writing and writers – Page 160 – don't confuse the narrator

children of all ages

On my way back from the village early yesterday evening, I met a neighbour who asked wasn’t I staying around for the Kings’ Day cavalcade.

The usual conversation resulted, about the Kings as gift-bearers not being part of my culture. (“We do things differently en mi tierra,” is a useful gambit which usually puts paid to criticism of my unorthodox behaviours. After all, I can’t help being foreign.)

Then I asked whether he was intending to watch the parade. “Oh no; es para niños.”
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deadlines

Once again, there’s an email in my inbox telling me that the deadline for a poetry competition I have entered has been extended. Organisers usually do this when they haven’t had enough entries; this time, they say it’s ‘by popular request.’

Since I made a concerted effort to send off my entry at 10:30 pm on New Year’s Eve – the deadline was midnight – I am a little bit peeved. I could have had another drink instead of remaining sober enough to negotiate yet another illogical on-line payment and submission system.
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of pigs and poetry

I took a new poem-in-progress into the writers’ group on Tuesday. Its title is La Matanza – the Spanish word for slaughter or massacre.

It’s a piece that I’ve been intending to write ever since we bought the house in the village and were told the guy couldn’t come to prune the trees on the long December puente as he’d be busy with la matanza.

In most parts of Spain, a cada cerdo le llega su San Martín – pigs get what’s coming to them on November 11th – but it seems that in our village it’s more traditional for the pig slaughter to take place on the feast of la Inmaculada.

That juxtaposition of the innocence and virginal white of the immaculate conception with the sheer red-blooded traditional country ritual of pig slaughter seems to be crying out for a poem to be written.
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basic skills

I think I’ve said before that I am not really interested in all the ‘social media’ sites, but that I do maintain a LinkedIn profile. As well as current and past positions, there’s space to include a summary, experience, qualifications etc. – all the usual CV type information.

I recently got an email from them asking:

Do you have skills that people are looking for? Every skill you add to your profile makes you easier to find.

Which is all very well, but it goes on to suggest that I might want to add ‘writing’ as a skill on my profile:
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the writing on the wall

Enjoying the luxury of a real paper-and-print newspaper this weekend, I came across an article with the headline: “Mural supports English teachers’ favourite poet”**, and was surprised to see the piece was illustrated with a picture of Carol Ann Duffy. She may be the poet laureate, but I didn’t think she was that popular. Reading on, I think it must specifically refer to the teachers at Leeds West Academy where the mural in question was unveiled this week.
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