National Poetry Day 2022 on Aldeburgh Beach

 

David and I have just returned from a wonderfully sunny day on the beach at Aldeburgh, where we joined other members of Suffolk Poetry Society (SPS) for the traditional National Poetry Day reading at the South Lookout, thanks to our Patron and host, Caroline Wiseman, and to members of the SPS committee who had organised the event.

 

We took the #NationalPoetryDay theme of the environment, which gave rise to a variety of largely serious poems on subjects as diverse as the ocean (and the devastation caused by plastic, oil slicks and pollution), a field where there had once been hedges with birds, and a beach with fossils. While acknowledging the gravitas of the Climate Crisis, we appreciated the occasional moments of wry humour which added to the sense of light and shade.

I read 'Puffin's Assembly'* from my poetry collection, Driftwood by Starlight, published last year by The Seventh Quarry Press (and available here for £6.99/$10).

 

The chip shop was still open at the end of the readings, and proved more than some of us could resist! 

 

 

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*'Puffin's Assembly' was first published in Orbis. It was inspired by Robert Macfarlane's nature-word campaign, which resulted in The Lost Words.

 

 

World Book Day, Better Late Than Never...

The sea, the sea...

I know I am a little late for World Book Day, but I did not want the opportunity to pass without drawing attention to what seems to me a post that others might care to read on the wonderful Sea Library blog. Anna Iltnere draws our attention not only to Tove Jannson's first Moomin story, The Moomins and the Great Flood, but also to a year-long campaign launched by Moomin Characters Ltd. and their partners to try to eradicate blue-green algae from the Baltic Sea.

The Baltic Sea may seem a long way from my home in Suffolk, but we have come across notices along the river Orwell, only a few miles away from our front door, warning us of this same polluting and potentially harmful organism. Environmental pollution comes in many guises and is something that affects us all, and something that we should not view with complacency. Our oceans (and other waterways) are a vital resource for our planet, as numerous people, like Sir David Attenborough and Greta Thunberg to name but two, are constantly reminding us.

But there was another reason why this particular post on the Sea Library blog attracted my attention. I have loved the Moomin stories since I was a child. We named three of our pets after these engaging characters. Jannson, it seems to me, was passionate about her work and developed her imaginative, artistic and literary gifts in ways that made the impossible seem (almost) natural, and certainly believable. She was extremely versatile, and even those who have not been attracted to Moominland have been enchanted by her adult works such as The Summer Book, reviewed here in The Guardian by Ali Smith.

Happy World Book Day, 2020

... for yesterday! 

P.S. I have ordered a new book of poetry from my wish-list: Staring at a Hoopoe by David Cooke. I wonder what you are reading at the moment.