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To celebrate the launch of Startling, Kate Sweeney has made one of her wonderful animated mixed-media films in response to some extracts from the book. It’s available now and you can take a look at it here.
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Kate and I have worked together on a number of projects, including – for Writing the Climate – the collective filmpoem Murmuration.
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If our film of Startling touches you in any way at all, please share it wherever you can.
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All of us in this time machine are startlings.
stay together
learn the flowers
go light
Gary Snyder
From Habit, Ability! at the NewBridge Project in Shieldfield, Newcastle – a neighbourhood I have a soft spot for as my father was born and went to school there.
In the final moments when only the most meaningful strands of life remain,
it’s really our human connections that rise to the top.
That’s the clarity that we get at the end of life.
But it was my parents who taught me from the earliest age
that we don’t have to wait until the end of life
in order to recognize and act on the power of connection.
Dr. Vivek Murthy, US Surgeon General under Barack Obama
Thinking just now about patient urgency and/or urgent patience. Yes?
Just past the Autumn Equinox and there’s that beginning of term feeling in the air, a quickening as the seasons slip down and along, a new coolness in the air. It’s been a strange not-quite-there summer with more work in it than play. But the fruits are ripening with a number of events connected with my Writing the Climate residency coming up I hope you might have time, space and inclination to check out.
At Durham Book Festival on October 12th at 7pm you’ll be able to tune into Dawn Chorus, this year’s collective poem project I’ve curated and orchestrated with artist and film-maker Christo Wallers. 115 people from all over the world sent in their audio clips in response to our open call and we’ve gathered all of them together in a very special collaboration that captures the spirit of the birds’ waking up to renew our commitment to positive climate action, however that may play out in our individual and collective lives. You can find the details here – and there’ll also be an essay available soon about the making of the piece. I look forward to hearing how you find it in the comments box in the online space on the night – especially all those who contributed. Thank you for your inspiring words.
Straight after the premiere of Dawn Chorus, you’ll be able to stay and watch a conversation between myself and Kate Simpson, editor extraordinaire of the powerful new anthology Out of Time – Poems from the Climate Emergency (Valley Press, 2021). We’ve called it Beginning Again and, as well as discussing Dawn Chorus, we’ll be putting our heads together to think about what poetry can bring to a climate crisis that it’s hard to find the right words for Full Stop. You can see all the details here. Both events are free, and a link will be available soon.
Once Dawn Chorus is launched, our podcast series In Our Element will also start airing. As well as being broadcast on Resonance FM and several other local radio stations nationwide, two episodes will be released on New Writing North’s sound platform every week leading up to the COP26 summit in Glasgow in November. Produced by Sonderbug, there are ten altogether and each one focuses on a particular element as a way of exploring different perspectives on the climate and ecological crisis. I’ll write more about this and all our wonderful contributors in more detail later, but for now I just wanted to let you know it’s on its way.
There’s also a chance for the over-50s to take part in an online reflective writing workshop, offered on Friday October 8th (1 – 2.30pm), as one strand of the Older and Greener initiative from Newcastle Elders Council, Newcastle City Council and Equal Arts. It’s called Waking Up to Climate and you can find out more about it here. Again this event is free, but booking is required as numbers are limited.
I’d also like to say thank you to the Journal Culture Awards for voting me Writer of the Year. It was strange and very moving to back among the region’s cultural community for the first time in 18 months at the prize-giving event in Durham Cathedral. A bat flying between the pillars all night was a memorable highlight. Congratulations to all the shortlisted artists, performers and organisations.
This sounds like enough to be going on with – but do join me for one or all of these various events, nicely timed for the growing dark and this beautiful wild time of year.
Be well.
L
x
Summer Solstice fell at 4.30 this morning. As if sensing it in the air, I woke up and listened to the birds greeting the day.
