Tag: poem

  • Pareidolia
  • the best laid schemes . . .

    the best laid schemes . . .

    . . . O’ mice an’ men / Gang aft agley

  • Southport
  • this oak is

    this oak is

    Over the past few weeks, I’ve been really struck by how colourful the oak trees I see on my morning walks are at this time of year, with their wild orangey-red foliage so different to the surrounding trees heavy green. So here’s a poem I wrote in my head about those oaks this morning. The…

  • At Carry Farm

    At Carry Farm

    Yesterday I showed you some photographs that Tom had taken of an object I’d found on the beach at Carry Farm, and about which I’d subsequently written a poem. Here’s that poem. At Carry Farm Here, at the brink of land and water a pale ghost grounded. Supple, limpid, damp in the palm, in two…

  • object lesson

    object lesson

    Last October, I went to stay for a week at Carry Farm, in Argyll, to think about my writing. I took BOB the dog with me, but was otherwise alone. I walked by the sea every day, I did a little knitting, a little embroidery, and a lot of thinking. Some of the poems I’ve…

  • Fabrication

    Fabrication

    Good morning! A poem today. Earlier this week saw the 250th anniversary of the birth of William Wordsworth – a poet who has, for the past couple of centuries, often set the ideological terms of the writing of landscape and nature. I’ve been thinking about Wordsworth’s particular “Romantic” landscapes quite a lot in recent months,…

  • a coat for falling

    a coat for falling

    Good morning! Are there garments in your wardrobes from which a particular event or association is difficult to shake? I have friends, for example, who after wearing a certain dress at a funeral, have found that putting it on again becomes difficult. I’m a particularly garment-attached person, and there’s perhaps no garment to which I’m…

  • protective measures

    protective measures

    Good morning, how are you all doing? Tom really enjoyed all of your wonderful (and hugely helpful) responses to yesterday’s post – and I suspect you’ll see him following up many of these paper folding leads quite soon. . . . It’s rather blustery and rainy here today (though the weather is less severe than…

  • walking words

    walking words

    Good morning, everyone. Today I thought I’d share with you one of the poems I recently read at Write by the Sea. I’m someone who loves walking, and since my stroke in 2010, I’m also someone who has a disabled body. If you’ve read Handywoman, you might remember that a really formative moment in my…

  • A History of Rain

    A History of Rain

    It has been one of those really difficult weeks. A good friend of Tom’s has just died (an expected death, but very sad circumstances); I have been laid low with labyrinthitis (truly terrifying) and even poor Bruce is suffering (he’s been in the cone for four weeks now due to a horrible infection on his…

  • unpicking

    When thinking about process, there is nothing more instructive than unpicking someone else’s stitches. I found a beautiful hand-embroidered cloth on ebay. I have plans for it. The plans involve deconstructing and transforming it into something else. I began by undoing the slip stitches of its heavy, worn cord edging. Then I started to unpick…