February

Without thinking too much about it beforehand, I decided on Shrove Tuesday to give up Instagram for Lent, along with a few other things.  I wanted a chance to practise restraint, hoping that freeing up some space might leave more room for things I’d rather prioritise.

I’m still keeping my ‘year renga’ but have appreciated the change in pace that not filtering it through social media seems to have brought.  Perhaps I’ll always be primarily a pencil and paper kind of writer, thinking at the speed of graphite.  But here is the next instalment in digital form – February’s verses to look back on as we enter March and whatever it might bring.

February

 

hibernating tortoiseshell

waking up too soon

 

for Imbolc

for Brigid

endings and beginnings

 

to explain grace requires

            a curious hand                                                                        (Marianne Moore)

 

in late light

pruning the apple tree

figuring it out as we go

 

fractal mosaic

of a dragonfly’s wing

 

in this dream

we are all at once hero

and enemy and saviour

 

flock of redwings

a shook tablecloth

 

life never speaks simply

it shows itself in its flower

it hides itself in its roots                                                                    (Luce Irigaray)

 

writing in my hut

calling itself Atlas

 

storm moon and hailstones

I warm myself

at your fire

 

the year’s first snow

settles on the trees’ north

 

in the city

a few hours of spring

petals peel back

 

in the market

for tomorrows

 

do not stand

in a place of danger

trusting in miracles                                                                             (Moroccan proverb)

 

curled against the world

a small white ibis

 

my driver knows

hardly any English but says

‘We need more water’

 

the charcoal seller

in his infernal cave

 

a city lost

between its past

and its future

 

the best thing about going away

is coming home

 

50 million years old

seedpod souvenir

from the flame tree                                                                           (Brachychiton acerifolius)

 

I admire his blackboard and chalk

keeping track of the bins

 

as if we were out at sea

the wind’s waves

gusting and toppling us

 

however far you walk

the road stretches on

 

I open the front door

onto a wall

of compacted snow

 

mandala of wood

atlas of the imperilled world

 

a dead man’s tattoos –

fail we may

sail we must                                                                                       (RIP Andrew Weatherall)

 

dressed in ceremonial kimonos

they look back from the future

 

how to translate

all these words

into acts of love?

 

alone and walking

against the weather

 

 

 

Midsummer

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,

22^ndJune, 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

 

 

Happy New Year!

Paul Nash, Flight of the Magnolia, 1944

 

New Year’s Day—
everything is in blossom!
I feel about average.

Issa

At Allen Banks

I’m spending a lot of time at Allen Banks these days – stepping out of the garden into the wild.  It’s the site for my current PhD research at Newcastle University and I’m looking at its history as well as its ecology towards writing a book-length sequence of poems.

As part of my endeavour to consider it as a collective site, it seemed natural to invite a group of folk to participate in a walking renga at the end of the summer, on the brink of my starting my second year of study.  We walked on the East side of the river, up through Moralee Woods to the tarn, stopping along the way to write and share our verses.

Here is the renga we made together:

The Landscape, Ourselves

 

Today’s truth –

the seventh month is our ninth

white river brown

 

a startled heron

wingbeat of silence

 

what is that sumptuous smell?

she only knows it

as ‘country’

 

a choice is made

to keep to the middle way

 

uphill

tripping on roots

my breathing quickens

 

through the ghost of a window

we gaze over the valley

 

mirror tarnished

by pondweed

waterlily

 

layer upon layer

memories settle

 

my companions are painting light

collecting earth

gathering pollen

 

by the water

a stack of wooden bones

 

and so we lean

into the landscape

ourselves

 

picture the moonlight

shadowing these branches

 

in a wild grove

between two fields

with all that’s unspoken

 

Allen

muttering, meandering.

 

A 14-verse Renga at Allen Banks,

Morralee Wood,

on 6^th September 2017.

 

Participants:

Jo Aris

Matilda Bevan

Holly Clay

Martin Eccles

Linda France

Malcolm Green

Sharon Higginson

Alex Reed

Eileen Ridley

Christine Taylor

 

Sound artist and fellow PhD student, Martin Eccles recorded the day and you can read his own renga here.  As well as writing our collaborative version, this time I encouraged everyone to keep all their verses and make their own individual renga, imagining them all as parallel shadows of our shared experience.

Celebrating Capability Brown

John Cobb as Capability Brown in ‘The Eye Catcher’ at Kirkharle Courtyard

 

Making the Lake

 

This far north

dips and hills

unpredictable as summer

 

outside the tent

tall grass waves westwards

 

making the lake

a long lead time

different machinery

 

capability shifts landscape

in the mind

 

chittering swallows

twist in flight

white-blue-white

 

on the ridge of his horizon

a skeleton tree

 

pegs show contour

banks woodbound

piles driven level

 

bring me a basket of bread

for the road to Cambo

 

moon in his eyes

will he be hunter

gardener or poet?

