Baring all

For all the years that I've been writing, complex issues have always been presented completely as metaphor. I shy away from writing about difficult subjects, as I don't want the reader to drown in misery.

But lately I've felt the need to write about losing my otherwise healthy mum prematurely to a nasty and very rare combination of cancers. Her death was a terrible one, and one that I would not wish on an enemy. It happened during 2020, which robbed her of life improving treatment, and those of us caring for her of the support that we so desperately needed. It was lonely and traumatising in so many ways. We buried her with ten of us present, scattered at distant intervals round a massive church. 

Potentially, it makes horrible reading, and who needs that?

Her loss has left me with deep scars, and a fear of what might lie waiting in my genes for me. My way out is usually to write about it. For three years I've coped as best I can, and it is now time. 

I'm facing demons and trying to speak up. I'm lucky enough to be able to test these words in supportive open mic nights, and it was lovely to have words of support from the brilliant Julia Webb, who is writing on some similar subjects, and who told me that it's so important to tackle these subjects, and that more needs to be said. Her affirmation was so valuable.

I've posted this extract from the latest poem before, but it has been let free now...

Day after day, while they came with

News that bloomed worse and worse,

I stood and trembled on my square of carpet,

Like a puppy about to pee.

How will I paint him,

When this ends?

Like me; enamelled on with the finest

Of brushes, only several hairs thick that paint

On a facsimile of a person that sits and

Stands and walks? 

And even talks when it has to

Troubadours Around Town

My little North Norfolk coastal town draws talent up into it like litmus paper. We have renowned artists and writers of all stripes, who have flocked here over the years and settled. Like an East Anglian St Ives. One of them is the poet Peter Pegnall. I've been lucky enough to read at his Bright Scarf poetry nights, which have toured around the world and have now settled on regular nights at the Belfry Centre for Music and Arts in Overstrand. 

For National Poetry Day this year, Bright Scarf took a different turn and put together a group of poets who have read at The Belfry over the past few years. We set off around Sheringham, forming a poetic flash mob to read at various points around town, finishing with a gathering at Sheringham Little Theatre. 

The theme of National Poetry Day this year was 'Refuge', but we also tried to read poems that were appropriate to the places in which we read. It was lovely and unusual, and exhausting. Both physically and emotionally. We startled folk by popping up and declaiming, then moving on. The event ended with a gathering at the Sheringham Little Theatre, with more poets and music.

I was footsore, windswept and inspired, and in need of a massive glass of wine!

Poetry and prose

Making the decision to be more candid; to write things out. Taking the good advice of fellow writers, I'm continuing a series of poems that addresses a very dark time in my life. This takes careful balancing: how to 'write it out' while not burdening your readers with your own misery. It's possible, I know. Lots of people do it.

Having made a start with 'Little Bird', and feeling that it hit the right notes, I'm continuing with 'We All Know How This Ends'. When you know you are to lose one parent, how do you cope with the one left behind? Extract...

Day after day, while they came with

News that bloomed worse and worse,

I stood and trembled on my square of carpet,

Like a puppy about to pee.

 

How will I paint him,

When this ends?

Like me; enamelled on with the finest

Of brushes, only several hairs thick that paint

On a facsimile of a person that sits and

Stands and walks? And even talks when it has to?

I'm also continuing with my long prose piece 'Salt and Bones'. Re-reading my inspiration, Helen Dunmore's 'Talking to the Dead', I'm trying to capture some of her sensuous way of writing. That is the book I wish I had written, and I am absorbed by it. Helen was a poet too, and I love the way poets write prose. I struggle to write at length. Forty lines is my usual. 'Salt and Bones' is the story of Rachel and Brendan, their long and unusual relationship as the parents of Kate and grandparents of Amy, while never having married and being married to other people. When they realise Kate is missing, they need to look at the people in their lives and how they might be involved. Extract...

‘She’s asleep. She’s a treasure, Rachel. You’ve done a fantastic job with her. Just like you did with Kate.’ I look at him. ‘Really. You did a great job with her too. Kate is responsible for her own actions. Nobody has ever blamed you for her. Least of all me.’ The damp has settled on the house. It’s always colder here at night than inland. He shivers a little, with tiredness more than the cold, and rubs his arms. He’s too big for the room. ‘I’ve never understood why you took this place on, Rachel. It’s nearly over the edge. I’m terrified each time there’s a storm in case you’re both chucked out onto the beach. If you couldn’t afford to buy somewhere, you only had to ask. Especially now. Angela has said the same thing. We can find some money from the sale of the Greenwich house.’

‘Not that it’s really any of your business, but I could afford to buy something. Especially out here. You know that Carey’s money would go a long way here. It’s not Greenwich. They practically give the houses away on this bit of the coast. There’s nothing here; as you like to point out.’ I move over to the window. ‘But who wouldn’t want this view? Until I talk the owner into selling it, I’m stuck renting.’

‘I don’t want you to use all of Carey’s money. He meant you to have that to live on. I told him that I’d help you out as much as possible. You know that I promised him.’

