Caroline at Coastcard [Land & Lit]

Postcard 81: a gnarled oak ~ James Brush

2011-03-21T22:05:00.003Z

My thanks to James Brush, who sent me this beautiful chapbook of 'Haiku-esque' micro-poems all the way from Texas, USA. The blue edge is just a Photoshopped background to ensure that 'a gnarled oak, 2010' shows up on my page.

James prepared this exquisite collection of micro-poetry himself under the aegis of his Coyote Mercury Press, and I feel very privileged to be the recipient of a hand-crafted limited edition.

The poems were apparently largely the fruit of James' perambulations, often with his dogs, in his local area. James re-casts his familiar landscape in a new guise, capturing those little moments that can so easily pass us by: 'it's about actively trying to re-see' the world around him, he explains.

The collection is divided into four seasonal sections, each prefaced with an accompanying photograph. Birds wing their way into a number of these pages. We encounter 'Hawk and Crow' in the Spring poems; 'Purple martins' streak through the Summer; the telltale sound of the 'Chicka-dee-dee-dee' permeates Fall (our UK autumn) - and fogbound mockingbirds and wrens make their entrance in Winter.

James' world seems a tranquil place on the surface, but there are little ripples and ruffles, ensuring that a sense of reality is never far beneath the surface. We note the gathering of clouds, a 'broken bird nest', 'a barbwire fence', the short span of the dragonfly ... but despite these little hints that there are cracks in the ice, the writer conveys a serene and compelling acceptance of the world in his view.

The poems are exquisite little jewels - or perhaps 'breaths', in the language of Haiku. Thank you, James, for sharing this universe in microcosm.

Postcard 80: Thoughts sparked by Gray and a Country Churchyard

2011-01-18T13:43:00.003Z

Cambridge, where 'Gray's Elegy' may have been composed

'The curfew tolls the knell ...'

Many of us can recite this much of Gray's 'Elegy written in a Country Churchyard'. How many of us, though, know anything much about the background to the poem? I was delighted to read the interesting feature by Carol Rumens in her 'Poem of the Week' column in 'The Guardian'.

In my mind's eye I do not see Cambridge, a place I know well, for it was my home town for five years. Instead, I picture a rural churchyard, full of greenery and perhaps dominated by a large Yew. This may be because the driveway up to my childhood home ran alongside a scene such as this, and childhood impressions are etched deep in our psyches. The view below captures something similar, although it is in a completely different part of the country.

A Country Churchyard

This is actually the churchyard (and a beautifully mown one!) at Vowchurch in Herefordshire. It has nothing to do with Gray, but it represents the kind of place I associate with the poem.

St Bartholomew's, Vowchurch, Herefordshire

Vowchurch has interesting literary connections of its own. We visited it once on our way to the Hay Festival (on a rather round-and-about route).

As you approach Vowchurch from the road . . .

Lewis Carroll, of 'Alice' fame, was really Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. His brother, Skevington Hume Dodgson, was the incumbent here from 1895-1910. Their father, Charles Dodgson Senior, was an Archdeacon. You can read about the family on this site.

This beautiful part of Herefordshire, Golden Valley, is also associated with another Lewis, namely C.S. Lewis, creator of the wonderful 'Narnia' stories.

Postcard 79: Puffins on the Yorkshire Coast

2010-12-09T10:37:00.002Z

Checking out the best nesting site ...

Those of you who visit my blogs will know that I can never resist the opportunity of posting a Puffin! I took this photograph (the one below is an enlarged detail of it) at Bempton Cliffs on the Yorkshire coast two Easters ago. It never ceases to amaze me that Puffins, who nest in sandy burrows on the island of Skomer off Pembrokeshire (almost my neck of the woods), choose these exposed ledges of limestone when they fly into these more northerly nesting sites.

Gannet and Puffin: share and share alike

My Puffin poem, 'A Chink in the Sky', based on my observations of the Bempton Puffins, has just appeared in the first Writelink competition anthology, 'A Pocket Full of Spring Fever', which is now on sale here.

Puffins on the RSPB site: amber conservation status
RSPB Bempton Cliffs

Postcard 7: Aberglasney, The Garden Lost in Time

2010-11-12T16:56:00.004Z

Strange Seasonal Mix

Autumn Colours

November at Aberglasney, the garden lost in time
and home of the poet, John Dyer,
Carmarthenshire, Wales, UK

'Hear the thrush, while all is still,
Within the groves of Grongar Hill'

John Dyer (d.1757)

Back in June 2009 (what a long time ago!), I decided to post occasional seasonal pictures of Aberglasney, the Garden lost in time, once home to the poet John Dyer. Dyer was the subject of one of Wordsworth's Sonnets. You can take a look at those first seasonal photos here. My photos for Spring 2010 are here.

I was in the gardens again last weekend, and thought it was about time I caught 'Autumn' on camera before the gales blew the leaves off the trees. We knew we might see some early Daffodils in bud, as they were there in November last year. Sure enough we were not disappointed. There were also some Primroses.

I see I try to take the following shots for my 'Seasonal Spotlight':

The House at Aberglasney (partly open to the public, often with exhibitions)
The view from Aberglasney to Grongar Hill (the view from my favourite seat)
The Upper Walled Garden (with Celtic design flowerbeds)
The stream in Pigeon House Wood
The Cloister Garden
The stream in Bishop Rudd's Walk

I'm afraid I failed to take a photograph of the stream in Pigeon House Wood this time. My back was turned as I was intrigued by the new bit of garden - and the fenced-off garden path!

By the time we reached The Cloister Garden, it was virtually closing time (4pm in the winter season), so we hurried on to the exit. I will post an old photo of the stalactites.

So these are my Autumn 2010 photos (with the exception of the stalactites):

The House at Aberglasney (partly open to the public, often with exhibitions)

The view from Aberglasney to Grongar Hill (the view from my favourite seat)

The Upper Walled Garden (with Celtic design flowerbeds)

The new garden: the stream in Pigeon House Wood is behind us, i.e. this side of the rope

The Cloister Garden: stalactites in the Cloister

The stream in Bishop Rudd's Walk

Invertebrate Life

Back in the summer, Aberglasney was a riot of Small Tortoiseshell butterflies. They were a joy to behold. You can see photos by clicking here to visit my Wild and Wonderful blog.

Pond Life

We have seen newts and an eel here (but not at this time of year): my photo of an eel at Aberglasney is here)

Bird Life: on previous occasions we have noticed these birds ...

Garden Plants

Old fashioned rose (the summer scent has gone, of course, but the top photo shows the hips)

Wild flowers - seen last summer

Ragged Robin

... and finally, happy memories of those lazy, hazy days ...

Afternoon Tea on the Terrace.

For Aberglasney's literary links (Wordsworth, Gillian Clarke...), you may like to click here. I hope you have enjoyed your virtual visit to this wonderful garden.

* * *

Postscript: for any who follow this blog and have been wondering where I have been, the answer is probably over at one of my other blogs. I may not post every day, but I enjoy 'mixing and matching' ...

Caroline at Coastcard (largely poetry and writing)
Wild and Wonderful (the natural world)

Do pop over to these and take a look ...

Postcard 77: Thank you for voting!

2010-10-13T21:59:00.002+01:00


Mother and Pup

I have just heard that my poem, 'The Wishing Woman of Seal Bay' (a Lilibonelle) has been awarded First Prize in the Writelink 'Grape and Grain' Poetry Competition.

The judge was Jenny Moore, (Winner of the Divine Poetry Competition 2006, runner-up in Mslexia Poetry Competition 2007, Winner of Best Devon Poem in 2009 Plough Prize).

Thank you to all who voted or left comments.

Postcard 76: Save my Seal (please)!

2010-09-29T21:49:00.002+01:00

Mother and Pup, photographed near St Davids a year ago

This is the last call for any kind person to cast a vote for my seal poem (a Lilibonelle) about the Pembrokeshire coast. My poem has been submitted to the Writelink Grape and Grain Poetry Contest.

You can cast a vote here (and you will find other contending poems by following the link below my poem - 'show all poems'. You may prefer to vote for these instead - or as well).

The polls close on 30 September, so the clock is ticking!

Postcard 76: Not quite Moby Dick...

2010-09-10T14:21:00.011+01:00

Heading back to Greenwich on The Thames Clipper
from the O2
(May 2010)

It was only yesterday that I was blogging about my early visits as a baby and toddler to the squirrels in Greenwich Park. I have been back to Greenwich many times, and feel a strong connection with the area. I love to take the Thames Clipper from the London Eye, and approach Greenwich by water. You get a good view of the Naval College, the Maritime Museum and the Park, with its Meridian. Sadly the Cutty Sark is not on show at present, but restoration work is underway. However, the current headline story relating to Greenwich concerns not a small grey mammal but a Leviathan-sized skeleton.

Drawing out of Greenwich
on the Thames Clipper

The Moby Dick-like tale relates to Bay Wharf in Greenwich and the recent finding by archaeologists, working for Pre-Construct Archaeology Limited, of a colossal North Atlantic Right Whale from north Atlantic waters, probably in the areas between Spitzbergen and Greenland. I am grateful to the History Blog for alerting me to the sad, sad story of this 200 year old headless corpse of a creature that died at some point between the age of 50 and 100. The remaining skeleton weighs in at 60 tons and is a mere 52 (Imperial) feet long. It seems to have fallen foul of whalers and their harpoons. Whales were prized in the 17th and 18th centuries for their oil, and the word 'right' in the name indicates that whales of this species provided quality oil for lamps, soap-making and industry. Whale bone was used for corsets.

Can a sad story like this have any kind of happy ending? Please note, I have NO wish to endorse the killing of whales. Those who follow my blogs will know the immense pleasure I get from watching creatures like Basking Sharks in their natural habitats. However, this sad mammal is already well and truly dead. DNA tests on its skeleton will help scientists in their quest for knowledge about the genetic diversity of this particular Right Whale. It will also help to fuel our understanding of the negative impact of whaling in terms of the future survival or otherwise of a particular species. Perhaps the discovery of 'Moby' will challenge us all to reconsider the part we can play in protecting creatures at risk.

The London Eye,
where we caught the Thames Clipper

'Like the creature in Herman Melville's novel,
it was a giant whale of great age.'

David Keys,
The Independent

'Moby' in Time Magazine
and in The Independent

Postcard 75: Tantallon and Bass Rock

2010-09-06T16:04:00.011+01:00

I had a 'double surprise' package last Friday. It contained the latest editions from Indigo Dreams Publishing of their magazines, Reach Poetry (issue 144) and The Dawntreader (issue 012).

Each publication contains one of my poems. 'Isabella Tiger Moth greets the Woolly Bear Caterpillar' appears in 'Reach Poetry' (editors Ronnie Goodyer and Dawn Bauling), and 'Tantallon' features in 'The Dawntreader' (editors Dawn Bauling and Ronnie Goodyer).

I have been keen to spot furry caterpillars this last year. I don't think I have actually seen a Woolly Bear. I wonder if others of you always used to look out for what we called Furry Mollies? It seems these creatures are affectionately known as Hairy Mollies. You can see my furry caterpillar page here on my nature blog, Wild and Wonderful.

Tantallon,
looking out to Bass Rock

My Tantallon poem is about the view of the Gannets (short video-clip here) on Bass Rock from Tantallon Castle in Scotland. You can read about my visit to the castle in a previous post, here.

You can read about the history of the castle here. The staff of Historic Scotland do a great job in caring for the ruined castle site. It is sadly ironic in these days of decay to find the following quotation on the Undiscovered Scotland site. The words were written to Henry VIII by an English Ambassador in November 1543:

"Temptallon is of such strength as I nede not feare the malice of myne enymeys..."

We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to this exposed spot. I wonder if you have been following Neil Oliver's (recent) second BBC series on 'A History of Scotland'.

Don't forget to let me know what you call the caterpillars! And do take a look t Crafty Green Poet's North Berwick post ... serendipity?

Postcard 74: I.M. - Edwin Morgan

2010-08-20T14:05:00.012+01:00

Castle Urquhart on Loch Ness

What lies beneath these ripples on the loch?

I am grateful to Professor David Morley and to the Weaver of Grass for alerting me to the fact that the fine Scottish poet, Edwin Morgan, died on 19 August 2010.

You can read about the poet's life here. He was a remarkable man, with a gift not only for writing but also for teaching and translating. You can read an alliterative tribute from Carol Ann Duffy here.

We all have our favourite poems, some of which seem to fit certain seasons and situations. As I thought about Edwin Morgan, my mind flitted back to happy Scottish holidays - and to Loch Ness, in particular, which I had enjoyed seeing on the television programme, 'Coast', earlier this week.

It is not surprising therefore that I have chosen to link through to Morgan's evocative piece, 'The Loch Ness Monster's Song', which you can hear in the poet's own voice on The Poetry Archive site here. It may not be the poet's 'best' poem (whatever that may mean), but it certainly highlights his dexterity with language and, in my opinion, something of our poetic and indeed human fascination with things that are perhaps 'beyond our ken'.

P.S. I had just completed this post when I noticed that a tribute from Crafty Green Poet aka Juliet Wilson had popped up in my feed. Do take a look here.

A previous Loch Ness post
A wonderful tribute in The Guardian by Carol Rumens, and another by Alan Spence. See also here.

Postcard 73: All at Sea ...

2010-08-05T16:57:00.018+01:00

Puffins again!

A year ago I much enjoyed reading Sea Room, a book about the Shiant Islands by Adam Nicolson, who inherited the small archipelago from his father. Those who follow my blog posts will not be surprised to learn that the Puffins were among the star members of the cast for me - all 240 000 of them. It came as something of a shock, though, to read that some of these Amber Conservation Status birds ended up - and not so long ago - as food for humans.

