Fingerstone Poem Quoted in 'The Maker', The Charles Causley Literary Blog

 

Launceston Castle

Those who know me will be aware of my love affair with Cornwall. It is a county I have visited all my life, initially to spend time with relations who lived at Widemouth Bay on the north coast. I recall many days further south, not far from the Helford River in the 1970s and 80s, enjoying occasional walks along Frenchman's Pill and the tree-lined watercourses that inspired Daphne du Maurier's Frenchman's Creek. I began to discover other writers who made Cornwall come alive on the page: Charles Causley, Thomas Hardy, R.S. Hawker, Anne Ridler, Jack Clemo, W.S. Graham, John Betjeman, Ursula K. Le Guin and Lionel Johnson, to name but a few. 

I forget how I first encountered the poems of Charles Causley, but I was immediately drawn to them. And indeed, I have found some firm favourites among his body of work, favourites such as 'Who?', with its brilliant repetition in line 1 of the first stanza, and 'Morwenstow', in which the speaker interrogates the sea on the subject of its wildness. I have visited Causley's hometown of Launceston a couple of times in recent years and have enjoyed exploring the castle, which dominates the scene. I even tried to do a quick pen-and-ink sketch of it.

I was delighted when Sue Wallace-Shaddad asked me if she could include a few stanzas from 'Penwith Fingerstone', one of my Cornish poems, in her November post for The Maker, which you can find on The Charles Causley Literary Blog. The poem, which features in Driftwood by Starlight (The Seventh Quarry Press, 2021), was awarded Third Prize by Brian Patten in the 2017 Milestones Poetry Competition, administered by Write Out Loud. As it happens, I posted a photo (here) of the fingerpost on Twitter a few days ago for #FingerpostFriday.

 

Reviews of 'Driftwood by Starlight' (updated for 2022)

 

The photo above shows me with my first full poetry collection, Driftwood by Starlight (The Seventh Quarry Press, 2021 - see here). 

Reviews of the book and short features have been appearing at intervals, so it seemed an idea to update this page, with links where appropriate.

I am extremely grateful to those who have taken the trouble to read my poems and to write about them. Susan Richardson, who wrote the back cover blurb, was among the first to do this. 

 

Reviews 

1. Juliet Wilson, August 2021, review on The Crafty Green Poet site - here. 
2. Tracey Foster, whose review on Everybody's Reviewing was arranged by Dr Jonathan Taylor, Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Leicester - here.   
3. Neil Leadbeater on the Write Out Loud site - here. 
4. Neil Leadbeater in Littoral magazine #8 (ed. Mervyn Linford) - here.  
5. James Knox Whittet in Twelve Rivers (Vol.12, issue 2, Autumn/Winter2021). Twelve Rivers is the magazine of Suffolk Poetry Society. 
6. D.A. Prince in Orbis #198, Winter 2021 (Review title, 'Stones, Sea and Sky', p.57)
7. Richenda Milton-Daws in the ArtServe magazine, Winter 2021. 
8. Jessica Newport in #35 of The Seventh Quarry magazine, 2021.
9. Dilys Wood in Artemis #28 (Second Light journal).  

Q and A Interviews

1. Questions from Maria Lloyd (@mariatlloyd) at the University of Reading about the collection. Links to the Q&As can be found here.
2. Sue Wallace-Shaddad, Secretary of Suffolk Poetry Society, In Conversation, Twelve Rivers (Vol.12, issue 2, Autumn/Winter2021). Twelve Rivers is the magazine of Suffolk Poetry Society. 
3. Questions from Janet Emson on From First Page to Last.  
4. Questions from Annmarie Miles on The Writers' Trail, UCB Radio, Ireland, 28 April 2022. I read out 'Et in Terra Pax'.
   

