No blogging for me for literally weeks now, and the reason? I have been engaged in the creation of a new website dedicated to all things poetic, visiting various museums and galleries in an effort to engage in some much-needed research for my own poetry and writing for my Open University course.

I will be taking part the launching of the new poetry ezine in January and can't wait to tell the world about it and my involvement but until I get the go-ahead I'll just say that it will be a fantastic home for students of poetry and I can't wait to get started.

Apart from these fantastic, time-consuming events I have at long last found my beetle glasses chain so expect some creepy images of me writing with beetles climbing up to take a peep through my eyes. Well, someone has to do it and if the Mexicans can get away with live beetle jewellery then why not shake things up with a beetle chain?

Last Words and New Beginnings

Not exactly an elephant in the room but let's be honest... I haven't posted for a while.

I've been away in wonderful Yorkshire, back and finishing an assignment, taking part in NaNoWriMo, and then taking on the launching of a new web-based poetry magazine. This latter is taking up a lot of time, as you'd expect, but is a fantastic project to be involved in as it is a subject dear to my heart - obviously.

I have been writing too, and taking copious photos to inspire and fill up my computers dwindling memory. I've also realised that I have a bit of a thing for two particular programmes on radio 4 and that they inspire quite a number of my poems so from this week onwards I'll be posting my responses to the wonderful radio programme called Last Words. This isn't a programme in celebration of Words as such but an obituary on the air waves. Call me morbid - and I'm sure you will - but hearing about the inspirational, comical, intriguing lives of others is captivating and inspires a weekly flurry of research or poetry or both.

This is one that I scribbled into my note book as I was listening to the programme on iPlayer whilst out power walking and it was the one that finally got me to admit I was hooked:

A Pattern for Life

Professor Lisa Jardine 

ascending and transcending she grabbed

at history and made it

with wisdom unconfined by convention,

the small voice or fitting a mould

she wore her defiance gladly, like a rebel teen

transforming her outer shell

shared her anarchic wisdom, inner armour worn

beneath clothing, beneath skulls

knitted her philosophy into endless endeavours

like a jumper that could be read

tales of a woman’s ascent, projecting her fearless voice 

or leaving the room when she’s done with it

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06kh66d#play

This week I've been mostly.... driving around the country and writing poetry from various hotel rooms, in the car or at a salon as they try to rectify a disastrous home dye jobby.

This was my first experience of being a students rep for the South West UK region - yes, a pretty large region to cover - at the senate and I wanted to ensure all went smoothly so I did a dry run last Sunday and tested a free to  download sat nav for my iPad. The latter was a disaster as it told me to take the fifth exit from roundabouts with only two exits and so on. However, my fantastic partner wrote out all instructions, I supplemented them with a different download and all went well - even though I ignored some written instructions preferring to keep my eyes on the road instead.

So here are two of the many haikus created on my journeys to Milton Keynes and Gloucestershire. The first was inspired by my breakfast scene from the somewhat grubby window at the Premier Inn (yes, really!) and the other was dreamt up while walking to the hair salon in Cheltenham. Did I tell you that a flood in the house had caused me to leave a hair dye on my head for too long resulting in a strip of black roots and a Cruella De Ville hairstyle? No? Surely an oversight on my part. Anyway, it now looks less Cruella or Bride of Frankenstein so I shan't be walking around scaring young children.

Mists rise with the sun.
Swans converge, above, below.
Ripples fill the lake.

Colours explode on

Pine scented walks, muffle steps

With fallen beauty.

and because there has been a lot of talk about copyright issues I now have the heeby-jeebies about not putting a copyright message on everything despite questioning who would want to nick my stuff anyway. So this morning I have found out that holding down the Option / Alt key and pressing 'G' creates a © for me. I shall share this knowledge on the A215 forum as it seems like a sensible thing to share amongst fellow writers.

© Karen Downs-Barton

Should We Stretch Our Boundaries?

Yesterday, Sunday, a wonderful person who shall remain nameless used the whole of his Sunday to be supportive in stretching my boundaries.

I mention this because I think that it is worthy of mention due to the fact that (1) it was a human kindness I want to acknowledge and (2) it was done in an effort to help me stretch my boundaries and I want to quickly question how much I'm stretching them and if this is a good thing.

The 'selfless Sunday' action was driving all the way from the depths of Wiltshire to Milton Keynes and back. Not a huge deal perhaps but this selfless act was performed to give me an idea of the route that I will be driving tomorrow to take part in a Senate meeting with the Open University and without this kindness I may well have headed off full of nerves and trusting a satnav app on my iPad. The latter proved itself to be wholly wrong on every prompt it gave on the trial run ('take the 5th exit' on roundabouts containing 2 or 'bear left then take the next left' on a dual carriageway without a single exit visible except through trees or over a bridge taking me over the motorway - really!) and had I not known this beforehand I would have trusted its madness and ended up God only knows where. In trouble no doubt.

The boundaries I'm stretching are those of not only driving to Milton Keynes on my own - something I would have done years ago but somehow got out of the habit of doing - but that of taking part in a large and time-consuming two-year role as a student representative whilst studying for my degree. I have taken part in two other consultative committees, a regional one that has informed some of the decision-making behind the present Senate subject matter, another concerning disabled students within the university; but this is a larger and far more demanding role. The paperwork involved was something of a shocker and how anyone reads it through whilst studying I have no idea but I'm going to try.... overnight and in the morning after I arrive and try to unwind.

So, what I'm going to ask is this: Why, are roles on the student representative body still unfilled and not being flagged up to others stretching boundaries for the sake of their university and their own experience?

