Evening all – it has been a hectic week as usual here in the cultural hot spot that is Barrow in Furness. Working backwards, I’ve been away all weekend as an extra staff member on a residential trip for 30 secondary school pupils from a local school. It was a slightly strange weekend as I didn’t know any of the children. It turned out in the end that I had taught two of them in the past, and although they don’t play a brass instrument now, it was gratifying to know that I hadn’t turned them off music completely, they had just changed to playing different instruments.
On the Friday night some of the children decided to play Knock Door Run – I managed to sleep through it but the escapades apparently went on till 2am. On Saturday the children were in workshops all day. I wolfed down a very quick dinner in the evening and then escaped to Ulverston for A Poem and a Pint with the always fabulous Kei Miller, who I think I’ve seen read about six times now and I’m still nowhere near fed up of hearing him.
It was the committee’s turn to read on the Open Mic with the added treat of hearing Caroline Gilfillin, who has just moved to Ulverston and who has been co-opted into the Poem and a Pint committee. I read one old poem – my cursing-all-the-children-that-have-annoyed-me poem, that being the mood I was in, and a new poem that I’ve been working on. I also managed to sell two pamphlets – hurrah!
I won’t give a fuller account because there will be a proper review going up onThe Poem and a Pint website, along with a link where you can see photos of all the readers and maybe some of the audience as well.
After the event finished I then had to get back to Coniston. I sat in the lounge and had a cup of tea with the other staff, who were verging on slight hysterics by this time (non-stop nose bleed, possible broken toe, suspected sprained ankle – three different children) and went to bed at about midnight and this time, the children having worked hard all day they all went to sleep without any shinanigans
I left Coniston just after 3pm this afternoon full of ideas about running my own residential for my junior band. I’d like to either run a rehearsal weekend to get them ready for conquering South Cumbria Music Festival next year or to run a Chamber Music Weekend where they are all put into small groups and learn to play in a small ensemble. The plan would be to raise enough money so that the band could pay for everybody to attend, or at the least just ask for a small contribution from parents.
I went away when I was about 13 or 14 with Unity Brass Band to Shell Island in Wales. One girl in the band went into the baby swing and got stuck in it and couldn’t get out. My dad randomly had his toolkit in the back of the car and had to take the swing apart to get her out of it. The whole band was camping out together on a public campsite. I remember that we had a rehearsal in the middle of the campsite – I remember being slightly embarrassed but not really minding. All the other campers came out of their tents to see what was going on.
Our conductor, Rob Boulter used to tell the story about poor Cheryl getting stuck in the swing at every single concert that the junior band did, and make her stand up each time. I was about to write ‘Oh, for a story like that to tell about someone in MY junior band’ but then I thought no, if that happened to me as a teacher, it would be a complete nightmare and really stressful! But I don’t remember any of the adults being stressed – everybody just thought it was funny…
So I got back today at about 4.30 and after getting something to eat booked a holiday to Crete with the husband. I’m really looking forward to it, although I feel slightly guilty because I don’t think I’m going to be at home very much in the next month!
On Wednesday next week I’m off to Stanza. I’m reading with John Dennison on Thursday at 2.30. The programme at Stanza looks really exciting, and I’m hoping, hoping I can just get some tickets when I get there because I have not been organised enough to book any in advance. You can have a look at the whole programme here and if you’d like to come along to my reading, tickets can be brought here.
I’m at Stanza for the whole weekend – in a moment of extravagance I decided that I would stay for the whole weekend. Then I’m back for a week and then I’m off to Croatia the following Wednesday until the Sunday. Then I’m back for a week and then it’s the residential in Grange and then it’s Crete. The dogs may forget what I look like…
This week I’ve been writing an article for New Walk magazine and reading two books that I’ll be writing a review of for Under the Radar magazine. I won’t say anything else about that because I don’t want to make my review pointless, but the books were so beautifully presented, all wrapped up in cellophane that I’ve already decided I love them and the poets would have to do something awful to make me change my mind. Which hasn’t happened so far. I’ve been doing a little bit of writing as well – I feel like I’m finally getting back into a habit of writing after a long spell of not doing it.
