writing and writers – Page 163 – don't confuse the narrator

more home thoughts

tree with hanging roots, Alicante — putting down roots?

The topics of home and place cropped up several times during my brief trip south.

As I said yesterday, for me – and for several other writers there – “Where is home?” isn’t an easy question to answer.

In the discussion, someone rephrased it as, “Where would you want to be when you die?”. But, apart from the obvious suggestion of “somewhere else”, I can’t really see that it matters.

This is not meant to be a blog about me, so it seems slightly strange to be talking about personal information; I’m including it, though, because ‘place’ is very important to a lot of my writing, and the phrase poetry of place is one that crops up a lot on writing workshop and course listings.
Continue reading “more home thoughts”

home thoughts

I’ve been in the south of Spain for a couple of days, and have been talking to other writers down here.

It’s natural to want to put other people into some kind of context, so I wasn’t surprised when, shortly after I met her, one woman asked me “Where is home?”

Without much thought, I answered, “Spain.”

Then that began to rankle. It simply didn’t feel like the right answer.

Home. It’s not simply where you live, is it? It has to do with family and friends and a sense of belonging.
Continue reading “home thoughts”

poems not bombs

I wrote recently about the automatic responses from WordPress when you publish a blog post, and how one of my posts was greeted with:

In the comments to that post, it was suggested that perhaps this was intended as an imperative, but I assure you I am not responsible for the story that prompted this blog post.

The original headline that is referred to comes from hoy.es and reads: Una poesía provoca una alerta por bomba – ‘poem causes bomb alert’ – a news story from Badajoz earlier this week. If your Spanish is up to it, please go and read the post on quadernodenotas, if not, you’ll have to make do with my hurried – and somewhat ‘creative’ – summary.
Continue reading “poems not bombs”

night noises

The last few posts have been fairly rural – which is reasonable given where I am at the moment. But to carry on from yesterday’s insomnia, I’ve dug out this older, rather more urban piece:

night shades

Sounds rise through plaster, wood and dust; they twist
between the ceiling joists, and round ceramic tiles to twine
with moonlight, drifting, woven in dreams, until
they filter into consciousness. Then,

there are no more dreams:

the sounds contract
to words as hard
and tight as fists that punch
into the sobbing night.

I hear the darkness
catch its breath
and a banshee wail
drags the dawn
closer.

Continue reading “night noises”

insomnia

In A Far Cry from Kensington, Muriel Spark wrote:

the quality of insomnia depends entirely on what you decide to think of.

I don’t suffer from insomnia. Ever. I do have a few sleepless nights. And when I do, I tend to try and write poems in my head. The repetition is often just as effective as counting sheep.
Continue reading “insomnia”