 

Online Features

1. July 2021 - Writers' Online Showcase section, here.  
2. Creative Writing at Leicester blog, arranged by Dr Jonathan Taylor, Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Leicester - here.  
3. Poetry Blog Digest on Via Negativa (Dave Bonta) - here. 
4. 23 November 2021 - Newcastle University News - here. 'Alumna Publishes First Poetry Collection, Driftwood by Starlight.'  
5. May 2022 - Walthamstow Hall magazine.
   

 

Others Mentions and Listings

1. 31 July 2021 - The Poetry Society, Members' e-bulletin. 
2. 27 July 2021 - The Poetry School, e-newsletter. 
3. 12 July 2021 - ACW eNews, bulletin #27
4. September 2021 - In Touch (Suffolk community magazine). 
5. Autumn 2021 - Star Tips #143 (with sample poem)  
6. Autumn 2021 - ARTEMISpoetry #27 
7. December 2021 - Exeter University: Celebrating our Alumni Authors
8. May 2022 - GDST magazine
   

Readings

1. 3 August 2021 - Online launch and reading, with Peter Thabit Jones of The Seventh Quarry Press and guest readers, Susan Richardson, Jean Salkilld and David Gill reading their own work. 
2. 7 October 2021 - Suffolk Poetry Society National Poetry Day event in Ipswich Library, Suffolk, UK. Three poems from the collection were included in, and read out on my behalf, as part of an event on the theme of 'Choice'.  
3. 19 February - ACW Online Poetry Day. I read 'Dunwich in Winter'. 
   

 

Matthew Stewart's 'Best Poetry Blogs of the Year' 2021 List

1.  14 December 2021 - I was included in the list on account of my posts about Driftwood by Starlight.
   

 

'Driftwood by Starlight' ... Posts Relating To My Poetry Collection

 

When Driftwood by Starlight, my first full poetry collection, was published by The Seventh Quarry Press in June 2021, Maria Lloyd (@mariatlloyd), a research student at the University of Reading, set me some questions about a number of the poems, and particularly about those that relate to the Ancient World in one way or another.

You can find my responses in blog posts (1) to (3) below. I hope you will find something of interest if you click on the links.

(1) Questions from Maria Lloyd here. A post on 'Monte Testaccio, Mound of Potsherds', p.35.

(2) Questions from Maria Lloyd here. A post on 'Wildfire', p.31.

(3) Questions from Maria Lloyd here. A post on 'The Ocean's Tears', p.24 and 'Ice-Blue Blood', p.25.  

 • • •

While I was in Cornwall earlier in the summer, I took the opportunity to re-visit some of the settings in the book. Posts (a) to (c) below refer to these. 

(a) Cadgwith on The Lizard peninsula, setting for 'The Serpentine Stile', p.9. See here.

(b) The Penwith Moors and Mên-an-Tol, setting for '(W)hole Thoughts from Mên-an-Tol', p.28. See here.

(c) Zennor, setting for 'Zennor Voices', p.19. See here.

'Driftwood by Starlight' in Cornwall: (3) Zennor and the Mermaid

Zennor, the road to St Senara's church

Those of you who have read the last couple of posts will know that on our recent visit to Cornwall we revisited some of the settings for the poems in my new poetry collection, Driftwood by Starlight, published by The Seventh Quarry Press in Swansea, and available here at the UK price of £6.99.

The photo above shows me in Zennor, a village with many literary associations; writers from D.H. Lawrence to Helen Dunmore and Michael Morpurgo have written about this area. It features in one of my favourite poems, 'Zennor', by Anne Ridler (which I once requested successfully for BBC Poetry Please). It is also the setting for my poem, 'Zennor Voices', p.19 in Driftwood by Starlight.

 

  

The churchyard holds a number of interesting memorials. The one below is in memory of Dr William Borlase (1696-1772), Vicar of Zennor and well-known antiquarian.

 

This following photo shows a plaquel commemorating John Davey, one of the last fluent speakers of Cornish before plans were laid to breathe new life into the language in our own day.  