 

wheelbarrow stands in sunlight

casting a dark green shadow

 

these rattling meadows

our ancestors

our hope

 

a spider runs between cracks

in the dried earth

 

for this place, this day

a necklace of beads

of heat, mud, honey

 

where is the boundary to be drawn –

planned and unplanned?

 

begin with an outline

a structure, a framework

anchor it then overlay

 

Kirkharle – eight hours from Newcastle

on dirt roads

 

harsh edge of roofs

gives way to

serrated larch against the sky

 

the price of a line of beauty –

twanging muscles, calloused hands

 

looking north, new energy

beyond the oil route

wind turbines, wood

 

when the wheel stops

it starts all over again.

 

 

A renga in celebration of Capability Brown

on 17^th August 2016

at Kirkharle, his birthplace three hundred years ago.

  

Participants:

 

Birtley Aris

Jo Aris

Michelle Caulkett

Linda France

Patricia Gillespie

Rosie Hudson

Lesley Mountain

Diana Smith

Tony Smith

Clara May Warden

Liz Wilkinson

Margaret Williams

On Nasturtium Street

On Nasturtium Street

 

July, behind the school

no one enjoys

the shade of the chestnuts

 

white house

conversations in the garden ­–

the past is inside

 

a wall of crooked stones

supports a line of box

my aching back

 

no cry of cicadas

just the sound of a baby

falling asleep

 

the only bloom

on next door’s patch –

an abandoned parasol

 

concrete tiles, concrete bricks

a shoot of ivy on a trunk –

is it strong enough?

 

Linda tells us

about 24 hour poetry

the plot of the clouds thickens

 

new grass comes in squares

slugs and ladybirds

not included

 

trees in the yard

nature constrained –

a human soul in the world.

 

 

A 9-verse ‘simultaneous renga’

in the Literature & Translation House,

Latinka Street, Sofia,

on 27^th July 2016.

 

Participants:

Boris Deliradev

Linda France

Yana Genova

Stefan Ivanov

Zdravka Mihaylova

Margarita Peeva

Yana Punkina

Unusual to work with a group of folk for whom English isn’t their first language writing in English in their own country – hence the impromptu/simultaneous nature of this renga and the three-line verses throughout.  Everyone responded to the space and wrote their own verse and then we worked on the editing of the whole piece together.  It was a great chance to share the renga form in a country where it is unknown and a lovely way to get to know more people there interested in writing and poetry.

Also, a sort of blessing for the Literature House, which is in the middle of renovation and expanding into its wonderful role as a sanctuary and resource for writers and translators from all over the world.  It’s on Latinka Street, which means Nasturtium in English!  We also had in our midst a Geranium (Zdravka) and a Marguerite (Margarita)…

Photo by Zdravka Mihaylova

 

 

A Day for Capability

 

Turning the Landscape

 

Roads that brought us here –

blink them away

three hundred years

 

rain crackles the safe tent

inside, gentleness

 

layers of water, earth, white rock

nothing straight

all balancing

 

Brown charted the sweep of these contours

shifted nature

 

songs of dragonfly and jackdaw

spread over the lake

a rippled roof for fishes

 

plodging, rafting

petting, gutting

 

ornamental maple

next to copper beech

salt next to caramel

 

feet circled

satellites flung from a planet

 

tumbled scraps of moon

sheep graze

this divided land

 

the other side of the day

slowing down again

 

in the pink

foxgloves

shimmering question marks

 

a hand’s brush

two droplets fall

 

waterlilies

a touch of Monet

upon Rothley Low Lake

 

ground sinks away

a natural ha-ha

 

over the old railway

you’ve gone too far

turn back

 

history’s fraud –

the foggy fort – kindly meant

 

sounds of planes, birds

but rain (the demanding child)

will be heard

 

glimpse of modern barn

through a Brownian gap in trees

 

Beware

soft edges

take care

 

bonfire piled high

waiting.

 

 

 

A renga in celebration of Capability Brown

at Rothley Low Lake, Northumberland,

on 25^th June 2016.

 

Participants:

 

Linda France

Sharon Higginson

Liz Kirsopp

Nick Owen

Jon Randall

Eileen Ridley

Anna Smith

Tony Smith

Christine Taylor

Herewith…

…Information regarding Capability Brown’s 300th birthday celebrations

CAPABILITY BROWN AT KIRKHARLE – SUMMER 2016 – RENGA

Brown’s contract with the Earl of Scarborough for his work at Roche Abbey in Yorkshire included the clause that his proposals should proceed ‘with Poet’s feeling and with Painter’s Eye’. It is therefore particularly fitting to hold poetry sessions in two of Brown’s beautiful Northumberland landscapes, Kirkharle and Rothley. All three sessions will be based in a medieval pavilion put up overlooking the Kirkharle lakes and Rothley Low Lake.

