Things to not do at a book launch

So, Wednesday (1st October 2014) was the day of my first official book launch. I mean a book which I'm actually in, rather than just knowing someone who wrote it.
The book is 'Furies: A Poetry Anthology of Women Warriors' and you can buy it here with all profits from sales (a minimum of £5 per book) going to Rape Crisis England and Wales.

So Plumb and I decided to head along to The Star of Kings in London, where the event took place.
However, I made some errors. Namely:

1. I drank loads of red wine and didn't eat anything. Cue overly loud laughing and extreme chatterbox.
2. I accidentally stole one of the other poet's books - she was handing it around for the poets to sign and it was left on my table. It was handed to me and I stuck it in my bag without even thinking. I discovered I had both copies later on that night. Luckily, she signed my book so I am currently in the process of trying to get hold of her contact details.
3. I almost fell off a lock - don't try to cross canal locks in heels whilst drunk.
4. I misspelt 'thanks' when signing the publisher's copy.
5. I couldn't remember my own email address when asked for it.
6. I may have danced along in the beer garden to some freestyle rap by 'Random Renee'.

However, I did do some things right too:

1. Randomly bump into a friends of mine and Matt's from Glastonbury, who then came along to the launch and then let us hang out on her awesome house boat.
2. Met lots of really cool people, including a few who know people that I know - thus reinforcing the 'small world-ness'.
3. Went to bed as a reasonable time so, for once, I wasn't hungover. Huzzah!

But it was a really good night and such a good experience, it felt lovely to be involved in something which is raising money for such an amazing cause. I felt truly humbled.

Here are some photos from the night:



A representative from Rape Crisis made a moving speech



Becky (on the right) did her undergrad at Cardiff, where I am studying now

 

Jane Bradley from For Book's Sake introducing the poets and speakers

 

Amy and I with a copy of the collection (this is her picture which I totally stole).

 

The view from the canal bar.

 


The inside of my mind at the end of the night.
 

 My first publication is now out - I wonder where I'll be heading next.

Creative Responses to Dementia

So, as part of this event which was held at the MADe Gallery in Roath by Creative Reponses to Dementia and Making Minds, I was asked to write and read some words inspired by my experience with dementia.

I chose to write a poem about my work as a carer with adults with dementia and a more personal piece of prose about my grandfather.

Here's me reading for the first time as an invited writer:

 

 

 

Here's the poem :

 

 

 

Your Husband

 

A key-lock used to enter,

family photos on the wall,

we check in to on-call service

from the guest phone in the hall.

 

We know where he’ll be sitting,

his care plan and routine,

we know his pills and creams and times

and how he takes his tea.

 

To us he’s Mr Davies

but to you he is just ‘dear’,

or Daddy, Dad or Grandad,

and other names throughout the years.

 

A commode where once were golf clubs,

a dry-pad on his seat,

button alarm around his neck,

catheter bag between his feet .

 

There are tanks outside his window,

there is a man under his bed.

There’s things he sees that we cannot,

the things inside his head.

 

The tanks turn into rubbish trucks,

the man just goes away,

he wonders what we did with him,

he marvels at your name.

 

I know you’re stood outside the door,

to watch me as I care,

as I wipe him, wash him, dress and clean,

you know I know you’re there.

 

So when he says I’m pretty,

or that I’m nice and tall,

I know that you know that he doesn’t know,

 that he doesn’t mean it at all.

 

 

And here is the piece about my grandfather:

 

 

A Boat for One

 

The last time I saw my grandfather, he didn’t know who I was.

To him, I was just another one from the stream of strange faces who came to wash him, dress him, help him go to the toilet.

‘That girl’, he’d call me, ‘that nice young girl’.

Of course I’d just snap straight back into my carer role – guide him to his comfy chair, change his pad, reassure him when I found him wandering the house at night.

I’d be woken by him clattering his zimmer frame into the wooden doors. ‘Hello?’ he’d say, ‘hello?’ Pyjama-clad I’d rush downstairs, ‘Hi Jim’, I’d say.

I’d never called him Jim before.

‘It’s ok, you’re at home’.

 I’d then tuck him back into bed.

I couldn’t see much of what I remembered – the man with the wicked sense of humour who could make anything out of wood, who insisted on going to Ogmore beach every time we visited, completely irregardless of the weather, and had his own special pint glass behind the bar at his local.