Personally I think its a shame that other students aren't aware that the roles exist, or that they still need filling.

Okay, those are my musings for the day and now I'm going to stretch my boundaries in the direction of a glass noodle soup that is a glorified cup-a-soup and what with the thought that I have a chair that has fallen to pieces and needs me to stretch myself to mending it.

Before I forget to mention it I'd better add that I'm still writing lots of haiku and am now seriously thinking that this has become an addiction. Once I've posted a few on my student forum I'll post others here as there are self-plagiarism issues apparently if I post in both places using the same haiku.

It's Officially a Real Monday!

Getty Images

I'm not saying that I hate Mondays, actually I don't usually, but today has just proved that there is either a very angry God out there or everyone else was right to hate this particular day of the week!

The day-from-hell actually started out quite well. Okay, I have the whole of a spare bedroom crammed into my own bedroom due to a carpenter arriving tomorrow morning to fit a new floor and yes, I bumped my shins quite badly when trying to navigate my way around the various pieces of furniture, piles of 'stuff' etc. in an attempt to find foot space that would allow me to exit the room to have a pee but... that's all part of life isn't it? To get sniffy about real life impacting is just daft and shows a lack of understanding that real life is apt to happen so one had better gird one's loins or other 'bits' and just get on with it. No, none of that was a problem for me and I even managed to get through all my days OU stuff before I forget to add that, no it was the other stuff, the unadulteratedly disastrous stuff that I object to.

Let me explain the few threads that came together to tie up and make life less than peachy today. Firstly, I have to hold my hand up to trying to penny pinch and perhaps that has added to my own downfall. I thought that as I have a very important set of meetings next week and a few grey hairs had started to show themselves I would buy a home dye kit and remedy this without losing a day to the hairdressers or a sizeable whack from my monthly budget. I did the usual thing of guessing the colour that my hair was, opted for a decent make in the local Boots store and started applying it this morning. That was thread 1.

Thread 2 in this set of unmitigated disasters that made my day was the weather. The torrential rain that has been plaguing Wiltshire off and on all day really hit my little patch of the county after I'd applied the hair dye and I was somewhat alarmed to find it not only soaking the garden but, due to thread 3 - a dam-like structure built inadvertently by my other half as he shifted gravel in the garden - all the rain was channeled into the house and I ended with a flood. As luck would have it I had a stack of newspapers from Waitrose, freebie items too, that were stacked not too far away and that could be used to mop the muddy floodwater up.

This should really have been the end of it and I could have walked away from what will from now on be known as 'Black Monday' but no, it didn't end there. Just when I was getting myself together I noticed that there was a strange beeping noise from the living room. It turned out to be the alarm on my iPad and it was trying to alert me to the fact the hair dye needed removing. I have no idea when it had gone off because I was at the other end of the house moping and sloping and quietly going from a perfectly acceptable hair colour to a more than hideous black and white stripe that is permanent. I have almost jet black root area and sort of normal pale brown / dark blond rest of hair. I look like a sort of startled skunk!

As if that wasn't enough - yes, did you really think I'd finished? Really? - the rain came down again with gusto and the stream that was previously coming through the back door changed to a river and there was nothing I could do but head outside, grab a shovel and start to demolish the dam. This task was carried out on the spur of the moment as the last of the newspaper had been used, so I had no shoes on and was still in the towel that I'd wrapped around me after getting out of the after-dye-fiasco. Towels in a rain storm are obviously not the best thing to wear as firstly they soak up the rain water and secondly they fall down.

So, picture if you can this sight - a woman of a certain age, in a rainstorm, in a garden overlooked by a school, shovelling gravel whilst trying to hold up a towel and topping it all a skunk-like hairstyle.

Mondays! I rest my case for why I'm joining the haters of Mondays.

Ambition vs Ability

This morning I decided to take a foray into the world of technology to see what was possible in the world of animation with just an iPhone and a little jiggery-pokery. This rather wobbly effort was my first and I think if I were to write a report on myself it would be 'should try harder'. However, my ambition to master new items may be outstripping my ability but it kept me out of trouble whilst waiting for my computer to update and start behaving itself.

Strange Haiku Phenomenon

I've had a break from blogs for about a week I've had a little holiday and been welcoming lots of new members to the Open University course Facebook page.... time consuming stuff! I'd better reveal now that I'm a most dire geek as far as bridges and steam engines are concerned so a bit of time was taken up in indulging in sitting on a steam train in Devon with a hideously geek-fueled smile on my face. Sigh! There's just no hope for me is there?

While I was away - Devon again and staying at Strete Barton again as it was such restful place last time. This didn't mean that I wasn't keeping an interested eye on what was happening with the newbies on the Facebook page - far from it. I was watching with interest the various postings of the new students regarding poetry and how daunted they felt having to contemplate creating their own poetic submissions for various assignments.

Very quickly this gave way to a number of tentative postings of.... Haikus! Yes, my favourite waste of time has got its dread hold on a growing band of happy students who are creating them, posting them, and getting positive feedback from their peers. How cool is that? Pretty damn cool in my humble opinion! What do you think I was being inspired by while all this artistic endeavour was going on? Well you probably won't be able to guess so I'll just tell you shall I? Pants - in a tree, in the middle of nowhere, a massive mushroom in a field, standing on cliffs, bridges and steam trains (of course) how literature enriches life. On the latter theme I was pleased to walk past a house called Bunbury on four occasions and although it was just a name it made me smile each time as little snippets of The Importance of Being Earnest came floating back to me from the literary recesses of my mind.

