It's the Five Minute Poem.

TFE's challenge, to begin writing a poem at 7.00 pm. and finish and post it five minutes later.
Here we go.


Saturday Morning

Kelsey McNally, Kelsey McNally,
I condemn you to life
in a Ben-Hur slave galley,
I condemn you to life
in that call-centre always,
where all-ringing nights
follow all-ringing days.
Stop using my first name,
I do not want yours,
nor a detailed description
of call-centre laws.
I just wanted my call
put straight through to my bank,
but you would not do it;
Ms. McNally, you stank.


Under pressure I obviously become vitriolic and sub-sub-Betjemanesque! Apologies.

Mellow Yellow Monday - Yellow Lines on Road

I snapped this photo while my husband was going around this Amish buggy. For Mellow Yellow Monday I used this photo because of the yellow lines on the road.

To see more Mellow Yellow participants, click here: Mellow Yellow Monday

If you like Crafts or just want to participate to get entered in my craft book giveaway, check out my craft blog here: Craft it Wednesday

At Last

Poems as things for the exhibition and reading "Words and Bronze" by the Crichton Writers.

Part of the Wigtown Book Festival, it will take place at 3.30 pm, Wednesday 30th September in The Old Bank Bookshop. I can't be there! (Work).

Nine feet of ribbon which unwinds as you read the poem "Elizabeth Within".

Camera Critters

While driving home from Lewisburg, PA, I stopped to take a photo of these elk. About an hour's drive to Bellefonte.

To see more participants of Camera Critters hosted by Misty, go here: http://camera-critters.blogspot.com/

Pet Pride post on my other blog here: Barb's blog A cute bunny awaits.

Giveaway for a Christmas craft book on my other blog here: Craft it Wednesday

hope's task

The lovely hope - she of the superb "incident" writing - over at her blog, The Road Less Traveled
http://hope-theroadlesstraveled.blogspot.com/
offered me a task this week which I gladly accept.
The task was as follows:

"Collect the book that you have most handy, turn to page 161, find the 5th complete sentence, and cite the sentence on your blog. Next (of course) is to pass it on to 5 others."

Now, the collecting the book itself was an interesting revealer of my reading habits. There were five closest (immediately behind me on the dining table). One was work-related, two were factual/history-ish and one was a cartoon book (or graphic novel, if one wants to maintain literary credibility). All books that are pick-up/put-downable. This is because my husband is currently in the middle of the "6 days on" part of his shift pattern, so I wouldn't usually have a novel to hand. Why? Once I start a novel I read it to the end with only minimal interruptions for sleep and ... well, sleep's about it actually, and if the book is good I'll forego that too. So to read a novel requires my husband to be on the "4 days off" part of his shift pattern, as if not the boys would only see the two black-ringed, red-rimmed gimlets that are my eyes poking over the top of a book whilst I distractedly suggest "marble-run" or "drawing" to them.

But by chance there was a novel amongst them - one I had read previously and am now re-reading. Which means the racing through is replaced by reflection on.

And before you ask, poetry books all live in another room, and that is where I read them. The other room is a tidy room, has no computer in it, has no children's drawings all over the walls and only the boys' wooden castles and railway track infiltrate its aura of adulthood. No other toys cross its threshold. It's also where a lot of books live, though that's true for the rest of my stuffed-full home. Just as there is matter and proposed anti-matter, so if a minimalist interior were to bump into our house, they would both disappear.

A corner of the "tidy" room.

"When is she ever going to tell us what the bloody book is?" you may be asking. Well, Then We Came to the End.


I'm re-reading it because I raced through it; I love narrative and incident and this multi-faceted cubic zircona of a book is all minute incident. And then not so minute incident. Set in an American advertising agency, it begins

"We were fractious and overpaid. Our mornings lacked promise. At least those of us who smoked had something to look forward to at ten-fifteen. Most of us liked most everyone, a few of us hated specific individuals, one or two people loved everyone and everything. Those who loved everyone were unanimously reviled. .. "

which hints at the delights to come. It is very funny, and characters are revealed through their little actions and reactions in a densely woven story where threads are picked up, put down and picked up again with such ease you don't even notice. I loved the book, and the narrative technique, which is why I'm re-reading it.

