The Lost Words - Forget-Me-Not Exhibition

We spent a wet afternoon enjoying this fascinating exhibition, installed in the gallery at the Lettering Arts Centre Trust, part of the Snape Maltings complex. Robert Macfarlane's book, The Lost Words, illustrated with superb art by Jackie Morris, has taken the nation by storm, finding its way into schools, libraries, concert halls, festivals, homes and hearts across the land.

Most will know by now that the book was prompted by the sad fact that a significant number of key nature words - acorn, bluebell, conker, to name but three - were replaced (or superseded) by ones deemed more valuable in the current age, like words to do with technology, in the last edition of The Oxford Junior Dictionary.

This situation has prompted many responses involving music and the other arts. Those who were engaging with aspects of the book for this particular exhibition had used stone-carving techniques to present a number of the lost nature words, such as 'otter', 'fern' and 'newt', in fresh and meaningful ways.

How, I wondered, would these letter-cutter artists prepare a significant piece when each had just one word to interpret in, on or through the medium of stone? I find artistic process fascinating, and I particularly enjoy the creative sparks that fly when one artistic form confronts another in an ekphrastic way.

I know little about stone carving, though I have been interested in the properties of stone for many years. As a child I had a stone polishing machine (in days before we knew it was best to leave stones on the beach). We made jewellery from polished stones at my church youth group for a while when I was a young teenager. Holidays in Cornwall introduced me to serpentine and soapstone - and to sea urchin spines in the sand which I mistook for strontianite!

So I approached the exhibition with curiosity, and was richly rewarded. The exhibition was curated by Lynne Alexander and the exquisite and informative exhibition catalogue, The Lost Words - forget-me not, was edited by Suzy Powling and Lynne Alexander. Not surprisingly the book opens with Forewords from Jackie Morris and Robert Macfarlane. There is a third Foreword, from Matt Gaw, of Suffolk Wildlife Trust (whose Nature Summit I am about to attend have now attended).

Each of the exhibits has a spacious entry in the catalogue, with an image of the stone artwork of the  Lost Word on each recto side, and prose about the piece opposite, with name, definition, origin and text. Each Lost Word now tells a story in stone: Fiona Flack, who created the artwork for FERN tells how a fossilised fern was her inspiration. Annet Stirling's NEWT caught our eye because she has demonstrated the creature's amphibious 'under water - over water' lifestyle and its precarious existence (presumably as a word and as a creature) by splitting the word horizontally through the middle. Iain Cotton's arresting rendering of OTTER caught my attention because the otters and stone base blend so perfectly. I was not surprised therefore to find that this word was carved on a slate beach pebble from Islay, where otters can sometimes be seen. The pairing of pebble and Lost Word in this instance seemed to be in particular(ly poignant) harmony. I'll end by mentioning Jo Sweeting and a part of her inspiration for her lithe rendering of LARK:

'larks building spires above spires into the sky'

The South Country  

by Edward Thomas

• My previous posts about the nature words are here and here.

Wonderful Words (9): Metrophobia

Readers of this blog will know by now that unusual words intrigue me. I wonder if you have encountered the word, Metrophobia, before. I hope you do not suffer from it.

You can read more about it here on the Quill & Quire blog.

Lipogram, incidentally, was new to me, too.

• The Huffington Post
  

Wonderful Words (3): Banned Words!

Who likes jargon? Take a look at this piece on the BBC site about 200 pet-hate words that council members are being told to avoid. The word list is on the right of the BBC page. Do take a look. You could then follow the link to nominate your own pet-hate words, and try your hand at the jargon quiz! Perhaps you could tell yesterday's story (see post) in jargonese!

John Muir's view of our eco-system

The Cuillin, Skye

I am very grateful to The Weaver of Grass for bringing this Times article on John Muir to my attention. I came across the John Muir Trust in Scotland last year. I love the photographic images on the website.

• Enter the John Muir Trust 'Wild Writing' Competition.
  
• Look at the 'official' expeditions undertaken in 2006. That year may be some way behind us, but you could always consider your own Journey for the Wild.
• View the Journey for the Wild Gallery.
  

When a (bucket and) spade is not a spade

Left: snow white on pecan pie or Little Egret in the Loughor Estuary?

