Literary merit: Adventure beckons.

I am the youngest child of four, by a gap of seven years and born into an extrovert, bustling environment.  My eldest brother played rugby and swam for County; my sister was a ballerina: my youngest brother was a bike mad, pain in the proverbial. My parents were publicans, always pushed for time, busy in the kitchen or bar until late in the evening.  I might have been the neglected, late arrival but lucky for me ... we had Nana. No, not the large sheep dog, child-minder of AA Milne's imagined story but a real life, elderly lady called Phyllis: My maternal grandmother.  Nana lived with us.

Nana was a godsend to all of us, although she was (according to the others), very strict, I loved her. She was the eldest of three children and was fortunate.  Her parents were wealthy, so although she was born in  the very late 19th Century, she was educated and then taught dance, pianoforte, etiquette and deportment at a girl's boarding school in Windermere. At 38 and unmarried, she had a daughter, (my mother), and although she was running the family guest house in Bowness, her younger brother sent her away to London before the birth.  This was 1920: the times were changing, but unfortunately not quickly enough, for Phyllis, who had to take a post as governess to the children of the owners of a hat shop in the West End.  My mother was 'cared for' by Nun's.

Nana taught me to read.  She shared with me her love of the 23rd Psalm, Wordsworth's 'golden daffodils' and Keats Ode to a nightingale. She would take me for imagined walks, along the banks of her beloved Windermere, among the bluebells, just by looking at the picture on her bedroom wall. She loved birds, knew the Latin name of every plant and flower and laughed at chimpanzees and Elephants. We didn't have a piano then, so she would sing with me, dance with me and teach me to stand and sit up straight. Nana gave me most of the gifts that I treasure most. Best of all she gave me her time, the most precious gift of all.  I was encouraged to read everything that had literary merit. When I began reading for myself, I began a lifelong adventure.  Who knows where it will end ...




 

The library at Ephesus.

 

A Literary Journey

 

Opening a book is exploration

Start to read and who knows what I’ll find.

In each printed tome, each timeworn binding,

lies a snare to captivate the mind.

 

If I sit and study ancient volumes,

read adventure history and crime,

brave a New World sci-fi speculation,

dip in A Brief History of Time,

will I only browse the lives of others,

those who reach beyond the libr’y wall,

or will I grow wise,  as any elder,

eager for when destiny may call?

 

Reading takes me on a flight of fancy,

lets me live a thousand, million lives,

opens wonders of imagination,

helps me venture far beyond the skies.

 

Like the great explorers, I must travel,

seek the place where steps are seldom heard,

open up the cover of discovery.

All great journeys start with just one word.

Thanks for reading.  Adele

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What we below could not see

A guest post by David Riley

What’s the best poetry about spring? I’ll tell you, it’s my job to pontificate. It’s when humans are, at most, at the edge of things. Take Seamus Heaney’s Rite of Spring, for example. Spring is there and does better than people can, who can only imitate its liberating effects.

Even more, people can be removed from things, as Ted Hughes does in The River in March. His river is an elemental force, it might even be a deity in itself. In Heaney and Hughes there are things the river and Spring can be and do - they don’t stand for something, they are something.

Wordsworth knew it too - his daffodils are beauty on a hillside, whether there are people there to see it or not.

Jane Hirschfield is excellent at showing how nature is really something other. We may dress it up and give it names, develop amnesia every year when the same seasons come around and trot out our same banalities but it is that something of itself, beyond us, that she shows.

Edward Thomas in his many meditations on nature sometimes links human activity and the seasons. At other times, he urges us to take a step back or rather to another position altogether, where we might see nature as other creatures do. Read his Thaw. See what you think. 

Rooks are back again by Alexei Kondratyevich Savrasov

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Dying for a Daffodil

 by Ashley Lister 

 Mention the Lakes to me and there is only one poem that pops into my memory. I suspect it’s the lines of verse at the forefront of most people’s thoughts when they’re associating poetry and Lake District.

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

I mention Wordsworth’s Daffodils because, this week, I’ve been unable to put much forethought into my blog post. I’ve been stricken with a cold bug that’s on the verge of developing into a terminal case of man-flu. If this condition does prove fatal, the following parody on Daffodils shall serve as my epitaph.

I sobbed and coughed and moaned and whined

And stuffed bog paper up my nose

And languished on my fat behind

Whilst watching television shows

And miserably I cried all day

And wished my cold would go away.

I took painkillers every hour

I mainlined bowls of chicken soup

But every taste just tasted sour

And chicken soup just makes me poop

So there I lay feeling so shitty

And wallowing in my own self-pity.

And every conversation’s killed

By hateful, painful coughing fits

And drinks are regularly spilled

It’s really getting on my tits.

This damnéd cold just drags and drags:

I’m drowning under old snot rags.

Now you may say I’m an evil cow

But one goal keeps me alive.

It broils beneath my fevered brow

And makes me desperate to survive.

If I achieve recovery:

I’ll kill who gave this cold to me.

Ashley (cough splutter) Lister

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Editing the Great Writers #1

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Heroes.

Heroes was a reasonably short running TV show I didn’t ever finish watching. It became, like Lost and 24, another terrestrial casualty- and once it had moved from the beeb, there was no way my old man would consider it a viable evening option. That said, the bits of the show that I did catch were pretty impressive. It probably all ended as a dream or something equally disappointing but, just for a minute, I am going to have a think about superpowers and poetry- my own little take on this week's theme. 

If I could be like the little Japanese man on the show and have a superpower, I would definitely try and work it to my advantage. There would be very little saving the world going on and a whole load of sitting invisibly in interesting people’s living rooms.

I have had the pleasure of being in the Lake District this weekend. We went up on Thursday night and since texting home to let them know we were safe, we’ve been cut off. At the time of writing I know no football scores, I know nothing of the news or this week’s talent show TV stars. I do know that I should be writing a shed load of ideas into poems though.

An interesting thing about a campsite is how up and down the noise levels can be. At night, you could assume that the noise would die off, maybe come back about 11 when the walkers drift in from the pub and then slowly, it will fade off again. What you never remember though is just how much voices can carry and, as I am not the quietest myself, it was a blessing to have a few hours after Lar had fallen asleep to just listen.

I am very much a night owl. I do my best writing in the evenings (out of habit, really) so to be in with the chance of listening in to the songs of the drunkards, watching three different figures move in and out of a 2 person pod (ooh-err) whilst all the time straining to hear just what the ‘girl [he] knew from Blackpool’ was like over the valley was great.

I’d love to be invisible if I could have any power. In my teens it had obvious appeal, in my early twenties it would have helped cheat exams and saved a hell of a lot of effort and now, just for a night or two, it has helped stoke up the campfire that is my imagination.

I’ve been in a place of literary heroes. I’ve sunbathed in Beatrix Potter’s back garden (not literally but what is forty yards), listened to Wordsworth’s hills and panted my way to all the inspired valleys and viewpoints within walking distance- all full of thoughtful sculptures and wow-bringing scenes.  I have been invisible, my superpower in a land of heroes and all that remains for me to do now is write everything up for my undercover report. Now, where did I pack that notebook…

Thanks for reading guys,
S

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