So the fifth complete sentence on page 161 relates to the recurring tale of one of the office chairs, and is:
"When Dana made that leap, she brought along her own chair, which had once belonged to someone in Account Management and was a better chair than Bob's, which was really Marcia's. "

There are sad, indeed tragic, stories running through the book, so don't think it's just a laugh-a-minute picture-less "Dilbert". Plus one major shift which I couldn't figure out, and I like being surprised by an author too. My only disappointment was the very last page - I just didn't like the ending device. But it's a great book, so if you've got a day to spare and would like to laugh, then read it. I'd recommend it!

And I'd like to pass the task onto the following, if they want to accept:

Rachel, at Rambling with Rachel Fox
http://crowd-pleasers.blogspot.com/ , because she never writes a dull word;

Deemikay, at stars sliding
http://stars-sliding.blogspot.com/ , because he's mathematical;

Eryl, The Kitchen Bitch herself
http://thekitchenbitchponders.blogspot.com/ , because I need some more Nietzsche;

Sorlil, at Poetry in Progress
http://sorlily.blogspot.com/ , because I like her calm (realise this might not be possible - getting close to larger household time);

Tousled Raven,
http://flyingfulmar.blogspot.com/ because I just want to know! And I don't think she actively blogs, but could leave her answer in the comments if she would like ....

Apropos of the previous post.

Spent all the time after school messing about with burning candles, hot wax, plasticine sculpting tools, finger-paint and two six-year old boys. We might not have got there, but we know where we're going now! With thanks to Rachel and Eryl who made me think again.

Sky Watch Friday - Bridge and Street Lights

I took this photo in Lewisburg, PA, about an hour from Bellefonte.

To see more participants of Sky Watch Friday go here: http://skyley.blogspot.com/

Please join me at my craft blog, click here: Craft it Wednesday
I'm giving away a craft book, just remember to read the rules.

Woodwoe is me, and fripperies.

You may remember a while back I posted about the work the Crichton Writers are producing to celebrate the 80th birthday of the sculptor Elizabeth Waugh. The final product is to be an exhibition and reading at The Wigtown Literary Festival in September, entitled "Words and Bronze". The exhibition will include works by Elizabeth; the words produced will also be exhibited as artefacts - for example, a series of haikus have been etched onto glass roundels.
For those unfamiliar with Elizabeth's work, here is one of her bronzes. "Trio". More can be viewed at her website, here: http://www.elizabethwaugh.co.uk/index.html

One of the works that particularly inspired me was this lino print, "Hare", about which I wrote a haiku.My grand conception for artefacting the poem was to have it signwritten onto mahogany, as we have a local signwriter. I wittered on about this in a previous post. I collected the said item yesterday, and cannot adequately describe the mixture of disappointment and, well, anger I felt when I saw it. It's not very nice; more specifically, it's not signwritten and it's not mahogany.

Here it is:So what did I do. Mumbled my thanks, paid my money, went home and railed to my husband about it. Who I then delegated to return to said signwriter to establish what had gone wrong.
He is very good and reasonable about such things, whereas I would have let my anger build until I stormed up and used that Essex Exocet, "YOUR AAHT TOF AWWDAH".
Well, delegation availed me nothing. Transmission of instructions the area on which our two versions of "the commissioning" disagree.
But don't you just hate that feeling you get when you think something is going to be good, and then it isn't. That's grown-up land, I suppose.

Anyway, on a much cheerier note, lots of ribbon arrived for my other poem artefact, or artefact poem. None of it is suitable, but at least it's lovely in its own right and now it's mine.And finally, sometimes things do exceed expectations. Here are the gorgeous robots created by the poet Aiko Harman, who blogs here: http://www.aikowrites.blogspot.com/
They have been christened "Roby 1" and "Auto" and are, according to the boys, perfect.
I can't disagree.

What The Hell Do YOU Know About Heartbreak, Little Girl?

She used to say
It’s so girly to cry.
So I’m trying not to.
Trying.
Not to.
Cry.

She felt like home.
She felt like the mountains and the forests and the rivers back from where I come.

And you tell me, Little Girl, to make a nick in myself and let all my sorrow leak out.

What I’m trying to tell you, Little Girl, please listen, I’m not lost.
I’m not lost.
I’ve only lost my map.

For my friend the Grasshopper who cried all summer.

Photograph by Bokom.

