Open Space

As open space goes, Worthy Farm probably doesn't mean a whole lot to most people, and strictly speaking might not even qualify as an open space at all for 95% of the year. Situated in a valley at the head of the Whitelake River between two limestone ridges on the southern end of the Mendip Hills, Worthy Farm is the lush, 900 acre grassy home to a large herd of Somerset dairy cattle.

Worthy Farm - before...

Then for a few weeks every year at about this time, the cows move out and the open space is transformed into the instant township we all know, and many of us love, as Glastonbury - or Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts to give its full title.

The festival has been held in local farmer Michael Eavis's fields since 1970. Fifteen hundred people turned up that first year in response to Eavis's attempt to hold an event that would both boost revenues for his farm as well as provide a rallying point for the increasing number of alternative lifestyle families who had been moving into the area around nearby Glastonbury Tor in recent years, in a counter-cultural attempt to escape the rat race.

This week-end, an estimated quarter of a million people are at Worthy Farm, enjoying three days of music and so much more - camping (or glamping) obviously, plus cabaret, circus, comedy, dance, film, mime, poetry, theatre as well as various craft and well-being workshops. Glastonbury has become as much a part of the British summer schedule as the Proms and Wimbledon. It is still overseen by Michael Eavis with assistance from his daughter Emily and a trusted production team. Apart from core technical and security staff, it is run entirely by volunteers who give their time freely in the spirit of the enterprise (stewards, medics, lawyers). Food concessions and catering are contracted out to local businesses and all the bars are run by the Workers Beer Company who recruit volunteers from the local communities for the long week-end.

Worthy Farm - during...

In keeping with its green credentials the organisers try and encourage festival-goers to use public transport where possible. Extra trains are laid on to stop at the nearby Castle Cary station and extra buses and coaches ferry people to the site from Wednesday onward and away again on the Monday afterwards, but there are also fifty-five separate carparks around the site and these must be pre-booked. 

The transformation as in excess of two hundred thousand people arrive is spectacular. The three days of music across nine stages is now given extensive media coverage on radio and television. I believe the BBC shows many of the top acts live, though I must admit it's been a long time since the Glastonbury line-up included anyone I'd particularly want to see - not even the Rolling Stones or Paul McCartney in their respective dotages, thank you very much. I suppose my fantasy Glastonbury line-up would consist of the following: Jason Isbell, Rose City Band, Bedouine, Hoodoo Gurus, Joanne Shaw Taylor, Blue Aeroplanes, Howlin' Rain, Courtney Marie Andrews, Richard Hawley, Kula Shaker and The Coral... and there's as much chance of that happening as of Lapland winning the next FIFA World Cup.

But that's not the point is it? It's all about being there, the occasion, the community, which is why tickets sell out in next to no time every year. Glastonbury has become a world famous cultural event and  Michael Eavis is able to donate the majority of the festival profits to good environmental causes these days. 

On Monday, the massive clean-up begins. All festival-goers have to sign a 'green pledge' to take away any structural items they brought with them (tents et cetera) and to dispose of all rubbish in the bins provided. It takes a team of volunteers about three weeks to clear the 900 acres of farmland (the stages, the temporary concessions, the portaloos, the rubbish bins and general debris) so as to restore the open space and make it fit for the cows to return. It's a practised and impressive routine.

Worthy Farm - after...

Michael Eavis grew up on Worthy Farm, inheriting it at 19 years old on the death of his father, who was both farmer and Methodist local preacher.. For a while, farmer Michael also worked in a nearby colliery in order to supplement the Worthy income. Diversifying into holding a music festival on his land, after the examples of Woodstock in the USA and the closer to home Bath Blues Festival, effectively ensured the long-term viability of his dairy farm.

Eavis, full name Athelstan Joseph Michael Eavis, will be ninety next year. A Labour Party member and former parliamentary candidate, he invited Jeremy Corbyn to address the festival crowd in 2017 and has more recently been pressing Labour to take a leaf out of the Greens' eco manifesto. Michael Eavis was knighted earlier this year for services to music and to charity. In common with his parents and his second wife (Emily's mother), he remains a practising Methodist "not really bothered" about the existence of God.

This humorous poem, just dashed off for the occasion, is dedicated to Sir Michael's herd of atom heart mothers. (The usual caveat applies - if I can see ways to improve it after posting, I will make tweaks.). 

Worthy Farm Cows

are not big party animals.

Yes they're partial to a little Mozart

in the milking parlour

or the strains of Beethoven's 

Pastoral Symphony

but they're not really festival goers.

Oh, they'd cope well enough

with the herd mentality, the Hare Krishnas

and the mud - it's just the music,

pumped out pop at top wattage

from hundreds of speakers

on nine stages, and all that flag-waving.

Quite frankly they'd be spooked.

