Sue Finch

A group of figurines and a picture of a heart

This morning it takes me a while to find the scent. It is tea roses rising on cool damp air.

I have two special pint glasses for my daily water. One with ‘Coach’ engraved on it and one with ‘Poet’. And I like things in jars. Sometimes I know exactly which of the pint glasses matches my day and sometimes I have a mix of the two. It is quite rare lately not to have one or the other feature in my days.

Alt text says this week’s photo is ‘A group of figurines and a picture of a heart’. I say it is a pamphlet of poems with the title ‘Untamed Love’ and that I loved taking some things out of jars to create this image. Alan Parry, editor at ‘The Broken Spine’ has curated a lovely collection of work by the 14 poets featured in Wave 1 of ‘The Whiskey Tree’. My favourite poem from this collection is currently Mary Earnshaw’s ‘Lost and Found’. It was beautifully read by Susan Richardson on her podcast ‘A Thousand Shades of Green’. I do of course recommend the whole collection and am delighted to be within the pages.

Last week saw the Cheshire Prize Awards for Literature Evening where the announcements were made for poetry, short stories and script writing. Livi Michael gave an interesting opening speech about her own writing and the importance of each writer’s relationship with winning and not winning. I did not get placed in the competition this time, but I loved the event. Beforehand Kath and I got to chat to lovely poets that we know and this made it all the more special. I felt a lovely sense of belonging. In the past there had been a big part of me that felt anxious at the very possibility of winning because I was so self-conscious. This part has disappeared and it was lovely to recognise this when I reflected back on what had felt particularly good about the event.

I still remember vividly when Cheryl Pearson’s poem ‘The Cartographer’s Daughter’ won the competition in 2016. Ian McMillan was presenting the prizes and he did a wonderful build up to us finding out which poem had been selected. I loved the feeling of anticipation before he read the whole poem out loud and the feeling of celebration and admiration in the room. Looking at the back of the anthology from that event I see the names of the poetry tribe that gathered in the foyer this year and it makes me smile. All of us still finding joy in writing and entering competitions.

Huge congratulations to Helen Kay who won this year’s prize. Strange to think that the pandemic interrupted our plans to bring additional poetry opportunities to young people. Also lovely to remember fondly with Angela Topping the poetry she brought to the young people I worked with and how this led to Poetry Suppers and celebratory anthologies. Good too that my work comes full circle now and I am fortunate to be involved in the work of Sidhe Press to collate the writing of a group of talented young poets. There are poems that I absolutely love in the work that is being sent through and one in particular that has stayed with me since the first reading. It’s one of those poems where you can feel the power of setting down the words and the way they vibrate from the page with the energy they hold whilst being set down. I hope one day to tell that young poet just how much I admire their writing.

There’s something about getting positive feedback about poetry that feels completely heartfelt to me; that glorious recognition of the way words capture something which resonates with another person. I’ll keep entering competitions that catch my eye and keep on enjoying the glow that comes from positive feedback in any shape or form.

If you’ve been following this blog you will know it is my way of holding myself accountable whilst I change career. I have learned a lot about my relationship with recognition and overthinking during my coaching journey and it is nice to feel the spark from this learning. Spending two days at a wide variety of online coaching events last week gave me a wonderful opportunity to reflect and continue my learning. Here’s a big part of what I do… I help people regain clarity. And that seems fair since I regained mine.

Here’s to joy and clarity and letting someone know if you like something they are doing well.

Running Away with the Circus

The morning’s air is fresh. I can’t get any particular sense of smell apart from fresh this morning, maybe because my eyes were reluctant to open after vivid dreams (the kind that wouldn’t make good poems) but I am noticing colour. The sky is grey and the lawn is speckled with yellow buttercups and purple clover flowers.

This weekend saw my first yarn show in a ‘circus tent’. I felt inspired by the surroundings and recorded my poem ‘Blade’ with the tent as a backdrop. The poem is one of those that evolved from a seven minute write. I have always liked a timed free write, but I credit Caroline Bird for the seven minute timescale. I am pretty sure that’s how long she gives writers after delivering a prompt. It works for me because I can be completely focused for that amount of time and love seeing what can begin to emerge in ‘half a tea break’.

To write ‘Blade’ I saved a link to a photograph of a dagger from a news article. I also put my writing journal on my desk so that it would be the first thing I saw the next morning and would therefore remind me that I had something particular to explore. It was such a great picture I knew I wanted to create a response of my own to mark it. You can find an image of the blade here: Crystal Dagger.