ABC Wednesday - F is for Fake Berries

This is the new fall wreath I bought for my front door. I haven't bought one in awhile. Today is ABC Wednesday with the letter "F" which stands for Fake berries.

To see more ABC Wed. participants, go here: http://mrsnesbittsplace.blogspot.com/

If you make any type of crafts or just like Crafts check out my craft blog here: Craft it Wednesday Post a craft of yours or post a photo of a craft of someone else's. I participate in Mcklinkys blog hop giveaways. I usually post a new craft or a craft book for giveaway every other week.

Exquisite Bodies and Transgression

Anatomical models, ostensibly for education, have always been about transgression. We are not meant to see these things; Galen (103 - 200 AD) was only able to dissect apes, not humans, because of religious edicts.

It was not 1523, when Pope Clement VII (guess what? A Medici. He died through eating a Death Cap mushroom. Those Italians, eh?) permitted dissection for medical purpose that an accurate understanding of the human body could develop. In Christian societies, that is, for interestingly Islamic scholar-physicians as far back as the towering figure of Al-razi (865 - 925) emphasized the value of dissection and the importance of understanding anatomy when treating diseases.

To make up for lost time once His Holiness said "Yes", Vesalius, from Brussels, burst onto the University of Padua in the autumn of 1537, enrolled in the medical school and received his doctorate of medicine very quickly. Upon graduation, he was immediately offered the chair of Surgery and Anatomy. A friendly judge, impressed by his methods, facilitated his procurement of the bodies of executed prisoners to conduct dissections on. And it was only then that Galen's errors were overturned.

It was dissection which allowed Vesalius to produce what were arguably the first proper books of anatomy, most notably "De Humani Corporis Fabrica", with its detailed drawings by, amongst others, da Vinci. It was subsequent books and single sheets of anatomical illustration that invented the "lift the flap" technique, so that layers of illustrated paper could be lifted up in succession to reveal the secrets of the human body. The sheets did not just circulate in medical circles.

Of course, once the field of anatomy had been invented, it needed to be promulgated; nice people did not want to be dissected upon their death, and even in those days there was a shortage of executed prisoners to go round. So the anatomical waxwork was invented, and it was Italy, and more specifically Florence, that led the world. The greatest collection of anatomical waxes from this period was amassed by the Grand Duke of Tuscany and these waxes are still on show at the Museum of Natural History in Florence, the famous "La Specola".

Time went on, and just as the two-headed calf side-show at the fair attracted the masses, so did the anatomical model, which had quickly developed to show not just anatomy but the physical symptoms of diseases too, most notably the "Great Pox" (syphilis). The development of the foetus in the womb and the process of delivery were other great favourites, as were all the usual "prodigies" of nature.

Of the 19th Century London anatomical museums, the most famous was that of Joseph Kahn, which attracted over 2000 visitors a week at the height of its popularity. Education, or transgression? Kahn cleverly offered both, focused on the "diseases of imprudence" and the "dreadful effects of onanism", and allied his models with daily lectures on embryology and sexual health.

In the early 20th Century Senor Roca, a successful fairground entrepreneur, established "The House of Monsters" in Barcelona's Barrio Chino (the red-light district) with a selection of anatomical waxworks, jars of preserved human parts, a "house of murders" and the usual prodigies of nature. Again, to offset the transgression, Roca allied it to information about avoiding the three great "plagues" of humanity at that time and in that place - tuberculosis, alcoholism and syphilis. For a while the Red Cross took over the running of the museum until it closed in 1935.

So, we who do not need to know these things, unlikely as we are to conduct an operation or deliver a baby, like to look at these things. But we know it's wrong. But it's a funny exciting. Wrap it up in some moralizing and we'll all feel better.

Even within the educational, informing environment of the Wellcome Institute I knew that the frisson I experienced was not from the medico-socio-history of the artefacts, but from the feeling of transgression. But God, the things were fascinating. Maybe I was born for the cheap seats.

However, the curator was not unaware either, as the penis exhibits were all behind a red velvet curtain. You could only raise the curtain once you had read a warning notice to the effect that what was behind "may cause distress or offence". Showmanship. Not so different from Mr Kahn after all.

