2014 Reading List (a selection of books read to date ...)

I will aim to update this as and when I remember! 


Poetry

Astley, Neil (ed.) Being Alive (Bloodaxe 2004)
Beynon, Byron The Echoing Coastline (Agenda Editions 2013) 
Cook, Elizabeth Bowl (Worple Press 2013, first publication 2006)
Crossley-Holland, Kevin The Mountains of Norfolk (Enitharmon)
de Bernières, Louis Imagining Alexandria: Poems in Memory of C.P. Cavafy (Harvill Secker 2013)
Guite, Malcolm Sounding the Seasons: Seventy Sonnets for the Christian Year (Canterbury Press 2012)
Motion, Andrew The Customs House (Faber & Faber 2012)


Fiction

Berlin, Beta Alfred's Ribbon (The Seventh Quarry Press 2013)
Chevalier, Tracy The Last Runaway (Harper 2013)
Mountain, Fiona Isabella (Arrow Books 2011)
Von Arnim, Elizabeth The Enchanted April (Virago 2011, first publication 1922)


Non-fiction Prose
Cocker, Mark A Tiger in the Sand (Jonathan Cape 2006)

Fiesta Time (13): Book Lovers' Day

St Ives in Cornwall - home of Hepworth and childhood holiday destination of Woolf

Having read my 'Barbara Hepworth in St Ives' poem, Shaft of Light, Circle of Stone, at Arlington's Poetry Cafe last night, I was delighted to find a tribute to Virginia Woolf on the Oxford Dictionaries site in celebration of Book Lovers' Day.

Godrevy Lighthouse, St Ives

For many Cornwall aficionados, the lighthouse at Godrevy, near St Ives, will always resonate with Woolf's iconic book, To the Lighthouse, despite the fact that the novel (complete with lighthouse) is actually set on the Isle of Skye. However, the author spent childhood holidays at Talland House in St Ives, and one can't help feeling that some of her Cornish experiences were translated into the novel. On one occasion, Virginia's brother, Adrian, was denied a trip to Godrevy - and in the novel, James is confronted with the fact that his forthcoming visit to the lighthouse has been called off.

Don't forget to look up the other Oxford Dictionary Book Lover entries ...

• George Eliot

• Aldous Huxley

• Sir Thomas Browne (and his avian descriptions)

I wonder what you are reading this summer. I am just coming to the end of Mehalah, an adventure set on the salt marshes around Mersea Island by Sabine Baring-Gould, and have just started Silver, Sir Andrew Motion's eagerly-awaited sequel to Treasure Island, which was written, of course, by Robert Louis, a descendant of the Lighthouse Stevensons.

And for those who are wondering, I suspect Book Lovers' Day is actually tomorrow! And for those who are also wondering, yes, Sabine Baring-Gould penned the words to 'Onward Christian Soldiers' ...

Carnival Time (8): Guardian Hay Festival

More Images
from the Guardian Hay Festival 2010

N.B. Wordle to right...

Above
The Wiggly Worm Garden
'Relax Explore Learn Enjoy'
Wiggly Wigglers is an award-winning natural garden company

Above and below

Magnetic Butterflies
winging messages from individuals
in the SkyArts Tent

We had fun decorating our butterflies...
... and even more fun trying to get them to stick to the mesh on the roof!

Below

The 'Second Poetry Jamboree' Banner

Below

The Swimming Reindeer

Late Magdalenian, approx. 12,500 years old.
Provenance: rock shelter of Montastruc, Tarn et Garonne, France
British Museum

We so enjoyed the inspirational event by Neil MacGregor,
Director of the British Museum,
on his Radio 4 series,
'A History of the World in 100 Objects'

After the talk we were able to handle a few objects, like this remarkable piece.

All in all, it was a great day out...
and even the weather was glorious!

• BBC on the programme
• Times Online about the series
• The book is coming...
• Add your object... (as Andrew Motion does)
  

Carnival Time (7): Guardian Hay Festival

We had a terrific day at Hay yesterday, despite overcast skies. We arrived and I enjoyed a Fair Trade coffee and an enormous Danish pastry to set me up for the morning. We had tickets for the CADW talk by John Davies (A History of Wales), and for Richard Perceval Graves at the Housman Society event. Sadly for the organisers, there were not as many festival-goers as usual. Perhaps it was the rain or perhaps the recession.

While I was browsing in the Poetry Bookshop, I heard that it had featured in a Telegraph article (20 April 2010) on the best independent bookshops in Britain - which you can read here. I hope the Guardian podcast will be posted soon...

It is always fun to wander round the site. We took a box of books to the the Oxfam stall, and were given a couple of festival event tickets as a 'thank you'. The festival bookshop has book signings and an amazing range of books on subjects ranging from the nature of clouds to the objects in the British Museum.


We had a picnic lunch between events, and then set off on the shuttle bus to visit the bookshops in town. The Poetry Bookshop is always my first port of call. On this occasion there was great excitement as Guardian reporters were in the process of making a podcast. We have just watched Bright Star (a compelling and unusual film with amazing photography), and was delighted to buy a book on Keats and his circle.