And it's not as if their favourite tunes

would ever get played: "No Milk Today",

"I Can Hear The Grass Grow", 

or something by Cud,

"Love In A Hollow Tree" for instance.

No, best to get away 

for a couple of weeks

to some restful foreign field 

across the valley.

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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Open Space

T and I were in the cafe in Avenham Park discussing what constitutes an open space. We went through places such as moorland which neither of us were keen on. Space, as in up there beyond Earth’s atmosphere which is a subject I would like to address one day, undersea space, mountains, different counties, backyards etc and we couldn’t come up with a subject for this blog.

But just as we were on the way out of the building a noticeboard caught my eye and on it was this:

"Within Avenham Valley there were also a number of cottages. Probably the most famous resident was Mr Charles Jackson. During the 1830s Jackson opened an ornamental garden which he opened to the public...which proved to be popular with the growing population... By 1850 Preston had become central to the cotton trade and 70,000 people were crowded into the town.

Avenham Park

"The benefits of open spaces in places like Preston were widely recognized and there were calls for public parks. Between 1843 and 1854 Preston Council purchased land in the Valley...and provided lawns, gardens, footpaths with seating. This was the beginning of Avenham Park and later Miller Park which is adjacent to it."

I would imagine that clean water and proper sewerage constructions were the major steps forward in the health of this country but the mental health of folk surely was improved immeasurably by the access to fresh air and the beautiful views we have now.

From beginnings such as in Preston and other towns and cities came a gradual increase in access outwards to the countryside around them. Cycling became popular, then (unfortunately) cars. But there came a limit to the journeys people could travel as they came across the barriers put up by wealthy landowners and supported by law making bodies.

Which brings me to the mass trespass of Kinder Scout in 1932 and some of my heroes. The 1932 trespass was a coordinated protest involving three groups of walkers who approached Kinder Scout from different directions at the same time. The generally accepted figure is that reported by the Manchester Guardian at the time, of an estimated 400 people. The trespassers began at Bowden Bridge quarry near Hayfield. They proceeded via William Clough to the plateau of Kinder Scout, where there were violent scuffles with gamekeepers. The ramblers were able to reach their destination and meet with another group at Ashop Head. On the return, five ramblers were arrested, with another detained earlier. Trespass was not and is not a criminal offence in England, but some received jail sentences of two to six months for offences relating to violence involving the keepers.

Kinder Scout

It was organised by anti-fascist Benny Rothman, the secretary of the British Workers' Sports Federation and a member of the Young Communist League. Although the mass trespass was a controversial strategy at the time, the imprisonment of some of the trespassers led to public outrage, which increased public support for open access land. Some of the trespassers went on to become successful activists and politicians, and some later died fighting against fascism during the Spanish Civil War.

According to the Hayfield Kinder Trespass Group website, this act of civil disobedience was one of the most successful in British history. It arguably led to the passage of the National Parks legislation in 1949 and helped pave way for the establishment of the Pennine Way and other long-distance footpaths. Walkers' rights to travel through common land and uncultivated upland were eventually protected by the Countryside and Rights of Way Act (CROW Act) of 2000 which has been interpreted as the embodiment of ‘working class struggle for the right to roam versus the rights of the wealthy to have exclusive use of moorlands for grouse shooting.’

"The Manchester Rambler", also known as "I'm a Rambler" and "The Rambler's Song", is a song written by the English folk singer Ewan MacColl in 1932. It was inspired by his participation in the Kinder trespass and was the work that began MacColl's career as a singer-songwriter.

I've been over Snowdon, I've slept upon Crowden
I've camped by the Wainstones as well
I've sunbathed on Kinder, been burned to a cinder
And many more things I can tell
My rucksack has oft been me pillow
The heather has oft been me bed
And sooner than part from the mountains
I think I would rather be dead

Ch: I'm a rambler, I'm a rambler from Manchester way
I get all me pleasure the hard moorland way
I may be a wage slave on Monday
But I am a free man on Sunday

The day was just ending and I was descending
Down Grindsbrook just by Upper Tor
When a voice cried "Hey you" in the way keepers do
He'd the worst face that ever I saw
The things that he said were unpleasant
In the teeth of his fury I said
"Sooner than part from the mountains
I think I would rather be dead"

He called me a louse and said "Think of the grouse"

Well I thought, but I still couldn't see
Why all Kinder Scout and the moors roundabout
Couldn't take both the poor grouse and me
He said "All this land is my master's"
At that I stood shaking my head
No man has the right to own mountains
Any more than the deep ocean bed

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Witches

This week's theme turns out to be timely, as a new two-part documentary is about to air on Channel 4, starting tomorrow evening. fronted by Suranne Jones, who grew up near Pendle in Lancashire. 'Suranne Jones: Investigating Witch Trials ' will be screened on Sundays 23rd and 30th June, looking into what happened at Pendle, Salem and beyond during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, and quite why.