Brendan’s face clouds as he talks about Carey. He was very fond of my late husband, and the doctor in him has never got over the fact that Carey couldn’t be saved. Brendan hounded every expert he could find. They colluded, the two of them, making a united front to shield me from the tsunami of grief that was rolling irreversibly towards me. I turn to look at the vast dark that I fled to after I couldn’t stand to be in our home anymore. All that came with me were his paintings. Big, quiet slabs of pale colour that hover on the canvas. Calm; like him.

Brendan comes over to stand behind me. He slips his arms around my waist and pulls me towards him, so I’m leaning against him. It’s comfortable. Familiar. I wrap my arms around his, and we look at the black night, and our own reflections in the window. I think about how often over thirty years that we’ve stood like this. He smells of brandy, as he leans down to put his cheek against the side of my head. His eyes are closed, and he looks ready for sleep. I know him better than that, though. I reach up behind me to stroke his cheek.

‘It’s late. Come to bed.’

Little Bird

After a couple of years of attending poetry nights regularly, and listening to a range of poets from very well known to almost beginners, I've tried to learn a lot. Both in the way I deliver poems and how I write them. My poems are usually metaphorical, or allegorical, retellings of my own feelings and experiences, and the more terrible ones are buried deeper within the folds.

I've always felt that it's not much fun for an audience to hear your pain. But sometimes experiences need to be 'written out'. Especially when that is how you deal with these things. A painter would do it.

So, I did it. And wrote a poem about how my mum, in her final few days, mistook her death rattle for the sound of a bird. I allowed her to think that it was. At the end, her mum came to her, as did my late mother-in-law. The poem is called Little Bird, and I can't share it in its entirety as it has gone out for submission with several others. Hopefully it will fly.

A chance meeting today with Peter Pegnall, the poet who ring-masters these events, led him to tell me that it's good to be more candid. Not to hide so much behind metaphor. And that this will allow me to change and grow as a poet. I value his advice.

The little bird stayed another day

And another and into a third.

Until at that day's close

Her mother came...

Salt and Bones

Several summers ago, when life was a battle with lockdown, imminent bereavement, terrible isolation and constant fear, a walk on the beach with my daughter sparked the seed of a little bit of prose that I thought could amount to something 

The year that was cauterised my creativity. This got shelved, along with emerging poems. I also felt it couldn't be maintained in the first person. So, I'm writing more, in the third person. Or I might give each character their own voice. Who knows ...?

I can picture a photograph I took of a wrecked boat at Blakeney on the cover. It is working under the title of Salt and Bones. It is about landscape and passion and living...

'...Rachel often wishes she could paint. This coast draws painters up from inland like litmus paper, where they settle and try to capture the pure essence of the place in pigment, and love. Galleries flourish, and art trails. Every old cottage seems to have someone in a fisherman's slop standing at an easel. It is unrelentingly beautiful here.'

A little knowledge

Sometimes life gets in the way. The ease with which I used to channel words that came to me into halfway decent poems has been knocked by a particularly harsh few years. It's easy to blame circumstances rather than your own lack of application, but I've been doing this for enough years to know.

And sometimes, all you need is to find a little phrase, hidden in a pile of scribbles, to make a little spark catch. I'm hopeful this time, and regular poetry nights at the wonderful Belfry Centre in the little coastal village of Overstrand, give me deadlines.

We'll see...

A Case of You

 A Case of You

Another song as poem. This is definitely one of my all-time favourites, and if anyone could sing Joni's songs well apart from her, I'd sing it all the time. I've listened to this song whenever my heart hurts for decades, or just because it suits my mood, and I wish that I could 'write things out' as well as Joni does.

It makes me think, as ever; what the hell would we do, as humans, without art? 

A Case of You (link to YouTube)

Just before our love got lost you said
"I am as constant as a northern star"
And I said, "Constantly in the darkness
Where's that at?
If you want me I'll be in the bar"

On the back of a cartoon coaster
In the blue TV screen light
I drew a map of Canada
Oh, Canada
With your face sketched on it twice

Oh, you're in my blood like holy wine
You taste so bitter and so sweet
Oh, I could drink a case of you, darling
And I would still be on my feet
Oh, I would still be on my feet

Oh, I am a lonely painter
I live in a box of paints
I'm frightened by the devil
And I'm drawn to those ones that ain't afraid

I remember that time you told me
You said, "Love is touching souls"
Surely you touched mine
'Cause part of you pours out of me
In these lines from time to time

Oh, you're in my blood like holy wine
You taste so bitter and so sweet
Oh, I could drink a case of you, darling
Still I'd be on my feet
I would still be on my feet

I met a woman
She had a mouth like yours
She knew your life
She knew your devils and your deeds
And she said, "Go to him, stay with him if you can
But be prepared to bleed"

Oh, but you are in my blood
You're my holy wine
You're so bitter
Bitter and so sweet
Oh, I could drink a case of you, darling
Still I'd be on my feet
I would still be on my feet