I got up the next morning ready to write, and set a seven minute timer. The writing desk in the lounge is tucked in its own corner and feels like a solace all if its own. Like going somewhere you can visit and come back from. It’s very old, and very small but as a space it works!

The ‘grassed air’ bit of the poem comes from my memory of visiting the circus with my sister when she was young. Entering the warm humid space to find our seats (or perhaps bench space) I was hit by the seeming greenness of the air I was breathing. I do love it when a phrase flows when I am writing and that one seemed an appropriate description. I imagined being a sword swallower with a dagger carved from ice. The poem was starting. I had to let the images of the lion and its trainer work their way out of my head, and the memory of me and my sister re-enacting the part where the trainer put his arm in the lion’s mouth. We were in awe when it didn’t bite him and loved the way he rubbed its forehead gently to get it to open its mouth in the first place. Filtering out the real and keeping my pen moving on the new felt fast and furious and that’s a good way into a poem in my opinion.

I am still learning about reels and stories on social media, but I did manage to post the video as a reel. It felt good to do a one take wonder in the wild! Also teaches me to watch my diction! There’s a video of the poem on my YouTube channel, but I liked the live approach so I am grateful to James who said it would be a good thing to try.

There was definitely ‘grassed air’ in the tent for ‘Wool at Junction 13’ on Friday and Saturday afternoons. And cold air on the Sunday. I laughed when the air was cold because I had proudly announced to Kath on Friday morning that my bag was easy to pack and that it zipped up much more smoothly than usual, and Kath noted it was because I hadn’t packed any jumpers. Note to self… probably good to always squeeze a jumper in just in case!

Ronnie photographed well during the weekend. It’s a sign of joy when he jumps and somersaults for a photo and it was lovely to note that these photos raise a smile in others too. Disappointingly, Alt Text didn’t pop up to offer any suggestions for this week’s photo but I say it is Ronnie jumping for joy by a circus tent at a yarn show and temporarily ignoring the fact that there is a very high probability of landing in some sheep poo.

There was also joy in chickpeas. I took a lunch break with a chickpea curry and sat in the sun while live singing was happening and it felt so good to just be in the moment. A writing prompt once focused on gratitude and led to me listing things I was grateful for. On that day chickpeas were in the first line. Good little things aren’t they? If you have a chickpea poem or a circus poem I would love to read it.

Good poems were in plentiful supply last week because Caroline Bird launched the new collection ‘Ambush at Still Lake’. It always feels good to hear the poems in the poet’s voice and it was lovely midweek treat to join the Carcanet webinar for just such a thing.

Midweek also marked the lovely occasion of the anniversary of a highly successful blind date. Twenty-two years ago I met Kath at Telfords warehouse. A lucky moment in my life because I had just realised that I was spending too much time looking at a couple of dating sites to see if I could meet someone. The very night I put my cup of tea down and went to the computer to delete those sites once and for all I saw a message waiting to be read. It offered me the choice of tea or beer on a Wednesday night and I took that final chance! The rest as they say, is history and there’s a particular bridge over the canal in Chester which holds a special place in my heart. The poem ‘Telford’s Warehouse’ in my most recent collection marks the moment well and ‘That Coin’ which can also be found there is a love poem for Kath.

I’ll leave you today with another circus poem:

THE FIRST OF THREE KNIVES

He fell in love with her silently;

from underneath.

Her legs flawless in tights, cheeks powdered smooth,

lips gloss-red.

She didn’t pout for him, but he took it anyway

held it in his mind.

When the tent emptied and the grassy air thinned,

he imagined her painted fingernails flirting against his chest.

The night his partner was delayed in Kent,

the ringmaster issued instructions:

the trapeze artist will be standing in.

He had never known his heart beat as fast

as when her wrists and ankles were secured

and he was offered the first of three knives.

Two Golden Tickets

This morning the scent is not as I predicted. It is rose petals and rosemary. I thought it would be conifer hedge because yesterday there were adventures with a new power tool. The overgrown hedge was tidied up and I went deep into the corner were the big bushes grow. Our garden waste bins are now brimming with the kind of garden debris I imagined adventurers would have lined their hand-built dens with before settling in the for the night.

I laughed when Kath came in for a shower after round one of hedge tackle and left a trail of bits of green and herb while I went back for round two. Later I found that those bits can get in places I couldn’t have imagined and I was heard to say that overalls for future jobs might be quite the thing.