Historical research has identified over 110,000 trials and prosecutions for witchcraft in that period, the majority on mainland Europe. The last time the death penalty was served on a witch was in 1782 in Switzerland. I would imagine the documentary will make for interesting and probably uncomfortable viewing, considering how appallingly so many women were treated: arraigned, tortured and killed. It may also have something to say about the undercurrent of misogyny that persists to this day even in the most 'enlightened' cultures.

I hope it's been fairly obvious for a long while that a combination of fear and envy was at the root of the witch-hunting craze that swept Old World and New four hundred years ago. The argument that those zealous witch-finders had some ideological or religious justification for their crusade to "wipe out the race of witches" is just specious. Their "cleansing of the body politic" was a manifestation of misogyny, sadism and superstition.

Mistrust of differences in others, whether that's culture, language, race or religion, is a primal emotional response far more powerful than the socialising urge to accept, appreciate and even celebrate such differences. But where persecutor and persecuted share the same culture, language, race and religion, the only significant difference is gender. Those poor unfortunates were targeted primarily because of their sex. 

Not many men got arraigned. Something like 6,000 were prosecuted (or 6% of the total). But if you were a woman, particularly one of independent spirit, possibly living on your own and/or practising herbal medicine or midwifery, you were a prime target for men who found your self-sufficiency or lifestyle unnatural.

In the climate of terror that witch-hunting engendered, one of the saddest aspects was that women would inform against other women with no evidence or justification as a way of trying to deflect suspicion from themselves, to prove their own innocence.

And the things those supposed witches were accused of ranged all the way from having a face that could turn milk sour to murdering babies and drinking their blood. In between came talking to cats, concocting herbal medicines, bewitching men into into having affairs, making livestock barren, causing crops to fail, flying round on broomsticks, spreading plague and having carnal knowledge of the devil. (Nice work if you can get it.)

Of course the allegations were monstrous. Nowadays we'd call the perpetrators and disseminators of such nonsense deep fake propagandists and conspiracy nutters. How fortunate we are to live in enlightened times, free of the shackles of superstition, the taint of fear and prejudice!

Here's the latest from the imaginarium, predicated upon the ludicrous idea (popularised by men naturally and illustrated in the woodcut above) that women would willingly offer up their babies to the devil. As the witching hour approaches, this is meant to shock.

Babies For Satan

Groom us for devilry Satan.

Debauch our maiden innocence with lust.

Force us into unnatural acts

and defile us in ways we cannot conceive.

Further, impregnate us with your seed

and deprive us of salvation by this depravity

that as we bulge we may grow loathsome

in the eyes of God and our parents

- said no daughter ever!

Curse our little ones Satan.

Blacken their hearts, those born of our loins

suckled with our love. Poison their blood

with your sulphurous touch.

Possess also their minds with dark intent.

Fill them with hatred

and corrupt them absolutely to be 

wicked instruments of your evil design

- said no mother ever!

So what strange madness had taken hold

that got men believing their womenfolk

could abase themselves with a fallen angel?

And what were they fearing enough to say

stake them, pile faggots round their feet

and torch them for the good of their souls?

Not once, not ten times, just here or there 

but Europe wide a hundred thousand fold.

Who really bore the mark of evil then?

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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The Witches of North Berwick

To the east of Edinburgh is the town of North Berwick, an old fishing town whose claim to fame was the nearby island of Fidra believed to be the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson's ‘Treasure Island'. This town has been named as the best place to live in Scotland  by the BBC but this contrasts with an ignominious past of murderous intent aimed at women.

King James V1 was travelling to Denmark to bring back his bride, Anne, in1589 and during the sea crossing severe storms broke out, so severe were they he had to turn back and a furious King became convinced this was the work of witches specifically from, you guessed it, North Berwick. These creatures were out to ruin him, there was a belief that one of them sailed into the Firth of Forth in a sieve in order to summon the storm. So this was a double crime of being a witch and a regicide.

James’s hatred was well known and during his reign 70 - 200 “ witches” were put on trial, tortured and/or executed from North Berwick alone. This number is approximate as the final number can’t be known. The number burned at the stake alive in Scotland was around 4,000.

There was a small kirk on the green in the town where the women met, danced and summoned the Devil, according to gossip, they were older women, midwives, healers who worked with herbs and curative plants. These people were prime targets.

Acts of torture here were particularly cruel. In order to obtain a confession a breast ripper was used ( I’d never heard of this before ) a Scold’s Bridle which is a metal device to fit around the head with metal prongs into the mouth making it impossible to speak. Some  men were said to use it on their wives!.

Shakespeare actually wrote the witches into Macbeth during James’s reign in the early 17th century using the tale of the sieve -

“But in a sieve, I’ll thither sail
And, like a rat without a tail,
I’ll so, I’ll do I’ll do.