As part of Writing the Climate, after last year’s gathering of words in Murmuration, I’ve chosen another bird-related analogy for this year’s version. We’ll be making a collective sound poem for the beginning of the world, a Dawn Chorus that you can add your voice to – literally. This time we’re asking for short recordings of texts that catch your sense of what it’s like to begin again, to wake up to a new day – as if you’d never seen or heard it before. What would take you by surprise? What is your dream of a better future? How might you choose to express wonder or gratitude? What is your morning song for the world?
If recording isn’t your idea of fun, then you can just send an email with your words and we’ll ask someone else to read it for you.
All the details are here. Do send something in! We’d love to hear voices from all over the world. All languages more than welcome.
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I was very happy recently to be introduced to Orpine (Sedum telephium), a wild succulent, relative of the garden ice plant or butterfly stonecrop here in the UK. Richard Mabey calls it ‘something of a recluse in shady hedge-banks and woodland edges…nowhere common.’ Known also as Midsummer Men, Livelong, or Lovelong, or Livelong-lovelong, and, in some southern places, Vazey Flower ‘because of the squeaky noise the leaves made if you rubbed them together.’
Flora Britannica, Richard Mabey (Sinclair-Stevenson, 1996)
In one of the tracts printed about 1800 at the Cheap Repository, was one entitled Tawney Rachel, or the Fortune-Teller, said to have been written by Hannah More. Among many other superstitious practices of poor Sally Evans, one of the heroines of the piece, we learn that ‘she would never go to bed on Midsummer Eve without sticking up in her room the well-known plant called Midsummer Men, as the bending of the leaves to the right, or to the left, would never fail to tell her whether her lover was true or false…(1853)
When we were young we made Midsummer Men. These were two pieces of orpine, known to us as ‘Live-long-love-long’. These we pushed through two empty cotton reels and took them to bed with us. One reel was given the name of our particular boy friend and the other was ourself. In the morning we looked at the reels. If the plants had fallen towards each other, all was well. If they had fallen one in one direction and the other in the opposite direction, then our love would not be true.(1973)
The Oxford Dictionary of Plant-Lore, Roy Vickery (OUP, 1995)
My longtime collaborator Birtley Aris and I are delighted to have finished work on a new publication Dwelling Place, set at the National Trust site Allen Banks in Northumberland. It features four poems and pen and ink drawings prompted by work I did for my PhD looking at Susan Davidson, a Victorian descendant of the Bowes Lyon family, who landscaped the grounds of Ridley Hall where she lived after her marriage to John Davidson, extending into the gorge and woodland at Allen Banks after his death in 1842. As part of her vision, she created the tarn in Moralee Wood, bridges across the river, a network of footpaths and various summerhouses across her estate. The Cedar Hut above Raven’s Crag on the cover is a modern reconstruction of one of these.
All of the poems in Dwelling Place are sparked by ideas of home and belonging, what we do to create spaces of shelter and sanctuary. Birtley and I started work on it long before the pandemic but it seems to have accrued new layers of meaning in the light of this past year.
As we can’t launch the pamphlet in real life, we’re offering it here for sale at £8 (£10 including p + p). Hopefully there’ll be an opportunity to gather together for a reading in Hexham and Newcastle at some point next year. There are many things I’m missing at the moment but poetry events are among the top of my list.
Taking stock of The Bookshop under the Bed, there are also some copies of other pamphlets and books – some quite old and rare – that I can also send in the post for anyone who’s interested or looking for an unusual Christmas present. The best thing, if you’d like any of these or Dwelling Place (or want to enquire about any other of my books), would be to email me at linda.france@cooptel.net, send me your postal address and we can sort out how you’d like to pay.
Acts of Love (Echo Room Press, 1990)
Aerogramme (Talking Pen, 2004)
Heartwork (Playspace Publications 2012)
Through the Garden Gate (NCLA 2011)
Border Song (Hareshaw Press, 2012)
another wild (Hareshaw Press, 2014)
All of the above are £6 each (+ £2 UK p+p) or any 3 copies for £20 (inclusive of UK p+p). I can look into international postage costs, if necessary.
I have unearthed one remaining copy of Acknowledged Land (Northumberland County Libraries, 1993) – an early collaboration with Birtley Aris, now extremely rare and much sought after – and am happy to consider offers.
