The Idleway
In the Bridleway there are fallen trees,
two trunks entwined like histories,
caged in dead, brown brambles,
roped with dried bryony.
After a while, I came to name it Idleway
Cart horses never bridle there today
but oak tree trunks lie there to rot
between the banks, and foxes trot.
**************************
Spring Returns or The Drunkard's Crocus
Like cocktail glasses on a bar
yellow, white and blue
crocuses in order are opening to catch the dew.
Now judging the Writing Magazine's Talkback Forum mini
competition is over I've returned to earth in human form. I re - read
some of O.U.'s Y180's Making Sense of Poetry to help me decide
the winner. Then I chose eight categories e.g.; imagery,
rhymes, effect, vocabulary with which to compare each poem
and marked them out of ten. The method was only a guide because
of course the poems varied in style, form, and meaning. In the end I
chose one that ended by leaving the reader in suspense.
I have never had the heady experience of judging a competition
before and there came many moments during the process when the task
seemed impossible. However, when the winner posted a message
to let me know how pleased he was, I thought my part was worthwhile.
Next is the Bridport Poetry Competition. My turn again to be judged.
You judges are going to go ape over my entry for the National
Short Story Award!
****************
For my next trick, I'm planning a feature about the Diss Mere for
Discover Your History Magazine. Took some photos on Saturday,
contacted the Norwich Record Office today, and found an entry
in Wikipedia about a 13c geeze who was granted permission to
wash his wool and cloths in The Mere.
Theories of the time about the origin of The Diss Mere were not
unimaginative. Some thought it was the entrance to hell,
and others that glacial movement gouged out the deep basin.
The entire six acres, apparently, froze during the 1800's and a
party with ice - skating, fancy dress and boxing took place.
... AND my grammar wizard has promised to edit a historical
fiction I wrote recently.
Sky, this sky is the same colour as the squirrel. The clouds are racing towards the coast and the early morning sun casts the winter trees in snarling silhouette. Leaping along the fence he clears the ivy in one bound and races uphill towards the honeysuckle. Into the wood, out the other side, lunging behind the buddleja davidii that falls like an ocean wave on the lawn. Finally he re - appears mid - air, lands on the lime tree and disappears among the branches of the crown.
Eight thousand word story for the BBC National Short Story Competition
Accidentally deleted the first few paragraphs and improved the structure!
Tom Sutcliffe introducing BBC Radio Four Front Row show tonight was an unexpected pleasure. Mark Lawson's fast and furious presentation always reminds me of a starving man eating chips.
The sight of a cock pheasant sitting on the compost heap, under a linden tree in the corner of the garden, is certainly unusual. He has taken up the position on several occasions.
Two scriptores came yesterday. They did not hiss and boo when I read my ms. One of them made noises, which in translation seemed to mean, don't bother tearing it up, and the other said it was a good idea. Elizabeth read us a story she had written years ago and David read a poem he wrote recently which contained a clever line.
The imminence of Spring has brought forth emails from them, recently emerged from dormancy.
'We'll be there next week so don't forget to order the coffee.' I plan to read to them from my latest ms and I hope that they'll bring theirs to reciprocate.
Comments and analysis should follow and finally discussion of our next project; a magazine feature.
What a picture! Jeff Norman and I went to Botesdale Chapel of Ease, onetime school, and to Redgrave Parish Church today. Jeff took photos of; the architecture, an ancient desk, that was once used by the Botesdale Grammar School pupils and an effigy of the school's founder, Sir Nicholas Bacon Knight. The desk, approximately nine feet in length, three feet breadth, and three feet high is circa sixteenth century, dark with age and richly decorated with doodles. There are holes at intervals along the centre, presumably, to hold candles or inkwells as I've never seen a woodworm of four inches in circumference. The scholars had to provide their own candles and in summer, school began at six in the morning.
A popular headmaster, one Charles Maybourne, sent twenty six boys to Cambridge University. Another master did time in the stocks for drunkeness but in spite of him, the school lasted for three hundred years until the eighteen hundreds. Bad management and lack of funding are cited as the reason for closure.
I'm looking forward to publication of my feature and payment.
Editing the W.A.Y.B. competition entry had to end sometime. On receiving a message from admin. yesterday informing me that the comp. was closing, I began what was intended to be a quick final read, and found a veritable nest of errors. I'd love to see inside the judge's head when he's confronted with my tale.
I was sitting with a book in the office, while waiting for the boss's instructions, when someone said,
"What're you reading?" I held the book up so the front cover was visible and he said,
"I laid Homer."
That's one of the things that made me think of writing poetry.
The Cinquain is a form with which I'm experimenting.
Mere Street
The Mere
aisles in between
the parting banks of green,
and duck rush cobalt smiles across
to you.
Unfortunately 'cobalt smiles' reminds me of someone with heart trouble. The phrase is meant to recall sky reflecting waves pushed towards you by the duck's breast but was not readily understood by my listener.
Considering the comma is interesting. On occasions you must use a comma and on others you can if you like. The rule is never separate the subject and verb unless using an adverb.
I'm currently editing BBC and WAYB competition stories for a couple of hours a day, and I usually find phrases to rewrite, and grammar to correct. The closing date for the WAYB is 15th February.
While my flat was being rewired I decamped and wrote the first draft of a story for the Gnational Short Story Competition. The story concerns a teenager who is so fed up with the status quo that she goes rustic regardless. The plot including, humour, tenderness, heart wrenching and dramatic moments, ends euphorically.
