Postcard 44: Dylan Thomas Festival, Swansea, 2009

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

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 Boswell. 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

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)

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

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'.

• Salubrious Place
• Swansea City Centre Trail
• Dylan's Bookstore, Salubrious House
• Swansea poet, Peter Thabit Jones
  

Postcard 39: Oxwich, Gower and Wesley

'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

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

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?

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

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.