Perhaps he was still down there somewhere, smothered by the huge knitted jumpers which used to fit, but now just pooled on the chair around him. They hung as if draped over a scarecrow, his shoulders empty boughs, his knuckles; gnarled oak.

Moth picked and aged, there were too many holes to hold in the straw.

I could see it as it fell through the air, its motes catching golden in the light. I saw it collect in drifts along the floor; heaped memories. Unaware of its significance he stuck to his cleared path, his shambling gait exposing the carpet.

‘I want my wife, Kay, my wife’, he’d say to me, over and over, as I helped him dress.  Momentarily I’d rise to it, ‘I know’ I’d think, ‘I know who she is, that’s my name too.’

But then I’d remember.

And then I’d forget.

‘Pleasantly muddled’, we’d say, ‘Away with the fairies’. An affectionate term, a positive spin.

There wasn’t much else we could do – no emergency brake, no miraculous antidote, no rip cord, no life ring to thrown out to him.

So, together we stood on the shore and waved and smiled as he drifted out in the current. And when he was way out on the horizon, we lifted our arms high in the air to show him we were still watching, were still there. And that even when he couldn’t see us anymore, we could still see him. Still knew him.

He sailed away in a boat for one and we watched him go.

‘That girl’, he said, ‘that nice young girl’.

 

 

x

 

 

 

 

 

 





Literature Wales Poetry Workshop

So, on St David's Day we headed to Neath to attend a day of poetry performances and workshops funded by Literature Wales and Seren Books - all for £7!
Gillian Clark (The National Poet of Wales) also did a reading of some of her poems (two of which I absolutely loved) and a book signing.

Here's one of the poems that really moved me: Miracle on St Davids Day


I really enjoyed the day and it definitely inspired me to write more poetry.

I chose to attend a workshop by Rhian Edwards about bridging the gap between page and performance poetry. She gave us this exercise:

Think of an emotion, without naming it give it a (non-cliché):

• Colour
• Texture
• Smell
• Sound
• Effect on the body
• Animal
• Visual

(not necessarily in that order)

So this was mine:

It is a pearlescent sheen,

the scent of money,

it's copper smell,

a knot on smooth.

It trickles almost imperceptibly

a gradual waterboard.

It stifles and suffocates,

a gnawing worm, 

it's holes left gaping. 

 

 

(Answer at the bottom)

 

 

The next workshop was with Paul Henry and focused on writing from memory.

 

He encouraged us to fill a page with words and sentences inspired by the phrase, 'The first house I lived in'. We then read through the following poem together and then wrote our own inspired by it.

 

The Self-Unseeing by Thomas Hardy  

Here is the ancient floor,

Footworn and hollowed and thin,

Here was the former door

Where the dead feet walked in.

She sat here in her chair,

Smiling into the fire;

He who played stood there,

Bowing it higher and higher.

Childlike, I danced in a dream;

Blessings emblazoned that day;

Everything glowed with a gleam;

Yet we were looking away!

 

 

 

And this was mine:

 

 

 

Heol Y Coed

 

Here is the step where the dog sits,

stooping to peer through the clear, green frog

of the stained glass window,

an occasional eruptive bark,

pre-empting the doorbell.

Here is the bannister which I pushed my head through

and was stuck for what seemed like hours.

 

Here is the hall with its full length mirror,

which I cracked

with an ill-advised handstand.

Here is the kitchen door

through which I would listen to adult conversations

pyjama-clad after bed time.

It does little to blot out the noise.

 

Here is the kitchen table,

a stain or two from sodastream syrup.

Here is where they gathered en mass,

all high hopes and hair gel

before taxiing to town,

the dog's head left smelling of aftershave,

from many different hands.

 

Here is the garden,

with its lavender-lined patio.

A badminton net traversing the pre-chained daisies.

Here is the quince bush, heavy with

fat bumble bees

and crammed with owl and pussycat fruit.

 

Here is where we buried the guinea pig,

which the dog then dug up

 and brought inside.

 

 

 

The answer to the first poem was....envy!

Shipwreck Poem

There's a shipwreck called The Lucy off the coast of Pembrokeshire (near Skomer Island) which I dived a couple of years ago, you can find out some more information about it here.

