackie Wills = 2 more new poems
Reading: Allison McVety
Reading: Cliff Yates and Jackie Wills
Reading: Battered Moons prize-giving and readings/David Morley/Cristina Navazo-Eguia Newton/wonderful guitarist

I have just looked at the full programme, I can't believe all the things I missed. Just note down all the names and in time recognise them when they appear in your world. I am shaking my head.

Night - Phantom Noise - More

Night and Phantom Noise

The title could refer to thunderstorms or those odd noises from outside during the night. It doesn't. They are the titles of 2 books. By Elie Wiesel and Brian Turner. On WW2 and the Iraq War.

Why do I read such difficult writing? Does it help?

I pinched Night from my mother in law's bedroom, I did ask first, but it was pretty inevitable that the book would move house for a bit. Family book borrowing is close to burglary! Brian Turner's poems were just sitting there on the shelf in the Didcot Library and I recognised the name, so I broke my own rule of just wanting to borrow a book of photographs.

From Night I see that every so often the writer came across a person who was compassionate and kind. The Polish man in charge of a block, page 41. The Blockalteste who had been in the camps since 1933, page 70/71. In both cases the men are brought to life via their words of advice.

From Phantom Noise I particularly like, not the right word, but anyway, the poem At Lowe's Home Improvement Centre. 

The intro to Night is most personal and makes me want Brian Turner to have written a similar open and exploratory intro to his book. I want to know about his studies before and after his military work.

More

At the most recent workshop I went to I found myself explaining that a poem by someone isn't enough. I would prefer a poem on one side of the page, prose which is close to them speaking on the other, plus a link to a short video of their actual self speaking and moving. Then I'd be really happy.

Where am I? End May 2014 - 4 new blogs added

http://nacimpakshiraz.wordpress.com/blog/ Lecturer on Iranian films at Edinburgh University. Useful because I am in a little Middle Eastern Film club of 3. We post dvds to each other and watch them in turn.

http://backroompoets.blogspot.co.uk/ Because I have been along to one meeting so far. It is remarkable to be with a dozen people all reading out their own work, then analysing and making suggestions for improvements while the writer sits in a receptive silence. Will I dare to take anything more personal next time? Will there be a next time?

http://pro-lernen.ch/blog/ German language autonomous home education blog. Home ed is legal in Switzerland, but illegal in Germany, remember that.

http://murielecamac.blogspot.co.uk/ French language poetry blog. I want to restart reading French since it is available to me, even if it seems utterly unfamiliar somehow, like something I used to do many years ago.