The slate sundial (1737), which adorns the south wall of the bell tower, bears the name of its maker, Paul Quick. Another local person to bear the surname 'Quick' was Henry Quick, also of Zennor, who was known for his poems.

And finally ... we come to the 'mermaid chair', linked to the local legend about a mortal man who fell in love with a mermaid. How does the story end?
 

'Driftwood by Starlight' in Cornwall: (2) The Penwith Moors

  

I have loved the moors in West Penwith for many, many years. The air is clear and there is a feeling of being almost surrounded by the sea, as it laps around edges of the peninsula below. The wide open spaces (no crowds up here, as you can see!) give rise to a sense of history and prehistory. 

 

Archaeologists and others have long mused over the meaning of the holed stone of granite in the photograph, a stone that has clearly been associated with different purposes at different times in its long existence. I expect a good number of sheep, and possibly cattle, have rubbed up against it over the centuries. The Cornish name for this monument (see signpost above) means simply 'stone with hole'. The orange arrow points to the monument.

 

You can see one of my favourite tin mine pumping engine houses (over the Greenburrow Shaft) from here. 

This particular mine has a very memorable name. My short poem about it features in my new first full collection of poetry, Driftwood by Starlight, published by The Seventh Quarry Press in Swansea, and available at the UK price of £6.99.

'Driftwood by Starlight' in Cornwall: (1) Cadgwith

 

Photo: David Gill

 

My first full poetry collection, Driftwood by Starlight, was published a few days before David and I headed off to Cornwall, the setting for a number of the poems in the book.

The photograph above shows me on the foreshore at Cadgwith, a small cove on The Lizard peninsula that holds a special place in my heart. I have known and loved this area virtually all my life.

Cadgwith appears on the front cover of my book, thanks to the wonderful night-time photography of Laurence Hartwell of Through the Gaps (thank you, Laurence). What you may, or may not, have noticed is that, serendipitously, there is a boat behind my left shoulder in the photograph above called 'Starlight'. You can click on the photo to enlarge it.

 

My love affair with Cadgwith came about as a result of a poem by Lionel Johnson, which intrigued and entranced my father, and made him keen to discover the cove for himself back in the 1960s. I quote part of Johnson's poem in the book.  

 

Cadgwith at low tide, from The Todden

Driftwood by Starlight was published in June 2021 by poet and publisher, Peter Thabit Jones, at The Seventh Quarry Press. Many, but not all, of the poems have coastal settings. In addition to Cornwall, these include Wales (I lived in Swansea for 20 years), Scotland (home to ancestors on my mother's side) and Suffolk (where I live now). If you would like to purchase a copy (£6.99 UK price), please click this link to The Seventh Quarry Shop (online).  

Places of Poetry

Serpentine lectern, Church of St Grade, Cornwall

I have been hoping to 'pin a poem' on the Places of Poetry map for some time, and finally achieved my aim this afternoon (only to discover that my husband, David Gill, had pipped me to the post by a few months!).

The map shadows an earlier poetry project which took the guise of a 15,000 line poem, Poly-Olbion, by Michael Drayton in the seventeenth century. You can read about the new map here, and you can read Drayton's epic if you follow this link to a University of Exeter website about the current project.

The new interactive online map is full of markers, representing poems relating to the sites in question. The map remains live for two more days for those who would still like to pin a poem of their own (please check the conditions if you do this). Thereafter it will remain online for web-users to enjoy as a reading resource. If you find a poem you enjoy, I feel sure the poet who penned it would appreciate a social media-style 'like'.

I recall submitting a northern (Lewis Chessmen) poem, number 185, to the StAnza Poetry Map for Scotland in 2015. And this time, on the new map largely representing England and Wales, I have zoomed down almost as far south as I could go to small cove on The Lizard in Cornwall to post my 2019 poem here. I do not actually mention lecterns in my poem, but the serpentine one in the photo above comes from the same Cornish peninsula and can be seen today in the beautiful church of St Grade.