My poem below was first published as runner-up in Second Light Poetry Competition.

Night walk with Phantoms

Women are out - not the moon,
pale and listening by hedges
to the zeppelin raid of hail.

They darken by chance
in a lull of wind, quicken
from tree shapes, crouch
forgetful in wasted grass.

Cloud lifts - huge, silver-bellied.
The crone plays at trickery;
squat on shrubby heels, she’s
whiskered with new growth.

She springs elbows to east and west,
becomes a stiff weather-vane
all set for change.

Thank you for reading,

Cynthia Kitchen.

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Witch Hazel

What I know about plants could be written on the leaf of a Venus Flytrap so I’ve got no chance with Witch Hazel. Therefore, I’ve gone straight to google and here are a few interesting facts about that plant.

Witch  Hazel

Botanical name: Hamamelis

Commonly known as witch hazel, with its spicy fragrant, spidery flowers in shades of yellow, orange and red, Hamamelis brings colour and scent to your garden in winter. Although slow growing, they can eventually become large spreading shrubs or small trees. They look good as specimen plants, particularly under-planted with early bulbs such as snowdrops, winter aconites and crocuses.

These spreading deciduous shrubs, ranging from 2.5-5m (8-16ft) in height and spread, produce spider-like, usually yellow (but also orange or red) flowers on the bare branches in late winter. The oval leaves give good autumn colour, turning bright yellow and orange before falling.

In manufacturing, witch hazel leaf extract, bark extract, and witch hazel water are used as astringents to tighten the skin. They are also included in some medications to give those products the ability to slow down or stop bleeding. Those medications are used for treating insect bites, stings, teething, haemorrhoids, itching, irritations, and minor pain.

dried extract of witch hazel

Hamamelis virginiana was introduced into English gardens by Peter Collinson, who maintained correspondence with plant hunters in the American colonies in the early 1800s. Much more common is H. mollis, which has bright yellow flowers that bloom in late winter instead of the yellow blossoms of H. virginiana which tend to be lost among the plant's fall foliage. The plant-hunter Charles Maries collected for Veitch Nurseries in the Chinese district of Jiujiang in 1879. It languished in nursery rows for years until it was noticed, propagated, and put on the market in 1902.

This is far more interesting to me. The Plant Hunters. Images of Victorian gentlemen hacking their way through jungles to find new and/or rare species. Much like Charles Maries.

I can’t find a photo of Maries on a field trip but this image is of a similar type of George Forrest's team with presses full of blotting paper and specimens.

Victorian plant hunters

Maries was born in Hampton Lucy, Warwickshire, the youngest of five sons born to George and Mary Maries, His father was the boot- and shoe-maker for the village, as was his grandfather, Thomas Maries. He was educated at the Hampton Lucy Grammar School, where he learnt about plants from the Reverend George Henslow, who was headmaster between 1861 and 1865. Reverend Henslow went on to become the Royal Horticultural Society's Professor of Botany.

The fourth of his brothers, Richard, also had a strong interest in plants and he set up as a florist and nurseryman in Lytham. When their father died in 1869, Charles moved to Lytham to work at Richard's nursery.

Charles Maries

After seven years in Lytham, Charles joined James Veitch & Sons of Chelsea, one of the largest plant nurseries in Britain at that time. In 1876, Veitch chose Charles to go on an expedition to China and Japan to look for plants that might grow well in British gardens but were not yet known in Britain. There he discovered over 500 new species, which Veitch introduced to England. Amongst his finds, several bear his name, including Abies mariesii, Davallia mariesii, Hydrangea macrophylla "Mariesii", Platycodon grandiflorus "Mariesii" and Viburnum plicatum "Mariesii". He later was sent to India and was awarded many honours including election as a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1887. In 1897 he was one of the first 60 distinguished recipients of the Royal Horticultural Society’s Victoria Medal of Honour (VMH). He died in 1902.

This poem by Robert Frost seems appropriate:

Reluctance

Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question ‘Whither?’

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?

                                                   Robert Frost

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Witches - The Witchiest Witch

 

‘The Lancashire Witches’

One voice for ten dragged this way once
by superstition, ignorance.
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

Witch: female, cunning, manless, old,
daughter of such, of evil faith;
in the murk of Pendle Hill, a crone.

Here, heavy storm-clouds, ill-will brewed,
over fields, fells, farms, blighted woods.
On the wind’s breath, curse of crow and rook.

From poverty, no poetry
but weird spells, half-prayer, half-threat;
sharp pins in the little dolls of death.

At daylight’s gate, the things we fear
darken and form. That tree, that rock,
a slattern’s shape with the devil’s dog.