Last month, we spent a happy afternoon at the Museum of Island Life at Kilmuir on Skye [above]. This fabulous museum is situated between Flora MacDonald's grave and the cool waters of the Minch.*

The visibility was quite good on the day of our visit: we watched a Golden Eagle hovering above us in the distance, and noticed some very strange landforms out at sea.

We looked at our map and discovered that these islands, a mere 12 miles from our shore, were indeed the Shiant Islands.

Above: the stone in the foreground is on Skye.
The Shiants are in the middle distance.
Harris lies beyond.

Above: close-up of the Shiant Island rock structure,
with steep column-like cliffs.

The islands consist of columns of Dolerite, and geologically are more akin to Staffa [of Fingal's Cave] than to the plethora of rock types found on Skye. They are home to huge colonies of Black Rats.

It may only be early August, but already the trees are turning here in South Wales, and there are signs of autumn. I have just read the update on the Skomer Island blog, informing us that following the fledging of this year's Pufflings, members of the Puffin colony have already left their island off the coast of Pembrokeshire for their winter voyage. You can read about them here. I find it incredible to think of these birds travelling so far north ... and then south again!

* On a previous visit we witnessed a scene of the purest light we have ever seen. It may not have been the aurora borealis, but it was the next best thing.

Great photos of the Shiant Islands scenery
Bird art from Romania - a lovely blog [and the illustration made me smile!]
Rats at natural World Heritage sites

Postcard 72: The Seventh Quarry (& The Women of Linear B)

2010-07-28T14:30:00.029+01:00

The Archive Room [where Linear B tablets were found], Palace of Nestor, son of Neleus at sandy Pylos
[Top two photographs copyright David Gill]

Looking out over sandy Pylos

July 2010: my poem, 'The Women of Linear B' [ref. 15/2005] has just been published in 'The Seventh Quarry' [p.11, issue 12, Summer 2010, editor Peter Thabit Jones].

I have loved the adventurous tales of the Homeric hero Odysseus since childhood, so it is hardly surprising that I went on to take my degree in Classical Studies [at Newcastle upon Tyne]. It is perhaps not surprising either that I went on to marry a Mediterranean Archaeologist!

I have always been fascinated by the Homeric epithets [and here]: rosy-fingered Dawn and wine-dark Sea come immediately to mind. You may also be familiar with grey-eyed Athena or crafty Odysseus.

Many have heard of Penelope, wife of Odysseus, and her battle with the suitors while her husband was away at the war. The Olympian goddesses play their part in the Homeric epic, along with females of supernatural powers like Circe - and the alluring Sirens, whose songs drove sailors onto the rocks.

Such is the stuff of mythology and epic, but I wanted to look behind what we know as timeless literature (though it actually began as oral poetry, delivered in ring cycles by bards), to see what tasks were being undertaken by the real women - many of them slaves - who lived through most uncertain times.

Linear B tablets, deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick, provide some clues for the role of those women who beavered away behind the scenes in the area of sandy Pylos, in the western Peloponnese. This was the starting point for my poem.

A Linear B tablet, listing religious offerings of olive oil.
This one is in the British Museum.
This one was not from the mainland:
it was found at Knossos on Crete by Sir Arthur Evans,
and is Minoan [LMII].

N.B. If you would like to take out a subscription
to The Seventh Quarry poetry magazine, details can be found here.

Websites of interest:

In Search of the Trojan War by Michael Wood (you may have watched the television series)
David Gill's Pylos pictures
The Linear B Tablets
Pylos - site information
Finds from Pylos in the Chora Museum
Troy - the movie
Linear B on heritage-key.com and here
Resource on ancients scripts

Postcard 71: Myddfai

2010-06-15T21:25:00.010+01:00

We passed waterfalls and rills up the Swansea Valley

This is Usk Reservoir...

... with ponies.

The approach to Myddfai,
with the Church of St Michael's

Pulmonaria in Myddfai,
otherwise known as Lungwort

The village of Myddfai lies somewhat tucked away in the Brecon Beacons. The story goes that a farmer's son saw a young lady rise from the lake known as Llyn y fan fach. She had golden hair, which she proceeded to comb. The couple fell in love and had three sons. The lady returned to the lake, but not before she handed over the knowledge of her medicinal cures to her first born son, who became the first Physician of Myddfai.

The Guardian for 1 June 2010 reports that plans are afoot to start a new herbal remedy outlet in the village, with a cafe, and craft area in which a potter and quilter will work.

Myddfai was famous for its natural medicines and plant potions in Medieval times.

Walks in the area

Postcard 70: St Govan's Chapel

2010-05-31T22:06:00.004+01:00

Guillemot colony at Stack Rocks
near St Govan's
on the Castlemartin Range, Pembrokeshire

St Govan's Chapel
tucked in its rocky cleft
(click to enlarge)

Stack Rocks
near the Green Bridge,
Castlemartin Range
(click to enlarge and spot the Guillemot colony)

We spent the Bank Holiday in fine sunshine on the Pembrokeshire cliffs, here at St Govan's Chapel. It is a favourite haunt. Some people believe that it is the final resting place of Sir Gawain.

We failed to spot any seals today, but the flowers - including the Green Winged Orchids - were a delight. There were scores of bees and butterflies.

Some years back I took part in a Disability Arts Cymru project, which resulted in the publication of an anthology called Hidden Dragons | Gwir a Grymus (edited by Allan Sutherland and Elin ap Hywel, Parthian Books).

My poem, 'St Govan's Chapel' features in the book. It was later selected for inclusion in an Arts Council Wales report (Moving Beyond: an Arts & Disability Strategy for Wales p.7), which is online. You can follow my link through to read it here.

Postcard 69: 'Unthinkable Skies' by Juliet Wilson

2010-05-21T15:05:00.006+01:00

Do visit my Coastcard blog here
to read my interview with Juliet Wilson,
author of the sparkling new poetry collection,

'Unthinkable Skies'.

'Unthinkable Skies' (2010)
by Juliet Wilson (aka 'Crafty Green Poet')

The collection is available from
Calder Wood Press

28pp, £4.50 plus p&p - UK £1, Europe £1.50, Rest of the World £2

ISBN: 978-1-902629-28-5

Postcard 68: Hull, Larkin and a Plague of Toads!

2010-05-20T12:19:00.009+01:00

This should be a Toad,
but it's actually a Frog that hopped on to our back doorstep!

Gateway to Hull, The Humber Bridge

2010 marks the 25th anniversary of the death of Larkin. It was good to read in the latest edition of The Times Higher Education Supplement that back in 2001 Larkin's 'long-term partner Monica Jones' bequeathed a collection of Larkin memorabilia - including the poet's duffel coat and NHS glasses - to the University of Hull, where the poet served as librarian from 1955 until the time of his death in 1985.

Larkin wrote two poems about toads, and a 'ceramic frog-shaped money box' was included in the selection of personal items. Toads and frogs have fascinated human beings for centuries: I remember being captivated by the 'brekekekex' frog chorus (see also here) in the comedy by Aristophanes, when I was at school.

During the Larkin25 Festival, a commemorative statue will be unveiled at Paragon Station. The festival will run for 25 weeks, during which time the town will be invaded by a plague of fibreglass toads, presumably of similar construction to King Bladud's drove of psychedelic pigs in Bath (and here), which I much enjoyed seeing on my way to and from the hospital!

Toads and Toads Revisited by Philip Larkin
My Brekekekex blog

Postcard 67: Through the Wardrobe to Narnia!

2010-04-23T20:58:00.004+01:00

The reflection in this lamp post
(in the Cathedral Close at St Davids, adjacent to the Thirty-Nine Steps*)
reminds me of Lucy's meeting with Mr Tumnus in 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'.

Those who read this blog will know that my postcards are usually about places I have enjoyed visiting on my literary quests. This postcard is a bit different. I have just read two excellent posts by Rosie of Leaves 'n Bloom about her trip on the C.S. Lewis trail. I feel sure that you will enjoy these posts as much as I have. The embedded YouTube video gives an excellent overview in Part II.

The wardrobe that inspired Lewis is on display in the Wade Center in Wheaton College, USA. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is one of my all time favourite books. You will remember Mr Tumnus the faun, with his 'strange but pleasant little face' and his cloven hooves. Later on, of course, he is turned into a stone statue by the White Witch. But can Aslan the lion come to the rescue...?

* These steps are known locally, as the 'Thirty-Nine Articles', after the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion of 1571 given in English and Latin, the assent of which is still required of clergy in the Church of England. They form the "authorised standard of doctrine". The steps are not named after the John Buchan thriller!

Postcard 66: Loch Coruisk, Skye

2010-03-19T22:49:00.014Z

Travel ~ to make journeys of curiosity

One of several definitions for the word
'Travel'
in Johnson's Dictionary, 1755

These seals live on Loch Scavaig and guard the entrance to Loch Coruisk.
The loch has been described as a cauldron of water
in the heart of the Cuillin mountains.

This is the view of the Cuillin from Elgol.

And this is the approach to Loch Coruisk.

Here are the seals again.

Back at Elgol, where the journey ends...
...or begins

A strange thing happened to me today. I began to read 'A Mermaid's Tale' by Wendy Webb - and lo and behold, there was a poem, 'Loch Coruisk' about me. It was also about my husband, David. What a surprise.

Thank you, Wendy!
It is not often I am lost for words.

Wendy had reminded me earlier in the week that I had sent her a postcard from this wonderful spot last September.

Mark Meynell's excellent posts about Loch Coruisk on quaerentia (and here)
Donnie MacKay's magnificent Elgol Photohebrides blog
Map showing Elgol, the departure point (by boat) for Loch Coruisk
Loch Coruisk blog
Loch Coruisk, a source of inspiration for travellers like Johnson, Boswell and Scott
Turner's evocative watercolour of the loch (National Galleries of Scotland)
Loch Coruisk and Loch Scavaig - an aquatint Willima Daniell (1769-1837). You will need to scroll down a bit...
Elgol Art Floats

Postcard 65: Ellicott City, Feathered Friends and the Aroma of Coffee

2010-03-10T20:02:00.012Z

Those of you who have read my Coastcard blog recently will know that I have entered a poem in the Writelink Spring Fever Competition. All contest poems are posted up on the Writelink site. Contestants have been asked to invite their blog-readers to take a look and to cast a vote for a favourite piece and/or leave a comment. You can find the link to my entry here (with a link to all the other poems), and more details of the contest here. I know we would all value your feedback. Voting closes on 21 March, so the clock is ticking!

Fellow poet, Kay Weeks, from Historic Ellicott City, Maryland, USA invited me to be the guest poet on her blog yesterday. Do join her on A Walk into the Past, where you will begin to learn why Kay and I share a soft spot for members of the auk family.

We have something else in common, too - a passion for the aroma of fresh coffee! Kay says that coffee makes her feel like 'floating on clouds'. I defy you to read about the coffee in the deli in Yates Market without feeling that it must be time for what a certain favourite bear would refer to as 'a little something' (you have to scroll down a bit for this one).

I'm just flying off to fetch my favourite mug. It's time to sample the heightened joy in Kay's 'Coffee' sestina. Thank you, Kay!

P.S. On the subject of coffee, do take a look at Seth Apter's artistic work here, which I have just been enjoying.
P.P.S. Cathy has a delightful puffin picture on her excellent site ... here!

Postcard 64: Kilvey Hill and The Seventh Quarry, Swansea

2010-02-18T13:27:00.012Z

Kilvey Hill, Swansea
from the SA1 area...

... and from the town.

I was delighted to receive the latest edition, issue 11, of The Seventh Quarry poetry magazine, edited by Swansea poet and publisher, Peter Thabit Jones. This is a substantial magazine with a global outlook, comprising 80 pages of poetry and reviews from Wales, England, Northern Ireland, Italy, Greece, Romania, Lithiania, South Africa and America.

There are some excellent poems in this number, of which more in a moment; but I was particularly struck by the reviews of the editor's latest work, a verse drama entitled The Boy and the Lion's Head (Citadela, Satu Mare, Romania, 2009). The book has been published bilingually in English and Romanian: Dr Olimpia Iacob is repsonsible for the Romanina translation. Issue 11 of The Seventh Quarry contains an essay entitled 'A Story of The Need for Love' by Professor Alexandru Zotta about Peter's verse drama, and a substantial review by Livia Comşia.

The Boy and the Lion's Head costs £8.99 in the UK, and is by all accounts a most unusual read: Livia Comşia observes that 'no other similar dramas' have been written. The setting is Swansea's Kilvey Hill, a place that has clearly been supremely formative in the poet's artistic development. We are all familiar with Cézanne's relationship with Mont Sainte-Victoire (and here) in Provence. Many of us in this part of Wales are familiar with the poet John Dyer of Aberglasney and his poetic attachment to Grongar Hill, which lies just beyond the boundary of the hidden garden. Kilvey Hill has become a powerful Leitmotif in Peter's creative landscape. He explains his literary intentions in this way,

'I have tried to show the impact language/words make on a small boy's imagination:
in a narrative of impending grief'.

The stage is set; and if we would like to explore the unfolding drama, we would do well to read the lyrical story of The Boy and the Lion's Head for ourselves.

This short blog post can do little more than scratch the surface. It is good to find a tribute obituary by Peter to Aeronwy Thomas, his 2008 travelling companion for a six week tour of the USA. I particularly liked the moving words 'To Aeronwy Thomas' by Lidia Chiarelli. Other poems that caught my eye were 'Ice Maiden' by fellow poet and blogger, Susan Richardson (do take a look at her new blog, Polar Poets, which she shares with Siobhan Logan), Stanley H. Barkan's poem for the late Menke Katz, 'Blackberrying in Spring Glen' and Don Atherton's 'Macchu Pichu', saddled between two camel-like humps (in contrast to the wool-and-camel-hair gown in Susan's poem).