I mentioned David Gill's poem in this post: you will find it posted along Hadrian's Wall - here. And, on the subject of the Wall, you might also enjoy Paul Farley's Places of Poetry blog post - here.

Parson Hawker of Morwenstow Poem

My Parson Hawker of Morwenstow poem features in the current edition of Reach Poetry, #225, Indigo Dreams Publishing. Morwenstow is a favourite haunt on the North Cornish coast, with its wild scenery. Hawker's Hut is a fascinating shack, almost built into the cliff.

Immagine e Poesia: the 2017 Anthology of Poetry and Art Pairings can now be downloaded

Zennor mermaid chair (dating from 1400-1500) in St Senara's Church

One of the joys of poetry is the opportunity to experiment and create collaboratively either with other poets or with practitioners in another art form. For the last few years I have submitted a poem to the annual eBook produced by Immagine e Poesia, based in Italy. Aeronwy Thomas, Dylan and Caitlin's daughter, became Patron of the Immagine e Poesia movement in 2007.   

The annual eBook contains pairings of poems and visual art from across the globe. My poem in this year's anthology was written in response to an artwork entitled 'Voice of the Sea' by South Korean artist, Jongo Park. There have, of course, been many takes on the mermaid-meets-mortal story, but this Zennor mermaid was uppermost in my mind. Zennor is one of my favourite villages in Britain. It lies on the Cornish coast in West Penwith, between Land's End and St Ives. The village has many literary connections, including 'Zennor', a favourite poem of mine by Anne Ridler (which was once played at my request on BBC Poetry Please).

This year's anthology, containing contributions from visual and word artists from 35 countries, has been produced by Huguette Bertrand and Lidia Chiarelli.

You are invited to download a copy - here.

Published Poems: Poem of the Week, THE POETRY KIT blog

Minions Moor, Cornwall

If you click over to the Poetry kit blog (editor, Jim Bennett), you will find my Poem of the Week ...

Tin mine, Cornwall

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' ...

Anthology Alert (12): ... and Poetry Cornwall | Bardhonyeth Kernow is TEN!

Cover Photo credit: Angelicia 'Bird of Paradise Flower'

Poetry Cornwall | Bardhonyeth Kernow, # thirty four

I have been a subscriber to Poetry Cornwall | Bardhonyeth Kernow almost from its arrival on the small press poetry scene. A number of my relations lived in Cornwall, and it is a part of the world I have known and loved for as long as I can remember. Presumably like a number of others, one of these relatives felt that she had invented surfing ('belly-boarding') by riding the Atlantic waves on a coffin lid.

Forget the coffins: this is a time for celebration. Poetry Cornwall | Bardhonyeth Kernow is riding high on the upward trajectory of its unique wave-crest as it marks this special 10th anniversary year. Thank you, Les, on behalf of so many of us, for a terrific magazine. Thank you for sharing poetry, for publishing our poems and also for including poems in dialect, in Cornish, in other languages and in translation.

This issue contains my piece, 'Moonshine', about the Snowy Owl who landed in the Zennor area of Penwith around Christmas-time in 2008. I had the opportunity to read the poem a few days ago at the IpArt PoetryFest here in Suffolk.

Looking down on Zennor ...

with its Mermaid pew ...

in the lovely church of St Senara.

Poetry Cornwall | Bardhonyeth Kernow also marks its milestone anniversary with the publication of a new book, Cornwall - an anthology of poetry and photographs, described as 'an artistic and literary credit to the identity, heritage and culture of a Celtic nation'. The book is compiled by Les Merton and illustrated with photographs by Angelicia. It contains my dragonfly poem, 'Vagrant Emperor', written in a form inspired by Bengali-American poet and editor of Shabdaguchha, Hassanal Abdullah's 'Swatantra Sonnets'.

Thank you, Les, and here's to the next anniversary! 

Poetry Cornwall | Bardhonyeth Kernow # thirty four
ed. Les Merton
ISSN 1476-7007
Price £4.50

Cornwall - an anthology of poetry and photographs
compiled by Les Merton, photography by Angelicia
ISBN 978-1-906845-38-4. 
Price £8 with free p&p.

