Today Adrienne introduced her Memories of Kindness practice with a poem "The Gift" by Rabindranath Tagore
Bev took a writing prompt from the poem "Binsey Poplars" by Gerard Manley Hopkins
these aspens dear
Writers were invited to invoke their own special trees (or anything else) and find a positive approach to the timelessness of their memory. We also tapped the knowledge of some our literary professionals on screen to explore the transition to free verse that took place in the 21st century - just look through our chat! This exploration was prompted by the current dramatisation of
Patrick Gale's "Mother's Boy", currently being broadcast on BBC
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And now for some of
YOUR WRITING:
inspired by Rabindranath Tagore's Gift & Gerard Manley Hopkin's Binsey Poplars
by Kate Ritchie
as days slide down the side of
this man-made world
I’ve become an absence
clawed by seas gnawed by waves
no more miserable mornings
monthly menstruations
mysterious mucous mess or
menopause
my womb a subterranean room
a long-ago garden
filled with wilted wreathes
where ghosts now float &
gems have lost their lustre
so I marvel at what flowed from
Forugh’s ink-stained hands
her blood-stained words
all love & lust
a sorceress
punished for her passion
but her voice her name remain
a gift a friend a right
a light whose lamp will never dim
 |
| Kate's Roses |
Roses
by Kate Lindsay
my roses dear first grew
when my mother was near
her essence heralded
by their heady heavy blooms
this year, each tiny thorn pricking
the pain that’s ever there
reminding us
we have her courage
when facing our fear
My Woods dear
My Woods dear
by Bonbon
My Woods dear
My secret place
With change - came new!
My Woods dear so dear to me
The winding paths that take me on my daily wanders
The smells rise up to tickle my nose, the earth, its woody soil, wild garlic and trees, all stop me in my tracks to breath in life around me
I smile and look up to the sky, and then laugh , thinking that if id been seen by a stranger how crazy id appear, but that only makes me smile and laugh again
This daily, weekly growth makes my woods a new joy each journey as my feet take me a wandering , Deer stalking, owl watching, or chatting to twitchers, photographers or dog walkers like me , It turns a good day into a happy and special day
Alone in my woods, but never alone as I’m surrounded by the sounds and smells of Mother Nature who wraps her arms around me every day.
 |
| Bev's Limes |
My Limes Dear
by Cap’n Bev
These towering two limes at the back of our house
are just five feet short of our garden. They wantonly rooted
in the recreational ground, the “reckie”,
so I could not say nay if the council should come one desperate day
to cut them and stump them and take them away
lest they or their branches should windily fall
on a phone line, a fence or a roof.
But the trees don't care. They wave their boughs through the air
in a ballroom of blue or a blur of rain grey,
and in winter take turns to sprint or delay
in the losing or leafing, their great goodness of green
so sharing their feeding deep down in the brown
of the ground, in the sand and the clay.
Some mornings, if we rise in the soft part of dawn,
it seems they stretch out with the gentlest of reach
to touch, to twindle at the very edge of their form
to hold branches in secret then silent let go.
They busy themselves with the blow and the grow,
the doing of trees till the tryst of the dawn is lost in the rush
and we wonder if we dreamt it in the blur of the mist.
 |
| Linda's homage to one of Charles Goodrich’s poems ‘Vacuuming Spiders’ |
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Thanks to you all ...
... for your heartening feedback as always!
Aileen: aw sorry to hear you are not well Angie
Kay: sorry angie hope you'll be ok kx
Britt: Good that you've been able to find your own way to be here, Angie. Hope you feel better soon.
Angie: thank you xx
Doreen: What is free verse?
Aileen: poems without a particular structure that they stick to
Doreen: Thanks Aileen
Jo: google ... how to write a free verse poem: writing poetry without fixed form
Maggie: 'The Poetry Toolbox' is currently required reading in 'Poetry and Poetics' at Uni. of Glasgow. I would not particularly recommend it, but it is useful when looking at different genres of poetry.
Maggie: Correction - re - book title. It is 'The Poetry Toolkit', Rhian Williams, publisher Bloomsbury. Therein (p. 124)regarding 'Forms' - FREE VERSE' is defined as: 'Poetry arranged according to content and rhetoric and not by rules of metre or rhyme'.
Joyce: thank you Adrienne xx
Giovanna: thanks Adrienne ❤️
Doreen: Sorry my camera was on through out mindfulness
Doreen: I second Giovanna thanks
Sheila: Thank you Adrienne
Adrienne: ❤️
Giovanna: Hi all, I would suggest The Poetry Toolkit too, for simply having somewhere to spring off from if you like to look back before you write forward. .
Giovanna: There's also James Fenton's An introduction to English Poetry, which is far friendlier and has plenty to say in a digestible way.
