Corridor of uncertainty

Posted on February 21, 2011 by SallyJ

Having a quiet day today as the M.E. has seen fit to descend in a belt of painful joints. Not to worry, I will spend the day researching for the four poems I have rumbling around my brain.

Not being very knowledgeable about cricket I have resorted to Googling for terms that may be useful. I  know there is a whole ‘language’ for the game and wondered if there could be some inspiration or parallels to be drawn between its terminology and the amazing fact of a women’s team training in Afghanistan.

My first find was ‘corridor of uncertainty’ and it is gold dust considering both the stadium in which they are training and, more importantly, the very fact of their squad’s  existence at all. The term means, and I quote from Wikipedia

“The corridor of uncertainty is a notional narrow area on and just outside a batsman’s off stump. If a delivery is in the corridor, it is difficult for a batsman to decide whether to leave the ball, play defensively or play an attacking shot. The term was popularised by former England batsman, now commentator, Geoffrey Boycott”

What appeals to me is the dilemma – those women had to make hard choices too, and chose to  train and play and have the courage to envisage winning international acclaim in the Asia Cup when the environment around them is so hostile to women’s endeavours. That to me is much more than a game of cricket, it is a bold step towards freedom.

I have no intention of making this collection a feminist outcry, but I believe that credit must be given to those who work to improve their situation and that includes the interpretors and guides who work with the troops, the farmers who are willing to learn from the army vets about improved animal husbandry and those who are willing to grow pomegranates instead of opium poppies, those who join the new police force (and that includes 19 women who are training in secret) and the Afghan National Army, the girls who continue to go to school, and yes, the women cricketers.

All these people and many more who may never be known, whose endeavours may pass unnoticed, all of them are working for the good of their land, their country and I applaud them.

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Burnt toast, lost dog Sunday

Posted on February 20, 2011 by SallyJ

Not the best day so far. The house smells of burnt toast, a seemingly impossible small to eradicate. Not a calamity, but more a sign of things to come. The two computers in use in the house seem intent on barging each other of the internet and one of the dogs has made a bid for freedom – well twice in fact.

That would be fine if it was one of the dogs that usually runs away -well,  not fine exactly, but at least I know that they can find their way home. No, this – and I must whisper it in case K finds out – this was Chester, her much beloved Pug/spaniel cross who has decided that the garden is not big enough to contain him. He is barely a year old, very beautiful and has a very strong will, as well as, it would seem, a touch of wanderlust.

He was heard setting up quite a hullabaloo in next door’s garden earlier this morning, but fortunately returned without trespass being required on our part…and I have just met him walking nonchalantly up the lane to our front gate, having been exploring goodness knows where in the twenty minutes he has been gone.

So, new strategies required for the honoured guest (read little tyke) – trips into the garden must be accompanied, that is a pain, especially when it’s raining, and never must he be given the chance to run with Lucy or Rosie, our own two accomplished escape artists, who have been known to require collection from several miles away.

So, life has become just a little more interesting…I think today I shall award myself the day off from writing and concentrate on keeping the dog pack under control!

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Donkeys and pristine notebooks

Posted on February 19, 2011 by SallyJ

I have a beautiful  ‘Paperblanks’ notebook that is dedicated to first drafts and notes for the War collection of poems that I am currently working on.

It was a brave step to start writing in it because I am one of those peculiar people who loves crisp new sheets of paper and collects unusual or beautiful notebooks but actually writes on old envelopes or tatty scraps so that I don’t mess up the pretty stuff!

When I’m writing fiction, or should I say prose as opposed to poetry, I write directly on to the computer. With poems however I always write longhand and only generate an electronic version once I have stopped editing and fiddling and searching for just the right word or phrase.

Not only do I write longhand, but it has to be in pencil – I can only think poetically in pencil. I have often wondered why that is and have decided it is so that if I get it horribly wrong, I can rub it out.

I have also noticed that the handwriting I use for poetry is much fatter that that I use for say shopping lists, though not as exuberant as that I use when signing a birthday card. There is undoubtedly a science to all this but actually what I am doing – or rather what I am not doing – is writing!

So, back to the notebook. I am pleased with my progress this week in that I have headed pages for 4 new poems  – What Price Pomegranates, BFPO Parcel Shopping Basket, Roadworks and Female Cricketers. An idea for a fifth is percolating. It comes from the discovery that the Afghan insurgents call our soldiers ‘donkeys’ because they carry such heavy loads. I’m not sure where that one is going yet, so I have not risked writing it in the notebook.

Roadworks is about soldiers being tasked with completing over 100 metres of road building per day, which they have to undertake whilst wearing full body armour and headgear. The cricket one is about the dreams of the national Afghan women’s cricket team – yes there really is one now – to compete in and even win the Asia cup – they train in a stadium that until recently was used by the Taliban for punishments and beheadings.