This image just puts all sorts of questions in my mind..... 

Who do they belong to?

 What were the original colours?

Why are they in a tree - obviously!

Why are they in tatters? 

What did the owner go home in? 

I think in deference to the wonders of these pants that obviously have a great history if only they could divulge it them I should be writing a Haiku about them. Well, it might be a novel idea.... no pun intended as I don't think the pants and haiku would necessarily morph into a novel but never say 'never'. 

And what of my haiku-a-day self imposed challenge? It has ebbed and flowed in response to the various limitations of my week but mainly due to taking on places on not one but three Open University committee roles and gearing up for these. One is a disabled students steering committee, another is debating the future role of the student support services and the last but probably the most demanding (well, debatably) is a seat on the OU Senate - ooer Mrs! All good stuff but along with my own writing and being away with my better half and taking on an extra course external to the OU yes... I've not been as creative as I'd like and work in general has taken a back seat. Bah humbug!

So, here is my little haiku about a rather pretty little plant that was growing simply everywhere in Devon's wooded areas. I think this is a winter flowering heliotrope and it smells of vanilla all winter and is originally an African import that has gone a little wayward. However, it is frost delicate and therefore not often seen in Wiltshire so I love it on many levels - its rare in Wiltshire, has nectar in the winter when most plants are hibernating of dead if they're annuals, it has lovely heart shaped leaves which appeals to the romantic in me, it is colourful and scented in the winter so you feel like you're walking through a perfumery.

     
Winter Flowering Heliotrope

From spring to autumn 

you’re all heart. Winter yields your

scented floral grace.

What is my solution to all this work? To buy a suitably bizarre purple note pad - it matches the iPad protector designed for children and my favourite bra - start to write a short story that is growing beyond the title of 'short' and make piecrust promises to diarise (hideous word!) and prioritise - but not necessarily in that order.
I hope to be able to share some of the literary responses to my various images at some point as I feel the blog needs to be a little window into my mind for those who aren't put off by the steam train obsession and various purple that may not find its way in to my prose ;-)

Writing Prompts - the good, the bad and the ugly

The writing prompt posted on the OU fb page this morning.

Good morning folks. I've had a number of non-blogging days due to being out of action and in hospital. Bet you didn't expect that did you? Bet you thought it was something glitzy like a holiday but no, hospital and not only hospital but when you're having some rather grotty procedures done the last thing you might want to see is someone you know walking onto the ward and obviously one of the staff about to prod at you.
Yes, that's right, there is no dignity in my life even when I'm trussed up in a hospital! On the up side she did say that my dressing gown was very glamorous, so thats a small bonus, and I was wearing full-on makeup so woo-hoo me.

However, that isn't what I'm posting about today. No, today is another literary effort of my own and posing of questions - I'm always curious as you might have noticed.

The image above was posted as the weeks creative writing prompt on the fb page and it was a controversial choice because:

• It is an image presented in a comic form - not one that is given much credit amongst the sniffier members of the literary brigade.
• It brings up the delicate but essential issue of pictorial ownership, accrediting the owner, and royalty issues around having images on your blog (or wherever) as so many images on the web now are in fact the property of others. 
• Here's another question - are constant prompts good for writers? Surely there's a case for suggestion that less is more? Can prompts be, in fact, bad? Considering the personal preferences of the broad range of creative writers out there I'm pretty sure there will be those who will consider certain types of prompt just plain ugly! And that, my friends, leads me neatly to the following paragraphs. 

So first things first. Why don't we as a nation rate the comic or graphic novel as highly from a literary point of view? Why do we not see that this is a perfectly acceptable literary genre? As someone who, as a child, indulged in a few comics I can honestly say that this image - that it is the domain of the child - that could be part of the problem. Whereas other cultures, such as the Japanese and US literary markets - have a history of adult readership the graphic novel and comic still retain the image of geek domain or worse. In fact, those who saw the film 'Paul' staring an alien alongside Simon Pegg and Nick Frost will know how much this image pervades and, dare I say, is pretty near the mark. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1092026/
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-

Yet, beyond that there is another market, possibly as geeky or totally non-geeky, that has a potentially huge market for those who have no time or aren't necessarily into books but who may well find a love of the written word through such 'novels'. The Plain Janes is a great example of one of these books. It is aimed at the female teen market and deals with the isolation that many teenagers feel in these years due to not fitting in with the 'right' or 'popular' sets in school. Its most definitely a quick read but it manages to have humour, poignancy and offer a nice little glimpse of a powerful response to not being part of a group. I think that for a teen and even early 20's market it has a very positive message about finding others like you and indulging in a love of art and civic pride and your own individuality and although it may be sniffed at by the sniffers of literature it has merit.
Recently even such luminaries as Publishers Weekly published a report into the growing market represented by the graphic novel so perhaps shaking things up with a weekly prompt that has a decidedly comic book feel isn't so mad after all?
news/libraries/article/57093-how-graphic-novels-became-the-hottest-section-in-the-library.html
and if you want to check out The Plain Janes take a look at the Amazon page: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Plain-Janes-Cecil-Castellucci/dp/1845765516/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1441016065&sr=8-1&keywords=the+plain+janes

On to the second issue nicely links into the image based theme of the first in that I am quite openly a very visual person but I am aware that on the internet there are many tempting images that aren't my own and that it would be great to use as prompts but sadly I can't. Not an issue you think? Well no, I suppose not for the majority of the time but as I want to maintain the visual impact of not only my own blog but the that of the creative writing groups pages I have to ensure that not only my own but the postings of other moderators are done with sensitivity to this minefield of legality.

