A SETTLING IN …
Ten people came to
yesterday’s creative writing workshop at the new venue, Jane's farm in the Dales
nestling between Cumbria and North Yorkshire. After a long, hard winter and
spring the day opened its blue and the sun shone.
It was a settling in as
people made their way to her farm, which sits atop a slight rise among a maze
of lanes with old drovers’ roads leading off the main road into the dales and
the old Scotch Road – a bridleway now – keeps its history sealed beneath becks
and turf.
Ten people graced the
farmhouse kitchen laden with homemade lemon sponge cake, brownies and flapjacks
and a warm welcome from Jane, a parcel of swallows click clicking their chat
among eaves and porch swooping low the whole while we were at the table writing
and sharing poems.
“Keep the outside door
closed, so the swallows don’t come in!” One did, so we hurriedly closed the
door! The day was warm so we agreed to go outside and walk as soon as we’d
shared some feedback on writing the group had brought with them. Writing and
news! I. told us she’d had her poem longlisted for the Fish prize. A poem she’d
written on a previous “Walking Stories” workshop. B. told us of three poems
accepted for Dawn Treader magazine and we agreed to share magazines we’d
recommend.
We went round the table
introducing ourselves, there were four new attendees and three apologies. This
sharing of work, reading their poem or prose piece out loud, receiving feedback
is an important part of the writing group. It gives confidence in reading work
out loud; builds trust in sharing work from the heart with others and gives the
rest of us a feel of a person’s writing style, subject matters, concerns of
importance to them and also what motivates and influences them.
If a person has no work to share, I suggest that s/he might like to bring with them a poem or short piece of prose by a writer who has influenced and inspired them and to say briefly why. This introduces us to new work, new writers; discussions of people’s work open our eyes to different ways of writing and also new information! For example, did you know that puffins are a delicacy in Iceland? No? Me neither! Until yesterday…
If a person has no work to share, I suggest that s/he might like to bring with them a poem or short piece of prose by a writer who has influenced and inspired them and to say briefly why. This introduces us to new work, new writers; discussions of people’s work open our eyes to different ways of writing and also new information! For example, did you know that puffins are a delicacy in Iceland? No? Me neither! Until yesterday…
After group feedback we were
eager to get outside and taste the sun. Jane led the way across the farmyard,
pausing now and then to regale us with some story, familiar to her new to us –
that’s the turkey that pretended it was ill and missed Christmas. He’s six now.
The turkey stared down its blue nose at us, its massive scarlet dewlaps
wattling, its face, to me, a Noh mask, not as handsome as a pheasant whose
faces always remind me of Japanese Noh actors, but I could imagine a Noh mask
like that ol’ turkey!
“Each day we went to it,
prepared to take it away to be butched for Christmas. It was the first time
we’d kept a turkey, someone asked us for a free range, organic one, so we
thought we’d give it a try. Well, next day we went again. That turkey hung its
head, lower and lower. Wouldn’t move. Next day the same. Come Boxing Day it
came flying out of its pen, into the hen run!” We turned and looked at it. It
stared back. Was it grinning, or was that a wink it gave us?
We walked across the track,
often clarty but sun and strong winds had pretty much dried it. Past a small
beck with a clump of marsh marigolds, and a smattering of Mayflowers, Ladies’
Smocks or Cuckoo Flowers, called because Cuckoos return in May when this
delicate mauve flower blooms.
We walked, stopped, took
photos, made jottings, all the while Jane pointing out something of interest to
us. I took a photo of stone gate posts. Jane mused: “Look at the width between
those two posts. Imagine you’d never get a tractor through them now. They were
made for horse and carts, or horse and plough. That cottage down there, they
kept six horses!” I take the photo, we walk on. “Kendal Roughs, those sheep
with long noses, indigenous sheep, you don’t see many nowadays. They’re very
placid sheep, very calm. Not like those! Swaledales up the fellside there.
They’re barmy!”