Alt text says this is a group of people posing for a photo. I say it is Me and Dolly and Kath posing for a photo. In fact there is a lot I could say about this photo which is ten years old now because it means so much.

Here are ten things:

I won the opportunity to meet Dolly.
I felt like Willy Wonka getting the Golden Ticket.
My Nan always said it’s better to be born lucky than rich.
I wouldn’t have chosen to wear that top if I had known I was going to meet Dolly.
Wearing that top didn’t affect the magical moment.
I got to be in the presence of one of my absolute heroes.
This was the second time I had won a meet and greet with Dolly.
This time I was able to share the moment with Kath.
I have loved Dolly Parton and her music since I was a child.
Dolly Parton’s dreams to goals story is inspirational to me.

This past week I have been doing things I dreamed of last September. I have been working 1:1 with people. We have talked, thought deeply, thought long and wide, reflected, laughed and thought some more. This felt distant back then and that makes me chuckle because back then feels distant now. That link between dreams and goals is being seized and I am so grateful to the people that are part of my journey. It’s like my own yellow brick road and that reminds me of some very special people who got me to this path in the first place.

In memory of one of those special people I took an old flatbread I had saved specifically for the occasion out into the garden. It was the night of the full moon. That flat bread was going to be the moon. All because that wonderful person once sent me a photo from social media of a tortilla on a double-glazed window and said, ‘Look here’s your full moon’. We had much fun tossing it in the air trying to get the ‘perfect’ photo. That didn’t happen this time, but if you ever see me throwing circular bread in the air around the time of the full moon then you will know why.

I will leave you today with a link to Susan Richardson’s podcast, ‘A Thousand Shades of Green’ where she reads poems from my collection ‘Welcome to the Museum of a Life’. Three reasons:

I am glad that our paths have crossed.
Her readings are wonderful.
If you like podcasts and poems you will find much to love in all the episodes she has put together.

The Bandstand

Photo credit: Field of Dreams Photography Oswestry

This morning the air brings the smell of many blooms. In my head I picture peonies and geraniums and in my heart I feel summer. It has been pretty cold, grey and rainy for June so far so this feels new and enlivening. It begins to balance the fact that my eyes that did not want to open this morning.

On Saturday I put on my new t-shirt and headed for the bandstand in the park in Oswestry ready for the town’s first Pride festival. I also packed a jumper and a coat. I even used my hood on arrival because it was very rainy. I had to hold it away from my ears so I could keep my wits about me when crossing the road, but thought it was better than turning up looking like what my nan would have termed a drowned rat. Fortunately, the downpour stopped before the entertainment began which meant that people could gather by the bandstand to listen as well as listen whilst picnicking or browsing the stalls. This was my first poetry reading at Pride, my first reading from a bandstand and my first time reading with a microphone that had to be spoken into. All those firsts felt rather exciting.

I had great fun choosing the poems for my set and Kath came to Poetry Corner in the lounge earlier in the week to listen in and check my timing. There was much laughter after this when a quick scroll through social media saw the event described as “family friendly”. We decided it was probably best to remove some of the darker poems I had included (and my one erotic poem) from the list. After all, I would like to be invited back.

Linking the poems from my different collections and the anthologies I have been published in was fun. We had been talking about the preamble before poems as a way of introducing them and that some people like this and it can give a nice way of settling the poem into its moment. This is coming more naturally to me now as I see the importance of it. ‘Answering My Mother’ was included in my choices because I thought it would appeal to all ages and even people who would not class themselves as poetry lovers. And it seemed to go down well. Overall it was interesting to note the poems that seem to drop at the audience’s feet when I finish reading them rather than hang in the air. I think I have done some learning about which poems to leave on the page and which ones are in their element when floated out into the air to be listened to.

Alt text says this week’s photo is, ‘A person standing behind a sign’. I say it is a poet slightly on tiptoe because they didn’t really adjust the mic properly for themselves reading the first poem in their set at Oswestry Pride 2024. I also say they must have disappeared behind the sign each time they bent down to select a different book to read from and missed the opportunity to milk that moment by popping up like a puppet!

As well as performing, I got to be in the audience this week because Kath was part of a concert on Friday night. I loved hearing Zadok the Priest and seeing different young people take centre stage for a range of solo performances in amongst the choir’s offerings. I also loved the fact that I got to sit quietly in the church whilst the rehearsal took place. I am fascinated by watching people use their skills and love just sitting without speaking. It stills my mind and sometimes there is a lot that benefits from being stilled.