Unlike fellow blogger and poet, Mistlethrush, home decorating is definitely not my scene. That's not to say, however, that I take no interest in material swatches or paint cards. In the course of my craft class work, I have greatly enjoyed looking at and developing colour schemes for particular projects. I was intrigued, therefore, by an article by Lori Borgman in The News & Observer on the 'poetry' of the extraordinary plethora of names for different shades of paint.

Modern poets try to restrict their use of adjectives for the sake of strength, punch and clarity. Are there times, I wonder, when names like those in the feature (e.g. Southern Pecan Pie, Sand Between Your Toes and Peach Slush, to name but three) are simply too irresistible to pass over?

In a recent draft of a poem as part of a Poetry Prompt Month for Sol Magazine, I found myself struggling to find a suitably dull alternative for the word 'beige'. Some colour names definitely seem to suit their respective shades, rather in the way that there can sometimes be an uncanny resemblance between owners and their pets. I should know about these things: many years ago, my Shetland Sheepdog won a green rosette in an exemption dog show class for coming third in the contest for 'pets who look most like their owners'!

Poetry Form Challenge (1) Cornish Sonnet

The sonnet, as I understand, became a part of the poetry scene in English under the influence of Thomas Wyatt in the early 16th century.

I came across the Cornish Sonnet for the first time today, and am in the process of trying out the form. Can anyone tell me anything about 'early' Cornish sonnets?

The Cornish Sonnet is purported to be a hybrid of English and Arab writing that found its form in the eighteenth century. It would be good to be able to back this statement up with some evidence!

The rhyme scheme has two alternative patterns:

A, b, a, c, b, c - D, e, d, f, e, f - A, D

where capitals stand for lines that will be repeated in the closing couplet, and where other repeated letters stand for lines that share an end-rhyme e.g. 'e' and 'e' or 'A' and 'a'. The dashes represent the breaks in the flow of the text.

or

a, b, a, c, b, C - d, e, d, f, e, F - C, F.

• The Cornish Sonnet form on (or in) The Poet's Garret
  

Blogspotting (2): Galumphing

Left: a lamp in the Cathedral Close at St Davids, Pembrokeshire, Wales, UK. The reflection makes me think of Narnia and Mr Tumnus.

Galumphing: the title alone is a curious one, and it comes from The Jabberwocky poem by Lewis Carroll. It is the 'other' Lewis (C.S. Lewis), however, who features most prominently in this blog, along with a few others such as Tolkien, Homer and Shakespeare!

The blog belongs to Jeremy W. Johnston, a teacher of English and Classical Studies (two of the three subjects I trained to teach as part of my Exeter PGCE back in the 1980s).

On the subject of Tolkien, you might like to take a look at the blog entry for 18 August, entitled The Annotated Hobbit. I was particularly drawn to the words of Horace on the subject of reading and re-reading. If I really like a book, I like to read and re-read it. Do you?

Johnston highlights an interesting point about the etymology of Bilbo's name. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and Lewis Carroll were all masters when it came to making up names for their characters. How often do we attempt to create new words? In my craft class last week, I tried to think of a term I could use to describe my new technique of turning a photograph into an abstract greeting card design. I am not quite there yet ...

Johnston mentions Homer, and I was reminded of how much I fell in love with the tale of Odysseus as a result of a child's version of The Odyssey. Perhaps that was why I went on to read Classical Studies for my degree. You might be interested to read an article by By George Elliott Clarke about the universality of the Homeric themes in the Chronicle Herald.

Blogging at Bay Lit: Shock of the New

I can hardly believe that I began this blog back in May. It has been a fascinating journey of discovery so far, on account of the people - fellow poets and others - I have met along the way. I have become very interested in other literary blogs and in the ways in which fellow bloggers choose to showcase events, to display images and to incorporate podcasts, special effects etc.

I am something of a technophobe: it takes me a long time to grasp procedures. I tell myself that it is because I am left handed and like to think 'out of the box'.

I had a mailing from academi at the weekend, and noticed that Yemisi Blake, an 'Emerging Artist in Residence' at the Southbank Centre in London is due to lead a workshop on 'The Creative Art of Blogging' as part of the Cardiff Bay Lit Festival in October. I hope to pick up some new ideas and to have my 'blogging vision' stretched!