For those who like their poems to have wings, my eye was drawn to the mention of owls in contributions from two American poets, namely in 'Revelation' by Robin Metz and in 'Lies for Icarus's Mother' by Laurie Byro. Hunting birds and famished eagles inhabit the world of 'The Poet' by Carolyn Mary Kleefeld, and my poem, 'Migration Mirage', pays homage to our forked-tailed summer visitors. Professor Sultan Catto's vibrant poem, 'Escape into Time', makes us realise in this cold snap that summer is not too far away, as we catch sight of a butterfly in a faraway city of dreams.

Details of The Seventh Quarry can be found here (on the right).

Postscript:

The Seventh Quarry
is hosting a ...

WELCOME TO WALES Evening

DYLAN THOMAS IN WALES: VISITING AMERICAN STUDENTS PROJECT
SPRING 2010

To celebrate the arrival in Wales of the first group of American students participating in the Project

An evening of poetry, drama and song

Introduced by the Wales’ co-Director
Peter Thabit Jones

at the Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea

7 p.m., 14th March, 2010
FREE ENTRY

Dylan Thomas in Wales is a 12-week literary seminar offered by Knox College (Illinois, America), in cooperation with the Carl Sandburg Birthplace (America), The Seventh Quarry Swansea Poetry Magazine (Wales), Cross-Cultural Communications (New York), and in association with the Welsh Assembly Government in New York.

At Knox College, students will study the life and literary works of Dylan Thomas; in Wales, they will study the impact of Wales’s natural history and cultural dynamics on Thomas’s work.

Postcard 63: Festival of the Trees - The Rufus Stone

2010-01-22T17:50:00.019Z

Welcome to the UK and to my Festival of the Trees post!

Summer evening in the New Forest:
mare and foal

The three-sided Rufus Stone

"Here stood the oak tree,

on which an arrow shot by Sir Walter Tyrrell at a stag,
glanced and struck King William the Second,
surnamed Rufus on the breast,
of which he instantly died,
on the second day of August, ANNO 1100."

The Rufus Stone, stands in a shady glade in the New Forest in Hampshire, UK, set back from the A31 road, near the village of Minstead.

The stone memorial has three faces (and is a bit like a trig point). It was erected in honour of King William II, aka as William 'Rufus', son of William the Conqueror by John, Lord Delaware (who had seen the oak tree) in 1745. The Conqueror's son died in the immediate vicinity on 2 August 1100 as a result of an arrow fired by Sir Walter Tyrrell. The killing was said to be an accident rather than a murder. On hearing the news, Henry, the youngest brother of the departed monarch, was hurriedly proclaimed king by the barons, in a bid to beat his eldest brother, Robert of Normandy, to the throne of England.

The bones of William 'Rufus' lie in a mortuary chest (press link, then scroll down) in Winchester Cathedral, along with those of other members of the Royal Family, such as King Cnut and his wife, Emma. You may be wondering how the body turned up in Winchester for burial. A man known as 'one Purkis' laid the royal corpse in a cart and took it to the cathedral city. The original Rufus Stone became defaced and hard to read: a replacement memorial was erected in 1841.

The face of the New Forest

The New Forest today is a wildlife paradise. The following species of vertebrates and invertebrates can be found: ponies, deer, cattle, badgers, foxes, donkeys, bats, mice, water voles, adders, grass snakes, owls, warblers, curlews, spiders and butterflies. The ponies, donkeys and cattle belong to commoners, who receive grazing rights for a small fee. I imagine that there is a similar arrangement for pigs and sheep.

Above: a Lapwing
Below: a forest pig enjoys a wallow

There are also many species of tree, e.g. oak, beech, holly, sycamore, alder, ash, silver birch, sweet chestnut, horse chestnut, crab apple, blackthorn, hawthorn, viburnham, whitebeam, pine, redwood and yew. Some of the trees are very special: you can read here about the Knightwood Oak, the Adam and Eve Oaks and the Eagle Oak. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the White-Tailed ('Sea') Eagles returned, albeit with a bit of help? We so enjoyed watching these magnificent birds on the Scottish islands of Skye and Raasay last summer. There was great excitement in 2009 when a new kind of fungus, a yellow form of Phellodon melaeucus, was discovered in the New Forest. The fact that this area has been managed in traditional 'commoning' ways, without the intensive use of artificial fertilizers and chemicals may contribute to the amazing biodiversity and number of rare species.

What exactly is the New Forest?
What of its history? and here.
Find out about the ornamental and historic trees in the forest.
The Forestry Commission - and the Rufus Stone
About 'The Children of the New Forest' by Captain Marryat
BBC Autumnwatch: the New Forest featured in a number of stories e.g. like these from 2008.

Postcard 62: Philippa Scott of the Wetlands - a tribute

2010-01-16T18:45:00.007Z

Swans in flight over WWT Llanelli, Penclacwydd
Photo: David Gill
(click on picture to see detail)

I hope you will join me on a winter ramble
through the WWT (Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust) site
at Penclacwydd near Llanelli.
Not surprisingly, there are many signs of winter,
but there is also an indication
that spring is not too far away.

But before we set off,
I want to draw your attention
to The Guardian obituary of Lady Philippa Scott,
widow of Sir Peter Scott, who set up the WWT
and did so much else besides in the field of conservation.

Lady Philippa Scott died on 6 January 2010, aged 91.

Lady Scott, also known as Phil, was a keen photographer, scuba diver and writer.
Her publications include two autobiographical accounts,
Lucky Me (1990) and So Many Sunlit Hours (2002) -
and a book on one of her multi-talented late husband's passions,
The Art of Peter Scott (1989).

The Scott family legacy will live on in the minds and hearts of many of us.

The sun is low at this time of year, so we had better hurry.
There was a Bittern in this vicinity a few days ago,
but sadly there is no characteristic boom from the marsh today.
The snow has all melted;
and to my surprise, there is a great bloom of algae
on the waterways around the scrapes
by Vole City.

Look!
A flash of brilliant red overhead.
A Bullfinch - no, a pair of these beautiful birds.
Watch as they dart in unison
along the winter hedgerow.

Listen!
There is no mistaking that steady flap-flap of large wings
as a Grey Heron soars majestically overhead.
The lichen sparkles in the fading sunlight,
and the reeds and rushes make a wonderful backdrop
to this water-world.
Can you smell the salt from the Loughor estuary?

The Mute Swan over there seems quite obsessed with her fine reflection.
That Cormorant, on the other hand, seem content to stand in a stark pose,
like those sad statues in Narnia.

I find it quite hard to believe
that this land of small creatures
was once the home of huge mammoth and bison.

Did you know that a Pleistocene hippo tusk
was found beneath nearby Loughor Bridge?

Wouldn't we have a shock if we encountered an Ice Age survivor
emerging from the shadows,
around the next corner?

It's almost 5pm.
We had better begin to make tracks,
and leave the Robin to his worm .

But what about those signs of spring?

Well, if you look up now,
you will see the silver sparkle of the sun's ebbing ray
on those bursting Pussy Willow buds.

It's time for tea!

Thank you for joining me.

BBC report
WWT Llanelli
N.B. I have tried to follow Seabrooke Leckie's helpful practice of using the US and North American notation, giving upper case letters to the names of species. This way it should be easier e.g. to tell a green frog from a Green Frog!

Postcard 61: Chris Kinsey, BBC Wildlife Poet & Greyhound Laureate

2010-01-13T22:06:00.006Z

Above: Chris Kinsey reads from her book,
Kung Fu Lullabies
published by Ragged Raven Press

(photography: courtesy of Chris Kinsey)

Below: Greyhounds in the snow

I was delighted to receive a package from Romania this week. This time it was the special issue [Anul II - Nr.9 (14)/Nov.-Dec. 2009] of 'Contemporary Literary Horizon' magazine/'Contemporan Orizont Literar'. The publishing concern responsible for the venture is a media partner of MTTLC at the University of Bucharest. I am very grateful to Daniel Dragomirescu, editor-in-chief, and his team of translators: they do a terrific job in producing a publication that is always thought-provoking and highly 'international' in outlook.

The current issue contains features and poems from writers in Romania - of course - like Mihai Cantuniari (Director of CLH); from India (Vinisha Nambiar and Venkata Ramanan); from the USA (Michelle Brooks, Bert Rashbaum and Mike Essig); from Slovakia (Allan Stevo); from Nigeria (Abiola Olatunde); from Mexico (Marina Centeno) and from Australia (Mark William Jackson) ... to name but a selection.

Wales is not forgotten: this issue contains my interview, 'The Otherness of Creatures' with Greyhound Laureate and 2008 BBC Wildlife Poet of the Year, Chris Kinsey. My thanks go to Chris for her informative answers - and to Daniel for publishing them! If you are thinking of taking out a subscription to this innovative magazine from Romania, you will find a poem by Chris in English ('One February Night'), with a Romanian translation undertaken by Roxana Mindrican-DRĂGUŞIN. Thank you, Roxana.

There are a number of arresting pieces in this issue: I found myself pausing over a poem called 'At the Laundromat' by Mike Essig, mulling over the shades of whiteness, the stories, the silence... Daniel Dragomirescu has written a substantial review article, translated by Alina-Olimpia Miron, entitled 'Poetry and Logos', in which he touches on the part played by suffering in the creative process, with reference to Dr Theodor Damian (Philosophy & Ethics, Metropolitan College of NY and President of the Romanian Institute of Theology and Orthodox Spirituality, NY).

Why not visit the C&LH site: you will find out a bit more about the current state of international culture - from a Romanian perspective!

Postcard 60: Anne Frank's Amsterdam

2010-01-12T09:24:00.010Z

Amsterdam
The Netherlands
1999

Have you begun a 2010 diary?

I struggle to write a regular diary; but I enjoy the discipline of trying to keep one going on a somewhat erratic basis. I wonder what works for you in terms of the actual book or folder that you use - or do you prefer to keep your diary in electronic form, and if so, is this primarily so that you can reach the world or save the trees? I like to use a Folio Society diary (usually for the wrong year!), which has been passed on to me. I love the feel of the paper and the illustrations. The hard cover makes writing easier, particularly if one is on the hoof; and the built in ribbon marker helps to keep my place, since my entry for 12 January 2010 might fall in the slot for 24 June 2003!

One of my most memorable trips abroad was to Amsterdam, with a visit to the Anne Frank House. The canal boat ride was delightful and the sun was shining; yet despite the passing of all these years, a certain sangfroid gripped us as we landed near the Westerkerk with its haunting bells. I took faltering steps towards Prinsengracht 263-265a, that house with a million secrets.

Do you know the evocative poem, Anne Frank Huis by Andrew Motion? You can read it here on the Poetry Archive. The two words that stand out for me are 'whispering' and 'loneliness'.

You may have heard that Miep Gies, the 'guardian angel' of the Frank family, has just died, aged 100. You can read an account of her extraordinarily sacrificial life in The New York Times.

Links

Holocaust Memorial Day Trust - don't forget to light the candle on this site.
27 January 1945: the Liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, designated as the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Holocaust facts, including the origin of the name.

P.S. As I was posting a link to Miep's obituary from my Facebook page, the Word Verification letters that I had to type included the word 'paragon'. Serendipity - for if ever there was a paragon of virtue...

Postcard 59: The Holy Land

2009-12-23T23:10:00.007Z

My thanks to David Gill for the use of his photographs.
Click on the image to enlarge.

Above: desert travellers...
Below: The Church of the Nativity, Manger Square, Bethlehem

'This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.'
Luke 2:12

'We saw his star in the east...'
Matthew 2:2

Nadolig Llawen!

Postcard 58: Calum's Road on Raasay

2009-12-17T21:37:00.006Z

I wonder if you are still trying to find that last minute gift or to secure a little holiday reading for yourself.

We are devastated that our Borders store is closing down, but back in the summer I stumbled across a book by Adam Nicolson called 'Sea Room'*, all about the Shiant Islands, with their wild and rugged beauty, their puffins and their rats. I loved some of Nicolson's descriptions, but did not feel on balance that the puffins had as good a press as I would have liked (but then I may be biased, as those of you who have read my puffin posts will have realised!).

However, this book prompted me to seek out other books about the wild corners of Scotland's highlands and islands. If you like out-of-the-way places where the sea meets the mountains, you might enjoy the following books, too.

Calum's Road by Roger Hutchinson (Birlinn Ltd), RAASAY (near Skye)
I Remember: Memories of Raasay by John Nicolson (Birlinn Ltd), RAASAY (near Skye). I am just coming to the end of this fascinating memoir.
For the Islands I sing by George Mackay Brown (Polygon An Imprint of Birlinn Limited (30 Jun 2008). I knew virtually nothing about George Mackay Brown until 'A Poet's Guide to Britain', the television programme presented by Owen Sheers earlier this year. I have not been to the Orkney Islands, but maybe one day I will venture out in that direction... THE ORKNEYS
Sea Room by Adam Nicolson (HarperCollins Publishers Ltd) THE SHIANT ISLANDS

I thought you might like to join us on our tour in the footsteps of Calum of the road...

We left Sconser and the Cuillin mountains on Skye in misty sunshine, and thoroughly enjoyed the short CalMac ferry ride to Raasay...

... where - wonder of wonders - we were greeted by White-tailed (Sea) Eagles.

We drove along the road, passing this glorious inland loch...

... until we reached the eastern shore, and the landmark of Brochel Castle. David ran down to explore while I got out my watercolours and did a quick sketch.

We had not realised that we were so close to the start of Calum's Road, which is marked by the sign above and the cairn below.