Here my only options appear to be to either create my own images - which of itself will be limiting to the subject matter - or to source royalty free images. It all seems like such a faff.

However, needs must when the litigation, or devil drives. Much the same driver you might suggest.

So for those reading this and loving the fact that it has imagery just be aware that it is in fact imagery from my own books or photos and that comes with much trepidation lest even that has some hidden issue.


So to sum it all up, be cautious out there fellow bloggers and image coveters. If you see an image on this blog it'll be mine so just mail me to ask permission and the chances are I'll say 'go for it' and you can use that image alongside the usual accreditation. As for the image posted to the fb page I'm going to get on with living and then come back to finding something suitable to write, after all, I can let the side down now can I?

And in case this is missed by anyone here is a link to a commentary about just this sort of subject. Here the blogger is discussing an exhibition that links poetry to comic book form so I had to add this. https://srboydwrites.wordpress.com/2015/09/04/the-poetry-society-over-the-line-exhibition/

Visual Arts vs Literary Ones

Yesterday I saw a really interesting poem with an equally interesting image and it nudged me to wonder if I should post images that have inspired my own poems and short stories.

This seems to me a relatively simple task as well as ticking my boxes as far as being a visual learner and one who doesn't enjoy seeing a page without at least some visual interest to break the text.

However, some of my images and creative writing are captured in photo form and that really does raise a few issues. What if the image is a person and I don't actually have that persons permission to use their image? Ah yes, even worse if the associated text is less than flattering. Ooops!

It seems to me that an answer to this issue is to make an artistic image based on the photographic one which then begs the question 'are you capable of creating such an artistic offering?'

Yesterdays poetic output was based on an image I had taken months ago of an elderly lady who regularly walks along my road, generally into oncoming cars, pushing a trolley and at great risk to herself and everyone around her. I imagined her - as she invariably wears green - as a female 'green man' and explore ideas about what the change in gender and contemporary lifestyles could mean.

The poem is still being tweaked but in the mean time I took the opportunity to play with some ways that I can use images without being a genius with oils or pastel. This is the result and I'm hoping to improve on it in future because I'm really enjoying using the visual arts alongside the literary ones.

I've also played around with the moth image that accompanies a few of my haiku in a previous posting. See you what you think about the style and why not give me some feedback about using imagery with poetry etc. It isn't a case of one or the other more a case of 'should I seek to illustrate with non-photographic images where possible?'

Does writing make you fat?

Does writing make you fat?
Is writing good for the soul?
Is writing necessary to those who write?

If you think the first of those questions is a bit far fetched let me mention that I pretty much know there are two answers to this based on observation.

First things first then.
Does writing make you fat?

Answer one is yes - as you are sedentary and possibly consuming food / drink to keep you going whilst typing / writing whatever it is that you're currently engaged in immortalising. You could say therefore that it does indeed make you fat, and saggy as your poor muscles lose tone and your body begins to resemble a saggy Bagpuss with wide, flat descending bum and 'poochy-belly' as its called. Its not that you're indolent - no, you're very busy and productive but the pounds are going on simply because you're not physically, only mentally, motivated.

Then there is another answer to the question that is the converse - no, you're totally wasting away while you're writing.
This may be because you forget yourself while you work, the time flying past as you fixate on your written word and get swept along in a tide of mental musings that will, hopefully, culminate in some form of cohesive direction for the writing to take. You have no time for food or drink in fact you could even be worriting (yes, it is a real word) away at yourself and even that is eating up the calories. You're becoming so gaunt you resemble a newsreader on the BBC or a lollipop person. Not a good thing!

So why do we put ourselves through this? Obviously because we want to, or perhaps need to. For some - yes, I accept this might sound strange and indulgent - yes, for some, this writing thing is necessary. They feel the need to write. The writing feeds them, or is cathartic in some way, or eases their souls. Yes, strange as this may seem, for some there is a need to write. So they write. There may be those who would have been garrulous and driven the rest of humanity around them totally to distraction if they'd allowed these literary outpourings to be unleashed verbally on to an unsuspecting public. Imagine something like this blog being released into the waiting ears of a checkout girl or bus driver for instance. So perhaps this writing thing does some good or performs some needed function on a basic level and is in fact a bonus not only to the writer but to wider society, releasing a better person and confining their outpourings to a realm best suited for it? Now there's a thought. 

Again to be Jesuitical about it I should point out that writing may be the refuge of the delusional with nothing to say but at least this way it is again performing that role of allowing the 'nothing to say and saying it too loud' writer to have their outpourings confined within a soundproof environment. 

And what of my experience of writing? Well its addictive beyond any doubt. God forbid that I should get an idea and have the computer to hand as then I'm lost in a world of my own. Yes, sitting in the living room watching the news whilst eating a TV dinner with family members becomes a farce of juggling knives, forks, plates, tray, laptop, glasses and managing not to spill food whilst typing and shovelling stuff into my mouth, ignoring the niceties of communication and observation of joint activities and being - truth be told - too self contained for my own social good. Yet wait. Isn't this very response something that will dry up the juices of my literary outpourings? Quite apart from a discontented exodus of family members from my life if I continue to be all write, write, write, won't I miss something on the news, some touch with humanity that will feed my capacity to write something worth reading?  Oh the dilemma - to write or to be, now that is more the question than 'to be or not to be' if you ask me!

