In Celebration of Wordsworth's Birthday

Outside Rydal Hall, next door to Rydal Mount ... some years ago

Today is William Wordsworth's birthday and the Wordsworth Trust have posted a selection of birthday tribute poems on their blog.

The Trust ran a competition on Twitter, which allows 140 characters per tweet, for poems of up to 140 words. My sonnet, 'A Forsaken Bird's-Nest' (named after a phrase in one of Wordsworth's sonnets), can be found here.

Fiesta Time: National Poetry Day Poetree Workshop

'... when the stars threw down their spears ...' 

William Blake

We gathered in Gainsborough Community Library in Ipswich for a National Poetry Day afternoon. The library had a Poetree in its foyer, and we were each invited to add a poetic leaf to the branches. Of course, we had to write the poems first!

It was soon time for a series of exercises designed to flex our poetic muscles. We played a kind of 'write a poem' version of Consequences, selecting words or phrases that could be incorporated into our own poetic offerings. So eventually, armed with ideas, words and phrases, we each selected a fine art picture ... and tried to harness our thoughts, ensuring that we had a brief but pretty well honed piece to transcribe onto our respective leaves.

Each person had been invited to bring and share a favourite poem, and we had the chance to say why our choices particularly appealed. I chose The Tyger by William Blake. It was one of the first animal poems to roar along into the poetic menagerie of my childhood. It is, I believe, a poem that can appeal to young and old alike. It celebrates the creative process, and you can almost hear the hammer banging away on the anvil as you read it aloud. Other selected poets included (among others) Eliot, Wordsworth and Yeats.

Poetree leaves, T.S. Eliot poems, pens, paper and coffee ...

... the leafy ingredients ...

... of much industry ...

We gathered by the Poetree ...

... to hang our leaves...

... on the green branches ...

... inside the green library building ...

... where a lot of fun ...

... was had by all!

This could be you!

Curio Corner (1): Plate Friday (well, almost)

Bone china trinket box from Tintern Abbey, Wales

When I read last night that Weaver was encouraging us to follow in the footsteps of Elizabeth (and her blog, About New York) by marking today as Plate Friday, I thought I should have a go at posting something. I don't collect plates, but I hope this small item of bone china will serve as an acceptable substitute.

I went through a phase as a young teenager of collecting cheap china - well, largely china - milk or cream jugs from bric-a-brac stalls, church bazaars etc. I think my interest was aroused initially by a small china urn full of honey. We were studying ancient Mediterranean cultures at school, and the shape of the urn (a miniature honeypot, I suppose) reminded me of the amphorae and pithoi from ancient Greece and of the exquisite bee earring made of gold from Minoan Crete.

The sad truth is that I no longer collect jugs (or stamps or coins), although I can never resist an interesting postcard. These days, I tend to be lured in to secondhand bookshops, but just occasionally an item other than a book will catch my eye. The little trinket box above was one such item.

I bought it at Tintern Abbey, and as you can just about see, it sits on our mantelpiece above the fireplace at home. Tintern is a couple of hours away, but it makes an excellent destination for a day out, particularly in the spring when the banks of the Wye are awash with snowdrops. Thoughts of Wordsworth are never far from my mind, and I have to think quite hard to imagine what the area must have been like BEFORE the poet penned his famous Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798.

'Wreaths of smoke' occasionally waft up from cottage chimneys to this day, but I doubt they emanate from the cave of a hermit, deep in the woods. With the advent of photography and the popularity of the snapshot, we began to think in terms of a moment or split-second captured in time or caught on film. These days we are becoming more accustomed to taking moving images. I find it fascinating that Wordsworth's heart did not stop beating (as in a snapshot moment), but that he recorded 'sensations sweet, / Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart'. Life pulsed through his poetic veins in tune with the rushing waters of the Wye. Wordsworth wrote his poem in blank verse, and it is (in my opinion) the iambic pentameters that imbue the piece with vitality - and become the vessels for the poet's wide-ranging thoughts and moods. Memory plays a key part in this piece and should never be underestimated.

Incidentally, I believe that the acorn in the photo is from the species, Turkey oak or Quercus cerris.

Plate Friday posts: Elizabeth at About New York is hosting this mini-carnival. You can find all the links at her blog. Do take a look. I wonder how many corners of the globe are represented.

• About New York
  
• The Weaver of Grass
• Crafty Green Poet
• Downunderdale (do look at the cat!)
  

Seasonal Spotlight on Aberglasney (1): June 2009

June at Aberglasney, the garden lost in time
and home of the poet, John Dyer,
Carmarthenshire, Wales, UK

'Hear the thrush, while all is still,
Within the groves of Grongar Hill'
John Dyer (d.1757)

I hope to post occasional seasonal photographs of these views of the garden:

• The House at Aberglasney (partly open to the public, often with exhibitions)
  
• The view from Aberglasney to Grongar Hill (the view from my favourite seat)
  
• The Upper Walled Garden (with Celtic design flowerbeds)
• The stream in Pigeon House Wood
  
• The Cloister Garden
• The stream in Bishop Rudd's Walk

Invertebrate Life

• Insect life on the edge of the pond in The Pool Garden (we have seen newts and an eel here: my photo of an eel at Aberglasney is here)
  

Bird life:

• Chaffinch
• Pied Flycatcher, I think (help appreciated here!) ... or Spotted Flycatcher?
  

Garden Plants

• Poppy
• Old fashioned rose (ah, the scent!)
• Iris

Wild flowers

• Orange Hawksbit (aka Fox and Cubs)
  
• Ox-eye Daisy
• Ragged Robin
• Buttercup

... and finally...

• Afternoon Tea on the Terrace.

And finally, for Aberglasney's literary links (Wordsworth, Gillian Clarke...), you may like to click here. I hope you have enjoyed your virtual visit to the garden.