The inscription on the cairn explains that the footpath to Arnish, a distance of one and three-quarter miles, was 'widened to a single track road with passing places and prepared for surfacing by Malcolm Macleod B.E.M. (1911-1988)', (aka Calum), who carried out the road-building work over a period of ten years. It was an extraordinary feat.

I love pigs - and I love unusual 'wildlife' road signs. This really made me smile! We didn't see any pigs, though, except...

... this one on another Raasay road sign. (Click the picture for a close view of the spots!).

We got out at the point where the road became impassable to motor vehicles, and found this spade propped up against the rock face. We just wondered if it might have belonged to Calum...

Do let me know if you have any favourite books about wildlife or off-the beaten track destinations.

I would also love to know what unusual animal road signs you have encountered on your travels.

* The expression 'Sea Room' is a nautical term.

Postcard 57: International Magazines - and Thomas Hardy

2009-11-17T19:33:00.008Z

Left: Contemporan Orizont Literar [C&LH] from Romania
Right: Metverse Muse from India

The woods near Thomas Hardy's Cottage in Dorset, England, UK

The memorial in Stinsford Church, Dorset
Hardy's heart is buried here.
His ashes rest in Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey, London

I have had a very international delivery of literary magazines this week. It is always a thrill to receive the monthly journal, Contemporan Orizont Literar [C&LH] from Romania. It came in the same post as Metverse Muse, the annual poetry publication from Visakhapatnam in India.

***

Issue II, Nr. 8 (13) for September and October 2009 of C&LH is beautifully produced and largely bilingual. It has an arresting red cover and is packed with a mixture of features, poems and articles. Mihai Cantuniari is the Director of the publication, with Daniel Dragomirescu as the Editor-in-Chief. You have only to glance at the back cover to find that there are contributions from writers in all four corners of the globe: the USA, UK, India, Japan, Nepal, Israel and Belgium are all represented. Alina-Olimpia Miron is responsible for some of the translations in to English. I enjoyed the Haiku and Tanka from Victor P. Gendrano. His poem, 'Ode to the Banyan Tree', subtitled 'Captain Cook, Hawaii', is most poignant.

Western readers will be familiar with the work of Pascale Petit, who is the featured poet in this issue. Her poem, 'Chandelier Tree', is a fine complement to Gendrano's 'Ode to the Banyan Tree'. Petit's poems are often energised by wild and wonderful symbolic creatures, and this selection is no exception. We find the 'electric eel', the 'atlas moth' and the twelve 'frozen horses'.

This characteristically cosmopolitan edition ends with a fitting tribute to 'Pace' or 'Peace' by Abiola Olatunde from Nigeria. Thank you, Daniel and the team, for another great issue! If you would like to find out more or take out a subscription to C&LH, do visit the blog here.

***

Metverse Muse is edited by Dr H. Tulsi. It contains about 600 poems from nearly 60 countries, so is equally international in approach. The issue contains work by some familiar UK names - Wendy Webb (of Norfolk Poets and Writers), Claire Knight (recent winner of the Haiku section of the New Zealand International Poetry Competition), Bernard Jackson (Metverse Muse Literary Adviser), Les Merton (editor of Poetry Cornwall/Bardhonyeth Kernow and featuring in my Echo blog), Norman Bissett, Diane Simkin and others. This issue contains a workshop entitled 'Key into the Interlocking Rubaiyat' by Bernard M. Jackson, with hints on executing a successful poem in this form. It had not occurred to me previously to consider how closely Frost's masterpiece 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening' resonates with the Rubaiyat form. There are differences, of course: metre, for instance, as Jackson explains.

Dr Tulsi has included my sonnet on p.92, 'Hardy's Cottage', in which I try to capture a flavour of the wooded landscape around the poet's delightful cottage in rural Dorset. The cottage garden flowers in the hebaceous border, however, give a deceptively tame impression of this out-of-the-way place where wild creatures roam. You can read about the snake here.

The photograph above shows the woodland route to the cottage. We were there in early Spring, before the leaves had grown back on the branches. The Hardy graves in Stinsford Churchyard are worth a visit. Do look in the church, too, for the stained glass windows are magnificent.

Thomas Hardy
iKnow Dorset on places associated with Thomas Hardy
Hardy Country
Hardy's Cottage

Postcard 56: A Sunset for the Guy

2009-11-05T19:27:00.007Z

Cuillin sunset, Skye, Scotland
June

Strumble Head, Pembrokeshire, Wales
August

Narnia in a Lamp?
Tree reflections in the lamp, the Cathedral Close, St Davids, Pembrokeshire, Wales
(Can't you just imagine Mr Tumnus appearing through the trees and meeting Lucy?)
November

The Weaver of Grass has celebrated Bonfire Night (aka as Guy Fawkes Night) with a wonderful blend of sunset photography and poetry. Do follow this link HERE to her site.

I decided that I had a few sunset photographs of my own that I could post. I hope you like the ones I have chosen, taken in different months, years and geographical locations. If you have a favourite sunset photograph, why not post it on your blog, and let us know.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis is one of my all time favourite books. You will remember Mr Tumnus the faun, with his 'strange but pleasant little face' and his cloven hooves. Later on, of course, he is turned into a stone statue by the White Witch. But can Aslan the lion come to the rescue...?

The wardrobe is on display in the Wade Center in Wheaton College, USA.

Speaking of the USA and returning to 5 November, do take a look at Steven's blog post for today. It was good to be reminded of the (rather gruesome) tale of our Parliament. I wonder how many of you saw the Guy Fawkes lantern on display in the revamped Ashmolean Museum on 'The Culture Show' this evening on BBC2, with Andrew-Graham Dixon. There was also feature on Keats - with Andrew Motion alluding to the new film, 'Bright Star', with Ben Whishaw in the lead role.

Postcard 55: Of Bards and Birdboxes

2009-10-24T22:41:00.001+01:00

Female Pied Flycatcher
(Above and immediately below)

Male Pied Flycatcher
(Below - at least I assume it is a Pied Flycatcher!)

I wonder whether you have been taking part in the RSPB Feed the Birds Day this weekend. There have been over 100 events across the UK.

I took these photos earlier this year in one of our favourite areas of woodland in Carmarthenshire. I'm afraid the quality of the pictures is not very good, but the birds were so fast that it was hard to click quickly without jolting ther camera. We did not like to go too close.

We received a note from out local branch of the RSPB yesterday, telling us the good news that the two nestboxes we sponsored in Cwm Clydach RSPB Reserve had both been used successfully.

One of the boxes had been taken over by a pair of Pied Flycatchers. The nest building was underway on 20 April 2009. The first egg was laid on 6 May 2009 and a total of 4 eggs hatched on 26 May 2009. Alas, there was one casualty - but three of the four young fledged successfully.

The second box was used by a Blue Tit family. The nest was built around 16 April 2009, and the first egg was laid on 30 April. This time 8 eggs hatched on 19 May and all the chicks fledged. Great news!

You may be wondering what this has to do with literature. Well, I was reading the current RSPB magazine, Birds (November 2009), and was delighted to find a reference to a letter by Professor David Morley of the University of Warwick. Professor Morley has developed what he calls Bard Box poems. These poems - which often resemble the call or movement of the bird in the box, or the shape of its nest - are painted on to the outside of the nestbox and allowed to weather, so that the young 'nest in a poem and the fledglings then emerge from within a poem'. Humans enjoy the spectacle of these Bard Box examples of public art, so it is not only our feathered friends who benefit.

N.B. Professor Morley issues a word of warning to budding Bard Box artists, 'I have a patent pending on this idea so hands off, eco-capitalists!' ...

That said, do take a look at Professor Morley's Strid and Sessile blog entry to find out more about this fascinating project.

I wonder how you celebrated Feed the Birds Day. Let me know if you did anything interesting.

Incidentally, we were just having lunch yesterday when a large male Sparrowhawk perched on our fence. We sometimes get a TITTERING, a TIDING, a GULP, a MURDER or a CHARM of Magpies, but this was the first time I have seen a Sparrowhawk in our neck of the (town) 'woods'. Is there a collective noun for Sparrowhawks, I wonder?

Postcard 44: Dylan Thomas Festival, Swansea, 2009

2009-10-21T16:54:00.004+01:00

The Dylan Thomas Centre,
Swansea, Wales

The 12th Dylan Thomas Festival (26 October-9 November 2009) is about to begin in the Dylan Thomas Centre, with supporting events taking place around the city.

I have only just realised that the dates coincide - give or take a day - with the anniversaries of the poet's birth (27 October 1914 at Number 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, Swansea) and death (9 November 1953).

A rather unseasonal photo of Cwmdonkin Park...

... with its drinking fountain where the young Dylan sailed his ship.
Sadly the chained tin cup is no longer there...

The festival takes its name from Dylan's work, 'In Country Sleep'. It is dedicated to the memory of poet and writer, Aeronwy, daughter of Dylan and Caitlin, who died on 27 July this year. Dannie Abse, Stevie Davies, Owen Sheers, Fflur Dafydd, Byron Beynon, Kathryn Gray and many others will be taking part.

The events are being organised by David Woolley, Jo Furber, Jeff Towns and others. The festival aims to celebrate the 'power of the creative word', using Dylan's work as a springboard for contemporary art that has an eye to the future.

Dylan Thomas Homepage (with links to the Centre etc.)
Dylan Thomas Festival Brochure
Forthcoming events at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive
More tributes to Aeronwy: here (by Peter Thabit Jones) and here

'Poetry is what makes me laugh or cry or yawn,
what makes my toenails twinkle,
what makes me want to do this or that or nothing.'
Dylan Thomas

(Source for quotation: Encyclopedia Britannica)

Postcard 43: Dreams of Skye

2009-10-15T16:35:00.010+01:00

Boat ride back to Elgol from the brooding waters of Loch Coruisk

The foreshore, Elgol

Cuillin Sunset

Skye Collage
Click to enlarge.
('Here's one I made earlier' - after our trip in 2008)

I seem to have had a lot of deadlines recently, and am only just catching up with myself since we returned from our week on Skye last month. However, the Misty Isle continues to live in my mind, and I felt it was about time I mentioned it on this blog.

To my great delight, I have just been given a secondhand copy of A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland: the Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides by those great traveller-diarists, Johnson and Boswel l. The book has been edited by R.W. Chapman and is an Oxford Paperback. The Folio Society have also produced a (magnificent) edition.

Since our return I have had a Skye poem accepted for publication in a winter anthology. It refers in passing to the mournful, heart-rending Pibroch laments, played on the bagpipes. Speaking of music that tugs at the heart-strings (and in some cases, the harp-strings), we bought a most evocative CD, 'Skye the Island', from the Aros Centre in Portree (the lochside town with the coloured houses in the collage above). We have been driving around, enjoying the music of Blair Douglas and friends. We have also been entranced by the Gaelic music of Maeve Mackinnon. This is the link to her official site: here. You can even catch a snatch of her music: enjoy a breath of island air!

Seals: we saw lots of seals on Skye. Closer to home, there are also a few around the Pembrokeshire coast. Click here to see my post from last weekend with movie clip of a mother and pup.

Postcard 42: Reach Poetry 133 and Dozmary Pool

2009-10-03T15:40:00.007+01:00

Dozmary Pool, Cornwall

Jamaica Inn, Cornwall

Chough

I never cease to be amazed at the influence of the Arthurian legends. Dozmary Pool plays a prominent role in the stories, so it was interesting to view this remote and evocative stretch of water on Bodmin Moor. Needless to say, there was no sign of Excalibur!

My poem resulting from this visit has just been published in Reach Poetry, issue 133, (Indigo Dreams Press, edited by Ronnie Goodyer and Dawn Bauling). In Cornish mythology the return of the Chough is said to herald the return of King Arthur.

Dozmary Pool was surprisingly hard to find; but geographically speaking, it is not far at all from another famous Cornish landmark, Jamaica Inn, where there is a small exhibition about the work of Daphne du Maurier.

Do you have a favourite Daphne du Maurier line? If so, why not share it here. The well known, well loved opening sentence of Rebecca does not count, apparently, for this purpose.

Postcard 41: 'The Seventh Quarry' magazine (& Ystrad Fflur)

2009-09-03T10:09:00.012+01:00

The Abbey of Ystrad Fflur
aka Strata Florida
with David Gill
(whose poem about the Kerameikos in Athens appears on p.34)

Red Kite

Base of the ancient yew tree in the Strata Florida churchyard,
associated with the 14th century poet,
Dafydd ap Gwilym

I was delighted to receive my copy of the latest edition (issue 10) of The Seventh Quarry, edited by Peter Thabit Jones, with assistance from Vince Clemente, the Consultant Editor in America (and creator of the beautiful poem on p.9, 'And I think of Roses'). The issue maintains its Welsh roots - the poet in profile is Swansea's Malcolm Parr - but has a truly cosmopolitan feel. It features poets from Wales, England, Scotland, America, Israel, Serbia, Japan, Australia and Canada.

The Seventh Quarry has recently become a cooperating partner with Cross-Cultural Communications Publishers in New York. The magazine is beautifully produced. It costs £3.50 a copy and comes out twice a year, in January and July.

The current issue includes two previously unpublished caricatures by Dylan's wife, Caitlin Thomas, courtesy of John Edwin Cowen. Sarah Petrak's poem, 'A Seashell Curved' on p.21, particularly caught my eye, with its unusual lure of the ocean. There are poems of loss ('Healing' by Annabelle Moseley, p.14, with its 'palette of new colors') and life ('Parhelia' on p. 12 by fellow poet and blogger, Susan Richardson, with its lively Sundog in the sky). There are a number of interesting Leitmotifs such as shadows and mirrors ('Plein Air' by John Dotson, p.13; 'Simplicity' by Robert L. Giron, p.16 - and 'Your Shadow', p.29, by Carole Ann Smith).