I wondered on the way home about my journey from being the ten-year-old child who read their Harvest Festival poem in a church to being an adult poet who felt nervous at the very thought of standing up and sharing their work. I am enjoying my poetic journey and the way combining it with coaching enables me to see what makes me tick and thrive. Those young people in the church on Friday were having wonderfully rich experiences of performing to an audience. I love that they were using their skills authentically and would be able to feel the feedback and take time to reflect afterwards on how it felt and what they were going to do next. I need to write to the choirmaster to let him know how much I enjoyed the performances so he can share this with the performers. It feels important to me that they hear some words about it as well as have their own reflections.

Positive feedback about my coaching this week included a person I share thinking time and space with telling me that their tendency to overthink had diminished. I know the joy this brings when it happens so to also know that I have helped someone with this brings me extra joy. I have treated myself to another Nancy Kline book to read and this one is called, “The Promise that Changes Everything. I Won’t Interrupt You.”

The time and space that thinkers create in a coaching relationship is a privilege to be part of. The uniqueness comes from proper listening and deep thinking, and I get the feeling this book will help me continue to develop my use of silence. Of course there is plenty that goes on beyond that space and between sessions, but the thought that six lots of ninety minutes over a six-month period can be such a good investment of time feels well worth celebrating. I am glad for my new path and love working 1:1 with people.

Here’s to words and to silence and to really listening to them both.

Castor and Pollux

This morning the air smells as fresh as it does on the mountains. I breathe deeply and catch a hint of lavender there too.

Alt text says it’s ‘A cat on a cake’. I say it is an excellent card to have received in the post to celebrate my birthday and shows a cat presenting an iced birthday cake with sparklers with text reading ‘Castor (AKA Sue) In a world full of candles you’re a sparkler’. I love cards and I love the fact that I wear a number of names. Sometimes I am Poodle Floppet, sometimes I am Sissy, sometimes I am Sooper Sue, sometimes I am Freda, sometimes I am Castor to someone else’s Pollox.

I think the passing of time which is marked quite dramatically by a birthday got me into ‘sorting mode’ last week. I decided to revisit a massive box of ‘stuff’ that was bursting at the seams and a massive box of photos. Although neither are out on display (one is tucked under a set of shelves and one under a bed) I could feel the untidy nature of my storage and a call to look to see what was in there. By the time I had finished I had delved back into so many memories I felt like I had revisited all the past versions of me!

I read kind words, relived funny moments as well as poignant times. I tidied it well and enjoyed the long memory lane. I do wonder what possessed me to label the photo of two plates of dinner as ‘Quinoa 2005’, but must admit that that photo remains in the box. I might recycle it next time, but for now I preserve the quinoa! I read an old birthday card from a friend who is no longer with us three times and realised how much I had missed getting a card from her this year. That stays in the box too. I like keeping things, but I also like the feeling of knowing that I don’t need to keep absolutely everything in order to prove that I have been respected, made people laugh, shared my time and been loved. Some of my old photos were easy to recycle because they came from the times of taking a roll of film on holiday and then waiting to see how the 24 or 36 pictures came out. Quite easy to whittle these down to half a dozen decent memories! Some things have become old and tattier than I would like and they will get photographed instead of retained. And that makes me laugh because it sort of messes with the app on my phone that shows me things from the past each day. When I am very old I might think that I met the Beverley Sisters in June 2024. And I guess in a way I will eat my words because I fed some rather entertaining correspondence from my twenty-six-year-old self to the compost worms during my sorting. I love my compost worms.

In my continued tidying mode I went out to tackle the weeds at the weekend. It was hard work and I was determined and had to remain determined! It’s amazing how many weeds can spring up when you’re not really looking. There was a wonderful feeling of satisfaction as I noticed it was making a positive difference and there was real joy in the fact that the phone rang twice. Two people who I love very much calling me and I got to ditch the muddy gloves and lie in the sun talking and listening. Perfect moments in time.