I am offering these books as part of the Artist Support Pledge, where if I make £1000 (unlikely I know, but these are unprecedented straitened times…), I pledge to buy another artist’s work for £200.
Stay warm and well.
L
X
Leonardo da Vinci, Star of Bethlehem and other plants, c.1506-12
Shantideva wrote in chapter eight, verse ninety-nine (VIII:99) of A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life that if someone is suffering and we refuse to help, it would be like our hand refusing to remove a thorn from our foot. If the foot is pierced by a thorn, our hand naturally pulls the thorn out of the foot. The hand doesn’t ask the foot if it needs help. The hand doesn’t say to the foot, ‘This is not my pain.’ Nor does the hand need to be thanked by the foot. They are part of one body, one heart.
Joan Halifax, Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet (Flatiron Books, 2018)
The idea of ‘one body, one heart’ has been on my mind lately as I’ve been working on our collective poem Murmuration, as part of my Climate Residency, collaborating with artist Kate Sweeney on the filmpoem for Durham Book Festival. Murmuration is one thing – as the starlings’ flock is one thing – but made up of five hundred different voices. There is unity in diversity, similarity and difference – and I’ve worked hard to try and catch the sense of that: bearing with contradiction and not trying to look for answers, just staying with all the questions the lines and the poem itself throws up.
You can book a place to watch its launch at Durham Book Festival, right after an event with Jenny Offill, talking about her Climate Change novel Weather (Granta, 2020) – highly recommended. I’ve also written an essay on the making of Murmuration, which will be available during the Festival.
I’m very aware there’s an excess of things to watch and listen to online at the moment, but in the absence of human-to-human conversations and gatherings in the wild, it seems important to stay connected and be proactive in accessing alternative perspectives on how much is happening in the world that runs contrary to the news in the mainstream media, that insists on highlighting stories that communicate divisiveness, alienation and blame.
I recently discovered, we have 86,400 seconds every day to fill. And sometimes I do nothing but listen to them ticking away.
The people at TED Talks have created Countdown – a programme with a coalition of voices addressing different aspects of the Climate Crisis. Nothing is more important than the sharing of clear factual information. One thing we can do – even though we might often feel powerless – is to stay well-informed. How we take in and pass on what we know (and feel) is what makes society and culture. The imagination is powerful – it’s where the future resides.
You can take a look at the TED Countdown here.
The end of the world as we know it is not the end of the world full stop. Together, we will find hope beyond hope, the paths which lead to the unknown world ahead of us.
The Eight Principles of Uncivilisation, Dark Mountain
And so we enter the dark of autumn and winter. One of my favourite times of year. We could do with a bit more darkness – that place where we can be with what we don’t know and just love each other. ‘Night is the mother of life’ says Chilean poet Cecilia Vicuna. ‘Light is born from darkness’.
So many thresholds and edges just now – happening on a level I won’t see the end of or understand in my lifetime. But I’m curious, interested to see what’s waiting in, what Joan Halifax calls, ‘the fruitful dark’. One of the things I’ve been doing lately thinking about hope in the dark is planting bulbs, burying them in the cooling earth so they can do their own magic and emerge in their own time next year. Next year…even that sounds like an unknown world.
Art is the flower – Life is the green leaf. Let every artist strive to make his flower a beautiful living thing – something that will convince the world there may be – there are – things more precious – more beautiful – more lasting than life…you must offer real, living – beautifully coloured flowers – flowers that grow from but above the green leaf – flowers that are not dead – are not dying – not artificial – real flowers – you must offer the flowers of the art that is in you – the symbols of all that is noble – and beautiful and inspiring – flowers that will often change a colourless leaf – into an estimated and thoughtful thing.
Charles Rennie Mackintosh, On Seemliness (1902)
I’m doing a couple of linked afternoon workshops online for Lapidus Scotland (Words for Wellbeing) in October (17th & 24th), called Climate Crisis: Looking our Demons in the Eye. I was experimenting with ways of tackling the subject with groups right at the beginning of my Residency and then the pandemic arrived. I’m very glad to have this chance to work with others now, looking at how we might find words for an experience that can so often feel beyond the reach of words.