The issue contains two poems (Byron Beynon, p.41, and Caroline Gill, p.34) on the Welsh abbey of Ystrad Fflur - hence the photographs above. It is a wonderfully evocative spot. Red kites soar overhead and the hills resound with the ring of centuries of verse.

Closer to home, 'Mumbles Pier' by David Alun Williams, p.47, draws the reader into a world of 'bright-gartered gulls' and the double-edged intrigue of 'entangled lines'. You can find details of The Seventh Quarry on the website here, and also on MySpace.

The Seventh Quarry, listing at The Poetry Library, South Bank Centre

Postcard 40: Swansea, Dylan Thomas and Salubrious Passage

2009-08-27T12:38:00.009+01:00

Coastcard work-in-progress

Above and below: Salubrious Passage, Swansea

Above and Below: more Coastcard experiments

Salubrious Passage, Swansea, Wales, UK

I am in the process of designing some greetings cards of Swansea, home town of Dylan Thomas. Last week I was looking at some of my photographs and experimenting with a design based on the famous alleyway, Salubrious Passage. I have been trying out different colour schemes, as you can see.

You will notice the stone tablets or open books, incised with words from Dylan's famous poem (and one of my favourites), 'Fern Hill'. You will also notice the cherub holding the strings (which look like reins).

Imagine my surprise when I visited Seth Apter's blog, The Altered Page, to see a rather similar image. ('Chinese Checkers', picture 3). It is not identical, but I cannot help wondering if there is some common influence. What do you think?

There are more cherubs in Swansea in the vicinity of the Grand Theatre. Dylan Thomas referred to this alley as 'Paradise Passage' in his ghost story, 'The Followers'.

Postcard 39: Oxwich, Gower and Wesley

2009-08-23T14:57:00.018+01:00

'Is this picnic only for humans?'

We had a 'holiday-at-home' yesterday, when we packed a picnic lunch and headed for Gower. My heart lifts when we cross the cattlegrid at the start of Fairwood Common: I always feel at that point that the town is truly behind us. Our first port of call was the new Wildflower Centre. If you are in the area, do drop in for a cup of coffee. The Italian bread looked amazing. I have rarely seen such a splendid display of deep blue cornflowers.

We had our picnic on the edge of Cefn Bryn, before heading on to the south coast of the peninsula at Oxwich Bay.

Sadly the beach was full of wasps and looking very 'grey', but we were about to head off in a different direction. Oxwich is a pretty village, known for its wide stretch of sand and for the wildlife habitat of its extensive dunes. It is not widely known that the preacher and founder of Methodism, John Wesley, came to the village and stayed in one of the beautiful cottages in the second half of the eighteenth century.

Oxwich was once a haven for smugglers. Oxwich Castle, a ruined manor house, was built in 1541 and the delightful 12th century church of St Illtyd nestles in the trees on a rocky ledge above the sea.

Along the boardwalk
Eggs of some sort or a seed pod from something like a birch tree?

On this occasion, we were heading for a nature walk across the sand dunes and over the short marshy boardwalk. The area of reedbed and fen was once a saltmarsh. Thomas Mansel Talbot of Margam claimed it from the sea in the 18th century.

Burnet Moths

Caterpillar
I.D. gratefully received!

Looking up from Oxwich to Cefn Bryn on Gower

Sadly, it was not a bright sunny afternoon, so it is not very surprising that we failed to find any lizards, grass snakes or adders on the dunes. We had a good time all the same: I hope you enjoy these photos of some of our sightings...

Chrysalis
ID gratefully received!

The waymarked paths over the nature reserve are marked with white cockle shells. Cockles are a key part of the Gower scene.

Common Blue Butterfly - I think...

... and query Meadow Brown Butterfly

Red Admiral

To be identified!

Brown Lipped Snail?
(it looked very pink to us!)

Postcard 38: Vindolanda, Trafalgar Square and Jeremy Paterson on the Plinth

2009-07-28T21:16:00.015+01:00

Lion in Trafalgar Square, London (above)

Vindolanda (above)

The Mithraeum at Carrawburgh, Hadrian's Wall (above)

Just a few weeks ago I posted a postcard on the children's book, V-mail, about the Vindolanda Writing Tablets. Little did I realize then that it would only be a few weeks before I was back in the North East, visiting Hadrian's Wall and the site of Vindolanda itself.

Last week a friend of mine was in London, listening to fellow poet, Crysse Morrison declaiming from the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square. This week another friend alerted me to the fact that my lecturer (from 1979!), Jeremy Paterson (and here) was marking his retirement with an appearance from the same Fourth Plinth - in a Roman toga. His purpose was in part to promote Latin in schools, and the Minimus mouse material in particular. The Minimus books are written by Barbara Bell and Helen Forte. They have a vocabulary section and a Minimus glossary. Some of the Minimus tales (or tails?) revolve around Vindolanda, as you can see from the Minimus blog.

Earlier post on the Hadrian's Wall area, including the Great North Museum, our student Rag Day 'Homer-in-Greek' oration - and a mention of Maureen Almond's splendid poetry anthology, 'Recollections', about items in the old Newcastle University Museum of Antiquities.

Postcard 37: The 'auld crag' of Bass Rock - and Tantallon Castle

2009-07-25T21:51:00.010+01:00

Top: Bass Rock off the Scottish coast
Middle: View from Tantallon Castle
Bottom: The Gannetry on Bass Rock, the oldest-known Gannetry in the world (taken from Tantallon)

Click here to see David's short video clip of the gannets (on my Coastcard blog)

On our recent holiday in Scotland, we spent a very happy couple of hours at Tantallon Castle on the east coast. The castle has a spectacular setting, but sadly we did not have time on this occasion to go to the spot along the coast from which this castle can be photographed to best advantage. You will, however, get a flavour of the site from my shots above.

St Baldred was an early visitor to Bass Rock. He died out there in c.606 AD (although the date of his death seems to be in some dispute).

About a hundred members of a garrison were posted there in the mid-sixteenth century. Their survival in this inhospitable place was due largely to the gannets, who carried fish to the island and provided material for fires (intended for gannet nests).

We learn about Bass Rock from the account of Jean de Beaugué, a French writer who published L'histoire de la guerre d'Ecosse in 1556, concerning the campaign of the French auxiliaries in Scotland from 1548-9. Jean de Beaugué wrote of the rock that 'those who enter it must climb up by the help of a strong cable thrown down for the purpose; and when they have got with much ado to the foot of the wall of the castle they sit in a wide basket and in this posture are mounted up, there is no other way.'

These days the 21,000 pairs of gannets are allowed to enjoy their realm on the rocky sentinel of the Firth of Forth without the presence of human residents. The nesting fulmars prefer the cliffs around Tantallon on the mainland. The 19th century lighthouse on Bass Rock built by David Stevenson (of the Stevenson dynasty of lighthouse builders) continues to serve as a key beacon for ships. Eider ducks float in rafts on the sea, diving for mussels.

Bass Rock in Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson (himself a member of the lighthouse building family)
Tantallon, a feature in The Independent

Postcard 36: To the Lighthouse?

2009-07-14T22:55:00.005+01:00

Godrevy Lighthouse,
Cornwall
Photo: copyright David Gill

This beautiful lighthouse, supposedly the inspiration for the novel, 'To the Lighthouse' by Virginia Woolf, has been sold for £80,000. The lighthouse in the novel is on The Hebrides (realm in real life of the Stephenson dynasty of lighthouse builders), but Woolf drew on her memories. She had spent childhood holidays in nearby St Ives.

Postcard 35: Scotland & Sir Walter Scott Territory

2009-07-10T22:50:00.006+01:00

Above: Loch Katrine
Below: Abbotsford

I have long wanted to visit Loch Katrine where my great uncle used to enjoy fishing. However, it was not the fish that appealed to me, but rather the setting of Scott's poem 'The Lady of the Lake'. It is certainly a very beautiful and majestic area. I had already visited Dozmary Pool in Cornwall, home of another mythological Lady of the Lake (and my poem on the subject has been accepted by Reach Poetry, Indigo Dreams Press).

It was interesting to compare these two watery locations. Loch Katrine nestles among towering hills: Dozmary Pool seems to 'float' on a flat corner of Bodmin Moor, close to Jamaica Inn, with its Daphne DuMaurier connections.

While we were in Scotland, we also visited Sir Walter Scott's wonderful home of Abbotsford on the Tweed. It is worth seeing for the setting and architecture alone, but it was the artefacts that particularly caught my eye. There was an intriguing picture of the young Scott being presented to Robbie Burns by a female who was gently pushing him forward from behind. The picture highlighted for me the importance of the poetic relay race in which we find ourselves running. We beaver away in our own little garrets most of the time, but often find ourselves influenced - consciously or subconsciously - by that great number of poets who have gone before.

Postcard 34: Museum Meanderings

2009-06-18T21:25:00.003+01:00

The debate over the Parthenon marbles and their rightful place has continued for many years.

The new purpose-built museum in Athens will open its doors to visitors on 20 June 2009.

Keats wrote about the Parthenon sculptures in London in his celebrated poem, 'On seeing the Elgin Marbles...'; but although the Parthenon has been a subject of much political debate, it has not been a source of great poetic inspiration in modern times. Liana Giannakopoulos has identified three Greek poets, however, who have tackled the subject.

Ancient writers on the Parthenon include Plutarch: you can read about some of them here.

Postcard 33: Greetings from Roman Tyneside

2009-06-08T19:30:00.017+01:00

Photos above:

Signing in the Mithraeum, Great North Museum, Newcastle upon Tyne
Explanatory board in English and Braille at Arbeia, the Roman fort at South Shields
Reconstruction at Arbeia (owl fresco on walls of commanding officer's house)
Reconstruction at Arbeia (portico in the commanding officer's house)
Reconstruction at Arbeia (magpie fresco in the commanding officer's house)
Arbeia, the site with reconstructed Roman arch and barracks

Those of you who read my Coastcard blog will know that I was back in the North East a couple of weeks ago for the opening of the Great North Museum. One of the attractions for a prospective student of Classical Studies heading for Newcastle University (me!) back in the late 1970s was the close proximity of the city to Hadrian's Wall.

In these days of accessibility, I have a vested interest in keeping an eye out for measures that have been taken to enhance the visit to the various sites and museums of visitors with a mobility or sensory impairment. The audiovisual display in the Great North Museum's Mithraeum made imaginative use, I felt, of an opportunity for sign language. The site of Arbeia had at least a couple of display boards featuring Braille. One board had two trowels attached to it for extra sensory (and visual) impact. The other had samples of the different building materials, which could be handled.

I wonder which of the photographs above appeal to you. The reconstructions of the barracks (somewhat Spartan, if this Greek term can be applied to Romans!) and the commanding officer's house were amazing. The reconstructed frescoes were quite beautiful and reminded me so much of some of the original wall paintings I had enjoyed during my year in Rome back in the 1980s.

Although Arbeia is not actually on Hadrian's Wall, it was an integral and important part of the frontier since it controlled the port at the mouth of the Tyne. The earliest known Roman buildings in Arbeia date from circa AD 125. A new fort was built at South Shields circa AD 158, when Hadrian's Wall was occupied for a second time.

You may be wondering what all this has to do with 'landscape and literature'! The answer is this: while I was in the on-site shop at Arbeia, I bought a fascinating children's book, written by Katharine Hoare and published by the British Museum: V-MAIL Letters from the Romans at Vindolanda Fort near Hadrian's Wall.

Well, you may be thinking, this still does not sound like literature, and perhaps - strictly speaking - you would be right. However, I felt it definitely merited a mention on this blog. Hundreds of small 'wooden postcards' were found on the site at Vindolanda, ranging in content from army memoranda to family letters. I have always been a great believer in the power of the postcard, and it seems to me that these wooden postcards exemplify all that is so special about this particular form of communication. The tablets give us a glimpse into the personal lives of Roman men and women (yes, women are represented) who found themselves posted to the wild and rugged northern limits of the Empire. The tablets even featured in the BBC2 TV programme, 'Our Top Ten Treasures'.

On the subject of these Roman women, Sulpicia Lepidina and Claudia Severa's wooden 'postcards' display the earliest extant examples of women's handwriting in ink in the Latin language. Claudia Severa invites Sulpicia Lepidina to her birthday bash in one of these missives, and in another she explains that there is a matter she wants to talk about with her friend, but it will have to wait until they meet in person. It all sounds very modern to me.

My affection for the Hadrian's Wall area goes back a long way, but this book certainly helped me to view the people in a fresh light. It is, in my opinion, a wonderful resource for children, and I hope that it will bring a smile to their faces and help to ignite a love of the past and its people.

Postcard 32: Bolton Abbey

2009-05-19T11:40:00.007+01:00

Bolton Abbey, Yorkshire

'From Bolton's old monastic tower
     The bells ring loud with gladsome power...'
William Wordsworth

Wordsworth was inspired to write his poem, 'The White Doe of Rylstone', as a result of his visit to Bolton Abbey. A revised draft of the poem, with textual alterations in the handwriting of Mary Wordsworth, the poet's wife, was bought by The Wordsworth Trust in 2007 for £9000. Poets struggle with the issue of revision: it was Paul Valéry (1871 - 1945) who wrote that 'a poem is never finished, only abandoned'. Wordsworth's poem was drafted initially in 1807/1808. The revisions were made post-publication, prior to the second edition of 1820.

It would be very interesting to know your views or personal revision policies. Do you feel that your poems continue to evolve post-publication or is there a point at which the words 'set' for better or worse?

On a different note, Australian poet, Emma Jones, is to be the next Poet in Residence for the Wordsworth Trust.

