reading – Page 4 – don't confuse the narrator

seeing for yourself

As I’ve said before on the blog (of pigs and poetry), I’ve had in mind for years now to write a poem about la matanza, but have never actually witnessed a pig slaughter. I’d just about psyched myself up to do so this year, but when the time came, the neighbour and his helpers only hobbled the pigs with ropes and then drove them away squealing.

Even this tile – given me recently by a fellow poet who hoped, I think, that it would inspire me to finish the piece I took in to the writers’ group for commentary back in December – isn’t a lot of help as it doesn’t seem to show the actual killing.

I was reminded of the fact I was prepared to witness a slaughter in order to be able to write about it when I was reading during my coffee break this morning.
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not enough poetry

There’s definitely not enough poetry on this blog recently.

This morning, while walking back from the village, I heard something scuttle across the road and turned to look, only to find it was just a dry leaf blown by the wind, not an interesting small creature that would inspire me to write something new.

Then again, the scampering noise and the slight incongruity reminded me of the white mice in this piece, which dates all the way back to the year 2000:
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of love poetry and distractions

I complained, or at least commented, recently, about the temptations and distractions involved in dusting bookshelves. At the moment a similar temptation confronts me every time I clean the log stove and re-lay the fire.

No, I’m not using books for fuel, but I do tend to start each fire off with a fir cone or two and a few sheets of paper; I’ve tried using some of my old drafts of poetry, but I fear my writing will never set the world alight and newspaper is definitely better.
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the fear of the word

I started to write about the results of the Mslexia poetry survey yesterday, but ended up going off at a bit of a tangent.

I’d stumbled across a news item on the Poetry Book Society website which referred to the survey under the eye-catching headline “Mslexia Poetry Phobia Report”, and was immediately distracted (yes, my life is full of tangents and distractions) by the phrase “a condition known as metrophobia”.
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‘genderally’ speaking

I mentioned two survey questions last week, which asked about reasons for reading and reasons for writing poetry. At the time, I didn’t say who was carrying out the survey, as I wasn’t sure it was relevant. But what is a survey without results? And now the results have been published, and they raise further points for discussion.

So I’d better go ahead and say that the survey was sent out by Mslexia, which is published with the tagline “the magazine for women who write”.
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