Sunday is my walking day and as my sister calls it, my Snowdon training. I am a bit of a fair-weather walker. In fact I am quite a lot of a fair-weather walker and it was raining hard on Sunday by the time I had finished digging in the garden and decided I was ready for my walk. I had woken up at 4am and considered a dawn chorus kind of walk which I dismissed for more cosy hours in bed. It wasn’t raining at 4! I considered not going for my walk at all, and heard myself saying that would be a missed opportunity and that it was highly likely that there would be very many other rainy walks in the future and it would be very strange to discount them all. So I donned my waterproof coat and off I went. It felt good. I am definitely getting better at dressing appropriately. The other week I set off knowing I had a hole in one sock and thought I could out walk it for an hour. I was wrong. Blisteringly wrong. Hence the right socks and right boots and waterproof coat this time. Wrong jeans and no hat though because I am not yet fully my best self! I hate wearing my hood up because as well as dulling my hearing it sort of rustles so I do prefer a hat and of course I have hats, but I ignored them and set off. Next time it rains I might take my hat, swap jeans for walking trousers and take my ‘fully prepared walker’ bow.

Sometimes when I am walking I spend time deciding what my snack will be later on. After I had pictured thick toast with peanut butter and jam and a large cup of tea I listened to my thoughts about writing a fanzine for The Manic Street Preachers and the fact I had googled it to see if it is rare. I think it is rare, but it wasn’t googleable. I tucked my signed copy into the box alongside a postcard that told me they enjoyed the fanzine, not too far from my signed Beverley Sisters photo. I do like an autograph or two! I smiled at the thought of seeing the band live next month and am curious to see what that feels like after all this time.

Is He Puffin or Is He Vulture?

This morning the smell of cut grass is in the air, slightly hayed by yesterday’s sunshine and today’s gentle misty drizzle.

This week’s photo had to be ‘Ronnie Jumping for Joy at The Great Orme’. Not just because I love that orme, not just because it is the picture for June on the #LookThere calendar, but because of the alt text suggestion I got when I was preparing to share it on social media to welcome in the new month. This alt text has to be one of my absolute favourites… “May be an image of puffin and vulture.” It made me laugh each time I thought of it and wondered which one of those Ronnie was! In this Word document alt text says it’s a stuffed animal in the air, which makes me love the alternative version that appeared the other day even more.

I love to find humour in things. I find it motivational and joyous and when I reflect on my values it is right in there. I still laugh at how long it took me to list my values during my coaching training. It felt important to me to get it right and I wanted to rank them and see exactly what they were telling me about my journey in life so far. I now love providing coaching space for others in which they too can think about values and beliefs. Working 1:1 with people is such a privilege and I don’t think I will ever tire of it. When my values aren’t being met I feel like a jigsaw piece without a jigsaw and at times I have believed I was a jigsaw piece without a jigsaw.

Routine still appears in my top ten of values, but I am still thinking about what exactly that looks like for me, so perhaps it will evolve fully or be superceded. It’s interesting to ponder on that and wonder why routine might be important and what it would look like in its fully fledged state.

I was fortunate this past week to be able to continue to develop my poetry reading experience. Kath and I took a lovely trip to The Poetry Pharmacy in Bishops Castle, and I joined the open mic at Verbatim. Josephine Lay was reading there and it felt good to make the journey and be in the audience. We got to talk before the event and she read some of my favourite poems in her set. I love that feeling of anticipation to see what the poet will read, and I was also delighted that she included one of my poems in the set. That was very special.

People who have coached me (and readers of this blog) know that I have been thinking about my relationship with recognition. And to walk into a room and be recognised felt good to me. It also amused me to think how far I had come with this since September last year. Thank you for greeting me Pat, that was lovely of you and your poetry evening is super too! I used to pride myself on greeting people and helping them to feel welcome and it is lovely to now be on the other side of that too and to feel how good it feels.

Creativity and authenticity are right up there on my list of values and I love the moments when those two are working in harmony with one another. These moments shine. I’m grateful when this happens and am planning ways to make it happen more!

I did booth-babing again at the weekend and it was lovely to travel to a local show and get up early and drive west along the coast road as the morning eased itself into being. I am making it my mission now to see which direction I am travelling in as I heard myself describe the journey to someone as ‘coming down’ when it really wasn’t!

It was good to meet new people. There are always stories that surprise me and this weekends’ led to me finding out that there is a way of dancing in the air whilst harnessed to a tree so that the trunk becomes the ground and the swing that occurs gives space for shapes and moves. There was real freedom in that and in the noticing of how wonderful it is to listen to people beyond the general hellos and ‘nice to be heres’. With that kind of dance echoing in my head and my poem for the month recording being about The Rambert’s ‘Rooster’ I think it is about time I booked to go and see some live dance again.