The visit to the Exquisite Bodies exhibition also brought an occasion during a holiday to Florence with my mother come swimming back. This must have been twenty years ago or so, certainly she was only in her sixties then. The museum in the poem is the Museo di Storia della Scienza, or the Museum of the History of Science, and is chock-full of Galileo's stuff and telescopes and microscopes and astrolabes ...

Galileo's Objective Lens (in the middle of a case and you can't actually see it much).

A Newtonian Telescope, I believe.

Ooh, Galileo's middle finger. A reliquary of a man found guilty of heresy particularly rich in contradictions.
Mother Leaving

Exhibition, you remind me
of an afternoon in Florence with Mum
and the visit to that science museum
where we both feigned interest in instruments
that changed the way man viewed the world
until I moved her to my endpoint;
the exhibits upstairs.
She was much younger then,
and made it without moaning.
Arrayed before us, no glass case,
were waxworks of syphilitics,
dusty babies in utero,
chancred cankered faces.
We walked around until she, finally, said,
“I think I’ve had enough now.”

Mellow Yellow Monday - Lizards

Today is Mellow Yellow Monday and the yellow is coming from these overhead lights on these two lizards.

(To enlarge photo, just click on it)

Here's a better photo of another lizard.

I took these photos at Clyde Peeling's Repile Land. To see more of this place, I have a link and another photo if you scroll down a bit. I have a green snake posted. Thanks for looking.

To see more Mellow Yellow participants, click here: Mellow Yellow Monday

If you like Crafts or just want to participate to get entered in my craft book giveaway, check out my craft blog here: Craft it Wednesday

Camera Critters - Grey Pig

I noticed this pig having alot of fun digging in the mud.

To see more participants of Camera Critters hosted by Misty, go here: http://camera-critters.blogspot.com/

Do you remember when I said my dog was obsessive licking? Come to my other blog on Pet Pride to find out why. Pet Pride post on my other blog here: Barb's blog

Tuesday is the last day to sign up for my free craft book giveaway. Visit my other blog here: Craft it Wednesday I will be starting a new giveaway then on Wednesday.

Sky Watch Friday - Light Rays

This photo was taken in between Bellefonte and Pleasant Gap. I took it around 6:45am this morning.

To see more participants of Sky Watch Friday go here: http://skyley.blogspot.com/

Tuesday is the last week to sign up for my free craft book giveaway. Visit my other blog here: Craft it Wednesday I will be starting a new giveaway then on Wednesday.

Self-promotion of Promotion?

Good Lord, I'm a prize over at One Night Stanzas, here: http://www.readthismagazine.co.uk/onenightstanzas/?p=1045

All (all?) you have to do to win is come up with the ultimate Poetry Slam Team. I am so old-fashioned I had to ask someone what a Poetry Slam was, so it's lucky I'm not allowed to enter.

And joy of megajoys! The fabulous deemikay has used the picture of the Perspective Dragon (2 posts below) in one of his Poets Cornered cartoons. It's here:

http://poetscornered.blogspot.com/2009/08/71-sir-poughbuoy-vs-perspective-dragon.html

and it's brilliant. How can I feel proud of something I had nothing to do with? The collaborative artist read it himself this morning before school, and pronounced "It's funny".

Finally, not enough pictures of me looking stupid on this blog. Here I am dressed as Princess Leia at the boys' 5th birthday party last year. It was a space theme.

In response to steven's meme: A Transformative Moment

Posting this early because Wednesday is first day back at school = morning pandemonium, and because to celebrate I'm off to Cumnock to deliver an Arthritis Care "Challenging" course. My first! Yikes. What follows is not entertaining, but it is honest. And if I don't post it now I'll bottle it.

Difficult things happen in a life. The majority of the difficult that have knobbled up my life's thread I seem to be able to contemplate, and then write about. There is one thing though whose ramifications I only ever hint to myself about, so what follows is an indulgence, for I suspect it will be mere story-telling as opposed to analysis. The event that follows has probably had a more significant effect on how I encounter other people than anything else, but I still don't want to work out why. The section of the story in italics is not from my memory; I have no memory of those events, only what other people have told me.