Both publications are sold by Palores Publications.

Magazine Moment (26): Reach Poetry Surprise

West Country Light

I was delighted today to learn that my Glosa, 'A Softer Beauty', had taken First Prize in the Reach Poetry readers' votes for issue 154. Thank you very much, Ronnie and Dawn, for the cheque!

My poem builds around a quatrain by the eccentric West Country cleric, the Reverend R.S. Hawker, Vicar of Morwenstow, who wrote from a cliff-side driftwood hut, now in the care of the National Trust.

It was also a surprise to find a mention of my 'Turkish Delight' Tercet Ghazal in the Purple Patch review section (issue no.129), so thank you Geoff.

Green Moment (1): Organic Fortnight - and the Eden Project

Welcome! | Croeso!

This post is part of
Crafty Green Poet's Blogfest
to mark the Soil Association's
ORGANIC FORTNIGHT
3-17 September 2010

Thank you,
Juliet,
for arranging this enterprise.

"It is poetic that a china clay pit, so Cornish in essence, has been given another life.
It is a constant source of inspiration for me and continues to get better and better.”

Anthony Eyton R.A.
Artist in Residence,
The Eden Project

I wonder when you last had a 'green' moment.

I vividly recall my first visit to the Space Age biomes
of the Eden Project in Cornwall, back in 2002.
The structures alone were impressive.

However, I was particularly struck by the 'recycling work'
that had given the old China Clay pit a new lease of life
as a place in which people could come to enjoy themselves
and learn a great deal about the world around them.

The colours of the plants were vibrant.
The scents were intoxicating.
You could feel droplets of humidity on your skin.
The organic coffee in the café was delicious.
Birdsong resounded through the jungle!

I was so captivated by Eden that I came home and wrote a long (semi-fantasy semi-autobiographical) poem about my visit, under the tutelage of Susan Richardson, as part of a Disability Arts Cymru project. The poem, 'The Cheerful Chocoholic Woman Goes Exploring', was published in Hidden Dragons | Gwir y Grymus (Parthian Books 2004).

The poem revolves around my (imaginary) Biome conversation with a Praying Mantis (and here), who makes me appreciate the qualities of our fragile earth in a new light - as you will see from the following quotation:

He tells her all about the concept of fair trade,
about sustainable forests and water aid.
‘I have seen lots of wonders, but it’s time to depart,’
sighs the chocoholic woman, with a burdensome heart.
‘I envy those Aztecs with their cocoa bean brew,
mixed with spice from the chilli to warm them right through!’

The Chocoholic Woman finally arrives home, flinging 'chocoholic chippings' from her 'chocoholic heels', only to discover with a sense of panic that the 'snowy peaks of chocolate treats' beside her favourite chair are not, in fact, organic...

You may like to read about:

• The Eden Project Real Cool Futures Project, with a case study on Clio Turton who has worked as a manager at the Press Office of the Soil Association.
• The Eden Project Blog
• The Eden Project Shop (how about some Christmas present ideas?)
• Why Organic? - from the Soil Association
  

If chocolate is your thing, you may like:

• Divine
• The Divine Chocolate Blog
• The Divine Deep Dark Chocolate Competition (still time to enter)

If you enjoy poetry, you may like:

• The winning poems of the 2009 Divine Chocolate Writing Competition (judge, Anthony Horowitz)
• Organic Poetry (N.B. this site is about organic - or free-form - writing, rather than organic produce)
• An obituary (1994) in The Independent for Jack Clemo, who found inspiration in the china clay pits.

Enjoy Organic Fortnight ...

and don't forget to visit
Crafty Green Poet

and

here

the other participating blogs, linked to the site.

And finally ... if you like the thought of a Praying Mantis, you may enjoy Naquillity's post about a Walking Stick here.