I remember the day quite vividly as on the dive after this, a seal swam up to me and was playing with my fins for about 5 minutes, it was amazing! Then he swam to the surface and just floated there watching us - incredible.

This poem is actually inspired by the poem 'Inchape Rock' by Robert Southey, which was written in 1820. I remember hearing it as a child and was always struck by the imagery of the bell floating deeper and deeper. Creepy.

So here is my take; due to artistic licensing I left out the fact that once I got the surface, I was really seasick and puked and puked and puked.

So, without further ado (feel free to comment, I don't think you need to join anymore!):

Me in my dive gear on a different dive but you know, it sets the mood.

The Lucy

You tumble back into the waves,

forty metres down, Lucy waits.

She’s sat there since the 60s,

but you’ve never met before.

The hazard orange, floating bauble

sits as surface evidence,

of the hidden, deeper secrets

to which it is shackled.

Her name is scrawled across the buoy

that marks her final resting place,

which you’ll use to navigate to her

in the brimstone treacle depths.

So, you slip beneath the surface

where the warm sun cannot follow,

and from red the colours fade.

You plummet slow to shaded depths.

When you have no point of reference

your mind struggles for a mark,

to put its worried self at ease

amongst the silted, gravy water.

Imagined creatures spiral

in the gloom just out of view,

tantalising your periphery,

fabricating looming shadows.

Your left hand feeds the buoy line,

ripcord-taut against the tide,

its recurring jerks and bucks

warn of skyward rolling swell.

As you sink you feel the fingers

of a seeping thermo cline,

its slicing cold snips at the skin

that sits exposed around your mask.

You see the signal trail of bubbles

from your buddy just below,

this cyclic clue of exhalation

becomes a welcome sign of life.

Down here the only discord

is the rasping of your breath,

through the tanks and tubes and pipes

of your artificial lungs.

As you descend you check your gauge,

work out depth, air and direction.

Take out your torch, its blade of light

blunt insufficient in the smog.

And then,

Her rusted bow.

She seems so solid in the dark,

sat blinking from your torch,

in her nightgown of anemones

that soften all her corners.

The crab and wrasse and dogfish,

are her pelagic chaperone.

She’s tickled by Bristle star,

and flanked by hurried cuttles,

the sea fans hide her blush.

A lace of Dead Man’s Fingers.

In ascent I train my torch down,

to watch her evanesce.

Until she fades from my beam,

And shuts her eyes once more.

x

Steel Rimmed Glasses - a poem.

So this is a poem about Keith Bennett, the fourth victim of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, whose body has never been found.

You'll find more information about him and the other murders here.

The first verse is set just after Keith was dumped on the moor, and the surrounding nature is seeking to comfort him.

The second verse it about Keith's body resigning itself to the moors due to a loss of hope of ever being discovered.

So, tell me what you think....

Steel Rimmed Glasses

You found a hillock for a pillow

When they said they couldn’t find you,

And in the marsh laid down to rest

let the heath land slowly claim you.

Purple moor grass bent,

in murmured conspiracy.

The stagnant ponds and flushes

Seep underneath your chamber,

the tenderfooted bracken

weaves your comfort blanket.

The lichen covered boulders

form a mossy, cryptic cairn.

The rushes whisper in the wind

that they know where to find you.

You slowly sank into the earth

and shed your doughy flesh,

the perfect dome of your skull

holds your spotless, milky teeth.

The crowberry weaves its roots

into the hollows of your ribs.

Peat resides inside your head

fell through socket hollows

You came apart piece by piece

Mineral by mineral.

Your bones, bleached and brittle

are the only clue of you,

aside from steel rimmed glasses

which lie broken on your chest.

x

A p.o.e.m

This is a poem about how much Barney hates me:

The Notebook

My dog has a secret notebook,

which he hides in his bed,

inside he writes of many things,

Such as river dips and walks,

And lady dogs and cats,

And circumventing squirrels.

Anything like that.

I’ve never seen his notebook

But I know he writes

in it when nobody is looking.

Page upon page upon page

Of amusing anecdotes

And canine ruminations

In scratchy print.

I often feel him staring at me,

But when I look

he turns his head as if he wasn’t,

He’s thinking what to write

About me his in pad,

Scrawling my name

Over and over.

One time I tried to find it,

But he’d hidden it well.

