Our journey was one of shared enthusiasms in poetry’s loved landscape… (Carol Ann Duffy)

Yesterday, my daughter found this for me in the Oxfam Bookshop in Shrewsbury:

The Map and the Clock (London: Faber & Faber, 2016) is a fat anthology of British and Irish poetry from 600 A.D. to the present day, concluding with a poem by Zafar Kunial, who started his PhD with MMU the same day as me. It was compiled and edited by Carol Ann Duffy and Gillian Clarke, an initiative of Duffy’s tenure of the Poet Laureateship. It is a poetry festival and feast, and it cost me just £6.99!

The line heading this blog, which seemed to speak to me of my friendship with Hilary Robinson, is in Carol Ann Duffy’s introduction to the anthology. The landscape of our friendship is indeed a shared enthusiasm for poetry. We met for coffee on Tuesday this week. I hadn’t seen her for six weeks—she’s been in France with her daughter and grandchildren. So it was lovely to see her again. She made me a soft-toy rabbit—French name ‘Lunar Lapin’—for my birthday, with glitter Docs just like mine; and some gingerbread sloths in honour of my favourite alternative mother. I took my Whittlesey Wash poem to share with her; my confidence in it was not great, but she loved it as a first draft, so I’ll stick with it, work on it some more. I’m planning to go south to drive the B1040 again before the deadline date at the end of August, so I can check the truth of my poem, which I’ve written from a memory of more than six decades. When I told my partner Bill that I wanted to go, and asked if he wanted to come with me, his reaction was who in or around Whittlesey is likely to read the poem? That is so not the point: the poem should be true for the poet first of all, or what’s the point? He has agreed to come with me. He enjoyed the poem as well, so I think I might be onto something.

While Hilary and I were drinking coffee in the sunshine of Uppermill, we talked of our next Line Break, the poetry week we take about May every year to read, write and bathe in poetry. Kim Moore’s St. Ives workshop next year is later than usual, end of April into beginning of May: https://kimmoorepoet.wordpress.com/residential-poetry-courses/december-2018-poetry-carousel/Fiona Sampson is sharing the workshops with Kim; and Pascale Petit is the week’s guest reader. Bring it on! So we’re thinking of extending the week by taking our Line Break on the way home, perhaps in North Devon, or the Wye Valley, hiring a holiday cottage to stay the extra week. At least we’ve started thinking about planning it.

Two other events appeared on our ‘poetry landscape’ this week too. Firstly, Hilary booked tickets for a brilliant MMU event, Elbow front man Guy Garvey in conversation with our new Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage: https://www2.mmu.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/story/10717/Despite these being the hot literary ticket of the century, Hilary successfully managed to get us both tickets to the event. Secondly, the second Dragon Spawn pamphlet, Ragged Rocks and Running Rascals (Beautiful Dragons Press, 2019), has been announced: it involves our poet friend, Barbara Hickson, who graduated from MMU with an MA (Distinction) in Creative Writing this summer. She shares authorship with Gabriel Griffin and Bev Morris. It’s so nice that Barbara will be our Dragon Sister; and even nicer that she’s invited Hilary and me to read at her launch event in October. We’ll be reading from our own Dragon Spawn pamphlet, Some Mothers Do… I’ll post details when I know venue and timing etc; but it will be in Lancaster and it would be good to see you there to support Barbara and her Spawn Sisters.

I carried on with the post-PhD clear-out this week. I completed the guest bedroom, which looks lovely and inviting now; and I made a start on the landing area. This is a huge task, because it involves book shelves lining the walls: lots of dusty tomes to take off the shelves to clean and decide if they stay or go; although of course they’ll stay, because who can bear to throw out books? The area is also home to Bill’s collection of model cars, three display cases full of Burago classic car models, built up over most of his lifetime. The anxiety on his face is profound when he reminds me how delicate they are, that they have small headlamps and fenders that could break off in the cleaning. I know this, and I’ll take care, even though I don’t entirely ‘get it’; but he doesn’t entirely ‘get’ my obsession with poetry either, and he is supportive none-the-less. I’ll be careful, Bill, I promise.

On Friday we came away to the Midlands for son Richard’s Big Birthday Bash. We’re staying in a cottage near Bridgnorth. I’m writing this from my bed in the cottage, just as the sun’s coming up outside. It’s lovely, right next to the beautiful River Severn. Richard was already here when Bill and I arrived at 4.00 p.m. on Friday; Amie, her partner Angus and their two Cockerpoos arrived about an hour later; and Michael arrived about 8.00 p.m. having driven up from Wiltshire after work. Yesterday we all went into Shrewsbury for the day, took the dogs to the park. There was a flower show in town, but dogs weren’t welcome so we didn’t go. But lots of people did, and we passed several people carrying flowers and plants back to their cars. When we got home we drank champagne in honour of Richard’s birthday: Krug and Bollinger, both lovely. I love champagne, I’d drink it all the time if I could afford it, so it’s just as well I can’t! Later today, I think we’re taking the Severn Valley Steam Train into Bridgnorth: the station is just a short walk from the cottage, and we’ve often heard the whistle calling its departure. It runs every half hour or so, so we can go at our leisure. The last train back is just before 6.00 p.m. Perfect!

So there you have it; another week gone. It’s less than four weeks to the Viva now, and the final decision on the PhD. I’m trying to remain optimistic. My champagne flute, as ever, is half full.

And so, a poem: this is an alternative mother poem about my Aunt Mary. She was my dad’s oldest sister, and a surrogate for the grandmother I never knew. Aunt Mary had lots of wonderful sayings that I used to tell the children I taught: “My old Aunt Mary used to say…” I don’t think they believed me most of the time, but it was all true. My favourites were “…I love hard work, I could watch it all day”; and “…you can call me anything you like, but don’t call me late for my dinner.” That last one came in very handy for playground fallings out! Aunt Mary was blind but I swear she could see more than most people. My sister and I had hula hoops for Christmas one year and we had an on-going competition to see who could do more hula hoops. One Saturday morning when I was in the house alone with Aunt Mary I did 143 and she was my only witness. She said she felt the hula hoop whistling past her ears; but they wouldn’t allow the record because, they said, I might have been blowing in her ear. As if you could fool Aunt Mary like that. I forgot to mention she was a world champion hiccupper too. She performed the most outrageously loud hiccups you ever heard: UUURRRRDUH! YAAAKKITY! You’d hear them three fields away. My sister and I would be silently peeing ourselves laughing behind her chair while she hiccupped her way through the morning; but not silently enough, obviously! “I know you young buggers are laughing at me,” she’d say.

Alternative Mother #12

Mary R

You say there’s none so blind
as them as don’t want to see.

You buy me a scarlet coat
so I’ll stand out from the crowd,

knit me rainbow socks on four needles,
make me feel their colours.

You show me how even
silent laughing can be loud
if you listen hard enough.

Your bosom
is a plumptious pillow for a story;
you tell me there is no tumbler in this life
that isn’t at least half full.

Be true to yourself, you say.
Live in peace with others
but always be your own lover.

 Fingertips are as useful as eyes,
you reckon, knuckles as feeling as fingertips
for finding your way out of dark spaces.

Rachel Davies
2018