Over-wintering

They came back so quietly. Together in as much as they shared the same air, rushing over the same turn of the earth. But this isn't together. This is being born at the same point in time when a bible doesn't get written, or an extinction doesn't occur, even in the undergrowth quietly. They are togther as two continents tearing apart slowly. She circles the ground looking to land, running out of fuel and banking into the wind. He stares up too busied with others, fuelled every night. But the answer why is never clear - waving hands dismiss it, sideways glances demarkate the no-fly zone. I raise my hands to the air everytime as if to say swans don't divorce, but it seems these days they do.

When I'm successful, I will....

Everyone has their aspirations, their writing goals, what they believe will make them feel like they've succeeded - mine is to earn enough money from it to fund a trip to this cave of crystals and to be able to walk around it alone without screaming kids, bored tour guides or women in inappropriately high heels. This would be heaven.

blogging from bed

Marie Laurencin - Portrait of Mademoiselle Channel

I saw this painting last week and was really mesmerised by the eyes of the woman. They look so full of emotion. A real stand-out feature of the picture. The colours are nice too, but those eyes! I wish I could write with as much emotion as Marie Laurencin could paint with a few brush strokes.

I have no justification for blogging from bed. But it's cosy and I can admire the hoovering I did yesterday and the picture I framed - an Art Nouveau exhibition poster from Musee D'Orsay bought last week - lovely.

While I am here I will read Luke Kennard's collection The Harbour Beyond The Movie which I bought yesterday from Preston Waterstones. Seems it has quite a good poetry section and my sadness about Borders can now be alleviated slightly.

I have also been reading Annie Clarkson's blog featuring today, her cat! I've always considered myself a dog person though I've never had one, and have had cats (!) but this post made me wish I had one pressed against my legs right now. Typical Annie blog, uplifting and thought inspiring even when she's talking about challenging personal stuff (except for the cat post which is out and out adoration for her cat) From what I've read she's in the right job.

Right now, I am very much in need of finding some angle for the prose poetry. I write it but with no idea what to do with it and if it's any good. I think I could tighten it up a lot more if it had some general direction. That's me, always a slave to purpose, in need of a solid route.

The Weather etc.

Last night after slaving over a new poem, I had a look at Pomegranate and the Christopher Tower poetry prize. What amazing young poets there are in this country! How heartening for them and thoroughly depressing for me. Still, I've been alive longer. Top trump!

Today I have been wondering about re-engaging with the geology roots in writing. I think I've been a bit reluctant, maybe even a bit embarrassed. I don't know why. When I say Geology I don't suppose I really mean it - I mean things that interested me in my first degree: microfossils, earthquakes, tsunami's, oil, pipelines, field locations, fast winds, circulations...not really rocks at all in fact. I suppose Meteorology features more. Anyhow, maybe I will stop fighting the urge and just go with it, we all have our influences after all.

Today the snow has gone. I don't think there will be any more snow themed writing. It's one of those things that is inspiring while it's there but once gone is forgotten in my mind and the only residual memory is of white. Just white. I don't have this with rain which is indelliby stained on my memory. No one loves rain unless it's tropical and warm or you're being kissed in it. Maybe I will campaign for rain from now on...give it some due.

The continuing horror of Haiti takes me back to how I felt after the Boxing Day Tsunami. One of the affected areas was one of my fieldwork locations and I wrote about it after. But it was a really awful piece of writing that didn't do justice to the aftermath. How can any writing really do a tragedy justice? I don't think it can. It can probably only 'document'. Whenever these stories happen I rush to find out the size of the earthquake, read some of the journal papers that are quick to be released giving specifics of epicentres etc. There is some pull to need to know, tally and record. Compare. The long days of news watching, taking in all the photos and testimonies. I always wish I could do more because giving money never feels like enough. At the end of the day I go to bed and am just so grateful that I don't live on a plate margin, or over the Ring of Fire, embarrassed that while hundreds of thousands sleep in the streets, we can't even find ways to make our roads less slippery. We can prepare for nuclear fallout but we grind to a halt when there is frozen water. Our world makes no sense.

random complaint that has become unavoidable now

Why does every poet feel the need to use the word...

askance

I have read it so much recently. I hate the word. It's overused. What's wrong with 'sideways'.

Making a tiny book and a bigger book

What a lovely idea this is by Jill Magi. I would love to try this, but who would I give it away to that wouldn't laugh and roll their eyes? I can only think of about two people. Is two ok I wonder.

Today I have discovered chocolate Yop and a load of competitions I should really try for. I have also been wondering about poetry collections. If you have an overarching theme which is a bit, shall we say, taboo - how do you go about doing it in a manner that is subtle and reflective rather than reactionary and cathartic?

2010...how futuristic that seems

No resolutions for me. I beat myself up on a regular basis as it is. I'll be glad to just get through with no major illness, having written a little and still in possession of all my loved ones.

2009 was a great year for female singer songwriters. Bat For Lashes and Florence + The Machine are high on my most often played list. Long may they wail. I have discovered Amazon wishlists finally for all my booky wants. This is keeping my mind clearer from the panic of forgetting which books I would like to read. I have developed an engrossing new pastime of doing Jigsaws. This is quite embarrassing but I don't have enough followers to worry about widespread exposure. I have been drawn to finish one featuring Siberian Tigers. Consumed all my free moments. Given me eye strain and my dream fragments on waking are now jigsaw shaped. Then I am told it's Chinese Year of The Tiger, and suddenly it all feels ok. I have, however, just discovered that you can get Victoria Frances artwork as jigsaws. This will invariably turn me fully into an addict within the next month or so.

Ah, the creative ways I have found to distract myself from the business of writing! The MA new term starts next week, and I am grappling around for something to workshop. Prose poems I think. But are they any good? I honestly don't know, but best find out now. I also need to write an 800 word travel writing essay in the hope of winning a 10-day safari to Zambia. Worth a punt. I even have an idea! Shock.

I am going to set myself one writing target for the new year - to draft at least one new poem and prose poem every two weeks. I tend to work in flurries, writing 3 in a week and then nothing claiming it's just the way i work best but I want to get serious and write regularly regardless, I should be doing this for classes anyway, but I have been able to rely on my 'back-catalogue' to prop me up in quiet weeks, but I don't want to have that dependency this year. It's lazy. I also must submit more work. I keep saying I will and then I don't. How long will I keep making excuses.