It was a day of small groups
talking quietly, stopping to lean on drystone walls, pause, jot notes down or just
stand and stare as W H Davies said in his poem, ‘Leisure’
WHAT is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?—
No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows:
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
I had never heard of ‘hare holes’ before until
Jane pointed them out, although they could barely be seen as the walls had
dropped and the holes became closed over. They were made so that hares could
run from one field to another when they were hunted. They’re not hunted now, in
the fields and fells round Jane’s and “Do you have hares here?” was asked “Oh
yes! We have a lot!” Collective sighs! P. told us later that the moon at
present was a ‘super moon’, explaining that it was so many degrees closer to
the earth and appeared larger than usual. There would be a super moon for three
months. Super moons and lots of hares make me itch to be on the fells with
hares and moon.
Bedazzled by sun and wind, tales and rich
history and stories we picnic-lunched on one of the lawns, cushions, blankets,
garden chairs, food, cakes, drinks… a panting dogs and chat.
“I read something somewhere lately that a
flock of lapwings was called a deceit.” “A deceit of lapwings?!” “Yes, and a
murder of crows, a leap of hares.” We pondered. At the time I commented it
seemed unfair of the lapwings, (pee-wits, plovers) to be referred to as a
deceit. But, sitting typing this, ping! I realised! Of course, it made sense!
Lapwings (as their name suggests) drop their wing, pretending that it’s broken,
as they lead a perceived threat to their nests and chicks away by feigning
injury. Yes. A ‘deceit’ of lapwings.
We idly mused between munched mouthfuls of
what else we could name, making playful suggestions, juxtaposing sometimes
inappropriate words: a recommendation of rabbits, a tumult of turkeys, a
playground of lambs… We discussed the rookery, listening to them call and caw,
chuckle and mutter. “If there’s twa it’s a rook, if there’s yan it’s a crow” –
two ‘o’s’ in rook, one in crow. Simple!
Lunch over, we went to visit ‘Geraldine’ the
Jacob ewe and her lamb, ‘Banjo.’ Jane first had to go into the field adjacent
to the picnic lawn on her own, pick up Banjo and lead mum and lamb to a small
enclosure, with another sheep and two lambs ‘Jenny Wren’ and twins. I held
Banjo, others stoked him, his short tight woolly chocolate brown and white
body, mum looked on but son was content and put his face close to mine and
sniffed!
We went indoors for a couple of writing
exercises. The first one was asking them to think of a pair of hands and
describe them. This exercise is in Peter Sansom’s excellent book “Writing Poetry”
(Bloodaxe Books). First, simple describe the hands in detail, then imagine them
doing a task, lighting a fire, knitting, diggings spuds, changing oil in the
car… each person read out what they’d written, or said ‘pass.’ It’s the variety
of responses that never fails to amaze and delight me – some responding by
describing a pair of hands, some their own hands being and doing or taking it off into realms of the
surreal; using refrains, repetition, a list poem or dividing it into two
sections to convey a couple’s relationship…
I used a poem by Michael Laskey for the next
exercise, titled ‘A Tray of Eggs’, asking the group to write a four stanza
poem, seven lines to each stanza, as in Laskey’s poem, starting each line with
the words from his poem and substituting a different word for ‘hens’
I invited one of the group to read it out, one
person commenting on the fact that even saying ‘their daft, deft pecking’ makes
you feel you ARE a hen, the words mimic a hen's movements as they nod their heads
and peck at food:
‘It’s not the (blank) that matter/s’
‘Nor is it the’
‘Not even the’
‘But what counts more’
A Tray of Eggs
It's not the hens that matter,
scratching among the nettle
roots at the orchard's edge,
though much might be made of their red
foppish cockscombs, their speckled
feathers overlapping and the stutter
of their daft, deft pecking.
Nor is it the road pedalled
by heart to the farm, the known
fields never the same,
turning from a greenness to grain,
revolving, resolving into rows
of straight seedlings, stubble
burnt or interred under furrows.
Not even the ride shared
with my two-year-old child, astride
the crossbar, breathing the blown
scents he's making his own
unknowingly, being alive
to vibrations of place this admired
Ford tractor amplifies.
But what counts more than these small
pleasures are the eggs we bring home
in boxes and softly transpose
into the bevelled holes
in the cardboard tray, the domes
of these thirty shells
that will break like the days to come.
Michael Laskey
from Being Alive (ed. Neil Astley, Bloodaxe)
The sun still shone and we were
pulled outside again – couldn’t stay in to long in this weather! Replenished by
drinks and cakes I gave the group a ‘kicker’ line from three poems and a prose
piece, inviting four people to read out each piece, which were ‘Book Ends’ by
Tony Harrison, ‘May’ by Aldo Leopold from his book “A Sand County Almanac”,
‘Lies’ by Jo Shapcott and ‘Hurt Hawks’ by Robinson Jeffers.