The summer programme for The Poetry School is now out. I’m running an online course – The Act of Transformation. Again I won’t say anything else about this, because Will at The Poetry School has asked me to write a blog about the course so I don’t want to pre-empt this. If you, or anyone you know may be interested, do sign up, and please don’t let the fee put you off. The Poetry School do have a bursary system in place.
The only other writing things that have been happening is back and forth emails to Croatia – as part of the Versopolis project, I will have a pamphlet of my poems translated into Croatian which is very exciting. I’ve also had two offers of readings at festivals – one is not confirmed because the funding isn’t in place and one is top secret because the festival like to announce their line up themselves. I think that’s it for writing news.
Running wise I have had to go right back to basics, starting like I did last April, running for eight minutes and walking for 2 minutes. I did that 3 times on Monday and Tuesday and 4 times on Thursday and Friday and then today I managed 34 minutes without stopping, all on grass or sand. Next job is to try it out on the road. It is very annoying having to be patient, but I really don’t want to be injured when the good weather’s here.
So that brings us to today’s Sunday Poem which by Mir Mahfuz Ali. This poem comes his first collection ‘Midnight, Dhaka’, published and available from Seren. Like his fellow Seren poet Pascale Petit, who has featured on this blog in recent times, Mir Mahfuz Ali uses the animal world to express or explore trauma to the body. On the back cover, the blurb says that Mir Mahfuz Ali is ‘reknowned for his extraordinary voice, a rich, throaty whisper brought about by a Bangladeshi policeman trying to silence the singing of anthems during an anti-war demonstration.
When you have this bit of information it makes the poem very immediate and shocking. The use of the words ‘teenage head’. I think maybe one of the most shocking things in this poem is that the narrator doesn’t seem to change. He is just trapped in the hospital bed, but the lizard does change. He goes from being a simple lizard, to meditating, to finally providing a lesson in life ‘.
I really liked the line breaks in this poem as well – to me they all felt perfectly in the right place and we get such a strong picture of the scene from all the detail. There are many disturbing features – the ‘bloodless lizard’ the ‘cracked sound’ and the image of the lizard struggling for air. The wonderfully vivid and brutal lines
Keep the foam clear so my voice doesn’t burst
through my trachea hole
like shrapnel in a pomegranate.
give such a weight. Perhaps even more disturbing that that though, is the last couple of lines with the lizard as it escapes through the speaker’s throat.
I first came across Mir Mahfuz Ali in Poetry Review and loved his work. I’ve been waiting patiently for his collection to come out since I read that first poem. He was born in what is now Bangladesh and grew up in the early 1970’s when the region was struck first by a cyclone, then by civil war. He has had lots of different jobs – model, tandoori chef, dance and acting. He won the 2013 Geoffrey Dearmer Prize, given by the Poetry Society to the best poem in the magazine over that year who has not published a full collection.
I hope you enjoy the poem!
A Lizard by My Hospital Bed – Mir Mahfuz Ali
The mouth of silence trickles forward a bloodless lizard.
I take off my oxygen mask and allow
his cracked sound to crawl into my teenage head.
Like me he puffs for air. I wheeze. He pants.
He does not break his meditation as the hours pass,
my eyes still on him when he jumps on a thinking fly
with a fine open-air gesture. An education by lizard:
focus, don’t rely on impulse.
Keep the foam clear so my voice doesn’t burst
through my trachea hole
like shrapnel in a pomegranate.
My eyes flick a question, city kerosene thuds
echoing in my head. My friend says nothing.
Goes one step back, two steps forward.
How can I let him go? I grab the fellow by his tail,
but he still escapes through the gap in my throat.
Love that poem!