It is the summer holidays between my second and third years of university. I am 21. The sun's shining, I have to get something from the barn; the barn is a ten minute walk away. So I get on my youngest brother's bike, whistle for Conan, my dog (my Irish Wolfhound), and off we go, Conan cruising along behind me. We live on a lane: Bereden's Lane. At the bottom of the lane it meets a road, not a quiet one but the Southend Arterial, or A127, which is the dual carriageway that connects London with Southend. It is a very busy, very fast road. I ride towards the junction of the A127; the private road that runs up to the slaughterhouse, and beyond that, the barn, is about twenty yards short of the big junction. I turn left to the barn, and Conan follows. I race up in the sunshine, dog at my side, and life is very good. Item collected, I ride back the way I came, and at the bottom of the private road turn right, away from the A127 junction and towards our house. Only when I'm in the drive do I notice Conan isn't with me. I shout at Jim, the gardener, who shouts back he thinks he saw the dog going towards the 127. I race off on the bike to that junction, and through the flashing bodies of cars and lorries passing at 70 miles an hour I can see Conan on the other side of the dual carriageway. I can't believe he's crossed the road. I have got to get him back safe, so I shout "SIT" and "STAY". Conan sits.

I cross two lanes and get to the central reservation that divides the carriageway heading to Southend from the carriageway heading for Romford. I shout at the dog again. I run across to the dog, who is not wearing a collar or lead, and grab him by the skin of his neck. I run across with him and get safely to the central reservation again. Something scares the dog. He runs back in the direction we've just come from, and I run out after him. A young car salesman is on a test drive with a prospective customer: it is the new Jaguar, and the salesman is driving. He is doing 70 mph plus. I run out in front of him, try to turn, but he hits me on my right side, and I am thrown up and onto the windscreen, which I shatter with my head, then I rotate in the air and travel over the car (or the car travels under me) to land on my left side on the road. The white van behind the Jaguar also hits me, and drags me along the road a bit too. Meanwhile, Conan has crossed the section of carrigeway where I have caused pandemonium, got to the central reservation, tried to cross the next section of carriageway but has been hit by another car and is killed.

I am also close to dying.

Jim shouts to my mother that there's been an accident on the 127 and he thinks Conan might have caused it. Accidents at this location are common: Beredens Land faces Front Lane across the AI27 and people do cross here; it's also where the dual carriageway lights end, and drivers at night suddenly find themselves in a different darkness. My mother never walks down to see an accident. Today, my mother walks down, sees Conan dead on our side of the carriageway and can see a dead boy on the other side. Something makes her walk on. The shirt of the dead boy has been pushed up his body and over his face, and one arm is sticking out at an angle arms can't lie at. She looks at the arm, and sees a gold bracelet, the one Grandad gave me for my 18th birthday. My mother says "Oh my God, it's my daughter" and nearly faints, but comes around enough to say to anyone who will listen "Don't ring my husband. He'll kill himself driving back from Market".

(My father drove at warp-speed under normal circumstances, and Mum was scared he would have an acident himself if he drove any faster.)

There is an ambulance already on the A127, which is now blocked in both directions. The ambulance gets to me, the ambulance staff get me inside and I am dead. The ambulance staff bring me back to life, and take me to Harold Wood hospital.

I am up on the ceiling, looking down. I can see myself and I am having an X-ray taken of my head. That's all I can remember, nothing mystic, religious, white-light-y. I could just see myself from above, lying on a table, having a head X-ray.

I am about as injured as you can be, have broken virtually every bone except the two really vital ones, my skull and my spine. I have shattered both shoulders and the skin that remains on my body (a lot of it on my right side from the top of my head to my hip has been ground off by the tarmac I was dragged along) is full of grit and glass. I am kept "under" (i.e. unconcious) for about two weeks, initially being placed in a whole-body cast until the man that was to remain my consultant, Mr Kassab, came along and insisted it be removed because however my bones were set they would remain, and he was sure I would do better unplastered.

I come round and see my mother and father by my bed. My father's first words are "Dog's dead" and then I ask Mum if my face is alright. She looks at me and says "Yes". I know she's lying, and she knows I know that.

I can't move, can't feed myself, can't brush my own teeth, can't "toilet" myself, can only listen to the ward and the radio. There is a mad old woman in the next bed (it is the orthopaedic ward - all hip replacements) who calls me "next-door-neighbour" and won't stop talking to me, and the old lady opposite keeps on doing poos in bed and then wrapping them up in the top of her bedsheet. I am on morphine for the pain, which sends me stark raving mad too, so that all the nurses become Grace Kelly, and I know it is Grace Kelly who wants to kill me. They find a male nurse. I want my Mum, who occasionally asks if she may miss a visiting time (each afternoon and evening). I tell her she may not. Every visitor that comes to see me tells me I was lucky. Still no one brings me a mirror.

