Tag: bromley house library

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Literature Nottingham Uncategorised Women’s writing

And then there was change so profound, I stopped.

I have remembered that I have a Blog! In looking at it now I cannot believe it is two years since I attended to it – two COVID-ridden world years that is. Those good intentions in January 2020. Looking back, my words seem quite visionary themselves, discussing survival and the need for changes…

The fact that I have only just returned says something about how the Covid pandemic impacted. Yes, I have been writing, but in frantic bursts as if my life depended on it, as a record of events, messages of hope and desperation, songs of love and calls to arms. The measured daily writing I had planned seemed unattainable, as just when the dust settled and some semblance of normality appeared on the horizon, we were told we must retreat into our homes and await the onslaught. Somehow poetry is now a vein that connects me to my only source of sustenance and I react to the ebb and flow of creativity whenever I wake from my hibernation, before slumping back into the body which craves a cocoon against the uncertain seasons ahead.

All of which is a way to admit, no, I have not written a poem a day, nor submitted once a month. I am holding on to this world in any way I can , just as we all have to try and in doing so I find a deeper connection with the natural world, with the poetry of everyday .

I will write more over the coming months about what I have been up to, but just wanted to note that creativity lives, it thrives and it sustains us all. In these really hard times it may be all we can cling to.

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Concrete Poetry at Bromley House Library

Photo by Janko Ferlic on Pexels.com

I have just returned from the historic members’ library on Angel Row, Nottingham. Contrary to the ethereal address, I was attending a workshop on concrete poetry facilitated by the grounded and warm Kate Genever. And there was cake. Sitting in a book- lined room in an 18th century townhouse full of words proved to be the perfect surroundings for inspiration.

Alan Sillitoe’s personal library beckoned. It does not necessarily reflect his Angry Young Men label, being refreshingly sprinkled with reading material as diverse as An Edwardian Lady’s Diary,  a Jane Austen Memoir and a book on Pioneer Women.  I feel doubtful that his most famous character, Arthur Seaton would settle down with such bedtime reading.  It seems that the Jane Austen tome was a gift from his publisher and as I grapple with it, a hand written note drifts out , hoping Alan will like it and talking about repression and the irony of writing. The irony is enough to galvanise me to write a poem, “ The Life of Pioneer Women” .

Back to the concrete. I should have read the definition before I went :

” poetry in which the meaning or effect is conveyed partly or wholly by visual means, using patterns of words or letters and other typographical devices”

Kate patiently explained and demonstrated the form, yet still I heard only “Poetry” and was in equal parts befuddled and inspired by my fellow participants concrete efforts. I should have been cutting, drawing, glueing, modelling, forming and shaping. A rabbit hole of writing swallowed me whole and words were set down on a pristine page. Perhaps it was because I had walked in with Anne Frank’s line ringing in my ears: “ Paper has more patience than people…”

Bromley House is a house of dreams and words leapt out at me from each book I held. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, I will chisel away at them to sculpt something special.