Yesterday I said that one of my school teachers seemed to believe that pleasure taken in the sound and general impression of poetry was more important than the ability to understand and explain the details of each word and image. Forty years later, I am very glad that was her attitude.
Another memory from that time at school was the context – or, more accurately, lack of context – for the poetry we were studying.
Continue reading “more school memories”
(Click here for a picture of male and female kiwi flowers)
We are gradually trying to replace our old grape vine with a kiwi vine. Our reasoning is mainly that the old vine is not very healthy and produces huge quantities of wasp-attracting fruit that gets mildew and moulders on a grand scale each year.
Since there’s some sixty square metres of trellis, it’s probably not surprising there’s more fruit than we can deal with. Kiwis seem as if they might be rather more controllable.
The photo shows a sucker on one of the kiwis we planted a couple of years ago. The vivid vermilion of these new shoots, and the furriness of the stalks and young leaves, never ceases to amaze me.
Continue reading “of kiwis and poetry”
Silver dandelions bloom
on the moleskin waistcoat
of the night
(Thinking realistically, I know that they are a waste of money and that they frighten all the birds and animals, but I’m a sucker for fireworks. I don’t think I’ve ever watched a display – not even the patriotic red, white & blue of last Thursday’s royal wedding celebrations – without a broad smile on my face. One day I’ll dig out all the notes I’ve made over the years and write a proper poem on the subject.)
Continue reading “fireworks”
While many other people were busy celebrating ‘the wedding of the year’, I took a day off in Nottingham and revisited places that haven’t changed for centuries, although the areas around them have altered so much in 30 years that I had difficulty identifying any connection with the time I spent here in the Seventies.
At the castle I found this stone as part of a large display of inlaid decorated paving in the gallery forecourt: 
Visiting the Google page this morning, I discovered it was the anniverary of the birth of John James Audubon. Why Google had chosen to commemorate the 226th anniversary, I don’t know, but they had one of their doodles depicting a number of the birds drawn by Audubon.
(Incidentally, that link to the Google doodles page is worth a click – it appears to lead to an archive of the different logos they’ve used in all the different language and geographic versions of the Google page.)
Continue reading “for the birds”
don't confuse the narrator 