My daily torturer, the Australian physiotherapist, comes one day and says I'm going to walk. I say I can't. We walk, though I still have two arms that I cannot move in a complex double sling arrangement. That same night, when I'm sure the night nurse is away for a while, I get myself out of bed and head for where the bathrooms might be. I find them, push the door open with my hip, and walk into blackness. My eyes adjust, and I see a lightswitch. I can't turn it on. I think I'll use my nose, but my nose doesn't seem to be there. I use my chin. The light is blinding for a moment. I go to the mirror above the nearest basin.

This is the transformative moment. I look, and wish I had died in the accident.

Postscript:

I only missed the first term of my third year of university, although I still couldn't dress myself when I went back, or hold a book, now I come to think of it. Eighteen months after the accident I joined the Avon and Somerset Constabulary, having passed the fitness test.

Ta Da!

ABC Wednesday - Electrical Ladder

A electrical ladder set up. This photo was taken in Lewisburg, PA about a hour drive from Bellefonte.

To see more ABC Wed. participants, go here: http://mrsnesbittsplace.blogspot.com/

This week is the last week to sign up for my free craft book giveaway. Visit my other blog here: Craft it Wednesday

Last big painting day before school starts on Wednesday. Most projects 3-dimensional, but may I present "Perspective Dragon" and "Surface of the Moon with 2 Aliens" by the 6 year-old artists that inhabit the house.

One of my favourite ways to spend a day, and we managed to get the school shoes this morning - in exchange for the usual king's ransom. How can children's shoes cost more than mine?

Mellow Yellow - Yellow Flower and Orange Butterfly

This photo was taken at Clyde Peeling's Reptiland. I have a link there on yesterday's post if you want more info on it.

To see more Mellow Yellow participants, click here: Mellow Yellow Monday

If you are interested in Crafts, or talking about dogs or books, see my post below with the photo of the green snake on it about my new blog and two new yahoo groups.

Work in Progress: Tricks

Tricks

Damaged woman, I have seen your face before:
laughing in the custody office as you asked,
“Why do you wear so much make-up?”
I smiled, looked at your face, teen-fresh,
and thought “because I don’t look like you”,
but did not say, just smiled wider;
in on the joke.
That night you wore the improbable white sailor-suit,
short, crisp, box-pleated skirt,
and Good Ship Lollipop sang to my mind.
This morning you are Long Liz Stride,
at five foot four tall for her time and class,
and every other whore who has died at the game.
Heroin may dull all
save the blade he has used on you.

I will search for it, and him;
it’s what I do with this face.
But first, a smile to Scenes of Crime
and more lipstick, I think.

Camera Critters -Green Snake

We went to Clyde Peeling's Reptile Land yesterday. So I have some photos to show you over the next several weeks. Clyde's is about an hour from Bellefonte. If you want to learn more about visiting Clyde Peeling's, go here: Clyde Peeling's Reptiland It's located in Allenwood, PA.

To see more of Camera Critters hosted by Misty, go here: http://camera-critters.blogspot.com/

To see a photo of my Pet Pride post on my other blog here: Barb's blog

I started two new yahoo groups. Hope you can check them out.

The first one is called Learn All A Dog It (Click on name to go to yahoo or join by adding your email address to my yahoo group on my sidebar on my other blog.)

Description of this group: Discuss all dog breeds (including mutts)and he their behaviors. A good place to learn from other members about their breeds. Post funny stories about your dog, photos, your exercise routine, how to get your dog to lose weight, how much they eat, etc. Disclaimer: I am not a veterinarian and any advice from members is to be taken as you see fit. I am not responsible for anything you use from suggestions or otherwise on this list. No spam allowed. Offenders will be unsubbed.

The second one is called Books Over Time (Click on name to go to yahoo or join by adding your email address to my yahoo group on my sidebar on my other blog.)