My entry for the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook competition is by contrast set in mid Fifteenth Century Florence ( thanks to OU course; Fifteenth Century Italian Art ). The theme is 'the visit' and my story concerns the future of an unrelated couple whose plan to ally by means of a marriage between their heirs has busted. When we meet them in the protagonist's palazzo the mood is sombre but changes abruptly and the outcome is hilarious.
In which other town would you hear a cockerel crowing for all he was worth, while he was standing on the solicitor's window sill and see bantams scratching around with a colony of ducks? Betjeman's Diss may be named after the underworld but is paradise on a day like today. The sun was shining. Folk were shopping in the market and the Mere, provided everyone with an excuse to linger and savour the atmosphere.
Agamemnon the first part of The Oresteia Trilogy is scheduled for broadcasting on BBC Radio Four this evening at ten o'clock.
faber and faber, Aeschylus, Ted Hughes Trans. The Oresteia, p. 23
'Running after pleasure,
Thoughtless, careless
As a boy
Chasing a bird.'
I'm required to judge a poetry competition, over on Writing Magazine's Talkback forum. I feel as though I'm being judged.
Madeira seems like the place to go for Spring sunshine although online travel guides urge you to take a 'hot coat' and of course, sensible shoes for climbing. All I know for sure is that the place gave the name to a species of cake.
In the process of arranging photo shoot for my feature for Discover Your History Magazine.
Tom Sutcliffe and his panel, Saturday Review, BBC Radio 4, 7 - 15 pm Mm!
Tick ( meaning like ).
What did the poor mincepie say to the Christmas Fairy who asked him for a donation to the Christmas party fund?
The feature and photos I sent to Dolls House Magazine and Miniature World Magazine are going to be published!
They are, they say, going to come again! We read our stuff aloud and took turns reading some quotes, on the subject of love, by Laurie Lee, Shakespeare, and Anon. After having a go at interpreting the meaning of the quotes we were supposed to create a couple of characters who would, in the subsequent exercise, have a romantic meeting with eachother.
Two members must have got the wrong end of the stick; either that or I have opened a can of very kinky worms. One described a boy and a mother the other, two men, but they ( the writers' group members) suffered. How? I read my character sketch and some of my latest stories aloud to them!
Reading work aloud to an audience, is an effective way of detecting errors and judging by their reactions whether ... or not ... the piece is worth developing. If they put their fingers in their ears, scream and crawl under chairs, you failed; unless it was a horror story. If you are attacked, then you know you must be less subversive but if they laugh ... you are pathetically grateful, unless the piece was meant to be serious.
Publisher; Routledge
Author; Sowerby R.
Title; The Greeks
'The art of the earliest Bronze Age civilisation on Crete and the mainland (the Minoan and the Mycenean) is of a high order, as visitors to the royal palaces at Cnossos or the great sites at Mycenae or Tiryns and to their accompanying museums will testify.'
Sowerby R. is an ardent fan of the compound sentence.
Bruges next week. How will Michaelangelo's Bruges Madonna compare with ancient Greek figures?
Picture, Rupert, ( of the red jumper, yellow trousers and scarf ) reeling around Thornfield ( Bronte ) attic clutching a bottle of gin.
The anonimity of some editors can be frustrating. The reference to Rupert, refers to one to whom I have responded several times recently, by sending him stories. Receipt of the stories is unacknowledged, and he has acquired a chimerical character, in my mind, made up of Rupert the Bear and Bertha Mason.
Ref; Dent and Sons, Bronte Charlotte, Jane Eyre
Publisher; The Robson Press
Author; Andersen, C.
Title; Mick The Wild Life and Mad Genius of Jagger
'"The Stones are iconic figures in Western society," said Sting, echoing the sentiments of millions.' " (Anderson)
What I noticed most about this book is not the satanic, antics of the subject but an absence of sensitivity, or something like that. The book is mostly about dollars and dolor!
Anderson, the biographer, must have been hard pressed, to write about a group like, The Rolling Stones. They could hardly be located by him, in a cosy background and the lack of setting, produces a shifty, threadbare effect, to my mind.
In Mick's own words,
"Personally," Jagger sniffed, "I think it's really quite tedious raking over the past. Mostly, people only do it for the money " (Anderson)
References;
Anderson. Christopher, Mick the Wild Life and Mad Genius of Jagger,pp. 326, 323
The librarian promised to reserve a book for me;
Publisher; Yale University Press 1971
Author; Mancusi -Ungaro, Harold R.
Title; The Bruge Madonna and the Piccolomini Altar
I decided to research the Bruges Madonna by Michaelangelo, for four reasons;
1 Heinrich Wolfflin states that the statue is not well documented.
2 I plan to visit Bruges in December
3 I'm thinking of proposing a feature on the subject to a magazine.
4 The statue had instant appeal for me when I first saw it reproduced in a text book while studying Fifteenth Century Italian Art with the OU, c.1996-7
Sent a poem, that I started while doing an OU Creative Writing course, about the sun, to Café Writers Competition.
Currently writing an eight thousand word story, about a change of lifestyle and reading three library books before Wednesday 20th November 2013, ... with no electric light in, sitting - room, bedroom/study, or kitchen.
Free Entry Comp.
100 word short story competition
Send original, unpublished, fiction of exactly one hundred words to
100wordslong@readersdigest.co.uk by 30th January
First Prize £1,000
Enter online
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