I'm going to add that I did a small search for an image depicting this situation to make things more graphic and it became more graphic than I was expecting.... I typed in 'topless tray with food' instead of topple-less tray (again, yes, that's a real thing) and I can't possibly post the interesting array of male and female unclad bodies covered in food that appeared on my screen. So, having been 'hoist by my own petard' so to speak I shall head off to slough off some of my accruing poundage with a brisk walk, pen and paper neatly tucked into a capacious bag not meant for power walking excursions and see if I can meet with some of the humanity that feeds my writing in the first place. 

Including a link to an interesting set of comments by writers about writing that, ironically, were posted in the forum today by Stephanie F that may not reflect the physical issues of writing but it does explain to those who are as yet not addicted just why writing causes such a personal impact. [ http://www.aerogrammestudio.com/2013/07/19/23-tips-from-famous-writers-for-new-and-emerging-authors/ ]

Like a Moth To Your Flame

Today has started so slowly that I'm wondering if it's in some sort of alternative universe where time stretches and all those times you found yourself saying 'there aren't enough hours in the day' become redundant and suddenly you can... whatever it was that you couldn't when you were stuck in the world of normality.

So I've been able to not only write two haiku responses to a fantastic image seen on a friends facebook page but to post the image here, along with the haiku's and remember to give Avril the okay to use the image for a test run of the forthcoming prompts for the A215 fb pages. All good fun.





Moth and Candle

Dust slight wings flutter,

Lured by dancing flame to light-
Narcotized demise.

Self Preservation

No resin globule,

amber hued, preserved your frame

but flame formed wax tomb.

Its quite a time since I added any of the daily haikus to my blog so I'm glad to be in this alternate universe of endless time so I can actually achieve my good intentions. 

Hierarchy of Writing Genres

Yesterday two things came up on the Creative Writing forum that I co-moderate both of which relate to a hierarchy within creative writing itself. I'd like to take a few moments to consider the implications of what was involved in them as it interests me greatly as I think, I hope, that I don't feel the division of creativeness that these represented.

On the forum the idea was mooted that the group worked on a  weekly poetry challenge to produce a body of work that could form an ebook or pamphlet at the end of our course. There was some debate about how often challenges / prompts were put up and so on but then there was a posting that said that the author didn't like poetry and actively avoided it so perhaps there aught to be a separate page for those who enjoyed poetry. This seemed like a reasonable suggestion but then it occurred to that:

• The page is for all creative writing and relegating poetry to an island on its own as one person didn't like it was segregating it from other forms of written creativity which has negative connotations.
• The course that is the linchpin for the page covers the broad spectrum of creative writing and therefore the page would no longer represent the course content, again potentially negatively impacting on this particular genre.
• The personal likes of one individual would restrict the ability of over 170 others on the page to be able to interact across the genres.
• As with TV we don't like, its perfectly possible to bypass postings that don't relate to our main interests by just moving on. 
• If you are also part of the Creative Writing student body or the Open University you'll be aware that the Societies selection had an established Poetry Society but instead of expending this to include all forms of creative writing there is now a separate society that is Creative Writing OU but that does not include poetry as that would impact on the territory of the Poetry Society. Frankly I didn't see that being encouraged to ape this set-up was a step in the right direction even if it suits those particular societies own aims and preferences.

However, all this brought up the feeling that poetry is looked down upon by certain sectors of the writing community. Is there something inherent in the genre that makes it appear lightweight or unworthy I wonder? To this I have no real answer as I'd have to question those who proposed the segregation and have established their own societies in this way but as a moderator my view from a practical side was 'this would make things unwieldy' in oh so many ways, and as a creative writer I felt uncomfortable with the notion that any genre could be relegated to being a separate and potentially unworthy.

What would your estimation have been? For practical reasons would it have been feasible to ask people to join a different group to view only poetry? Would others who don't like historical or biographical literature have suggested separate pages for these too? Would it be a crime to relegate crime fiction to a criminally restrictive page of its own? Where would this have left those wanting to ask questions about these subjects when they appeared in the course is others on the course weren't viewing those particular pages? Surely this would have fractionalised the student body and therefore our group strength and diversity?


Pretty deep and meaningful questions for a woman desperate for breakfast and only half dressed! You can tell I'm feeling especially 'stimulated' by this conundrum can't you?




So that's the first thing but the second was, strangely enough, about snobbery and hierarchy within the poetry world itself.

One of the students posted a link to an article about Kate Tempest (who I personally enjoy reading / hearing) where Kate remarks about the snobbery that severs the oral tradition and written tradition of the wonderful world of poetry. I think her comments about spoken poetry representing taking poetry back to an 'ancient time' when poetry was judged not on being clever or educated was interesting. Also I was disappointed but not surprised to see that written word poets, in her opinion, had a number of sniffy types who denigrated those using spoken word suggesting that they are not skilled wordsmiths, merely orators is interesting.

I'd counter this partially by saying that even the Greeks had substantial bias towards education and word-smithery and for pre-history one would presume that orators are judged as contemporary orators would be on by how 'clever', stirring or erudite they are relative to those they speak to, which she briefly alluded to. Its the thought that there is snobbery within the world of poetry that is undoubtedly true but in light of all the prejudice against poetic forms it is all the more sad.

Grrrr, to prejudice of all sorts.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/aug/19/kate-tempest-slams-conventional-poets-disdain-for-performance?CMP=share_btn_tw

Characters and Caricatures

Yesterday I was in Bristol in one of my favoured coffee houses having a chocy-coffee thingy and people watching and I could have kicked myself as when I reached into my bag I had my little note pad aggrandised by the title 'writers journal' but no blinking pen. And there before me was a group of people who just had to be captured. I mean, they were so individual and quirky that they were more caricatures than characters and I wanted them.