Visit Bolton Abbey, part of the Chatsworth Estate
Wind farm plans for 'Turner Landscape' at Bolton Abbey (Telegraph, 2008)

Postcard 31: Brontë and Plath

2009-05-18T22:19:00.007+01:00

Top: Haworth, the moorland path (left) to Top Withens
Middle: Parson's Field adjoining the Brontë Parsonage
Bottom: The moor

I have been thoroughly enjoying the BBC4 series on a Monday evening, 'A Poet's Guide to Britain' by Owen Sheers, Poet in Residence at the Poetry Archive. In the first programme, Sheers tackled the subject of Wordsworth on Westminster Bridge; and in the second programme, the influence of the Brontë family and their landscape upon Sylvia Plath. The third programme, this evening, was about the well-loved poet from Orkney, George Mackay Brown.

I have blogged before about Haworth, but the programme opened new horizons for me. Sheers was considering the poem, 'Wuthering Heights' by Sylvia Plath, and it was fascinating to see what shadowings of Emily Brontë one could detect in the later poet's lines. Plath, however, herself a newcomer to Yorkshire, was not content to relive the Brontë experience. Sheers showed us how she took what she found and made it her own.

My middle photograph shows a corner of Parson's Field in the sprawling Brontë Meadow at the rear of the Haworth Parsonage. The dry-stone walling was erected in 1957 when the Brontë Society bought the land. The other areas of walling in the vicinity date from the 16th and 17th centuries and were used to mark the boundaries of the strips of field known as 'Long Roods'. Parson's Field was originally known as Over Long Roid: both 'roid' and 'rood' are Scandinavian terms for a woodland clearance.

P. Viktor has made some useful comments on his blog.
A celebration, this is
Sylvia Plath blog
Programme on iPlayer

Postcard 30: Westminster and Wordsworth

2009-05-06T10:41:00.005+01:00

We enjoyed the first episode of A Poet's Guide to Britain presented by Owen Sheers (Monday BBC4 8.30pm). Sheers explored the story behind the famous lines ‘Composed Upon Westminster Bridge’ by William Wordsworth. He took us on a journey to the Lakes and over to France, demonstrating how pivotal and symbolic the bridge was in terms of spanning the different aspects of Wordsworth's life. Sheers is due to explore the poem 'Wuthering Heights' by Sylvia Plath in the next episode.

Advice from Wordsworth to Southey sells for over £8000

Postcard 29: Palmyra (Arabic: تدمر Tadmor‎)

2009-04-28T09:29:00.018+01:00

House in the desert on the way to Palmyra
Photograph: © Mary Roberts 2009

'To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive ...'
[R. L. Stevenson Virginibus Puerisque iv. 190, 1881]

I am very grateful to Mary Roberts for the opportunity to post this photograph. It shows the domed beehive-shaped buildings in the Syrian desert, the flecks of cloud, the shadows and the mountains beyond. Palmyra is - as yet - off-limits.

I first 'encountered' the site of Palmyra when I was taking a course in Roman Cities as part of my degree in Classical Studies at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. I had spent my teenage years in East Anglia, with its wide skies and panoramic views, but nothing had prepared me for the scale of the desert and of the Roman buildings (seen, alas, only on slides in a lecture theatre) that make up the extraordinary city, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Palmyra had long been an oasis settlement on the caravan route that linked Persia with the Mediterranean ports in Syria and Phoenicia. The Silk Road conjures up all kinds of exotic images in our minds. The Romans came in the first century AD, and added their mark. The settlement had been part of King Solomon's kingdom in earlier days. The remains of the Roman theatre can be seen today.

There has been great excitement recently over the discovery of remains from the Hellenistic city on the site. It is known from the archaeological finds that dromedaries, pigs, sheep and pottery all played a part in city life during this era.

You may be wondering why I have written about Palmyra on this 'Landscape and Literature' blog. The answer lies in the person of Zenobia, the third century Queen of Palmyra who 'claimed' descent from Queen Cleopatra of Egypt and Queen Dido of Carthage. Zenobia followed in the footsteps of previous Syrian and Abyssinian queens like the Queen of Sheba (linked article by Michael Wood). She could be described as the Boudicca of the city in the sense that she was a warrior queen, intent on leading her people against the Romans. Zenobia is mentioned in the texts of many ancient historians. Pollio refers to her beauty. She features in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in The Monk's Tale (see Cenobia) and also in Masque of Queens by Ben Jonson (1610). Giovani Paisiello wrote an opera, Zenobia in Palmyra, and she is the subject of novels like The Queen of the East by Alexander Baron.

For more tales from the desert, please take a whirl around the Carnival of the Arid site at Coyote Crossing. Carnival of the Arid 4 begins in early May 2009.

Palmyra, Thomas Love Peacock
Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra attributed to Miss Ticknor
Judith Weingarten's blog: Zenobia, Empress of the East

Carnival of the Arid 1 (with link to 'Gloucestershire in the Negev' poem by David Gill)
Carnival of the Arid 2
Carnival of the Arid 3

Postcard 28: Sir Isaac NEWTon at Aberglasney?

2009-04-17T23:07:00.008+01:00

Aberglasney, home of the poet, John Dyer
a) Newt in the pond
(we thought we saw an eel or elver, too)
b) Looking for early bluebells
c) Magnolia bursting out

Spring and summer are merging into one, it seems, as the warm sunshine continues in this neck of the Aberglasney woods. It will not be long before the bluebells unfurl their shimmering blue carpet over Pigeon House Wood, home to treecreepers and - of course - pigeons. Gillian Clarke, in her Aberglasney sonnet sequence of 'Nine Green Gardens', referred to the lords-and-ladies in her poem about this part of the garden. The stream is currently lined with what I think is Yellow Skunk Cabbage (Lysichiton americanus), a variety of less-than-sweet-smelling arum lily from the Pacific northwest region.

How many of you remember the tortoise, Mr Alderman Ptolemy and his newt friend, Sie Isaac Newton from 'The Tale of Jeremy Fisher' by Beatrix Potter? Jeremy Fisher invited them to dinner, and since fish was off the menu that evening, he offered them roasted grasshopper and ladybird sauce!

We were delighted to spot a couple of newts in the Aberglasney pond on our most recent visit. We also thought that we saw a small eel. Did you know that we have three native species of newt in the UK? - the Smooth Newt, the Palmate Newt and the Great Crested Newt.

'See her woods, where Echo talks,
Her gardens trim, her terrace walks ...'

John Dyer, The Country Walk

Postcard 27: Spurn Point Surprise

2009-04-16T19:19:00.008+01:00

Views of Spurn Head
Do click the second picture for a closer view (not for the squeamish!)

Those who have read previous postcards will know that I enjoy visiting places linked with literature. This postcard is a bit different, because it links a peninsula with a composer.

I had long wanted to visit Spurn Head, with its wild beauty. It is in many ways a liminal place on the edge of nowhere, and yet it is so close to Hull and the busy shipping area of the Humber.

Ralph Vaughan Williams composed 'Spurn Point', his Andante sostenuto, in 1926 as one of Six Studies in English Folk Song for Cello.

We drove through low-lying land and eventually spotted the black-and-white striped lighthouse. As we headed out along the spit of land, with saltmarsh estuary on our right and the open sea on our left, I spotted web after web on the furze bushes that lined the road. When we had parked the car, I went to examine them, thinking that perhaps they were going to be nests for an unusual species of bird. It became all too apparent that my assumption was way out, for they were utterly heaving with young caterpillars. I asked a man sporting a deerstalker and a pair of binoculars, who told me that I should have read my Yorkshire Wildlife Trust ticket, since it contained a warning about the toxic nature of the barbed hairs of the caterpillars of the native Brown-Tail Moth (Euproctis Chrysorrhoea).

Our ticket informed us that the creatures emerge in spring from their white webs to feed on sea buckthorn. Apparently they shed their skins, releasing the hairs before 'pupating and flighting' as adult moths.

As if the moths weren't interesting enough, we learned that an apparently unringed white stork had been spotted that afternoon.

Spurn Point on www.absoluteastronomy.com
The Spurn Head Lightship
Spurn Head, a cyclical landform
Some great shots from the air (scroll down to Spurn Point)
The Observatory (for birds)
Ralph Vaughan Williams (Hyperion records site)

Postcard 26: No wombles of Wombleton

2009-04-08T22:13:00.004+01:00

We have just returned from Yorkshire, where we found ourselves in the village of Wombleton, not far from Nunnington Hall. It made me think about the wombles of Wimbledon Common. As we drove along, all the Mike Batt Womble songs came flooding into my head ... 'you're invited to a ping-pong ball', 'It was early one morning; the fish were jumping high', 'Cousin Yellowstone is returning' ... and I began to wonder whether there was, in fact, any womble link with this Yorkshire village.

I have now done a little web research, and realize that the name 'womble' came from the lips of Beresford's young daughter, Kate, as she ran about on Wimbledon Common.

In the course of my investigations, I came across a fascinating feature from The Times (11 August 2007) on Elisabeth Beresford, creator of the Wombles. Did you know, for example, that Walter de la Mare was her godfather and that Eleanor Farjeon was her godmother? Here's to the Wombles for leading the way in recycling and 'green thinking' for the younger generation!

Remember you're a Womble
How many Wombles can you name? Check here. Which is your favourite? Orinoco has to be mine!

Postcard 25: A Gander's Tale from Gower, South Wales

2009-03-25T16:11:00.009Z

Book cover of 'A Gander's Tale', showing Burry Green and Bethesda Chapel

'Consider the birds ... but listen to the message behind the Gander's Tale' David Gill

The Gower Peninsula - known locally simply as 'Gower' - was the first area to be designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). Many vistors to Burry Green approach this lovely Gower village from the rise known as Cefn Bryn, with its sweeping views across the Loughor Estuary. The building of Bethesda Chapel was financed in some measure by Lady Diana Barham. It opened for worship in 1814. William Griffiths, a Calvinistic Methodist who later became known as the 'Apostle of Gower', served as Minister from 1823 until 1861.

As you can see from the photograph, the village is dominated by the fine white-washed chapel and by the pond. Chapel Elder, Miss Eleanor Jenkins, has had an eye on both these features: her book is the culmination of her astute observations of the geese who live on the green. Eleanor's aim, however, in writing about the gander and his friends was to link these avian observations with Biblical truths about Jesus Christ. 'A Gander's Tale' is made up of fifty short chapters or 'goose fables' (in the sense that Paul White used the term for his 'Jungle Doctor' series), which began as monthly articles in the Bethesda magazine.

We were delighted to attend the launch of the book last week at Old Walls Leisure: it was a wonderful occasion, and there was a good crowd. 'A Gander's Tale' is adorned with Eleanor's beautiful colour photographs. Each 'chapter' contains a Christian message in addition to unusual insights into the life of the geese themselves. Did you know, for example, that a Frizzley Sebastapol is a breed of extra-feathery goose? If you buy a copy of the book, you will discover the joys of life in a Gower village and why Goosey should perhaps have been called Gandalf!

The link below will allow you to purchase a copy of the book or to opt for a free download.

The publisher's site: 'A Gander's Tale'

Postcard 24: Neath Abbey, Wales, UK

2009-03-17T09:23:00.006Z

Neath Abbey

We visited Neath Abbey (founded by the Cistercians c.1130) on a grey afternoon. It was a much larger site than I had remembered from a previous visit; and although it lies in a post-industrial and rather built-up area, it has a certain feeling of tranquillity about it, induced to some extent by the ambience of the canal that runs along the abbey grounds. Gerald of Wales, aka Giraldus Cambrensis, alludes to one of the Welsh poets, Meurig, aka Mauricius Morganensis, whose brother, Clement was Abbot of Neath. It seems likely that Meurig was the author of several books in Welsh, in addition to a volume of Latin epigrams. He appears to have been Treasurer of the Diocese of Llandaff in South Wales. It has been asserted that Meurig was responsible for a Welsh translation of St John's Gospel, but this has not been proved and may not, in fact, be true.

Neath has been described in very different ways over the centuries. You will find two opposing descriptions here, showing how its appearance was radically altered between the 16th and the 19th centuries. The abbey was dissolved in 1539, and copper and lead ores were being smelted on the site during the 18th century. These days, Neath is well known as the home of the singer, Katherine Jenkins.

Postscript: I find it curious that the words ambience and ambiance come under the same entry on the AskOxford site, and yet are given distinct meanings in my copy of The New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors.

Postcard 23: Horse Talk (& Chalk)

2009-03-06T08:44:00.019Z

The Kilburn White Horse, Yorkshire, UK

White horses on chalk hillsides have long been a source of fascination. We visited this one last summer, on our way to see the house of The Mouseman, which I shall mention in a future posting. The Kilburn horse has the largest surface area - just over an acre - of any of our chalk horses, and is the most northerly one of its kind in Britain. It is not, however, a very ancient one: it was completed in 1857 by a school master, John Hodgson, whose friend, Thomas Taylor, had seen chalk figures on his travels in Wiltshire. Harrison Weir was responsible for the design, and the area was cleared by 31 assistants and the scree was given a lick of whitewash. The horse has had a chequered 'career', but stands in splendour for all to see today.

You may be wondering why I have chosen the white horse as a motif in this blog about landscape AND literature. Those of us of 'a certain age' (like me!) will remember those 'snowy white horses' on the television series of our youth, and the footage of them galloping through the waves. The signature tune still hums in my head, but it is actually a different white horse that I have in mind, The Little White Horse, in the children's fantasy novel by Elizabeth Goudge. The story has nothing to do with the Kilburn site, but is a charming tale in its own right. You can read a comment about it from the New York Times at the Happy Wonderer's blog. Goudge's tale has just been released (6 February 2009) as a film, The Secret of Moonacre. Apparently the allegorical tale was one of J.K. Rowling's favourite childhood books. It won a Carnegie Medal in 1946.