I’ll leave you with the link to my reading of WATCHING THE RAMBERT AT THE MARLOWE in case you haven’t seen it! Hugest thanks to Alan Parry from The Broken Spine for having the great idea of creating a collection of poems in response to live art.

Diving Right In

This morning the air brings me the scent of fermented green, and it feels like the day is readying itself to be warm.

Last night I dreamt of poets and words after being in the zoom room for the online launch of Damien Donnelly’s Back From Away. I love the feeling of a celebratory zoom and it was wonderful to be able to read during the event. I love Damien’s work and the way he delivers his words. When I got the new book I read it from cover to cover the same day – my favourite thing to do when a new book arrives. I like to see which poems resonate on the first read through and then return to the whole book again and see what else becomes a favourite. Two poems echoed with their observation and their numbers after my first reading of the book, ‘Between the Floorboards’ and ‘The Sum Of’. I loved the way they zoomed in on detail and told so much.

I was also able to do that kind of diving right in for Caroline Bird’s new collection, Ambush as Still Lake, this week. A little celebratory poet dance at the fact it had arrived here more quickly than I had anticipated and then a pint of fizzy water and straight in. Well, I actually finished the gardening I had started first, but it was lovely to know that when I was headed inside for a sit down there was a new book of poetry to enjoy.. And it’s another absolute cracker of a collection from Caroline, and the cover is a delight. Highly recommended indeed.

Alt Text says it’s, ‘A stuffed animal in the air,’ I say it is Ronnie free diving and it reminds me of the wonderful feeling of losing myself in a new book of poetry.’

I wrote my first yarn festival poem this week for Buxton Wool Gathering. It was slightly harder than I thought it would be, but I have been determined to capture some of what I sense since being able to immerse myself in such things. I liked the fact that, inspired by the stalls in the grounds of the venue, knickerbocker glories and candyfloss came to mind. I promised someone I was talking to there that I would actually put pen to paper this time instead of simply thinking about it each time I help Kath and then not getting round to it. I look forward to seeing what comes out of other events.

I’ll leave you today with the yarn poem and a poem I tidied up this week as a result of seeing Alan Parry’s call out for poems about the Ocean on Friday. Fishing for Tope, 1932 was inspired by a photograph of the annual tope festival in Herne Bay and was originally written for Top Tweet Tuesday. I love the fact that to me it is now a companion poem for Trawling on a Day’s Leave and Whitby’s Old Lifeboat. I can read those poems to you on my YouTube channel and I might pop over there myself later on to remind myself when it was that I recorded them! One more thing before I go… I find myself continuing to admire Mrs Plante who won the competition that year with a fish weighing 94lb 1oz.

Fishing for Tope, 1932

Twenty-four fish displayed

hanging from the railings.

White bellied ghosts

their shark mouths closed.

Next to the catch

my great grandfather

capped and relaxed.

They say he was often out at sea

or fishing for women.

That he liked his drink.

But right there he is an angler

smiling for the camera.

Wool Gathers Us In

Set up.

The air holds the clang of metal.

I wonder if organ pipes would sound

their notes when dropped.

Here there is one sharp note.

It rides on the necessary chatter

of what, where.

Sometimes it clatters and rolls

and I have to turn my ears to dull

the sound.

Colours out in rows and boxes,

on hooks and rails.

Settled in,

ready to be seen and touched.

Our salt and perfume

and mixed fibres

are left settling too

as we leave the hall.

Show Time.

Greetings fly mid-air;

gentler now, with anticipation

as visitor voices gather in queues.

We welcome the dreamy imagining

of wool gathering.

And there are tales shared and laughter.

And tips and techniques and admiration.

And we are changed by the stories.

III

Close.

Conversation comes in knickerbocker glory

layers now.

Candy floss clouds of talk

disperse as the close draws near

and we ready ourselves to pack,

and stack, and leave.

Some things will be swept up

after we are all gone

others we will carry out with us.

Some we will hold onto for years.

Being Sociable Again

This morning the air smells of roses. My mind says ‘tea roses’ and for a moment I can’t quite remember if there is such a thing.

I wasn’t sure I was ready to get up this morning and then I dreamt that I had caramel crispy snacks and that put a smile into my waking state and helped me open my eyes properly.

I also dreamt I was leaning on a pillar knitting. Having been surrounded by yarn and all things wool gathering this weekend and then starting to write a poem to capture some of the essence of a yarn show this is perhaps no surprise. I was however disappointed with the colour of yarn I had chosen so maybe I was knitting it as a gift! In case you’re curious it was a sweater in the round and it was white wool with yellow and pink.