Places are free, open to all, and you can book here.
Stay well.
L
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One of the projects I’ve initiated as part of my Climate Writer Residency with New Writing North and Newcastle University has just launched online. I’m hoping that Murmuration will bring people together in a far-reaching creative collaboration. The poem that arises from it will serve as a collective inventory of what really matters, celebrating our love for the natural world at a time of Climate Crisis and Coronavirus.
The concept is inspired by murmurations, those astonishing displays of aerial acrobatics we see in the air in autumn and winter, when great flocks of starlings gather. Flying together, but never colliding, starlings know there is safety in numbers. In a murmuration the birds are protected from predators and cooling temperatures, while they share news and information and enjoy each other’s company, arcing, folding and singing together.
In the human realm, creative climate action requires both an individual and a collective response and the starlings’ murmuration offers a symbol of what can be achieved through community, collaboration and co-operation.
The first thing people ask when I tell them about my post as Climate Writer is ‘What can I do?’ The words we use, think with and live by, are vitally important for sharing information and telling new stories of creative resilience, developing alternative ways of living together at a time of crisis. We’ve already seen this happening since the restrictions imposed as a consequence of the global pandemic. There are many new demands for our attention online and unanticipated distractions from the continuing crisis around climate and related imbalances.
With this project we might learn from the starlings, raise our wings and our voices in a powerful accumulating murmur, remembering to stay in touch with what we love about this miraculous world where we live. It is a chance to share our observations, feelings, dreams and wishes. Together, we can make something spectacular, far greater than the sum of its parts, an ensemble work of art.
You can contribute to the poem by writing between one and three lines of any length celebrating the natural world, beginning with either the phrase ‘Because I love…’ or ‘What if…’. I will distil and curate all the thoughts and impressions sent in into a single long poem, expressing the collective imagination of all the people who have contributed. Artist Kate Sweeney, who created the wonderful animation on our invitation trailer, will bring the lines to life, making an animated filmpoem, which will reflect our connection with this earth, the natural world and each other at this extraordinary moment in time.
You can read more details and instructions for how to contribute here.
Encouraging comments from Sinéad Morrissey at Newcastle University: “The really exciting thing about this project is that it’s all about the audience – a reaching out to anyone who would like to take part. An ironic consequence of the COVID-19 crisis is that, even in physical isolation, we can now connect with so many people digitally, without the limitations of time or distance. In other words, a whole new kind of conversation can take place. Be part of it. The launch of Murmuration will form part of Inside Writing: a digital poetry festival running through May, June and July, hosted by NCLA and featuring some of today’s most exciting poets responding directly to COVID-19.”
And Anna Disley at New Writing North: “At this stressful and uncertain time, one of the positive things that many people have reported is a new appreciation of the natural world; we are looking more closely at what is on our doorstep, noticing more. This initiative aims to capture that appreciation, to use our collective voice to ensure our natural world is cherished and protected. Added to that, we hope it’s also an impetus not to revert to pre-lockdown climate damaging practices.”
Please think about writing your own ‘Because I love …’ or ‘What if…’ lines and send them in to the New Writing North website or using #writeoutside on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram by 1 August 2020.
Many thanks. I’ll look forward to reading, flocking, flying.
Several years ago I visited Cheeseburn in Northumberland on the Solstices and Equinoxes and Cross Quarter days, spending time in the gardens and grounds. It was a sanctuary for me after Moorbank, Newcastle University’s Botanic Garden, had closed. I struggle with my own semi-wild garden, high and wind-ravaged, with a very short growing season, wedged between a field of sheep and a strip of woodland, never quite managing the sense of luxuriance I long for. So I enjoy visiting other gardens and luxuriate there.