I have yet to see The Angel of the North in situ, but I read in The Guardian (11 February 2009) that Kent, the county of my childhood, is to have an enormous white horse on a hill. The horse icon is the brainchild of Turner prize-winner, Mark Wallinger, who won a recent contest to design a 'landmark sculpture' for Ebbsfleet. The sculpture is due to be over twice the height of its northern cousin, and the sheer expense is proving problematic in this climate of recession. Wallinger's horse was inspired to some extent by a horse painting by Stubbs: Jonathan Jones in The Guardian noted that its 'whiteness' recalls the chalk figures.

Wiltshire boasts thirteen white horse figures out of the twenty-four known in Britain. Soil samples from the Uffington White Horse have given three approximate dates for this Early Iron Age or Late Bronze Age creature: 1400-600 BC, 1240-360 BC and the latest 900-340BC. Modern white horses can be seen in places as diverse as South Africa and West Virginia, Morocco and New Zealand. The horse motif appears in Lascaux cave paintings of about 16000 years ago. The first domesticated horses have been attributed to the Botai Culture of Kazakhstan, of 'around 5500 years ago', according to research undertaken by the universities of Bristol and Exeter. Homer, of course, mentions the Trojan Horse, which concealed the soldiers. I particularly like the 7th century BC representation here, with all the faces peeping out!

The Kilburn White Horse from the air (Multimap)
The Homeric Way of Blogging - an intriguing approach
You will find a poem about a chalk figure, The White Horse, on p.39 in The Poems of Rowan Williams (Perpetua Press 2002). There is an article about the Archbishop's writing here.

Postcard 22: Wordsworth at Tintern

2009-03-03T12:06:00.013Z

Tintern Abbey on the River Wye

Chris Tally Evans has been presenting a four-part BBC Radio programme on the River Wye, called 'My Mile of the River'. This may be what sowed our seed of thought to revisit Tintern Abbey. We left the traffic on the M4 behind us, and drove on through beautiful countryside until we dropped down into the village. Wordsworth (1770-1850) was much on our minds, and his lines were ringing in my ears, as we enjoyed the 'wild green landscape' he described in Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey (13 July 1798). The poem was penned on the poet's second visit to the site. He was in a buoyant frame of mind and was accompanied on this occasion by his beloved sister, Dorothy. Wordsworth's previous visit had not been under such auspicious circumstances. He had travelled alone some five years earlier in the summer of 1793, after the French had declared war on England, shortly after the death of Louis XIV on the guillotine. Wordsworth's daughter, Caroline, had been born to Annette Vallon in 1792: Wordsworth had returned home, leaving his daughter and her mother in France.

A few facts about Tintern

1536: the beginning of the dissolution of the monasteries.
1566: the iron industry began in the adjoining Angidy valley.
1782: the publication of Observations on the River Wye by William Gilpin.
1792-1798: Turner visited Tintern on a number of occasions.
1793: Wordsworth's first visit.
1794: Turner painted the ruined abbey in watercolour and Edward Dayes painted Tintern Abbey from across the Wye.
1796: Wordsworth left London with his copy of Gilpin's guidebook.
1798: Wordsworth's second visit
1798: Wordsworth wrote his Tintern poem.
1804: William Havell painted Tintern Abbey and the River Wye.
1815: William Havell's aquatint of Tintern Abbey.

Stella and Rose's Books in Tintern
Literary Trail: Tintern to Hay

Postcard 21: A blackbird in Adlestrop

2009-02-20T09:27:00.019Z

Above: the Adlestrop Station sign Below: blackbirds

I mentioned in a former postcard that I would return to Adlestrop. We visited the village on a very icy day, and enjoyed imagining the railway before Dr Richard Beeching's so-called 'reforms'.

I recall hearing the sound of a blackbird on our walk back towards the Post Office from the church, and thinking how wonderful it was to listen to a blackbird in Adlestrop! I have always wanted to understand the poetic relationship between the blackbird line in the poem by Edward Thomas and the parallel line in Morning has Broken ('Blackbird has spoken ...') from the pen of his fellow poet, Eleanor Farjeon. Thomas was introduced to Farjeon by Clifford Bax in 1912. Edward Thomas wrote one book specifically for children, Four-and-Twenty Blackbirds, published by Duckworth in 1915.

An entry for the previous year, 23 June 1914, in the field notebook belonging to Thomas recorded the blackbird's song and a hiss of steam. Thomas had been travelling by train to visit another fellow poet, Robert Frost, at his cottage in Leddington. The train would have come to a halt at Adlestrop Station. Thomas saw meadowsweet and willow herb a little later on his journey as the train drew in to Chipping Camden.

Eleanor Farjeon brought out a book for children entitled Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard in which she describes the blackbird's whistle. James Guthrie published a book by Thomas, The Friend of the Blackbird, in a Pear Tree Press limited hand-made edition in 1938, years after the poet's death. Shortly before his dying day in France, Thomas mentioned in a letter to Frost from 244 Siege Battery that he had not heard the song of a blackbird. A fellow First World War poet, Sassoon, in contrast, noted in his poem, The Distant Song, that 'a blackbird sang' on the battlefield beyond the enemy line.

Adlestrop

Gloucestershire in the Negev podcast by David Gill
Stevenson, Stephenson and Thomas, Coastcard blog

Blackbird Poetry

Wallace Stevens: Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
At least Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird: the Seamus Heaney Centre pays homage to the 9th century piece, The Blackbird at Belfast Lough (The Guardian)
The Blackbird of Belfast Lough keeps Singing, commentary by Ian Sansom (The Guardian)
When Blackbird Sings by Bernard Jackson, Norfolk Poets and Writers Blogspot

(Not blackbirds this time) A Comparison of Two Poems on Birds by S. M. Mehdi Hasan

Rober Frost

Frost - a literary farmer

Postcard 20: Rajasthan = Brontë Country

2009-02-19T12:40:00.010Z

The atmospheric walk to Top Withens, Haworth, Yorkshire

I have enjoyed two visits to Haworth in Yorkshire, with its Brontë associations. The museum items made me realize just how small and slight the Brontë girls must have been. This revelation is all the more startling when you walk outside and begin to experience for yourself something of the vast and foreboding expanse of moor.

It is always interesting to see how tales can translate into a different culture. There is to be a new stage-adaption of a Bollywood Brontë. The show Emily's Wuthering Heights will be on tour during March: venues include Exeter, Glasgow and Harrogate. The action will take place in 1770s Rajasthan, and the bleak moors will take on the guise of a parched desert wilderness.

To return to Yorkshire for a moment, I have long beeen fascinated by the name Top Withens, Heathcliff's abode, sometimes spelled as Top Withins. I resorted to the Ordnance Survey on one occasion when I wanted to include the name in my poem, Emily's Moor (subsequently published in The Seventh Quarry, ed. Peter Thabit Jones). I was delighted to find a discussion of the name on the Haworth Village website. It would seem that the spot has been Top Withens (with an 'e') since the 1600s. 'Wuthering' is such an evocative word for the sound and movement of the north wind. It reminds me of another tale set in Yorkshire, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. You will find a link below to an intriguing paper linking the two stories.

Postcard 19: Happy [Ancient] Valentine's Day

2009-02-14T18:23:00.014Z

The O2: Tutankhamun 2008

Unlike Edward Lear (of limerick fame) who actually travelled to Egypt, I have to content myself with a virtual visit today. I am reminded of a happy evening in the company of Tutankhamun at the O2 almost a year ago. You may wonder why I have chose to post on 'things ancient' for Valentine's Day, and the reason is that we came across an intriguing 2009 Near Eastern Valentine Contest for entries in ancient scripts and languages. It is run by the publishers, Eisenbrauns, who specialize in books on the Near East and Biblical Studies. Matthew Scarborough won himself an honourable mention in the contest for a Hittite version of 'You are my sunshine'. This song was immortalized for me in the television adaptations of The Balkan and Levant Trilogies (aka as the Fortunes of War novels) by Olivia Manning. Emma Thompson acted the part of Harriet Pringle and Kenneth Branagh was Guy in these memorable productions.

On my travels on the internet I came across a site on Ancient Hebrew poetry. I studied classical Greek and Latin as a student, and have often regretted the fact that I did not have the opportunity to learn some Hebrew. For those who prefer things a little more modern, I note that a new book is out, Poets on the Edge: an Anthology of Modern Hebrew Poetry selected and translated by Tsipi Keller.

And finally, for those of you who enjoy a short challenge, there is the opportunity on the Boston Phoenix site to write a Six Word Memoir Valentine in (you guessed it) six words. Happy Valentine's Day ... and happy writing!

The Egypt Centre, University of Swansea
Collecting Egypt blog: Bev Rogers and David Gill
Egyptian Blue Hippo (my site)
Egypt and the Nile: through Writers' Eyes, Eland Books

Postcard 18: Monarch of the Isle

2009-02-12T11:32:00.014Z

You are invited to view the February Seal Card Sale on my Coastcard site.

Speaking of seals, I photographed this magnificent and comfortably curious creature on the Isle of Skye. There are wonderful seal colonies and it is a joy to travel by boat in search of them. Many make their home on the skerries or reefs of little rocky islands that abound around the coast and sea lochs in this area. The word 'skerry' comes from the Norwegian language. A 'sker' in Norse is a rock in the sea. The Gaelic form is 'sgeir', and in Norway, the uneven rocky edge of an island fringe is known as 'skjærgård'. The Scottish coastline around the Western Isles, with its indentations and offshore skerries, is the outcome of a relatively recent submergence. The Scots term for fjord is 'firth'.

I grew up in East Anglia, where there are seal colonies along the North Norfolk coast. Occasionally a seal runs into danger, and it is always heart-warming to read of cases like this story form the Eastern Daily Press in which a sea creature has been successfully rescued, restored to health and returned to the ocean.

I was thinking about seals in literature. It is easy to name poems and prose pieces about a number of our sea creatures (notably The Walrus and the Carpenter by Lewis Carroll), but how many seals can you recall from literary sources?

For a veritable marine menagerie I would recommend the poetry book, Creatures of the Intertidal Zone (scroll down the linked page) by Susan Richardson, published by Cinnamon Press. The poet follows in the footsteps of Gudrid, an eleventh century 'Viking heroine'. Within the pages of the volume you will encounter not only seals but also whales, the hermit crab and a colony of penguins.

Sea Creatures on the web

Creatures of the Intertidal Zone (poem) by Susan Richardson on the Sea Stories site
Be sure to visit Susan Richardson's amazing new website

Irish Seal Sanctuary page: Releasing Seals by Gary Jermyn
How the whale became by Ted Hughes
A selection of sea creature poems from the can-teach site
My Helford River poem, Sea Horse Song

Postcard 17: Snow White

2009-02-03T17:30:00.018Z

Like many others in the UK and America we have been snowbound today. Those of you who have read my postings before will know that I enjoy the poetry of Edward Thomas. I found myself reading his very poignant poem entitled Snow about the 'sighing child' and her avian perceptions (I say 'her' for the child may have been Myfanwy Thomas). It made me wonder what kind of bird the child had in mind, especially since in my poetry anthology, The British Museum: Birds (ed. Mavis Pilbeam) the poem faces an egret on a Japanese silk scroll by Oda Kaisen. If you know the poem, I wonder what kind of white bird flutters through your thoughts.

The two bird photographs above were taken at the Wildlife and Wetlands Trust at Penclacwydd just before the snow came. I love the sculptural way in which the Bewick swans entwine their necks around one another. The swans are named after the naturalist and engraver, Thomas Bewick. You can visit his fascinating birth place, Cherryburn, in Northumbria.

Postcard 16: a Madeleine Moment

2009-01-30T22:50:00.017Z

Above: 'St Keverne' in bloom
Middle: Coverack, on the way to St Keverne
Below: Sign in the flower border: Middleton, Wales

The scene outside my window was a very wintry one yesterday morning, with white horses on the sea and grey clouds overhead. I went downstairs to make a cup of coffee. It was even darker in the dining room, that is until my eyes alighted on the startling Spring gold of the daffodils on the windowsill. It was a Proustian moment for me, as I remembered the madeleine.

Back in the late autumn we had been at Middleton, the National Botanic Garden of Wales, where we saw a green plant label in the earth saying 'St Keverne'. We looked forward to seeing these bulbs in flower, as St Keverne on the Lizard in Cornwall is a place that holds happy holiday memories for us. At that stage, the soil at Middleton was bare and there were no daffodil shoots in sight. Imagine my delight some weeks later, when we found 'St Keverne' bulbs for sale in a local garden centre, planted up in pots for Christmas.

We bought three pots, and kept one for ourselves. Hence the splash of gold on the windowsill. It transported me back to a happy day two summers ago when we were in St Keverne, a place I thought I knew well, with its fine church in the corner of the village square and its road to the treacherous rocks, aptly named The Manacles. On that particular day, we discovered something quite new to us in the vicinity of the village, and that was a small private museum of archaeological finds from the Lizard peninsula. The museum was at Poldowrian, on the site of a mesolithic-to-bronze-age settlement, and visiting hours were by appointment with the custodian. The site outside the museum building included a Bronze Age roundhouse. There was a lovely garden and an Iron Age cliff castle nearby. It was an idyllic afternoon.

It is strange how the human mind makes involuntary connections, and how a particular 'madeleine' - in this case a bright yellow one - can take us back unexpectedly to a past experience. As I look out over the estuary towards the Hartland light at the northern end of Cornwall, all I can see is a blanket of low cloud. I am grateful on a day like this for the splash of colour that transported me back to a carefree summer holiday in the Cornish sun. Proust can have his madeleine: I would prefer a saffron cake!