These four headings are written in pencil, fatly, at the top of four double page spreads in the notebook. They look good. The lines beneath the headings are crisply, cleanly empty. Unsullied, because all the notes and free-writes and clusters of ideas and words I would like to use in the poems are scribbled on odd scraps of paper in an envelope tucked into the back of the book!

Posted in Afghanistan, inspiration, poet, poetry, Uncategorized, war, writer, writing | Tagged , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Timelines, gateways, clusters and brain dumps

Posted on February 18, 2011 by SallyJ

Have had my head down all day today, planning as well as writing. I find it hard to move between the genres of poetry and fiction in the same day however.

This morning I was thinking about longer short stories – maybe 3 to 5 thousand words and the differences inherent in that form. With a friend I was attempting to put together a time line identifying the gateways that the reader would have  to negotiate as the story developed.

The next step would be to find the beginning of the story. I rarely plan to this extent and it will be interesting to see if it is as effective or, hopefully, more effective, than just plunging in and getting it all down then relying on editing to shape it into its final form.

That brought me to the thorny question of ‘the novel’! it has been written for two years now and despite brilliant input from Adrienne Dines, my mentor extraordinaire, I cannot bring myself to start the rewrite.

I originally set about writing it in my usual verbal diarrhoea style, no planning, just spilling the words on to the page, and consequently it needs a great deal of remodelling. The thing is, mentally,  having written it once, I can’t do it again, and that is what it needs, a complete rehash.

Maybe I should rename the characters, picture them in a new way and then perhaps I will be able to finally put the novel together and move on.

In the meantime, I am one week closer to the poetry collection deadline and no, I haven’t completed the required poem and a half. At best I have two partially fleshed out ideas and several pages of clusters and brain dumps!

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Twiddles and Tweets

Posted on February 17, 2011 by SallyJ

I have found that it is entirely possible to spend the whole day fiddling with blogs and tweets and facebook walls. Linking them and making them look pretty is a consuming pastime but I need to remember the reason I am doing all this!

There is no point setting up this elaborate network unless I actually manage to get some writing done. However, this whole electronic world is very beguiling. Not only that, on my worst days, when the M.E. (CFS) has a very tight grip, the internet has been my lifeline. It has allowed my to shop, chat, explore and generally alleviate the isolation inherent in the disease. Even telephone calls often take too much energy as they require instant response and coherent thought, whereas emails for example can be written in one’s own time and stored in drafts for checking before being sent…though often I admit mine have poor capitalisation and very interesting typos because I do not check them well enough.

So, I have started to tweet, set up a poetry email address – sjbpoetry@gmail.com, and hopefully linked everything to this blog.

Now for today’s poem. I was in M and S yesterday, wandering round the food shelves looking for tasty things to put in D’s parcel when it occurred to me that this sending of parcels, one of the most important ways in which I can show D that I am thinking of him, should have its place in the forthcoming anthology. The first step is to list the unlikely things he has been sent…very smelly cheese, a wind-up toy mouse, a book of Einstein’s riddles, an egg cup with a cutter shaped like a soldier to stamp out real toast soldiers, hundreds of party poppers, a toy aeroplane, a tiny maze….

There is definitely  inspiration here , if only for a list poem, though I rather fancy that the solemnity of a sonnet would contrast well with the light hearted subject matter, or maybe the repetition of a villanelle would be better. Time to start work.

Posted in Afghanistan, CFS, Family, inspiration, M.E., ME, CFS, poet, poetry, Uncategorized, war, writer, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Entries and eulogies

Posted on February 16, 2011 by SallyJ

Just come  back from a great writing session. The mix of styles in the Wednesday group is impressive, as is the combined accolades won by group members.

Entries were being compiled for the Slough Arts Festival as the closing date is looming. As usual we have a mix of poetry and prose and have our collective fingers crossed that we might retain the trophy for Best Writing Group. If so we will have won it for an amazing third time in four years. I have entered two poems this year – Pomegranates (version 1) and End of Days, both of which came from exercises exploring primary colours. It is unlikely that I will repeat last year’s success as I won the poetry section, but hey, you never know.

I have also sold out of copies of Random, the collection from which I read at Loose Muse a week ago, with orders in hand for reprints – amazing. Other members of the group are also expressing an interest in putting together collections of their work and having books or booklets printed. There is not much that is more powerful than holding a slim volume in your hand and knowing that it exists because of words you have imagined, combined and presented on an empty page.