Something upholds us in its palm-
landscape, history, place and time-
and, above, the same old witness moon

below which Demdike, Chattox, shrieked,
like hags, unloved, an underclass,
badly fed, unwell. Their eyes were red.

But that was then – when difference
made ghouls of neighbours; child beggars,
feral, filthy, threatened in their cowls.

Grim skies, the grey remorse of rain;
sunset’s crimson shame; four seasons,
centuries, turning, in Lancashire,

away from Castle, Jury, Judge,
huge crowd, rough rope, short drop, no grave;
only future tourists who might grieve.

                                                 Carol Ann Duffy

On a pleasant, summer afternoon in 2012, we went to Barrowford, Lancashire, to visit the Pendle Heritage Centre and find out more about the Lancashire Witches. It was the 400th anniversary of their trials that year. Having previously visited Lancaster Castle and the area where some of the witches were executed by hanging, we were starting our explorations at their end and going backwards into their beginnings. I found their story fascinating, disturbing and very sad. Witches? Really? Blind, struggling, penniless old ladies being picked on for how they lived and what they looked like upset me so much and it was too late to stick up for them. I saw them as two families who didn’t get on and tried to out-wit each other. They knew plants, good and bad. They knew the properties of each and how to use them for nourishment, medicine and poison. I don’t believe they murdered anyone. I believe that they were so terrified, that they made false confessions and were consequently found guilty at their trials and executed. That’s my opinion, based on what I felt was real and dismissing what I considered to be fantasy – familiars, in the sense, or rather nonsense of a person taking on the form of an animal or non-human creature.

The stories of the Pendle Witches are well documented, but here are a few snippets from a booklet we picked up on our visit,

“Early 1600s – Two rival peasant families live on the slopes of Pendle Hill. They are led by two old women called Demdike, a.k.a. Elizabeth Southerns and Old Chattox, a.k.a. Anne Whittle. The men of their families are dead, leaving them in poverty to beg and find work where they can. Many local people live in fear of them, believing them to have special powers.”

According to the booklet, things really kick off and reach a peak in the spring of 1612,

“March 18th, 1612 – Alizon Device, grand-daughter of Demdike, is begging on the road to Colne. A pedlar refuses her some pins and she curses him. Suddenly a black dog appears and she orders it to lame the pedlar who collapses, paralysed on the left side.

March 30th, 1612 – Alizon Device is hauled before the Justice Roger Nowell and confesses to witchcraft. Forced to give an account of her family’s activities she tells how Demdike had been asked to heal a sick cow which then died. She also told Nowell that Demdike had cursed Richard Baldwin after which his daughter fell sick and died a year later. Describing her family’s feud with the Chattox family she reports how Chattox turned the ale sour at an inn at Higham and bewitched the landlord’s son to death using a clay image.

April 3rd, 1612 – Nowell sends Demdike, Alizon Device, Chattox and her daughter Ann Redfearn to Lancaster Castle to await trial for witchcraft. Demdike dies in prison before the trial.

August 17th 1612 – The trial opens at Lancaster Castle. The accused are not provided with a defence lawyer. Nowell produces nine year old Jennet Device as a witness and she gives evidence against her own family. Her mother, Elizabeth, is dragged from the court screaming at her daughter and cursing Nowell. Alizon Device faints when confronted with the pedlar she is said to have lamed and when she is revived, confesses her guilt. Chattox weeps as she hears the evidence against her and asks God for forgiveness. She pleads for mercy to be shown to her daughter, Ann. The judge finds them all guilty.

August 20th 1612 – Chattox, Ann Redfearn, Elizabeth, James and Alizon Device, Alice Nutter, Katherine Hewitt, Jane Bulcock and her son John are hanged in Lancaster in front of huge crowds.

Were they malevolent people possessed by supernatural powers, or the innocent victims of a time obsessed with the pursuit and punishment of witchcraft?”

There is much more to learn about the Lancashire witches, that was just an outline of events.

I’ve convinced my grandchildren that I have special powers and I’m not even a witch! Well, I am sometimes, usually at Hallowe’en when I transform into The Witchiest Witch and give chocolate to all the children who come to my door. These are children who know me and recognise me from school or the neighbourhood. They are often disguised beyond my best efforts to recognise them as monsters, vampires, ghosts and miniature witches.

My own poem,

The Love Potion

She visited after midnight
And I listened to what she said.
Her voice was quiet and distant
For she was seven decades dead.
Her threadbare clothes were shades of black,
Her knitted shawl, faded to grey.
Old eyes, soft in her wizened face
Still had a kind and gentle way.

I adored my great-great grandma,
Her ghostly presence brought no fear.
She always knew what I needed
And I loved to sense her so near.
She said, “I believe I can help.
I know of a very old spell.
Come sit a-while beside me
And write it all down as I tell.

“Get some milk thistle and nettle,
Buttercup, daisy and clover.
Leave it to rest in rose water
Until the petals turn over.
Slowly stir in bramble honey,
A splash of dandelion wine
And sprinkle the seeds of the poppy
While you sing ‘Oh Let Him Be Mine’.”

“You want him so much,” she whispered.
“This potion will bring him along.
He will love you as you love him
And together you will belong.
Follow instructions exactly.
Choose every item with great care
And take your time, do not hurry.
Be of glad mind as you prepare.”

Her cold, hard fingers touched my face
And I felt the warmth of her love.
The vision drifted out of sight
Carried floating somewhere above.
She’d died long before I was born,
Yet she was always there for me.
I am blessed to share the blood-line
Of a free spirit such as she.

Pamela M Winning 2012

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Ekphrasis

Ekphrasis derives from the Ancient Greek words ἐκ and φράσις and has come to denote a written  description, usually literary or poetic, in response a work of art, most usually a painting. However, in Ancient Greece it was as likely simply to refer to the skill of describing something in vivid detail. Think of it as a reversal of the saying "a picture paints a thousand words". 

Ekphrastic poetry usually, but not always, combines a vivid description of the work of art along with some element of the poet's emotional response to the artwork.

Bathers and Rocks by Dorothea Sharp

I love art, paintings in particular. Art and English were my favourite subjects at primary school and I used to enjoy painting as a child almost as much as I enjoyed reading. At secondary school we were only allowed to take 3 A-levels and so I had to sacrifice Art for English (always my first choice) because of a timetabling conflict. (Geography and History were my other two A-levels.)

I have painted sporadically over the years. At university my friends bought me a fabulous set of oil paints and later I got into airbrush art. Some of my paintings still hang on friends' walls. I loved the smell of oil paint almost as much as I loved the smell of ink.

I've always enjoyed going to art museums, both in the UK and abroad (France mostly, but also Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Russia and USA), and reading about the lives and works of painters I admire. I've built up quite a large library of monographs over the years about my favourite painters, mostly Impressionist and later (see the image below). 

I used to go to exhibitions and galleries and when finances have allowed it, I've bought paintings of works that I like, almost always by relatively unknown artists with an affordable price tag.

my bookshelf of monographs about my favourite artists

Given my enjoyment of reading, writing and the visual arts, it has always seemed quite natural to me to write poetry in response to artworks. I suppose I was doing it even before I realised that's what it was or that it was a recognised poetic form. 

Sometimes I've written in response to a specific painting, as in 'Fates Loom' from a blog from last year concerning Francesco Primaticcio's painting of Odysseus and Penelope, linked > here. On other occasions it's been more in response to the way an artist works; for instance my poem "On Viewing Jackson Pollock" which you'll find in a 2016 blog linked > here. 

Today I thought I'd write a haiku inspired by the theme of sea-bathing off rocks. It's based on not one but two paintings. The first is by Dorothea Sharp (1873-1955), a little-known English painter much influenced by the Impressionist Monet (about whom I blogged earlier this month), and most regarded for her landscapes and depictions of children at play. She combined them both in 'Bathers and Rocks' above. The second, 'Bathers on Rocks' is by her much more famous Norwegian contemporary, Edvard Munch (1863-1944), who was heavily influenced by the Post-Impressionists, Gaugin, Toulouse-Lautrec and Van Gogh in particular. He is probably best known for his painting 'The Scream'.  

Bathers on Rocks by Edvard Munch

Both paintings remind me to some degree of seaside holidays on rocky coasts in two separate eras: my boyhood summer vacations in Cornwall and Devon, and then holidays with my own young children some thirty years later in Brittany. I may extend the haiku when time and tide permit. 😉

Bathers

rocky sea kids all

baptised in the brine of joy

limbs fresh from tide swell

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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Ekphrastic Poetry: Definitions and Encounters

An ekphrastic poem is a vivid description of a scene, or more commonly a work of art. Through the imaginative act of narrating and reflecting on the action of painting or sculpture, the poet may amplify and expand its meaning. Poetry Foundation 

Long before I knew what ekphrastic poetry actually was, in 2015 I visited the Whitworth Art Gallery and had a good wander about prior to delivering a workshop. I was intrigued by Lee Godie’s Chicago The Heaven on Earth, partially because of the image, but also I had been pulled in by the title as I am originally from the Chicagoland area. I was so inspired, I had to write a poem about it.

After this first encounter with Lee Godie’s art, I did a bit of investigative work about this fascinating and eccentric woman, discovering a surprising story. I wish I had known about her when I lived in the area as I would have loved to have met her, although apparently she didn’t like women who wore trousers so she probably wouldn’t have talked to me.