Giovanna: I really love the Nine Arches book The Craft, which features a series of essays by contemporary writers on poetic forms/making poems/poetic craft meeting real life and more. These are written by working writers and I got more from this book that the two above.
Giovanna: I'm off topic a little now but really wanted to recommend If you want to Write by Brenda Ueland (which I will return one day Aileen, I promise) and the newly published So Long as You Write by Dear Damsels. Both are full of open-armed welcome to the new and aspiring writer and make you feel like you can do this! Giov
Aileen: Haha I totally forgot I lent that to you Giovanna
Maggie: Thanks Giovanna, I hope to explore these friendly recommendations. (And agree, that The Poetry Toolkit' might be suggested as somewhere to spring off from)
Giovanna: I’m slightly mortified Aileen! 😳
Giovanna: Bev, I say you in person the other night and you looked wonderful!
Aileen: it's ok, it was intended as a long term loan
Britt: And this actually dovetails nicely with another point I wanted to make about the transition to free form poetry: I once heard from a very talented poet that, as a teacher of English, etc., she thought the only people who were allowed to write poetry legitimately were the likes of Shakespeare, etc. so she had never allowed herself to write poetry. But clearly, poetry is much richer without the structures and strictures. Thank goodness for free form opening and inclusion and all the rich voices in poetry!!
Giovanna: Thank goodness Aileen!
Fenella: Bev you should visit glen Affric! I was there this week. And try Scotland the big picture later!
Giovanna: CCCCCCC
Joyce Nicholson: inchnadamph bone caves in Assynt have bones of Arctic fox, wolf, lynx, brown bear and even Polar bear xx
Giovanna: oooooooh
Britt: this is so interesting. How good wildness is for everything...
Giovanna: Linda - “the clouds peer even closer, I can't find my umbrella to shield me from what's to come”
Britt: we're so glad you're here, Linda!
Giovanna: Can you put that in the chat Britt? Please?
Britt: I'll try!!!
Giovanna: Lesley - “so many creatures whoop…..”
Britt: wow- I love the rhymes!!!
Giovanna: Kate - the rhyming! Oh gads this is beautiful
Linda Sandeman: Thank you everyone for your encouragement xxx
Giovanna: I'd love to see/hear/read that again Kate
Lesley: Beautiful Kate.
Giovanna: Doreen - “I also reach the window on their world” “that I fear to face without my shield”
Britt: so many lovely lines, Doreen. arch and ache. and links throughout the poem.
Britt: bravery grows bravery.
Linda Sandeman: So pleased it helped Doreen xxx
Giovanna: Jo Beth - “like a fly shut in the mind, desperately looking to escape" “someone shows them kindness”
Giovanna: Britt - “solutions that do not solve" wonder what comes into the quiet"
Aileen: beautiful
Britt: Jo- epic!
Giovanna: Jo - “cities old arboreal might”
Britt: I hope everyone submits their pieces for the blog. I want to read them all again.
Giovanna: Cath - “only the silence feels its presence"
Britt: definitely need to see that one again, Cath!
Giovanna: Mike - “so kindness came alive" “what is kindness without gentleness”
Britt: Mike- LOVED THAT. An instruction in kindness.
Aileen: their beauty lies in the wilting
Britt: i need that on my wall.
Denise: Beautiful piece, Mike. The deep dark mud of time and hope and love.
Giovanna: I'll need to leave in 5 all, work calls. Sorry to miss anyone's words
Denise: Lovely rhythm too , Mike.
Aileen: So powerful Giovanna
Denise: Very honest, very real
Giovanna: I really do need to go, I will hover as long as I can but thank you all so much
Giovanna: Denise - “to winter bare, when only sculptures finger air" all so gorgeous!!
Britt: Denise- wow!
Lesley: Beautiful Denise, loved the rhythm too
Giovanna: Joyce - "the radical nature of inter-being, welcome them all in with gratitude"
Denise: confiscate and eviscerate your planning!
Lesley: loved the rhymes Joyce
Denise: kindness as the great undoing - all fabulous
Giovanna: Helen - “a sacrement and ours to bestow” beautiful words
Britt: Gosh, I need to read all of these again!!
Denise: the song that calls me back to..
Giovanna: Aileen - "sometimes getting lost is part of the process" it's like a holiday listening to you
Giovanna: Maggie - “lost branches of kindness"
Lesley: wow, Aileen, loved that..the contrast of the water finding it's on path with our own path...all beautiful
Giovanna: Another wonderful morning, thank you everyone 🥰
Yvonne: Thank you everyone - xxx
Kay: absolutely beautiful thankyou everyone kx
Jan: My line has dropped. Sorry not to hear the others reading.... Please thank everyone for me.
Thanks to funders
Lapidus Scotland gratefully acknowledges the support of Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership's "Wellbeing for Longer in Glasgow Fund" (managed by Impact Funding Partners).