Two people read ‘Hurt Hawks’ in
a duet:
During this writing session Jane
said, the cows will be let out in a moment, there’ll be much kicking of heels
and excitement!” “Is this the first time they’ll have been out?” “Yes, they’ve
been in all winter, they’re in calf – watch!”
Her sister and brother-in-law
opened the gate and sure enough out came the cows into the brilliance of
daylight and greenery… heels kicked, tails flicking, before coming dow to earth, to graze sweet, new grass. “The hills are alive!” I
yodeled. “With the sound of moooo-sic!” answered B.
“There’s only a strand of barbed wire between us and Siberia!”
Yes, it was an enchanting day of
sunshine , writing and laughing - but how different these fells and dales can
be in winter, or spring as it was this year, snowed-in facing severe weather,
heading out to check the stock, a sheep caught in barbed wire, torn and bloody;
a difficult calving; repairing walls and fences in Arctic conditions as the Jet
Stream lowers and blasts from the Arctic become more common, come hurtling into
your face, stinging skin, eyes watering, head bent you struggle in the snow
even to cross the yard to get to hens to feed them, in-lambs yows in sheds and
barns, at all hours you check their condition.
A livelihood that turns on you,
could bite and beat you, but you love it so continue the struggle amid all the
joy and beauty, pain and bleeding. Because you’re part of this land, it song, its
fabric. Its story is your story and in turn you share this story with us,
guests alighting on your farm like swallows, for one brief moment.
Four thirty and finishing time.
A wander round the farm,
introduction to Albert, Sam-lamb and Boris watching them feed; into the hen
house to collect eggs and feed the hens, Reginald the glossy Wellsomer cockerel
following us… and off we went to our various destinations.
‘Til next time, when we meet
again at Jane’s farm on August 17th for another creative writing
workshop, with guest tutor New York poet George Wallace, writer-in-residence at
the Walt Whitman Birthplace, Long Island and editor of Poetry Bay www.poetrybay.com
Date for your diary:
August 17th
“Walking Stories, Leaving Footprints”
10.30am-4.30pm,
Jane’s farm near Kirkby Lonsdale with guest poet
George Wallace
£30 incl. refreshments.
Please bring your own lunch and suitable
footwear and clothing
HURT HAWKS
I
The broken pillar of the wing
jags from the clotted shoulder,
The wing trails like a banner in
defeat,
No more to use the sky forever
but live with famine
And pain a few days: cat nor
coyote
Will shorten the week of waiting
for death, there is game without talons.
He stands under the oak-bush and
waits
The lame feet of salvation; at
night he remembers freedom
And flies in a dream, the dawns
ruin it.
He is strong and pain is worse
to the strong, incapacity is worse.
The curs of the day come and
torment him
At distance, no one but death
the redeemer will humble that head,
The intrepid readiness, the
terrible eyes.
The wild God of the world is
sometimes merciful to those
That ask mercy, not often to the
arrogant.
You do not know him, you
communal people, or you have forgotten him;
Intemperate and savage, the hawk
remembers him;
Beautiful and wild, the hawks,
and men that are dying, remember him.
II
I’d sooner, except the
penalties, kill a man than a hawk; but the great redtail
Had nothing left but unable
misery
From the bones too shattered for
mending, the wing that trailed under his talons when he moved.
We had fed him for six weeks, I
gave him freedom,
He wandered over the foreland
hill and returned in the evening, asking for death,
Not like a beggar, still eyed
with the old
Implacable arrogance. I gave him
the lead gift in the twilight. What fell was relaxed,
Owl-downy, soft feminine
feathers; but what
Soared: the fierce rush: the
night-herons by the flooded river cried fear at its rising
Before it was quite unsheathed
from reality.
Robinson Jeffers, "Hurt
Hawks" from The Collected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers, edited by Tim
Hunt. Copyright © 1938 by Robinson Jeffers, renewed 1966 and ©
Jeffers Literary Properties. With the permission of Stanford University
Press, www.sup.org.
Source: The Collected Poetry of
Robinson Jeffers (Stanford University Press, 1988)