Cheeseburn was a perfect place to witness the changes that happen over the course of the seasons – a mixture of the natural, the elemental, and the man-made. It was also going through major changes in preparation for housing more sculptures and opening to the public on a more regular, formal basis. I was privileged to be there, on the sidelines, able to watch this transformation. Since then, as a result of the dedicated and enthusiastic work of Joanna Riddell and Matthew Jarratt, the place has become very popular, much-loved, and an important site in the region for supporting new artists.
The knowledge I’d gained of the setting at Cheeseburn informed Compass, a sound installation with Chris Watson, commissioned by Cheeseburn in 2015, and shown in 2016. Because Cheeseburn’s early summer opening this year has been curtailed, a new version of Compass is being released online over the next five weeks. As well as the original four pieces set in different parts of the garden, reflecting the points of the compass and the seasons of the year, Chris and I have created a new compilation piece, A Year and a Day, spanning the entire year. You can listen to these works on Cheeseburn’s Facebook page, YouTube and Sound Cloud.
Revisiting my various notes for this piece, I came across the earlier monthly blog pieces I wrote for Cheeseburn from my initial visits as Poet in Residence. I’ve added them here, in a new Archive space on this site, for those who’d like to read them alongside listening to the recordings as they are released. It’s good to be reminded of the long arc of history as well as the passage of the seasons at this particular time. This too shall pass. But some things, the important things, we hope, will endure.
Sculpture by Joe Hillier
A Winter Solstice Renga
at Fair Hill, Haltwhistle,
on 22nd December 2019.
A yard of sunlight
4.19, licked awake
by the dream fox
skulking across the fells
midwinter mist
unwraps the river
remember the arrow on the map
this could be the place
where old timbers revive a door
her shadow sharpens
blurs, doubles
new earth being made
from this year’s leaves
the fluff of jumpers
Picasso-like bird’s wing –
plaster flying
outside the December dusk
firelight inside
I warm my hands
how many footfalls
on these bare boards?
Aesica was built by the legions
left dry
aqueduct unconnected
impossible now
to not have you
presently the character
of his adoration
became clear
we are eight
circling the red box
if only words
were only air
rising
a yard of sunlight
at the north end of the garden
the little tree
sings
in the rusty bucket
stamped on thin ice
a thousand fragments of starlight
sonata gathered in
to one dense sound
above the rooftops
bulbs turn
from waiting to watching
empty fields
left to the rooks
snow is coming
tomorrow is the shape
of a leaf.
Participants:
Birtley Aris
Jo Aris
Matilda Bevan
Linda France
Sharon Higginson
Liz Kirsopp
Christine Taylor
Clara May Warden
Light Sculptures by Michael Seal/Lumicube
As part of Bywell Arts Festival, a group of us gathered in St Andrew’s Churchyard on Saturday evening (22nd June) to make a Midsummer Renga. A Churches Conservation Trust Church, it was the perfect setting for some quiet contemplation and gentle celebration of the solstice’s turning. Bywell is named from the Old English meaning ‘a spring at the bend’ and that gave us our opening verse, the hokku. Small fairy midges were dancing but our citronella spells seemed to keep them at bay.
Strawberry Moon
At a turn in the river
a well to drink from –
midsummer
bruised clouds
heavy air, citronella
within the curved wall
trace of old field boundary
hawthorn succeeded by fern
birds speakwu-weet wu-weet
a blackbird watches
women buried here
share names with the living –
Isabella, Julia, Eleanor
burning candle
and grass-tinted air
first one then another
a brief silence
then from all sides a chorus
flares of red on the honey stones
tell of raiders, fire and rust
hands drift across
the tickle and prick of grass
earth-warm, soil-soft
late, bee foraging
in almost nectarless rose
she’ll be along in a while
if the rumours are true –
strawberry moon
waiting for poetry
surprising, slow.
A Midsummer Renga
in St Andrew’s Churchyard, Bywell,
Northumberland,
22ndJune, 2019.
Participants:
Birtley Aris
Jo Aris
Keren Banning
Holly Clay
Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana
Linda France
Lilly Fylypczuk
Liz Kirsopp
Martin Kirsopp
Alex Reed
Eileen Ridley
Christine Taylor
Clara May Warden
Botanical 