Anthology Alert (5): 'Crab Lines off the Pier'

Fishing Gear,
Cadgwith

I mentioned in an earlier post that my poem 'The Ocean's Tears' had been included in Crab Lines Off The Pier, the new summer anthology from editors Ronnie Goodyer and Dawn Bauling of Indigo Dreams Publishing.

The book has just arrived, and I have much enjoyed an initial browse. Apparently there were over 600 submissions from all over the world.

As a left-hander, I tend to begin browsing from the back, and was delighted to take a trip down Memory Lane as I read Catherine Graham's evocative poem about The Hoppings on Town Moor, Newcastle. Back in 1980 during my first summer as a student, I recall the excitement surrounding the arrival of the big fair known as The Hoppings.

To switch to the other end of the country, I have much enjoyed Ronnie's beautiful and lyrical poem, 'On Crockern Tor', Dartmoor. Closer to home, 'Crabbing on the Parrog' by Tina Negus evokes those days on the beach with seaweed and muddy pools. Claire Knight's beautiful Haibun re-captures the essence of a broom-clad Cornish cliff forty years on. Gerald Hampshire prefers his crabs in Whitby, with its jet 'black silt'. Pamela Scott takes us a little further afield to Paris, while Thelma Laycock presses on for midnight in Alaska.

Do consider buying a copy to accompany you on your travels or on those 'deckchair-in-the-garden' afternoons. You can read my earlier post here; and more to the point, you can buy the book here. Thank you, Ronnie and Dawn.

And now all I need is a burst of sun!

Wonderful Words (10): Withywindles and other Watery Words

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree:

where Alph, the sacred river, ran through caverns measureless to man.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Above: The Peat Moors Centre near Shapwick Heath, Somerset Levels
The Centre has now been closed down.

Below: The Somerset Levels

The Weaver of Grass is hosting a meme today on dialect words for a small river. Like others from different corners of the globe, I have left a few 'stream' words in her comments box. You may be wondering about the 'withywindles' in my title. 'Withywindle' is a word used by Tolkien for an old winding river.* The verb 'to windle' means to meander. 'Withywind' was a name for bindweed: you can begin to see the connection.

I have been thinking around the subject of dialect, and the origin of the many Welsh and Cornish place names I tend to take for granted. I have lived in Wales now for nearly two decades. I grew up in rural Norfolk, where we had some marvellous local expressions. I have spent a lot of time in Cornwall, home of my great grandmother and great aunts, where wonderful words abound. All these are watery places. I also have ancestors who hailed from Somerset, with its marshy Levels.

WALES: I will begin close to home!

South Wales has, in effect, three broad dialect-specific areas in terms of vocabulary and phonology.
The dialects in question can be referred to as Demetian (Dyfed/Pembrokeshire), Central Southern (Ceredigion and Ystrad Twyi), and Gwentian (Gwent and Morgannwg). There are many local specialities within these broad groupings. In Mumbles, for instance, (with its Upalong, Outalong and Inalong residents), we find the words 'PILL' (as in Blackpill, on the way to Mumbles from Swansea) and 'LAKE' for 'stream'. Incidentally, I have often walked to Frenchman's Pill on the Helford River in Cornwall, thinking that 'Pill' meant 'Pool', but those who read Daphne Du Maurier's novels will not be surprised to find that it can also mean 'CREEK'. I have mentioned a number of other Welsh 'stream' words in Weaver's Comments Box.

CORNWALL: since I seem to be moving in that direction!

Perhaps my favourite word here is 'ZIGHYR' or 'SIGGER' or sometimes 'SIGIJR'. The word means 'lazy', and can be used 'when a very small slow stream of water issues through a cranny underground'. (See here, and scroll down to 'Z').