Lee Godie (1908-1993) was a true Chicagoan. She was born and bred, lived most of her life in Chicago, aside from a short stint in Tacoma, Washington in the late 1940s. During the 1970s and 80s she became quite well known living on the streets of the Windy City

Often called ‘the bag lady’ she painted in the park and sold her art to the staff of the Art Institute (one of my favourite galleries), and its visitors. Her estranged daughter in 1988 reconnected with her after seeing an article about Godie in the Wall Street Journal. The daughter later became Godie’s guardian, caring for her during her final years at which time Godie had her first solo exhibition (1991) championed by Carl Hammer, a Chicago Gallerist.

I’ve pondered my poetic response to Godie’s artwork that I wrote before knowing something about her story. My response seems to fit into the Poetry Foundation’s definition of Ekphrastic Poetry. It does describe an artwork. However, here is another definition to consider, put forward by writers.com:

Ekphrasis is a literary device in which a work of art, usually visual, inspires a piece of poetry or prose. Ekphrastic poetry then, describes a poem that finds inspiration in the creative elements of a piece of art.

This brings me to another encounter with Ekphrastic poetry that took place in 2018 when I had an exhibition of my white gel pen drawings on black paper. I thought it would be interesting to invite five writers of poetry to respond to one or more of these images. Glynis Charlton, Sue Flowers, Liz Graham, Terry Quinn and Whitney Standlee took up the challenge. The writers each chose images that spoke to them. 

A publication culminated with these responses which the writers and myself read on the evening of the launch (copies still available). Linda Hampton wrote a review about this exhibition and the poetic responses, linked here: Images And Words Take Us Into The Light  for Blackpool Social Club.

Here was my contribution:

                                                                                                    Into the Light

                                                                                                    Stars shine
                                                                                                    Deep dark
                                                                                                    Flat black
                                                                                                    Black bear
                                                                                                    Belly full
                                                                                                    Black bear
                                                                                                    Stands firm
                                                                                                    Ground firm
                                                                                                    Tall grass
                                                                                                    White grass
                                                                                                    Grass bars
                                                                                                    Glass bones
                                                                                                    Dance bones
                                                                                                    Shine bones
                                                                                                    Snake bones
                                                                                                    Snake snake
                                                                                                    Slither snake
                                                                                                    Dream bear
                                                                                                    Out there
                                                                                                    Fruit falls
                                                                                                    Wind falls
                                                                                                    Tree stands
                                                                                                    Stands firm
                                                                                                    Bear speaks
                                                                                                    Of love
                                                                                                    Reach reach
                                                                                                    In love
                                                                                                    In to
                                                                                                    The light
                                                                                                    Fall love
                                                                                                    In love
                                                                                                    Fall love
                                                                                                    In love
                                                                                                    Fall.

Thank you for reading.
Kate 

J

Sources
Hampton, L., 2018. Images and Words Take Us Into the Light. https://www.blackpoolsocial.club/27867-images-words-take-us-light/ Accessed 10 June, 2024.
Outsider Art Fair, 2024. Lee Godie. https://www.outsiderartfair.com/artists/lee-godie Accessed 10 June 2024.
Poetry Foundation, 2024. Glossary of Poetic Terms. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/ekphrasis%20Accessed%2010%20June%202024 Accessed 10 June 2024
The New York Times, 2024. Overlooked no more: Lee Godie, Eccentric Chicago Street Artist. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/21/obituaries/lee-godie-overlooked.html Accessed 10 June 2024.

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Ekphrastic Poetry

When poets are writing Ekphrastic poetry there’s a fair chance they’ll be looking at an object from years ago. How often are they watching the piece being made? I had this chance when following Nick Williams, artist and poet from Preston, creating his River Clock sculpture in the summer of 2020.

During this time I was curious about aspects of his work and asked questions. I’ll just give his replies:

I follow simple rules. 1: No tools. 2: Only use what is found at the place. 3: There must be an element of balance and balancing involved in each work. 4: Anything of interest that I feel could be used in a different way goes in the rucksack which is the most useful sculptor's tool.

a beginning

I choose each place by feel and by the wood that is in that place, looking carefully at each shape to see if they speak together...glad you like the stones, am interested in building the dry stone pebble wall outwards into spiral arms next time I go out... they reminded me a little of old harbour buildings and cairns and buoys too... some of the wood won't stand up alone even though I want it too so after propping it up with a another it felt right to begin to build the base of stones around. I breathed a sigh of relief when I removed the prop and nothing fell over.

Every painting and poem and sculpture whether site specific or not has a story, every artwork in every medium has a story, the whole thing, art from the body decoration, drum beats and shamanic dancing to the cave paintings through to modern times has a story, even science is an art, numbers have a story, astrophysics theories and quantum theories all have a story, we are the story of the universe (a small part of it).