So why would I recommend a visit to the Hay Festival? Well, for a start, it would be good to see people sitting in these empty chairs (photo below)!

Seriously, it makes a great day out for everyone and is a good place to meet up with friends. There is no admission to the site, though there is a charge for the car parks. Our car park fee gave us shuttle bus tickets, so once we had parked, we could leave the car all day and explore the festival and the shops in town with ease. The festival organisers take fair trade, recycling and green issues pretty seriously.

• Best Festival Tweet
• Polyolbion: Birdwatching poets may be celebrating... (I have posted this here simply because Dr John Davies alluded to the view from the Blorenge in his CADW talk at Hay... Thank you, Matt).
  

Poetic People (33): Byron Beynon - book launch

The Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea
(above)
launches Byron Beynon’s latest collection,

Nocturne in Blue

on Friday 19 March at 7pm.
All are welcome.

Swansea poet and lecturer Byron Beynon has had poems poems published in many publications including Agenda, Poetry Salzburg Review, Planet, The French Literary Review, Quadrant (Australia) and the Istanbul Literary Review.

Byron's collections include: The Girl in the Yellow Dress, The Restaurant of Mud and Cuffs (Rack Press).

Nocturne in Blue is published by Lapwing Publications (Belfast).

Byron is a former co-editor of Roundyhouse Magazine. You can find Byron reading his poems on the PoetCasting site.

You can read my interview with Byron for the Romanian magazine from Bucharest, Contemporan Orizont Literar/Contemporary Horizon Magazine, here.

Beautiful Birds (16): Beautiful Books

Proud Peacock!

The cold weather has brought some surprising birds to our attention. A Bittern (Red Alert status) was sighted at WWT Llanelli in Penclacwydd last weekend, though David failed to hear its haunting boom when he was there. I gather there had been a sighting before Christmas, too. A Bittern (possibly the same bird?) was seen at Crymlyn Bog on 5 January 2010: you can read about it on the Gower Wildlife blog, along with news of other feathered visitors to my area of South Wales. The Rare Bird Alert site informs us that Monday 4 January saw a Black Kite (link here: then scroll down a bit for an image) flying among the Red Kites in Powys, and a Glossy Ibis appearing in Worcestershire. Wow!

If birds and books are joint passions, take a look at the Abe Books Beautiful Book Boutique, which is currently showcasing 30 Beautiful Old Bird Books. The covers alone are worthy of a glance: my favourite design has to be Wise and Otherwise. Peacocks and owls seem to be the most prevalent species. I wonder which designs you like best.

Book Corner (1): Troy Town by Matt Merritt

Anne Hathaway's Cottage, Stratford, viewed from the Willow Cabin Arbour
(the maze is to the left, along the path and out of sight)


'Never too late to learn to trust the path
like rustics running the shepherd's race
at May Eve...'

Troy Town, Matt Merritt


'The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud,
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,
For lack of tread, are indistinguishable.'

A Midsummer Night's Dream, II:II, Shakespeare

Troy Town by Matt Merritt, Arrowhead Press 2008, ISBN 978-1-904852-19-3

I wonder what images dance in your mind in response to Matt's evocative title, Troy Town. I have just finished reading this sparkling new collection and felt it would be good to share a few thoughts. Matt, a fellow blogger (at Polyolbion) and fellow graduate of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, has woven his thread, Theseus fashion, through the labyrinthine paths of landscape, love and loss.

Those who know Matt will not be surprised to encounter a barn owl buoyant on his tide of silence ('Skylarking'), the blackbird wrestling a worm out of the lawn ('Paradise Tanager') or Calidris canutus, king's men all, commanding the waves to turn back ('Knots') along the way; but birdsong is only one of many tunes - or half-remembered songs - that echo through and take flight from the pages of this book.

The volume has been beautifully produced, with a hard cover sporting a glossy photograph of the turf maze at Wing in Rutland on the dust jacket. Troy Town is prefaced with a quotation from A Midsummer Night's Dream (see above); and Matt's poem that lends its title to the whole collection suggests to this reader at least, that the essence of the work revolves, maze-fashion, around a movement from one place to another. This progression - in accordance with the nature of propulsion through a maze - is seldom linear. The quest takes the poet and his fellow travellers on what seems, perhaps, to be more of a metaphysical than a metaphorical journey, since all mental maps are redundant and all thoughts are put aside. We do not usually associate mazes with unfolding vistas of revelation, but Alison Brackenbury made the astute observation that somehow this work 'opens new horizons'.

This reader views the essence of Matt's poetry against the backcloth of his association with Poly-Olbion, the meandering epic of the landscape by Michael Drayton (1563-1631). Drayton's lines lead us along the highways and byways of a very different England. Drayton is long dead, but poetry - Matt's poetry - refuses to be moulded into dark places or squeezed into the cul-de-sacs of a maze.

Buy a copy to experience for yourself that canvas where moments fray to a fine thread, that place where the past is startled into a sudden eloquence so that nothing need follow.

Suggested reading:
Making the Most of the Light by Matt Merritt, HappenStance 2005