NORFOLK: and the Broads (see here)

It is worth remembering that Charles Dickens had some knowledge of the Norfolk accent, since he put it to good use in the speech of the Yarmouth fishermen, Ham and Daniel Peggoty in 'David Copperfield'. I love the word, 'GRIP' (or occasionally 'GRIPPLE' or 'GRUP') for a small drain, stream, or 'BECK' (such as Suffield Beck). A 'LODE' or a 'LOOD' tends to be a constructed watercourse. To draw a 'DYKE' (like Catfield Dyke) or a 'DIKE' (like Tunstall Dike) means to clear out a ditch. Norfolk 'DYKES' are normally watercourses, though occasionally they are the high banks on either side - more in keeping with e.g. Offa's Dyke. A 'FLEET' (as in Rockland Fleet) is a channel - or occasionally more of a drain - leading from the river to a Norfolk Broad. Those majestic Norfolk Wherries would have sailed up Rockland Fleet in days gone by, bound for the staithe where I used to paddle about with oars. I have happy memories of watching the 'Albion', one of the last of these fine sailing craft. In Broadland, you also get 'SOUNDS' (e.g. Heigham Sound, sandwiched between Candle Dyke and Meadow Dyke). These are channels or stretches of water - I wouldn't class them as streams - that link the different sections of the waterways. Then there are the water 'RUNS' (e.g. Blocka Run at St Olaves) and the 'CREEKS' (e.g. Boathouse Creek near Dersingham).

SOMERSET: the Levels

I have not spent very much time on the Somerset Levels; but when the opportunity arises, I always find myself greatly enjoying this strange landscape with its peat and sedge. The word that immediately comes to mind, 'RHYNE' (e.g. Eighteen Feet Rhyne) or 'RHINE', is a drainage ditch or canal. Its purpose was to turn areas of low-lying wetland into pasture. I particularly like the area around Shapwick Heath.

* * *

So that just about completes my mini-tour of stream words. On another occasion I might have re-visited other parts of Britain that I know well. If you feel that Cornwall has not been paid much attention, well, perhaps it is because I have saved one of my favourite items until the end of this post. I wonder if you know the wonderful dialect poem, 'The Quest for the Gwidgy-gwee' by Joseph Thomas (1840-1894). You can read it here on the Old Cornwall site; and encounter perhaps for the first time, the lizamamoo and the padgypaow. You may find this Cornish dialect glossary of help. Enjoy...

... and be sure to visit Weaver's blog for a 'wordle'* of watery words. There is now a particularly good list of Welsh one on her blog here.


* My thanks to Peter Gulliver, Jeremy Marshall and Edmund Weiner for this information in their splendid book, 'The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary' (OUP 2006).

* Wordle

Creature Feature (13): Homer the Turtle flies into the UK

Cadgwith, Cornwall
where I once saw a large Leatherback Turtle on the beach.

You can read about Homer, the blind Loggerhead Turtle here, and about plans for rehabilitation his new home in Newquay, Cornwall.

Do look at the similar turtle features on Professor P. Brain's ecology blog, here, here and here.

Poetic People (26): Kay Weeks

Happy New Year
from icy South Wales!

My apologies for the delay in this post. However, it has meant that I can now pass on guest access (courtesy of editor, Sharmagne Leland-St. John) for the January issue of Quill and Parchment.

You will find my interview ['Twisting and Turning' in the interviews section] with Kay Weeks, writer and poet from historic Ellicott City in Maryland, USA. Kay has two blogs, one about Camilla the cat; but I will let you discover all this for yourself...

You will also find my Bodmin Moor poem, Dozmary Pool (first published in Reach Poetry), about King Arthur's sword, Excalibur.

Empty Shoes, edited by Patrick T. Randolph and sold to raise funds for those who are hungry and homeless, is reviewed in this issue by Karen Schwartz. The book reached number 2 in the amazon.com pre-Christmas 'Hot New Releases' list of popular new books in the 'religious and inspirational' category. The anthology contains my poem, Stranger.

Please follow the link to the Quill and Parchment site and add the following guest passwords for the January issue:

NAME: january
PASSWORD: snowball

Enjoy!