Nick in the act of creation

This has always been central to all my work as an idea. Time and space and the story made by them both. A sculpture made in the hinterland, in the tidal flood plain, the space between two states of being, the borders between land river and sea, dwells in two states, one submerged at certain times of the day or week and one unsubmerged in the water flows and adds a new dimension to the sculpture and this movement of water and weather and random things happening to it, slight minute changes which occur over time help continually co-create the sculpture, my hand, my eye and my mind guide the building of the repair and nature provides the accident and the transformation of static into narrative. At least that's how I see it. 

I went today to film the tide coming in and build an extra part of the spiral but the wind was very cold, and the tide didn't rise as far as I expected after yesterday, yikes, but even through my heavy duffle coat my shoulder whilst waiting for the tide to rise was cold to the marrow of the bones (they call this suffering for our art I had heard tell once - me ?) I decided that my arm had suffered enough after several hours of waiting and realizing the tide wasn't going flow completely over the banks.

You must have just arrived after I had left... not so worrying that it hasn't washed it away as I tested it under flooding conditions and the water rise does no damage... more worrying is, as you say, the lowness of the river but have seen river fall like this before so is hard to tell... the reason for the river flood at this part of the river is not the Ribble water coming from its source but the sea tide which comes in from the coast and mingling with the river water, hence the salt you occasionally see on the grass like a thin film of dust.

River Clock

It is called river clock... the shadows line up with the wood at approximately 1.33 pm afternoon and that line of shadow is approximately at the ratio 1/2 thirds which is golden section (I know most clocks and sun dials would use 12 noon to 12 etc but I like the oddness of 1.33 plus if you take off the last 3 and turn it round it's PI 3.1(4).

Yep, sheep very numerous if I sit still long enough I get sniffed which I quite enjoy. I have found if I become completely still most animals become calm around me, even had a butterfly land on a finger once. 

Today was hot and the heron of the Ribble was out to play, sadly yet again there had been some mindless vandalism since I was last there, but didn't take me more than a few minutes to fix (what is currently taking time is scouting up and down the river for large enough rocks and bricks to use for the segment walls as I elongate the spiral out like an ammonite, building method is as follows at the moment build a segment of the spiral as a walled enclosure then fill the enclosure with driftwood and then cover the driftwood with stone (this is symbolic as a burial of the trees yet also allows me to anchor any wood I deem beautiful enough to become a standing structure) carrying the larger rocks back from either end of the marsh is laborious but worth it.

bottle/bomb

The coast guard were there today because I found this (above) and reported it...when I left at 5:40/ 6 pm after answering the standard police questions for reporting such an object the bomb squad were on their way from Carlisle. Possibly a first or second world war mortar with the fin broken off at the back and the cap missing, it matched two items in their little blue book. I thought it was a beer bottle at first.

The sculpture is slowly reaching the right height (currently the outer wall is somewhere close to my knee level), though may have to extend parts of the spiral and central stone edifices being built around the wood upwards in order to have them standing out of the water when the tide is really high - currently am in two minds about whether I should cover the wood entirely with stone as am adapting the idea of it as I build.

I haven't worked on it or seen it since the thunderstorms when my boots got holes in so hopefully no-one has pinched it and started adding rocks, the only bits left to do are to cover the wood still sticking out of it with stone walls like a cairn (so it won't be any higher than maybe one stone above its current height).

stormy weather

There is wood underneath the stone surface in between the outer spiral wall and inner spiral wall anyway which is deliberate and will allow for the eventual and slow decline of the structure over a long period of time once finished. As each of the hidden pieces of wood rot down the pebble-stone overlay drops further towards the ground and thus over a period of three to ten years or longer the sculpture may slowly collapse into itself and become a ruin with an inner and outer spiral structure - again time and the long term or short term transient nature of all man made things are explored in this longer projection of the sculpture so that the slow collapse is part of the artwork too. If I came back in forty years time for example would it be covered in moss having become part of the landscape itself to be uncovered later by archaeologists who wonder what it was? Or will the river have eaten it and the flat salt marsh it rests on turn it at first into a lone island which slowly collapses into the river as the erosion takes it gradually away? All of these questions are being posed by me as I build.

PS: Today Nick told me that the River Clock is still there.

x marks the spot

River Clock
(for Nicholas Guy Williams)

OS map 102
Reference SD482287

a place needing boots
sandwiches and flask
in a lightweight rucksack

that was slipped off
onto the grass bank
of a tidal plain
and another viewing
of what is going to be
difficult to explain

a spiral of old bricks
pebbles rocks flotsam
branches boughs and twigs
which is all true enough

but doesn’t take into account
that it exists in two states
as my mate tried to explain
submerged or unsubmerged
linked by quantum entanglements
of water and weather and time
or a peacock butterfly
flapping its wings

unlike today as swallows
flit on a brisk wind
scudding their calls to my ear
and there’s a touch of loneliness
on a base of green and grey.

First published in Acumen, March 2022

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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