I love dreams and always enjoy a little revel in the remembering as I emerge from sleep, but I also long for those nights where my head hits the pillow and I feel like I know nothing more until I wake naturally in the morning.

Strange sleeps this weekend because there were weird elements to the flat we paid to stay in which made it not quite the relaxing haven we were expecting! There I dreamt about putting tins of baked beans into my mum’s cupboards and woke up regularly to see what time it was.

Someone said recently that they can’t tell with my poems which ones might be based on real events. I rather like that! Having promised to entertain Bridie who was one of our next door vendors at Buxton I chose to share She Puts on a Spring Dress the Day the Tortoise Comes out of Hibernation, from ‘Welcome to the Museum of a Life‘ with her. This was a good choice as she too had a tortoise named Fred when she was a child. I love the tales and chatter of the people we meet when we spend our days as Kath Andrews Designs and always learn things as well as laugh a lot. For a moment on Sunday when the reply to “How did they get on?” was “They didn’t show up.” I thought the football team’s coach had broken down on the way to the match. As the conversation progressed I worked out that they hadn’t played as expected!

And we got to say hello to Jo Bell in real life which was another lovely overlap of yarn and words and made me glad of my choice to always take two of my books with me to yarn shows. I love the fact that hearing a poem just once can etch it in your brain. After hearing Jo read for the first time in Manchester (in 2015) I came away with ‘Crates’, ‘Lifted’, and ‘Your Helens and my Jonathans’ echoing in my head and I love that they stayed there. They come from the collection ‘Kith’.

This week’s photo is described by Alt Text as “A Statue in the air”. I say it is Ronnie somersaulting for joy in Darley Dale after the first day of Buxton Wool Gathering and we should have read about the ‘statue’.

I will leave you today with a lockdown poem and the fact that I am grateful we learned to be sociable again…

Invitation

Just as I am worrying

that I cannot read binary –

she says I will be able to see

Perseids tonight in her armpits,

I assure myself I can Google it later

hoping that the instructions

will be simple.

I plan to have a notebook

and pen ready.

I know that joke about

there being 10 kinds of people in the world:

those who understand binary

and those who don’t.

I tell her it would be great

to see the meteors up close,

nuzzled right in.

They don’t make your neck ache

this way, she says,

and you will be able to hear

the crackles of ancient fires –

it is all deep in there.

I wonder if we will ever be

sociable again after this.

How many people in the world

are hankering to see

night skies in the armpits of lovers?

A large Sturgeon, A Peppermint Tea and a Fizzy Water

Alt Text for this photo is in the text of the post.

This morning the air carries the scent of warm, damp hay. The birds were singing the day in loudly when I noticed this, and seemed to be telling me they had been doing so for some time this morning before I woke from my sleep to greet the day.

I am currently celebrating the joy of staying present and being fully in the moment. On Thursday last week this was huge for me because I was launching my book, and I was determined to enjoy my own reading and be able to immerse myself fully in the words of others.

My goal was to have moved on from the reading I did in October where I spent a lot of time beforehand overthinking it, because I did not know the best ways to tackle the nerves that rose in my stomach. I wanted to have less of that feeling that I captured in the poem ‘There’s a Doll Thumping in My Chest’!

I knew I would need water to hand because I had such a dry mouth last time and I knew I had to reframe some of my beliefs about myself. I tapped into everything I had learnt about myself from coaching and what it was that would help me be the best I could be. Trust me there’s been a lot of work on that since September and so many people from my In Good Company cohort have helped me move myself forward. My coach asked me if I had considered videoing myself and reviewing this, and this helped. Talking with good people helped, and giving myself a ‘confidence pocket’ was also fun.

All this led me to being able to enjoy the moment when the back of my neck tingled when Annick Yerem read my poem ‘Clambake’ and her poem ‘Out of Africa’. And to hold the joy of seeing the faces of friends in the audience (and their cats) who had come along to listen and support me.

There is an art to placing words in the air and I felt the craft of this in the readings that the open mic-ers shared. Throughout the evening I held on to my intention of remembering that people were celebrating with me, and that me and my words were worth it. Hugest thanks to Nigel Kent, Annick Yerem, Carol Sheppard, Liz Gibson and Matthew M C Smith. And to Rhianna Levi and Josephine Lay who shared sets. The fact we shared the space to launch ‘Welcome to the Museum of a Life’ means so much to me. I have no need to wonder about whether there was a recording because the whole evening is etched on my heart.