Stop Press and on a different note: Festival Fever and Carnival Mania! I am delighted to get a mention on the February Festival of the Trees. Thank you, Ashley. We are thrilled, too, that thanks to Chris, David's podcast features in Carnival of the Arid.

Postcard 15: Otters!

2009-01-28T22:23:00.016Z

Top: Meeting 'otters' at the Moors Centre, Yorkshire
Middle: Plaque to Gavin Maxwell's Teko (Kyleakin, Skye), beneath a sculpture by Laurence Broderick
Bottom: Eilean Bàn (under the Skye Bridge), lighthouse keeper's cottage & home of Gavin Maxwell

'Looking up the river, they could see Otter start up, tense and rigid,
from out of the shallows where he crouched in dumb patience,
and could hear his amazed and joyous bark as he bounded up through the osiers on to the path.'

The Wind in the Willows
by Kenneth Grahame (chapter 7)

There is a buzz of excitement in South Wales at present as otters have been seen on Gower (AONB). An otter has also been caught on camera at Aberglasney in Carmarthenshire. I am hoping to see one before long! When I was on Skye last summer, I looked and looked. I think I saw a couple, but it was like looking for Nessie: it was hard to be sure. David definitely saw one on the beach.

Dr Gareth Parry from Swansea University was giving a talk about local otters (of Gower and Pembrokeshire) at the Science Café in the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea this evening. Unlike the otters in Scotland which can be seen during the day, the 'Welsh' otters tend to move around under cover of darkness. It seems that they may be adopting a 'marine lifestyle'. The Aberglasney otter must prefer the fresh-water oxbow lakes on the River Towy.

Professor P. Brain has posted a blog entry about Dr Dan Forman and the Gower otters. Back in 2005, naturalist, Iolo Williams was asking people to record their otter sightings in the Principality. I am delighted that their numbers seem to be on th increase.

Gavin Maxwell and Eilean Bàn (under the Skye Bridge)
The Maxwell Society: Gavin Maxwell
The Tarka Project (North Devon)
The Henry Williamson Society
Tarka the Otter's Devon
BBC: The animals of The Wind in the Willows
BBC: Otter spotting
Otters at Ogmore
Eels at Aberglasney

My thanks to the Weaver of Grass for her comment below, and for reminding me about the Kathleen Raine link.

Postcard 14: MacDonald of the Isles

2009-01-27T22:47:00.007Z

Top photo: 'King' of Inverlochy Castle
Below: Armadale, seat of the Clan MacDonald on Skye

I have been enjoying Neil Oliver's series of programmes, A History of Scotland, and particularly the episode about my distant ancestor, Alexander MacDonald, Lord of the Isles. The Open University has an excellent website for the programmes. During our holiday on Skye last summer, we visited the Clan Donald Centre, which incorporates the inspiring Museum of the Isles and a modern Library and Study Centre. We made some initial enquiries about a more recent ancestor, Ebenezer MacDonald, and hope to return some time to pursue this line of enquiry.

MacDonald resources

Museum of the Isles (guide) - lavishly illustrated. It contains a number of poems.
The Lords of the Isles by Raymond C. Paterson
Glencoe by John Prebble
The Massacre of Glencoe by John Buchan
Scottish poets (Times online), including Kathleen Jamie and Sorley MacLean

Postcard 13: Swifts over the Parthenon

2009-01-26T18:23:00.007Z

My archaeologist husband, David, has supplied the podcast (via YouTube) for this postcard from Athens. He writes,

'I was sitting next to the Parthenon in late September and the sky was thick with swirling swifts (or were they swallows? Please let us know!). I pointed the microphone of my digital recorder skywards and here is a snatch of the sound. The pictures, some from Philopappos Hill, were taken in the late afternoon.'

See Robert D. Lamberton and Susan I. Rotroff, Birds of the Athenian Agora (Excavations of the Athenian Agora, Picture Book 22; Princeton NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1985) [Google Books] [Oxbow UK] [Oxbow USA].

Caroline continues:

'Menippus calls himself the swallow'
(The Herald in The Birds by Aristophanes)

Here in Britain, the RSPB Birdwatch 30 has been much on our minds this past weekend, so it seemed a good idea to take a different slant on the avian theme. You can see my recent sightings on my 'Birdstack' in the right hand column of this blog. Incidentally, the Little Owl (Athene noctua) was named after the goddess of Athens and wisdom, Athene [aka Athena]. Did you know about the origin of the phrase 'owls to Athens'?

Further reading

Aristophanes' Birds, a book by Nan Dunbar [Clarendon Press] about The Birds, the comic play by Aristophanes, including a discussion on the different species (e.g. the quasi-bird character of the Hoopoe) in the script.
A Magical Tour of Ancient Greece - a travel diary by Classics student, Ellen Brundige.
Birds and beasts of the Greek Anthology by Norman Douglas (birds from p.68, beginning with the eagle).
The British Museum: Birds (2008, ed. Mavis Pilbeam). I spent a Christmas book token on this lovely book. It has a fine illustration of the Common Hoopoe by John White and an excerpt from The Swallow by Charlotte Smith.
What would Hadrian Say? online poem about Athens by David Gill
Athens: an Art Deco house with an Acropolis view? (Times online)

Postcard 12: Gloucestershire in the Negev

2009-01-24T18:57:00.010Z

And now for something completely different! Here is a podcast poem, Gloucestershire in the Negev, written and read by my archaeologist husband, David.

David writes, 'the poem was published in The Seventh Quarry (edited by Peter Thabit Jones) and is a tribute to Adlestrop by Edward Thomas.' The photographs were taken on a study trip to Israel.

David and I have greatly enjoyed a couple of visits to Adlestrop, with its literary connections. I hope to post a postcard about the village soon. Tribute poems and articles to Adlestrop abound. Anne Harvey has compiled a wonderful book, Adlestrop Revisited, which includes pieces by Dannie Abse, Carole Satyamurti and John Betjeman, to name but three.

Adlestrop Revisited on WorldCat
Post submitted to the Carnival of the Arid
First ever Carnival of the Arid
Swansea Learning Lab - podcasting and visual poetry

Postcard 11: Looking Glass Land? The lion and the ...

2009-01-24T18:27:00.008Z

I was fascinated to read in this week's edition of the Times Higher (22-28 January 2009) about the review (Times online) by Rosemary Hill of a new and intriguing book. The book, just published by Granta, is called The Natural History of Unicorns. It is by Chris Lavers, associate professor of environmental and geomorphological sciences at the University of Nottingham. The book apparently covers an overview of what I would call the 'perceived development' of the unicorn from a nursery rhyme character to the 'co-dependent' creature we find in Alice through the Looking Glass.

As I was thinking about unicorns, I happened to click a link through to Seabrooke Leckie's blog ... and there was not quite a unicorn but an amazing and distinctly unicorn-esque creature. Do take a look.

Interview with Seabrooke Leckie

Postcard 10: Poetry Visualized - a podcast about trees

2009-01-23T16:03:00.016Z

Above: the yew tree at Strata Florida, also known as Ystrad Fflur, Wales
Below: a sunlit glade in the forest at Nant yr Arian, Ceredigion, Wales

I visited the Poetry Visualized site on the recommendation of the Poets who blog site, and was impressed with the visual podcast of Seeing the Forest, with words by Belinda Subraman, photography by Cheryl Townsend and music by CaDra. I had to bear with a couple of slight technical hitches, but it was worth persevering with the player.

We have some wonderful forests in Wales, like the one at Nant yr Arian, where the red kites are fed. We also have some trees with special significance, like the venerable old yew in the churchyard adjoining the abbey at Strata Florida. Once again, this is a good place to watch red kites.

The yew tree is associated with the Welsh bard, Dafydd ap Gwilym. It has been damaged by storms and hit by lightning, and is no longer in its prime; but its literary significance lives on.

George Borrow, author of Wild Wales, was one of many travellers to write about the site.

The abbey at Strata Florida has many literary associations: I intend to explore some of these in a future post. Meanwhile, on the subject of trees, my brother and sister-in-law 'gave' us a (sponsored) tree for our 20th wedding anniversary. It is out there somewhere in the depths of Ceredigion, and we look forward to making a pilgrimage to find it.

How old is that yew? by Jeremy Harte, with allusion to Strata Florida
The Woodland Trust - plant a tree for Wales
Festival of the Trees (February 2009) ... online. I am very grateful to Ashley Peace of the Festival of the Trees for pointing me in the direction of a very curious Strata Florida tree poem by the Dunvant-born poet, John Ormond.

Postcard 9: Moth Art at Aberglasney

2009-01-20T21:52:00.008Z

Above: Aberglasney, Wales
Below: Six-spotted Burnet Moth, Cornwall

Most wildlife photographers (and enthusiastic amateurs like me) have taken photographs of butterflies, but how many of us have taken moths? I had to think quite hard to remember when I had last caught a moth on film. The above burnet moth was taken near Rinsey Mine in Cornwall, although I have also watched the species closer to home at Mwnt in Cardiganshire.

I was back at Aberglasney at the weekend, and it was there that I visited a most unusual and exciting exhibition of Moth Art, In a Different Light. The artistic exhibits are the work of Julian and Fiona Wormald, the 'Garden Impressionists'. The Wormalds were very inspired by Monet's Garden at Giverny, and hoped to encourage the rest of us take our own gardens more seriously as places of beauty and wildlife habitats. The Aberglasney exhibition includes images of an amazing total of 190 moths seen at Aberglasney in 2006. There are also larger pieces of Moth Art on display, which incorporate wing patterns and colours in the designs.

Back in the 18th century, the poet John Dyer lived at Aberglasney, the garden subsequently 'lost in time'. He loved the landscape, and wrote about 'the face of nature' in 'all the hues of heaven's bow': I feel sure he would have been amazed by the number of species of moth on his home turf.

The Moth Man blog

Postcard 8: Dim Pysgota!

2009-01-19T22:55:00.010Z

We visited the Centre belonging to the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) at Penclacwydd at the weekend, as you will know if you read my previous postcard. There are always hungry birds about; and every time I go there, I am always mildly amused by a sign in the water (left) in front of one of the hides. On my previous visit there was actually a kingfisher in close proximity to the sign. Back in August 2003, Ronnie Goodyer published my poem on the subject, Loughor Estuary, in Reach Magazine.

On a more serious note, the WWT undertakes marvellous work: it was founded at Slimbridge in Gloucestershire in 1946 by Sir Peter Scott. His godfather was J.M. Barrie (1860-1937), creator of Peter Pan. Sir Peter was the son of Antarctic explorer, Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912).

I have just signed up to Birdstack (see Birdstack listing widget on lower right) in the hope that it will help me to record sightings.
On the subject of things 'polar', the Weaver of Grass has written about Shackleton's compass.

Postcard 7: The Flamingo Pool, a far cry from Wonderland

2009-01-17T18:22:00.007Z

Caribbean flamingo faces: The National Wetland Centre, Wales

We braved the wet and windy conditions and enjoyed a blustery walk around the Centre, which is part of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. I could not help thinking of Alice and her game of croquet, and feeling very sorry for these fine birds. Thankfully, flamingo games only take place in Wonderland.

I much prefer the sentiments expressed in a poem, Flamingo Watching by Kay Ryan on the Poetry Archive site.

My flamingo friends in Llanelli are well looked after, but some aspects of life are hard to fix. Apparently they did not take kindly to the wet summer, and there was some concern over whether they would reproduce (source: Waterlife, issue 166). Thankfully a spot of sunshine arrived in the nick of time, and with it a clutch of flamingo eggs. In mid-July the eggs hatched into seven flamingo chicks.

Join WWT
World Wetlands Day 'Upstream, downstream ...', 2 February 2009
Walking in a Winter Wonderland
WWT Nikon Photography Competition 2008 (including flamingo photos)
A flamingo egg

Postcard 6: A ripple on Loch Ness

2009-01-16T12:07:00.025Z

Monster-spotting on Loch Ness became popular in the 1930s, when Bertram Mills offered a £20,000 reward to anyone who could capture the monster. Virginia Woolf visited the loch in 1938, and commented on the monster with 'no head'. Beatrix Potter wrote about its 'humps' (Times Online). John Buchan penned a lean but evocative description of the king's Lieutenant at Loch Ness in his 1928 biography, Montrose.

Books about the monster abound and Edinburgh boasts its own 3D Noch Ness Experience. You can read or listen to The Loch Ness Monster's Song by Scots Makar, Edwin Morgan; and countless other poets have tried to capture something of this elusive phenomenon. Years before Woolf's visit, the monster was afforded special protection under the 1912 Protection of Animals Act for Scotland.

Lines On The Fall Of Fyers Near Loch Ness by Robert Burns
Loch Ness by William Topaz McGonagall (1830-1902)
Nessie the Great Big Monster, a poem for children by Gordon Nicol
Chapter entitled Lough Ness by Samuel Johnson (scroll down a little)
Bartstewart.com - Logic and the Loch Ness Monster
The Guardian: A Fanfare for the Scots (Sean O'Brien on Robert Crawford)

Castle Urquhart:

An overview with photographs (www.shubs.net)
Urquhart Castle (www.usscots.com) - fascinating references to Columba's biographer and a Pictish brooch.
More on the brooch (or copper alloy pin)
William Wallace and Andrew Murray. Wallace, known to many from the film, Braveheart (1995), was a 12th century knight, and the inspiration for The Acts and Deeds of Sir William Wallace, Knight of Elderslie by Harry the Minstrel (aka 'Blind Harry'), who lived in the 15th century.
Wallace: more than a brave heart by Linda L. Crockett