Award winning poet Linda France will run three Renga sessions this summer.

The collaborative renga process will introduce participants to a classical Japanese tradition, which encourages greater attunement to the landscape and the natural world, as well as to our own relationship with them. It will help participants to recognise and appreciate the ‘capabilities’ in the landscape that Brown wanted to bring out. The resulting poems will be made available on the website and so will broaden others’ experience of the landscape, providing a snapshot of the spirit of the place at a particular time on a particular day, a palimpsest of Brown’s own vision.

All at £8 each, 10.30am to 4pm. To book a place, please contact Nick Owen (nickowen20@gmail.com). Please bring exact money and pay on the day. Bring picnic lunch/flask/blanket, as well as wear sensible shoes.

1. Saturday 18^th June at Kirkharle
2. Saturday 25^th June at Rothley Low Lake
3. Wednesday 17^th August at Kirkharle

It all sounds wonderful and they have a gazebo tent for us so even the weather needn’t be a problem.  I’m going up to Kirkharle on Sunday to have a look around with an eye to creating the schema for the renga.  An interesting focus with Capability Brown as our Muse…

 

 

New Moon Renga

Today, as part of the Northern Poetry Library Project, a small group of us gathered in Hexham Library to make a 12-verse renga sparked by our ‘food’ theme – which even after six months seems inexhaustible.

The first verse, or ‘hokku’, is a version of one by the Japanese master, Basho.  It seemed like a good place to start – him knocking back the saké on the day of the new moon (and an auspicious Spring eclipse).

Fennel, Saffron, Silver

 

No blossoms, no moon,

the Master’s drinking saké,

see, all on his own

 

dried fruit sweetens the mouth

picked on a sunlit day from the slopes

 

autumn unfolding

chewing the passing year

bitterness of loss

 

ginger wine, ginger biscuits

home-made, Gran’s spice against cold

 

quickly the mushroom

strives for light under the door

a hint of decay

 

looking down on Crag Lough

we stop to munch dark chocolate

 

who knew such longing

could be poured into a bowl

of apple crumble?

 

my love and [garlic]

a conflict of interest

 

red seeds on your tongue

fennel, saffron, silver

perfumed breath – mukhwas

 

leek, onion, potato, simmered

into soup that opens each cell

 

Café de l’Opéra

coffee and croissant

splash of traffic

 

table, the first noun learnt

in a new language – we eat around it.

 

 

 

A junicho renga

at lunch time

in Hexham Library

on 9^th March 2016.

 

Participants:

Birtley Aris

Jo Aris

Matilda Bevan

Linda France

Patricia Gillespie

Simone Silver Path

Margot Waters

 

Your Origami Life

Last year ended with my travels in Turkey, where one of the many highlights was a hot air balloon ride as the sun rose above the astonishingly beautiful valleys of Cappadocia.

Back in the North, the new year began as usual for me at Harnham Buddhist Monastery.  Yesterday a group of us gathered there for one of our occasional renga sessions.  In the chilly winter conservatory we saw the light fade as we worked our way through a new schema, with the additional rigour of conforming to the traditional 5-7-5 and 7-7 syllable count throughout.  After five hours of finger-tapping and head-scratching, the odd spat of wrangling, we’d created this seasonal renga catching the year as it turns.

May 2016 be peaceful and fruitful for us all.

*

Your Origami Life

Hungry now, the jaws
of winter are snap-snapping –
the upstart year prey

a row of unruly ash
gesture to the rain-washed sky

jackdaws crowd the field
sodden silent monitors
a message in black

as if the moon were patched silk
shredded honesty, falling

across Bolam Lake
a raft of male goosander
white bodies, hooked beaks

you didn’t need to say it
but what a difference it made

will this be the year
she sorts through those old boxes
clears her path of dust?

we are all responsible
and me more than anyone

pruned raspberry canes
twigs, bits, dry in the greenhouse
ready for burning

so how many paper folds
in your origami life?

telephone cable
insulated conductor
sways to wild weather

bullfinches chase their redness
through my thicket of slow thought

sweet, sharp, dangerous
licking honey off the knife –
well, that’s how it looked

the lilt of a saxophone
curling towards the ceiling

in the quiet morning
we pass windblown oak and pine
part sawn, cleared quickly

Forties, Tyne, Dogger, Fisher
storm force 12 rarely forecast

here in old tough grass
waiting for the miracle
of winter snowdrops

every day the sun climbing
higher above layered cloud.

 

 

A han-kasen renga
at Harnham Buddhist Monastery
on 2nd January 2016.

Participants:
Ajahn Abhinando
John Bower
Holly Clay
Linda France
Geoff Jackson
Linda Kent
Eileen Ridley
Tim Rubidge
Christine Taylor