I was saddened to see that three more young soldiers have died in Afghanistan. I am probably behind the times with this, but while D is serving abroad I tend not to watch the news on TV or listen on the radio. I usually get my information from

http://ukforcesafghanistan.wordpress.com

The ukforces blog is brilliant for publicising upbeat, positive information, but of course also carries the eulogies when soldiers are killed. Naturally my thoughts always fly to the families – as I’m sure do most people’s. Over and again we hear politicians, newscasters, journalists say, ‘our thoughts are with their loved ones’.

I wish I could find stronger, more meaningful words to express what I feel, but there are none to be found. Just a well of sympathy, empathy and grief for young lives lost, and for mothers, fathers, wives, children, sisters , brothers, friends, comrades with empty hearts and only memories to fill the empty space in their lives.

My admiration is immense for the brothers in arms of these young soldiers who I know will be going about their work today with absolute commitment, in spite of the loss of their friends.

I will finish this instalment by mentally saluting those young people.

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Found

Posted on February 15, 2011 by SallyJ

I was listening to Andrew Motion talking to Andrew Marr on Radio 4 about ‘found’ poetry and it reminded me that I had written one such piece two years ago. It was taken from an article in the Daily Telegraph and was about the military casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is a poem that I rarely share as I admit to a little confusion about the rules of found pieces. I could credit the Telegraph of course as that is where I sourced the information, but as it deals with other, real people and things they may have said or done, should they also be mentioned…and what if I get something wrong?

Andrew Motion seemed to imply that found words can be embellished, surrounded by the poet’s own words, changed and moved around. This notion, while exciting, seems to be inviting criticism or, worse, litigation at the furthest end of the scale.  I think I will Google for guidance…unless anyone out there has any answers?

Motion then read one of the poems from his latest collection “Laurels and Donkeys” . It was a tribute to Harry Patch, the last of the WW1 servicemen to die, at the age of111.

It was beautiful. I must buy this book…and work much harder on my own offerings!

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Small Boots, Big Ideas

Posted on February 14, 2011 by SallyJ

There are so many nifty bits to this blogging business and yesterday my ideas were too big for my boots. I have added a ‘ Home’ page, not once, but twice. It is the same page, but there are two links to it on the banner. I have no idea how to sort this out – yet.

The other downside of this, apart from looking a bit silly, is that anyone who has subscribed to the blog now seems not to be able to get to the posts. Perhaps the answer is to re-subscribe to the ‘Posts’ page…I hope that will work.

Talking of big ideas, I was amazed to discover, ( thanks to a comment on ‘Poetic Pomegranates from D), the importance of the pomegranate crop as an indicator of the market for produce in Afghanistan. Also found a charity that works to help farmers swap from poppy growing to pomegranate farming (link below on Blogroll)- brilliant.

My original poem referred to the ambivalence of the fruit…the contrast between the look of its skin and the jewels of fruit within;  the fruit’s inner beauty and its taste; the contrast between the bitter experience of tasting its fruit and the sweetness of it when it is juiced; the fact that it stains fingers with a nasty nicotine- yellow, and that my father, many years ago grounded me for smoking when in fact all I had been doing was eating pomegranates on the way home from school.

I have since discovered that it has various mythological meanings too – literally can depict heaven or hell. I will link this with the replacement of the Afghan poppy crop with pomegranates.

Definitely a poem here and all from an exercise on the colour yellow and a childhood memory about pomegranates. Continue reading →

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Stop Fiddling

Posted on February 13, 2011 by SallyJ

Now I have completely messed up the blog.

 

Back tomorrow to sort it out…I hope

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Poetic Pomegranates

Posted on February 13, 2011 by SallyJ

Fifty poems. I need fifty poems by the end of July, all linked to the theme of War…or rather, what it is like to have a close family member serving in the Armed Forces at a time of heightened activity.

In his last phone call home I suggested to D that maybe he could get me embedded as a war poet. Needless to say that idea was not greeted with  a great display of enthusiasm. I can’t imagine why not – surely all soldiers would like their Mum along…

Seriously, I need to expand the theme and so have decided to encompass the changes that are being made as a direct result of the intervention of the troops. There was a great (I’m told) programme on Radio 4 about rebuilding in Afghanistan. Needless to say I missed it first time around and so now will search for it on listen again. I also have a programme lined up on the Tivo about Afghan poetry, so that should provide some inspiration. Any ideas from anyone else as to places I could plumb for ideas would be gratefully received!

The poem I am currently working on is about pomegranates. It came from an exercise around the colour yellow. I have used military images quite unconsciously and then discovered that the best pomegranates in the world are grown in Kandahar. There must be a future in this idea, then I would have 16 of the required fifty.

I have just calculated that I have 23 weeks – that is roughly one and a half poems per week.

Not impossible.

Unlikely, but not impossible…

Posted in Afghanistan, Family, inspiration, ME, CFS, poet, poetry, Uncategorized, war, writer, writing | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments