Nuns, don'tcha just love 'em! I really do, and it was my chosen career between 5 and 9 years of age. Although Anglican, I went to a convent as my mother thought the Roman Catholics did the best education and they might make a girl out of me (bit of a tomboy). I write about them, if I see any I have to go and speak to them (bit of a nuisance in Rome) and don't get me started on Nun films ... have they ever made a bad one (Black Narcissus, The Sound of Music, In this House of Brede etc., ...)?
I would like to think Sister Aiden set my moral compass, but fear that is not the case. We lived near London, Leicester Square half-an-hour away the way my father drove; my father loved epics, so my earliest cinematic memories are of the greatest films ever made being projected onto a screen about 70 feet wide in front of me. All I know of duty, honour, nobility, love and forgiveness I learnt from Ben Hur and El Cid, and you can guess the others. But it was these two films that have stayed with me; that I know every scene, and the dialogue, of from start to finish, and that I could watch on loop and not be able to go and make a cup of tea in case I miss something. And Charlton Heston is The Hur and The Cid, sometimes Judah and Rodrigo, and he is also Charlton Heston; but you don't get bigger or better films than these. They inspire me daily. Really.
Whopping great big Churches naturally come next, so here's my current top 3. There's an Anglican one, Canterbury Cathedral, at number 4, so it's not just the Catholic sort I go for. Wander inside any of these and I feel as if I could write forever.
And so to writing, and the two books I would go happily to a desert island with: The Bible (Authorised Version) and Moby-Dick. Read bits of both virtually every day; prose don't get any better than this, in my opinion. Constant sources of inspiration.
Much harder to pick the poetry that most inspires me, so I'll go with what I truly love, and that's some Anglo-Saxon, some Middle English and then a Modern. This selection the hardest, but here are three writers I really admire and adore: the Wanderer-poet, the Gawain-poet and Eliot. And if you ever have a go at Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, do try it in the original first with a good prose translation by your side. It's not as hard as it first appears.
Two of the most inspiring geographical locations for me are the run-down bits of cities and those "transitional" spaces - airport terminals, bus and train stations, motorway services. Supreme places to simply observe, I find. Here's a bit of Limehouse in London, which is still just about resisting the march of gentrification from Docklands, and some airport terminal somewhere. Who can ever tell?
My life is not complete without a "hard" book on the go that I am never going to understand. I want to be a polymath. The math part still eludes me. I have started the Calculus book below on numerous occasions, to always stumble at the first descriptions of curves. But I still can't believe that I'm not going to understand it. I'm not stupid! It's only maths! So I try, try, try again. Forever, most probably. But science does excite and inspire me. I'm sure I get String Therory, and can imagine pan-dimensional space, but my husband refuses to believe me.
My life is also not complete without looking at pictures (or watching the films of) truly glamorous women. Here's four of the best. And I dream.
Finally, old things. Really old things, like back when man originated old things. This is one of my favourite books ever, and lies by bed for emergency fact-checking late at night.
And if I go anywhere, I have to go to the oldest sites and they are magic to me.
And then I think, constantly, what has made us man, and why language? How language?
So I'll finish with a poem about these matters, as this is all about what inspires me to write.
Next, tomorrow I'm Masterclassing with Douglas Dunn. He's reading in Dumfries tonight, but unfortunately I can't make it as husband is on Late Shift. This is the poem I submitted to be Masterclassed:
If you were to watch her
If you were to watch her, this is what you’d see:
first, she goes to the mirror with the best light,
not the kindest, and checks for smears on it.
Then she washes her face and hands,
dries them, applies the spot solution she makes herself,
(don’t ask, it involves bleach, to her shame).
Next, moisturiser, running out, which is a shame
as it’s expensive but the reduction she can see
in visible lines, the evening of skin tone in candle-light,
the minimising of gaping pores means it
must be worth it. A king’s ransom in her hands,
she dots the lotion carefully over herself.
First layer, foundation, again blended by herself,
just one shade lighter, surely no shame
in that, for it’s what people see
not what you are that counts. In the right light,
evening light, she could almost be … rise above it
a small voice counsels, but still out go her hands
to reach for the concealer, and those hands
stretch the blue-black skin beneath an eye and she herself
the artist now, paints on oblivion from shame
until her face becomes canvas and all you can see,
all you can see at last, is two eyes and light
and that, she thinks, that, is it.
So now, careful as an icon gilder, she can layer onto it
the colour she does want, and her nerveless hands
select the blusher first, blended by herself
to recreate the delicate flush of a petty shame,
minor blasphemy or risen hem, steps back and can see
it’s done it’s job. Eye shadow next, sparkling light
painted onto lids, then kohl to contrast dark with light,
to hypnotise and mystify, mascara finishes it,
dust loose powder over all, setting, and now her hands
finally choose the deepest red, old-blood-red, herself
Snow White now, alabaster skin she dreams, ebony hair, lips of shame
Red. Finally, she can let our eyes see.
For should we see her harsh in morning light
bare, before, then just as if it were the apple in her own hands
bit with own mouth, she’d cover, hide, exile herself, burn with shame.
I know there is a good poem in there, but it hasn't emerged quite right yet and I am at an impasse with it, even though I've already had really useful feedback from others. It needs a title, are the last 3 words too much of a cliche?, and the repetition (necessary for the sestina) of "shame" in the first stanza doesn't work even for me. The opportunity of having Mr Dunn offering something is pretty brilliant really, although I have never been to any sort of Masterclass before and don't have the first idea what happens. Interesting times, as they say.
However, nothing I do can ever compare with the majesty of what appears in our house and garden (front and back) every single day. 
Yes, they do move those lumps of slate around themselves and no, I haven't completed a risk assessment yet.
Here is some rather exciting news, for me. I am reading at The London Poetry Festival. And here's the website: http://www.londonpoetryfestival.com/index.htm
come to my other blog here to add your name and url to Mcklinky. My blog address is: http://craftitwednesday.blogspot.comAnd you know what was good about the meeting? That already you could tell the whole idea has a "feel" about it, so that you just know, whatever the final form, it's going to work.
I'll leave you with another of Elizabeth Waugh's wonderful bronzes, Swimming Otters.
Last week the lovely hope gave me this blogging award, which I am beholden to pass on.
come to my other blog here to add your name and url to Mcklinky. My blog address is: http://lv2scpbk.blogspot.com
