Personal Blogs

The best exhibits were two fallow deer wandering around the curly wurly entrance gates to Houghton Hall as though they couldn't care less.

Next best was the stables with a brick floor and a row of immaculate wooden stalls, the tack room complete with burnished carriage driving harnesses, an array of sparkling bits as well as a collection of saddles. The house was outwardly magnificent with domes, pillars and statues but the exhibition of paintings rather dull. There were no major works and many of them, structurally weak, lost in the shadow of ages and overwrought gold frames.

There was a copy of Laocoon and a couple of other statues that owed much to Bernini. Of the paintings,Titian was another obvious influence. The unexpectedly cosy library stacked from floor to ceiling with leather bound tomes was well illuminated with long windows.

The total effect was of monumental upper crust solidity.

The home of the first Prime Minister is exhibiting a collection of 'old masters'. Velazquez and Rembrandt are represented but I will be surprised if major works are on show. I am looking forward to the visit nonetheless. Of course I'll be taking a notebook and a sketchpad.

Went to chapel this morning. The sermon was about Christ's ascension i.e. worrying about where to go when the world ends! The EMA and the state of my vegetable garden's enough for me.

P.S. Went to Bible Study. There were six of us and we read aloud in turn verses 1 - 21 of Judges, Chapter 7 about Gideon. His lot were in the mountains and the baddy Midianites by whom they were outnumbered bigtime were on the plane. Apparently Gideon ordered his chaps to break the pots ( containing lighted candles ) he had given them and blow trumpets. The damage, done within sight and sound of the Midianite tents was enough to ... 'scare the lights out of them' ?

A fanciful tale with dramatic possibilites ...

EMA awaits the final edit. Then - a holiday - perhaps.

I was hoping to gain some advice from the faculty regarding subsequent studies.

The performance by three members of Live Canon was better than the chicken I began in the canteen but not so pleasing as the KitKat.

I like performers to look as though they want a passionate response, to experience those moments of anticipation when the imagination is charged by the promise of an imminent drama. The actors wandering on and off stage shabbily dressed in their everyday threads, looked like stage hands.

There was no curtain, no costume and an audience of two until the others arrived several minutes late. Ah! Perhaps the latecomers were part of the act. The actors are now so cool and so modest that they want to be taken for members of the audience? Shame one of them forgot his lines.

The poetry was recited and much was written by Derek Wallcott a poet who creates lively metaphors and similies by the mile but does not write them into a framework that I can accept. I mean the story of his poems does not do the imagery justice.

'A bonfire lowers it's gaze.' (Walcott) Fab except eyes and eyebrows don't rustle. You imagine the rustle of charred wood settling into the embers and  nearly accept the metaphor of fire to describe a man becoming disillusioned with love for Helen of Troy but the next lines are scathing,

'when through her smoke - grey

eyes, I saw the white trash that was

Helen;'

you start wondering what sort of god the 'I' person thinks himself. Presumably the 'I' person is Menelaus and Derek Walcott is giving us unusual insight, that is not present in the Odyssey or the Iliad (Lattimore trans.) into Menelaus's feelings.

The trouble is Menelaus does not have an unforgettable part in the action like Achilles, Diomedes et al. and so you find yourself wondering why Walcott chose to write about the unlovely thoughts of a peripheral figure.

You could hear every word, when they remembered them and they seemed to enjoy themselves a bit. Perhaps they put the show together in a rush. I would have dressed the two young men and a woman, as itinerant bards.

References; Omeros, Derek Walcott

Homer, Odyssey and Iliad, Trans. Lattimore

Poetry for my last TMA is much improved since editing and redrafting. The meaning is clearer and the vocabulary more apt.

The prose for my EMA also in the process of being redrafted and edited is improving with each session. Leaving the work aside for a while between editing is of benefit.

With reference to Creative Writing Workbook (A215); Chekhov's advice;

'Write your story then cut the beginning and the end ....'

That works!

P.S. Copy of Envoi, a poetry magazine, arrived in the post and I have requested a copy of Other Poetry. So, I will be able to compare the two and decide which one to cite in TMA06

A bat just flutterd by the window. First I've seen of them since before Christmas. Swallows must be on their way as well.

'Summer is Icumen in, lhude sing cuckoo

Bloweth sede and bloweth mede ...

The wood springs anew.'

I have to choose one that I think would be suitable for my poetry.

There are a few in Writers' and Artists' Year Book for example; Agenda, Ambit, Orbis, Other Poetry. Rod Burns, one of the editors of Other Poetry has twice rejected my submissions but on both occasions asked to see more. The last time he emailed me he quoted the title of the poem he liked best out of four.

Therefore Other Poetry will be the favourite.

I had a palmfull of hair gel when they arrived half an hour early today.

There was only two members. The lady was brought up in London by parents and a nanny. She is writing an autobiography. The gentleman is a singer song writer. I read my EMA to them and received some useful criticism.

Poetry please and while your on, find yourself a publisher. Agenda Magazine is favourite so far.

This morning in the bridleway there were many dark and light brown shadows, like satin ribbons, lying aslant the muddy gorges made by tractor wheels. The effect was ...  exotic!

(A215 Exercise; take your  notebook outside and write about what you see)