However, no could do! You can't exactly ask the group you're hoping to immortalise if they happen to have a pen or pencil about their persons. Well perhaps they did. Perhaps they're the sort of people who inspire so many budding writers, or caricaturists for that matter, that they go prepared. Not only are they aware that they are a gift but they succumb to the obvious accolade by being prepared and assenting to the homage done to them by proffering a pen or pencil with humble compassion for the lack of preparedness of the rest of the world. Yup, I can see that happening.

So what did I do? Nothing. I just scrutinised the group and conjectured about the sort of people they actually were while the person who was sharing my table with shook his head with a bemused look on his face.

Some years ago, before I had any excuse as I wasn't taking a creative writing course, I was in a pub - also in Bristol so perhaps there's some sort of convention for interesting types there that I'm unaware of - and I happened to see a chap with an interesting jewelled eye patch. He was in The Bristol Flyer which has a number of seating areas on different levels and he was ensconced in a particularly roomy, comfy armchair reading the newspaper. He was interesting in himself but while I watched he glanced around the room and then shifted the patch from one eye to the other and nonchalantly carried on reading.

I was enthralled. So I decided to get a little closer and see if I could film him on my mobile, so I walked away from my friends, mobile primed, and semi-hid behind a column near him, filming. Yes, how weird would that have looked to anyone else in the pub? I didn't get my footage, or even a quick shot as one of the less inebriated amongst the party I should have been with spotted what I was up to and walked me back to the table - somewhat sternly I might add.

This traumatic experience led me to not film or photograph the coffee house group, mainly because the pub bloke actually winked at me when I left and the thought of a whole group winking was a bit creepy - but I should have, I really should have cos these characters had slipped from being mere characters into the realms of caricatures and deserved me not to be quite so reserved.

Does this image indicate that I will never become a writer of any worth I wonder. No pen, no balls and no concrete evidence that the wonderful world of Bristol holds people who blast the boring, nondescript types out of the water!

How does your garden grow?

Well, how does your garden grow?

There are so many ways and sometimes, just sometimes it reflects who we are not only inside / outside our homes but inside our heads too. I suspect mine is a haphazard approximation of Mary, Mary, quite contrary fame as I certainly have the silver bells and cockle shells.

Bear with me as I'm on a roll here and think I can prove a point.

Dragon fly on wood shed.

Some garden....
with love and fingers crossed that everything blooms; with technical efficiency reading books, designing plans and well, you get my drift; some have window boxes or vases as they have no space at all; some with outside intervention as they have no time or acknowledge that others have certain skills; with haphazard eclectic and reckless abandon.

I think I'm the latter. If someone knew me and my personality (but, obviously not my garden) was presented with a photo of the outside space of my little cottage I'm pretty sure the majority, if not all, would be able to correctly identify my garden.

A twisted seaweed and wood treasure.

The garden is surrounded by a wall covered in ivy where animals build homes and a viciously thorny red rose, a legacy plant from a previous owner, grows to incredible heights no matter how often I chop it and nods red balloon flowers overhead. As the ivy creeps not only the length of the interior of my garden but has taken up residency on the other side skirted by a footpath I don't suffer from graffiti, what a bonus! There is a woodshed - more like a wooden sentry box - where I store the wood that keeps me warm while I'm writing and prop coffee cups when I set up home in the garden. The garden itself is a mess of half followed through projects, culinary essentials, and found objects and 'treasures' that can't be parted with. This latter selection is scattered amongst the gravel and is something of an oddity to adults but children can be lost for hours, digging and sorting and uncovering jewellery, driftwood and shells.

This latter would probably be a clue for most people who have seen the windowsill in my bedroom as it also contains thin snakelike driftwood covered in salt crusts, sand and even dehydrated seaweed, pebbles, sea glass and mother-of-pearl shells. So what does that tell anyone about my writing I wonder. I think its best to let others judge as my reading of myself is only one interpretation of this propensity to hoard precious finds - like a child.

Violets growing beneath the apple tree.

The culinary side of things comes in the form of a massive array of herbs. In fact they are pretty much the only plants I bother with, the most notable exception being violets but as I also eat them, make the flowers into sorbets and pop the leaves in salads I'm not sure if I'd actually just categorise them as glorified herbs too. I suppose one of the more interesting non-herby inclusions is another legacy plant - an ancient apple tree. The tree is quite gnarly and was less than productive when I moved in having been loped and pruned to keep it contained which seemed a little sad. To combat this constriction it now runs along the wall that borders my neighbours house and up over a now defunct arbour where its branches now replace the missing metal bars. As for apples.... well two years ago not even I could keep up with its bounty.

I'll gloss over the bits of building material and plastic seats that are reminders of work that carries on in the house as I now have a man who comes along and has removed sack loads for me - its a work in progress.

So this is the background of my writing and perhaps my wee brain. What does it tell the outsider I wonder.

Backing Up Your Stuff?

So its the same old same old - not backing up stuff or just deleting said 'stuff' when your computer has some sort of mad moment where it pretends to be overloaded.

Naturally I did this and naturally it happened to be two poems that I was hoping to work on and I only discovered they were no longer there when I went on a search for them and found that they'd been wiped out of all memory - even though I had backed up to an external hard drive those things that I though (obviously wrongly) were the things I truly wanted to keep. Where's the justice?