Photo: the Millennium Centre, Cardiff taken by David Gill

Riddles in the Sand

I stumbled across this Sphinx in the sand at Newgale in Pembrokeshire some days ago. There was also a rather fine pyramid. Both works of art were about to fall victim to the sea as it raced up the beach.

I couldn't help thinking of Ozymandias ...

I was also curious to discover how many poems I could call to mind concerning both the sphinx of Egypt and the sphinx of Oedipus and Theban mythology.

Oscar Wilde, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Sophocles come immediately to mind.

Costa competitors

It seems that we live in a world in which characters like Noddy triumph over Othello and Hamlet. The poll at the Costa Book Awards has raised some eyebrows, but one is left wondering whether the results for the nation's favourite authors would have been totally different if a larger section of the population had been asked to cast a vote.

Poetry: the art and craft of writing

Right: the Lighthouse Keeper's Cottage on the tiny island of Eilean Bàn, under the Skye Bridge, where Gavin Maxwell lived and wrote.

Like Sylvia Bardell, I enjoy poems about poetry, but I also recognize that with such masterpieces in mind as In my craft or sullen art by Dylan Thomas, it can be hard to write on this subject with an original and authoritative voice.

It would be interesting to know whether most of us love these 'poetry poems' or whether we would pass over them for others. Is it, perhaps, all down to which individual poems happen to speak to us, regardless of subject? I know Mary Biddinger, for one, is not keen on poems about poems.

I love to visit places associated with writers, and to see their desks and pens. Many modern writers scribble notes on till receipts; but how many of us still prefer to write our drafts in long-hand, thereby allowing our thoughts to flow from brain to arm to hand to paper - without interruption? I use notebooks (and till receipts) and a tiny dictaphone; but when it comes to writing a first draft, I love to sit at my computer. I may not watch for mermaids (which is what the Reverend R.S. Hawker of Morwenstow reputedly did on occasions when there were no shipwrecks); but I love to peer over my screen and to know that the sea is 'out there', with rhythms of its own.

Incidentally and in connection with Eilean Bàn, we remember Maxwell as a prose writer; but his title, Ring of Bright Water originated as a string of words in a poem, The Marriage of Psyche, by Kathleen Raine.


P.S. On the subject of writers' rooms (see comment by Susan Richardson below), how about a poem about a writer's drawer?

Global Poetry Prompt Appreciation Day

It's official: thanks to the folk at the word cage, we can all join in with their prompts and festivities.

The poem to the left is a first draft, taken from one of the prompts given by Mary Biddinger. The given words were: rubric, furrow, torch, balm and orchid.

The text will enlarge if you click on it.

P.S. August 15: I have just left a link to this poem on the 'Pen-me-a-poem' site for the Olympic games prompt.

Ekphrasis - in reverse

I made an earlier post about ekphrasis, thinking in terms of poems inspired by art. Tim Murdoch has posted an interesting piece on his blog, The Truth about Lies, on art arising out of poems. I particularly like the definition of painting and poetry by Simonides of Kos.

• Another take on ekphrasis: I came across an intriguing site Photo Link Love, which matches photographs with poetry.
  

From David Thomas
Caroline. Hi. Thanks for stopping by. You all have got me thinking. All the poetry I have written comes from photos I have taken. But the notion of maybe writing poems or even some short fantasy prose work based on a famous work of art.. Hmm. That might be an interesting exercise. [Davidnotes].

National Poetry Prompt Appreciation Day: tomorrow!

See The Word Cage. How do you plan to celebrate the day?

It seems to me that there is no reason why poets in Olin Hall should have all the fun. The ripples have already reached Wales, UK - so perhaps this can be the Global PPAD!

Peter Piper

It's official: alliteration is good for the brain! Information thanks to Newindpress - Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.

Small Stones (& Poetry Pebbles)

Fiona Robyn is collecting 'small stones'. Take a look and see if you can 'find' any.

Children in Alexandria, Louisiana at the Tree House Children's Museum are being asked to make 'poetry pebbles' ...

from the field book

Right: Chough in Pembrokeshire (taken with a zoom lens).
Copyright Caroline Gill 2008

How many of you enjoy poems about birds? For some of us, our acquaintance with birds in poetry began with Edward Lear's splendid, if distinctly unconventional, owl in the pea-green boat. More recently I have fallen in love with some of the poems by Edward Thomas: his owl poem is particularly poignant.