Here are some of the words that I tucked into my confidence pocket:

I really don’t know why or how you ever doubted yourself.
One day you’ll enjoy it.
You read your poems on YouTube so well.
You inhabit your poems when you read them.

All the people who are always rooting for me were also in that pocket, and I swear I could hear them gently cheering me on.

I now have this comment to add in: You looked so cool, calm and collected by the way.

This all moves me so far from:

I can’t do this.
I am not good enough.

And I got to see a very large sturgeon and an albatross in the Worcester museum. And enjoy a peppermint tea and a fizzy water before my reading.

Susan Richardson put together a special episode of her podcast to celebrate ‘Welcome to the Museum of a Life’ and it was an absolute treat to wake up on Sunday morning with the anticipation of finding out which poems she had selected. I loved listening and will listen again. Here’s the link to that episode of A Thousand Shades of Green and there are plenty of other episodes too, all the perfect length for when you need a pause in the day and a good listen.

Alt Text offers nothing for this week’s photo, but I say it is Sue Finch in the moment sharing her poems.

Here’s to all the singing that goes on as the darkness lifts.

Blue Apples Appear

This morning the air brings me the scent of grass. Slightly herbed and fresh. The more silage-based smell of old cuttings stays in the brown bin.

Yesterday the birds celebrated themselves for Dawn Chorus Day and I shared one of my dawn chorus poems on social media even though I did not join them in the early morning. I did take a moment to remember two of my favourite dawn chorus experiences though. One of these was my first ever dawn chorus when my friend Karen’s Dad took me Karen and Sarah out for to experience sunrise and helped us name the birds we could hear. The other was at Loggerheads were Kath and I stood to hear the last owl and the first blackbird. Both magical in completely different ways.

I have been looking at things from a variety of different angles this week and found myself with some perfect moments for reflection. One of these came after a wonderful meal out with a friend at the start of the week. Laughter and chat and that feeling of being heard and hearing yourself out loud is freeing. The sea and driving a straight road under the moon also bring a lightness to things for me so it was good that all that was mixed in too.

I have had fast paced walks and slow meanders this week and I like the contrast. I can walk things out with a speedy pace and I can enjoy the curiosity of my thoughts when it is more of a stroll. Both are important, but I guess the meander tells me I am finding the world interesting and that ‘Hurry Up’ driver is nicely at bay. When I was thinking about that this week I reflected on the fact that the ‘Hurry Up’ is only telling me I have a feeling of stress and that if I take a moment to think about what is causing that I can dampen it down. When I don’t take notice I just end up doing more than one thing at a time and not enjoying them.

When I coach I wonder about the need to put some things down in order to move forward and I felt myself thinking about this ahead of having a coaching session this week. Putting things down is important to me. It helps me to stop procrastinating when something needs to be done and saves that time of rolling around in too many thoughts instead of just noting the actions that will move things on and doing them.

Alt Text says this week’s picture is “A blue apple next to a book”. Alt text pretty much nails it. Did I mention I will be launching ‘Welcome to the Museum of a Life’ this week? And do you know how much it makes me smile that there are blue apples in the world as well as the ones I have already discovered?

My day had two starts to it this morning, the finding out what the air smells like start and the watching of a video. During coaching last week I was talking about what brings in my performance nerves and my coach asked if I had thought about videoing myself in order to review my performance. I laughed because I remembered all the work I had put in to make sure I could share individual poems on my YouTube channel. This made me realise I must have been working on this for some time and I tapped in to what it was I did there that enabled me to be ready to read. So yes, I was the poet that watched themselves back this morning and I am pleased to say I have been giving myself a harder time than I need to.

IT IS NOT ABOUT DAWN

It is about that moment

before the dark time breaks,

being present in the silence,

standing still in an exact moment.

It is all about when that first bird sings,

first light,

the fact that there is an order

that layer upon layer

sculpts the day’s beginning.

It is about discovering how long it takes

before the crow starts to echo back

with his rough

cruck, cruck.

DAWN CHORUS

Your bed was a lazy lover,

warm and familiar, holding you.

Yet soon the birds would be waking,

mapping out a set of songs

to greet the moon-washed sky.

I waited for you to free yourself

to stand and listen as the mist thinned

so we, too, could welcome the new day.

Here’s to holding things lightly, sharing time, and to the people who bring out the best in us.