A quick hunt on the internet revealed the existence of time machine type programmes that could retrieve deleted items so I thought I'd give them a go. Not a blinking thing worked. It was as if they'd never existed at all. I even remembered some pretty key words from both poems and searched for those and nothing happened. So my short but sweet posting is telling you that, unlike me, you should really back up all gems of genius to some foolproof place that you won't then obliterate.... and that actually, now I come to think about, it using the good old fashioned method of writing in a writers diary with proper paper and pens is a far better way of doing things.

Yes, I have such an item and in fact its better for tracking my changes to poems and is therefore far better if I then realise that it sounded better before I started twiddling with a certain part. This means that I shall have to see my own hideous handwriting and oh so interesting spellings and learn to love them but as long as I don't lose the pad I'l be a far happier position when it comes to revisiting unfinished projects.

You knew all this beforehand didn't you? Sure, me too but then life would be too easy if I took my own good advice and I wouldn't have wasted a whole two days searching for the unfindable and lamenting what I now think would have been totally killer poem and one with promise..... Still trying to find the up side to all this.....
   

 Here's a little picture to go with one of the comments below.

Finding Inspiration?!?

Inspiration!
               Where does it come from?
                               Where does it go to when
                                              it
                                                    floats
                                                             out of your brain
                                                                         just when its needed?

I guess most of us who write or aspire to write are told that we need to find inspiration and yes, that's true but just thinking about finding inspiration seems to dry some people up. However, just think about it... where does your inspiration come from? Mine seems to come from all sorts of unexpected places - conversations overheard at a party or waiting to be served, programmes on the radio - radio 4 is just amazing for giving my mind a shake-up - and then there's thinking about my own past. Its never ending.

I'm not saying that it would necessarily go on like this for ever or if I had some sort of awful deadline but really.... it just does go on and on and always has so from my perspective I find it difficult to put myself in to the mind of a person who has dried up. Now that is an interesting character in itself isn't it? Someone having to write from the perspective of a writer who has dried up and finds it difficult to empathise with them but an interesting exercise to consider why.

So what has been the inspiration for my recent writing? Well as a matter of fact I did go to a party at the weekend and the people who were there included only about two people I hadn't met before. It was interesting seeing not only the newbie people - how they reacted to the established group, who they were in relation to the others who were there and who they actually were - and then the usual people and all that this offered. People when drunk are hilarious as some of that veneer rubs off with the astringent alcohol and you get a glimpse of voices and behaviours that are fascinating to mine for writing fodder. You can of course analyse yourself within it all too. You as a narrator, you as a character, you on a journey. Oh the endless opportunities!

Then again on a more tranquil note, today on radio 4 there were two great programmes that came right out of left field and gave me the idea for at least one pertinent poem. I'm writing this blog only too aware that there is a skeletal poem structure sitting on a Word document hidden right underneath it and all I can say is 'prevarication' will not hold me away from it for too much longer.

So, truly, what gets your juices flowing? I know what I can't do and that's listen to music. I'm typing this while listening to radio 6 and taking the occasional break to just listen.... well, actually, now I come to think of it the wonderful voice of a female singer/songwriter that I heard the other day did inspire a poem the other day so I've just disproved my own protestations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=W6XqPY3laIs#t=2

Google Hangouts made me strung out!

So today of all days I pick as the day that I'll create a Google Hangout to test for usability for one of a number of projects I have in mind.

Did it work? Hell no!
Was I frustrated? Hell yes!

I managed to get the darn thing to transmit to my Youtube account - a few seconds of startled looking headshot with hair all over the place (think Bride of Frankenstein and you'll be near enough) but not to have anyone join the damn thing.

The 'anyone' was actually me on a borrowed computer and email address so at least I only frustrated myself but frustration there was and is still making itself felt. I might add that each computer uses a different operating system so I was in effect multitasking+. Perhaps it was inevitable that I'd have bald patches by the end of it all.

So why does everything have to be so hard? Why can't it just happen like Apple products linking up? I don't know but if you have the answer I'd very much like to have it. My plan is to facilitate a number of people having an online creative writing community where there is a video part for those who want to be seen looking like a Gothic horror movie extra as I'm aware that a lot of distance learning can be very isolating and it seems like a sensible idea to have something move caring-sharing out there. Google Hangouts sounded like it but doesn't appear to be, at least not from my feeble efforts today.

Apart from that I'm taking the slightly mad step of working in collaboration with a member of the family to set up some real world creative hangouts and am hopeful that they'll be ever so slightly less mentally damaging.

Have I written today? Need you ask? Well actually nothing creative as yet but I'm heading into the garden to rectify that in a minute as I feel the need to do something I love rather than struggle on. I've also eaten a spoonful of my homemade gooseberry and blueberry ice-cream - cos I deserved it - and it was lovely! Who'd have thought that the cheapest ice-cream maker on the market would produce such delights. And before you think I'm referring to myself (Cheap? Never darling!) I'll clarify that by saying it was the machine thingy that I was referring to. Anyway, scrumptious it most assuredly was and resisting its charms any further than a scoop made me feel.... RIGHTEOUS!

I'm just going to park my halo and nip out to the garden for a spot of rather naughty poetry as all that goodness has to come to a sticky end some time.

When can you call yourself a writer?

This question came up in the Facebook creative writing forum the other day.
There were different opinions of course ranging from
                        If you're published
                                     to
                     If you feel like a writer.

What do you think?

Do you have to have someone else's approbation or to be published to in anyway consider calling yourself a writer?

