home and hearth

I’ve been thinking a lot about home recently. Not because I’ve gone all nostalgic, but because it’s the theme of the local TEDx, which is taking place in November.

It’s a great theme, as it offers a huge range of possibilities for talks. My immediate thoughts were quite domestic: houses, family, pets, neighbours…

But of course there are other connotations: home is about being safe. And there’s a definite emotional connection: it’s not just about being out of danger, but being comfortable with the language, the culture, the habits…
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illuminating moments

The sunrise streets
are hammered gold
while mundane city bylaws
 gleam
with transient enlightenment

Not for the first time, I am reminded that much of my poetry is centred on the visual and heavily influenced by the quality of light.
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looking up

Beach parasols fray
against a still-blue sky:
the end of summer

angles

Camera in hand
she walks the beach, pauses,
leans agains palm trees,
clambers over breakwaters,
climbs on railings and balances
on benches along the promenade, trying
to get an angle on the sunrise.

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too much information

I said yesterday, not for the first time, that I’m not writing as much as I used to. I still jot down notes on scraps of paper or in notebooks, but I don’t seem to sit over them and nag at them like I did.

I used to find train and bus journeys a perfect opportunity to stare out of the window for inspiration, to worry at words, sketching out alternatives, scratching out false starts, mentally running through phonemes trying to find a rhyme or a word or phrase with just the right shape and sound.
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