If like me, you enjoy the flutter of feathers as you turn the pages of a poetry volume, I would thoroughly recommend from the field book by Carol Thistlethwaite. The author speaks with authority when she writes about the 'slender hips' of the water rail and the 'straw-bent legs' of the avocet, for Carol has worked as a field teacher for the RSPB at the Ribble Discovery Centre.

from the field book is crammed, end to end, with the jizz on birds. Meadow pipits are to be found alongside the red-legged partridge, and pied wagtails perch opposite the wren. There are occasional illustrations: I particularly like the Common Tern, with its simplicity of line. This bird pops up again on the cover, but you will need to look carefully to spot it!

snipe is a concrete poem: it literally covers the page. black-headed gulls, another concrete poem, is playful in tone. Poems of all shapes and sizes flit across the pages and somehow manage to fit between the covers of this delightful volume.

The final poems encompass the theme of darkness: we encounter the striking image in Barn Owl of the 'phantom with the weight of life hooked in its claws'. This creature could hardly bear less resemblance to his benign cousin, the 'elegant fowl', who sang to his 'small guitar'!

If you would like to experience the jizz for yourself, you might like to buy the book!

• from the field book blog
  

• from the field book (for sale at BeWrite Books)
  

• WorldCat

On the nature of poetry ... and poetry huts (& sheds)

Definitions of poetry intrigue me. As soon as poetry is pinned down, it has a habit of slithering its way out of its straitjacket, or so it seems to me. I have decided that it would be revealing to blog links to articles that include some of these definitions. So here goes:

Poetry and the Possible by John J. Ronan, Poet Laureate, Gloucester, Massachusetts. From Wicked Local Gloucester, Mon 28 July 2008. The letter includes quotations from:

1. Edward Arlington Robinson
2. Carl Sandberg
3. Mark Twain

P.S.

• I rather like Scott Naugle's poetry definition (or observation) in The Sun Herald.
• I also like the Reverend Gideon Cecil's description in his letter about Martin Carter, National Poet of Guyana: 'One of the delights of Carter’s poetry is its rendering of profound philosophical thoughts locked in magnificent imagery.' From Letter to the Editor in the Stabrook News. Tues 5 Aug 2008.
• There are some good 'poetry definition' nuggets in this piece of advice for poets in Africa from Anis Haffar. The writer refers to Albert Camus, the Nobel laureate, reminding us that we are “obliged to understand rather than to judge”.
• Does poetry matter?
  

P.P.S. We often thinks of monks scribbling away in hermit cells, but poets like reclusive places, too. Here are some fascinating writing places ...

• The Travelling Poetry Hut, featured in CBS 3 Springfield News.
• Parson RS Hawker's cliff top 'driftwood writing hut' at Morwenstow, Cornwall, UK. Property of the National Trust.
  
• The writing shed at Laugharne in Wales, UK, where Dylan Thomas wrote his poetry. The original doors are in the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea.
  

Animated Poetry

I read an article by Nigel Kendall in the Times Online, and went to the link at the end of it. See what you make of Ana Marie Uribe's 'anipoems' (aka animated poems) ...

What would the Reverend R.S. Hawker have made of these mermaids?

Buchan: contre v. counter ... & one 'n' or two?

Right: the shores of Fife

Those of you who have visited my blog before, will know that I am a John Buchan fan. My husband, David, has been writing on British archaeologists who were working for military intelligence during WW1. He asked me to proof-read his latest chapter, and I queried the term contre-espionage, which he had spelled with one 'n' (i.e. one 'n' in espionage).

Imagine my amusement when we discovered that according to the OED, one of the early references is to be found in John Buchan's novel, Mr. Standfast (1919). Take a look at chapter XIII, The Adventure of the Picardy Château. (p.281 in my Nelson 1948 edition).

The quotation is as follows:

A sensible man would have gone off to the contre-espionage people and told them his story.

The OED advocates the use of contre-espionnage, but apparently it is quite in order to use counter-espionage.

The plot of Mr Standfast concerns the Ottoman Empire in WW1. One of Buchan's contacts was David Hogarth, the former Director of the British School at Athens, who was in charge of the Arab Bureau in Cairo. The term contre-espionage was used by Frederick W. Hasluck, a member of Hogarth's team in Athens.