Let me put it another way. If a man is sitting in an attic room, starving because he's spending his money on paints, he paints but nobody buys his pictures - in fact society in general laughs at them - is he a painter? Is he? If he is, what if he was a woman and doing those things? If that changes nothing then what if it wasn't painting but writing? Obviously I'm labouring a point but its a valid one.
So, what if you're published online on a poetry page by someone?
I don't think the FB debates were going to change any opinions but I had - and have -  my own and I guess you can tell them from the questions above.

I write but actually I will only call myself a writer when the whole world thinks of me that way even though I'd be up there fighting for other people to think of themselves as writers without a single other person thinking it than that person themselves.

Funny isn't it?

But being tough on myself is something I've learned to live with and love as one of those little quirks of nature that I'm trying to grow to love.

I'm also working on a collection of poems - two to be precise - that are growing so large that I'm considering buying an external hard drive as my computer is wobbling under the weight of the number of documents I'm accumulating.

I'm hoping to use some of them in the online poetry cafe I'm creating for the FB / OU group as I love performing and this seems like a great way to combine to loves. Now if only one could do that with 'partners' - what a thought!

So performance poetry here I come!

   Yola

In the garden, warm
in the height of summer, we
share an ice-cold Pimms.
Mother and daughter
bonding over best china's
a thing of the past.

Life plan? Just do it!

Oh the plans that we plan!

Did you ever wish something was there - some club, some book, something for you, but it wasn't 'there' so things, those things you'd wished for, somehow slipped?

Did you ever want to do something but thought that you'd be on your own, or put down, or fail, or sanctioned for having the gall to stand out from the crowd?

Did you just not do it, not create it, not search for it, not make it happen?

I know where you're coming from. I think there are people who totally believe I'm bold and plough my own path. Okay, they're right to some extent but there are times that I think those slightly bold paths are just a single path with little meanders to the left or right and I really wanted to plough whole fields, jump from furrow peak to furrow peak, run about pressing my footprints into the fresh fallen snow or muddied furrows on winter days or stop to watch a seedling grow from ruts in spring, scatter fruitful seeds, reap new harvests and double plant if I wanted to.

Yes, as that Queen track says 'I want to break free!' Free from my single ploughed path and make wonderfully swirly lanes across the rich loam of my life.

So what am I doing about it? I think the Open University has taken my little hand plough and given me a horse, shire horse of course as I'm based in wonderful Wiltshire. I don't think I want a tractor. No, I want to walk my land of possibilities and feel the soil under my feet, the stones, the small clods and clumps.

But if you think this is all too esoterically metaphoric let me just say that I'm all fired up as I'm doing things in the real world and that I'll post details here when they're finalised. Wonderfully non-metaphorical and practical things that are creative and take the creative lives of others to new places too - even better.
Poems to follow but I have to plough my way to the shops to buy food right now. ;-)

Um, a quick update. Earlier I posted a poem to an online poetry site and amazingly they have not only accepted it but it is published for all the world to see. I will cut-and-paste a link below but can I give a word of warning? It is a very personal poem that is a 'warts and all' reflection of my childhood. Despite being Ms. Bubbly now it won't be easy reading so if you want the happy-clappy me best avoid following this: https://iamnotasilentpoet.wordpress.com/2015/08/01/unlocked-and-got-past-by-karen-barton/

Swarms of migrants? No swarms of bees?

It struck me today that swarms, in one form or another, are big news and little-to-no news at the moment.

First we have the wonders of the prime minister referring to the migrants attempting to enter the country illegally through the channel tunnel as 'swarms' and then my Friday Picador poem arrives in my email box and its 'Arial' by Carol Ann Duffy (a modern take on the 'Where the bee sucks, there suck I' by William Shakespeare) lamenting the fate of the modern bee. Yes, swarms are big or particularly non-existent in the news it seems.

I can almost guarantee that the news will hold reference to the the migrant 'swarm' but nothing about the plight of the bees. It seems that there is a degree of our very British knack of building a man up in order to shoot him down with the former and the question of how to deal with the migrant issue is, quite rightly, a burning one as well so this is rightly taking the headlines in one shape or another. The bees however are less appealing to the newspeople, they're focussed on the bigger pictures while the humble bee declines and the impact that this will have not only on the their own population but upon the resources of the world buzz off to the mid sections or wait for a slow news day to be pulled out and eulogised.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-33733722

If bees were bigger perhaps they would fair better. The horror of seeing a supposedly civilised man - a dentist - holding a 'trophy' in the shape of a lion rightly appals the world as we can censure the perpetrator. He is an individual, a face we can search out on Facebook, until he removes his page, journalists can print his picture, the internet can be abuzz with tales of his past deeds and present going to ground to avoid being hunted out. Yes, we can see this perpetrator of crimes against nature but we can't see those who perpetrate against the humble bee. These are multi faced, multinationals, and governments, faceless folk who continue to open the door to long term extinctions that, once beyond a certain point, cannot be easily reversed.

The plight of the Cecil is easy to publicise. He has a name, noble images and is a symbol of power for not only the people of Zim' but for everyone who has once seen a picture book or encountered a Disney film containing an image of The King of the Jungle. Yet I guess its a bit difficult to get quite so worked up about a small creature with a sting in its tail week after week. I'm passing no judgement. It is what it is and this is merely an observation. It may well be that the huge ramifications implicit in the demise of the bee is also too great for people to contemplate without some relief and taking their minds to the new will bring them back refreshed, renewed and ready to take up the angst of life without honey, or for that matter the comforting buzz in a flower garden some five years ago.