And when he came back from the garden,

He eyed me suspiciously.

He hasn’t trusted me since.

Cakes and Sonnets. Why not?

Yes, I have been a tad slack with updating this but I had a particuarly joyous essay about Wordsworth to write and a couple of other equally as rousing tasks. So, back to it...

The first thing I'd like to show you is my cakes! I seemed to have evolved into the family 'go-to cake person', my other speciality making me the 'go-to family photographer'.

The cakes themselves are fairly simple, in most cakes a victoria sponge with jam, but the decorating is the fun bit! Here are some below (I'd like to point out that the childishness and unprofessional standard add to their charm...):

Chris' 29th - F1 Car

James' 6th Birthday - Pirate. Arrgghh!


 













Matthew's  33rd - The Millennium Falcon

Fun, eh? More to follow...

 

x

Poems, poets and poetry.

A couple of days ago, I was going through one of my deepest, darkest cupboards when I came across this little gem...

I actually remember putting this together, I obviously thought myself quite the laureate in Junior school. I don't know when I wrote them but there is a reference to Mrs Davies ,who was my year 4 teacher, which means I must have written them aged 9 or under.

I think I actually stood up in class and said that I would willingly include anyone elses poems (if they passed the rigorous selection process of course). However, funnily enough, no one submitted any. Undeterred by this propospterous lack of enthusiasm, I went on to produce the relic pictured, instead of what was supposed to be a class anthology.

As anyone who's anyone will tell you, I had the dizzingly monumental honour of being selected as the year 6 Bard of Rhiwbeina Primary (nee Junior) school in...1996? I got to sit on a big chair at the end of the Eisteddfod and wear a crown, a cape and hold a sceptre. I also got to lord it over everyone else for the remainder of the year. I think my pseudo superiority complex has dogged me since then, when you've tasted highs such as then, its hard to live a normal life again.

So, without further do, here is a selection of poems, typed exactly as they appear, from 'Jodie's Anthology':

Snow Dance

The pond froze up the ice grew thick,

The candle was down to the last of its wick,

The snow fell down in soft snow flakes,

And danced just above the solid ice lakes,

The land was covered in a blanket of white,

The dazzling brightness reflected the light,

The robins were hopping around on the ground,

To see if there were any scraps to be found,

I know that the snow is not here to stay,

But I wish it would last till Christmas Day.

The Moonlight Owl

It circled around till it perched on a tree,

With sharp yellow eyes it stared down at me.

It ruffled its feathers and prepared for a flight,

For a hungry young mouse was trapped in its sight,

It quickly bent down and stood silently still

And stretched its talons to prepare for a kill.

Then it swooped down and snatched at its prey,

There in its claws the dead creature lay.

Then it soared off as swift as a kite

And flew back home in the silver moonlight

The Dance of the Fire Devils

They danced and sang in the hot fireplace,

Like sly foxes in the twisted flame face,

Their eyes flickered like a sun in the night,

and from their fingers stream beams of bright light.

They danced and ran in a peculiar way,

Shining like replicas of the bright light of day,

They waved their thin arms in the thick grey smoke,

They're the selfish unkind vain sort of folk.

They never stop dancing or prancing about,
unless you put the coal fire out,
They're stiff and jagged like models of wire,
So remember the devils when you next light the fire.

(This one was actually published in the 'Calypso' poetry book, I have a copy here with some corkers from other students if you fancy some blackmail material)


and finally,


The Death Devil

He arrived at hell in a puff of smoke,
And compliments flew from his firey folk,
He prowls around in the streets at night,
To find those who have fought their fight
His eyes are pools of fire his twisted body red,
If he climbs through your window you'll soon be dead,
He takes no pity upon his helpless prey,
But has to leave before the first light of day,
He drops his cloak over you and your bed,
To take you to the land of the dead,
So if your life rings the criminal bell,
Prepare for the devil to take you to HELL!

Now, I don't know if anyone else noticed the recurrent devil/death/gothic theme to these poems but they do seem a tad depressing. I find this a bit of a conundrum seeing as I was brought up on a diet of Red Dwarf, Bottom and The Young Ones. 

It's funny how now I've come full circle and I'm back to attempting to writing poetry again, what an opportune time to find my childhood anthology! I think I was better then than I am now....

x