Description of this group: Books over time yahoo group
Talk about books from these genre's, contemporary, christian, biographies, memoirs, mystery, thriller, dog stories. Fiction/Non-fiction. I will pick out several books and then we will vote on which one to read for the month. I like to read authors like Angela Hunt, Sara Gruen, Christian Hannah, Jodi Picoult, Nancy Grace, Stephen King, Wally Lamb, Joel Osteen, Michael J. Fox, etc. This is just to name a few. No spam allowed and I will unsub those who do. No foul langauage. We will discuss the book of the month. Post reviews of other books you have read.

I started a new meme for anyone that does crafts. Check it out here: Craft it Wednesday

Elephant in Dumfries Shock!

Yesterday I met Anne the elephant again. I know there is a whole story here (one day) about the demise of the traditional British Circus, and a debate about animals in captivity, but I took the boys to Bobby Roberts Super Circus and we had a marvellous time. Anne is retired now, and no longer performs, but comes on in the interval for photographic opportunities. So we all had our photo taken with her, and Anne was quite taken with the eldest twin's shorts.

Game Boys? Wii? You can't beat a circus.

Shadow Shot

Today is Shadow Shot meme. We went to Lewisburg, PA yesterday and I noticed these steps with a neat looking shadow running down them. Lewisburg is about an hour away from Bellefonte. To me Lewisburg has the style of Bellefonte, a victorian feel, but Lewisburg is bigger.

To see more of Shadow Shot participants visit Hey Harriet

FREE..Book Giveaway!..On my other blog called Craft it Wednesday I am giving away a prize. To see the details on winning, check it out here: Craft it Wednesday You don't have to do much to get entered, so visit this blog today. Final chance to enter is Tuesday, August 25th.

Sky Watch Friday - Sunflowers

This was taken this morning of the neighbors sunflowers and a foggy mist in the air. It's been really humid the last several days. The sky should get brighter later on today as it's suppose to be hot.

To see more participants of Sky Watch Friday go here: http://skyley.blogspot.com/

FREE..Book Giveaway!..On my other blog called Craft it Wednesday I am giving away a prize. To see the details on winning, check it out here: Craft it Wednesday You don't have to do much to get entered, so visit this blog today.

London Poetry Festival

Can't quite believe The London Poetry Festival was only a week ago. It ran from the 7th of August to the 10th of August, and was held at Waterloo St. John's Church, a lovely venue even if it did incite numerous poets to do their anti-religion rant poems. The charming verger, who was ever present and very patient, smiled beatifically throughout. Rather like me in this photograph I have stolen from the Festival website. The Festival is organised by Munayem Mayenin, Festival Director, who is an extremely charming fellow whose good nature and enthusiasm for poetry shine out of him. It is obvious he organizes this event for love and not money. St John's is beautiful, and the acoustics were very good as long as you weren't too close to the rather sensitive microphone.The format was the same each evening - the first session was by the poets in residence, and the second, or main, session, was by the invited poets interspersed with some open-mic-ers. If you sat on anyone's knee in the audience they would probably write about it later, because we were poets reading to poets; but by gosh, there were a lot of poets. Each evening finished with music. The atmosphere was friendly and inclusive, and by the second night I was really enjoying myself.

Of the poets in residence, I particularly liked Tony Fernandez (you can find some of his work here:

http://www.africaresource.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=613:tony-tokunbo-fernandez&catid=138:poetry&Itemid=344 )

and Aiko Harman,who blogs here: http://www.aikowrites.blogspot.com/
Aiko had also produced single hand-crafted poems with an accompanying felt toy, and my luck was in as she had written one called "Robots" for her boyfriend. Eldest twin is delighted with "Roby 1" and Aiko promised to construct a second and post it to me for twin 2. I also like the poem.

In the main session, I loved Anna Lindup, who I can't find anywhere on the internet. She performed her own work magnificently, a bit like a pocket Diana Rigg. I could have listened to her all night. McGuire (who blogs here: http://a-glaswegian.blogspot.com/ ) was also memorable, not just for the fact that he opened his set by declaring that he had left his book in the toilet and then running off to get it. An un-phased reading followed.

There were good poems and poets each evening, but the above four names stood out for me because they also read well, and in Anna's case, really well.

I read exclusively from my pamphlet, The Fat Plant, each night. On the Saturday night I chose "Homemaker" as part of my set, and actually felt a little discomforted reading it to an ethnically diverse audience, something I haven't done before (Dumfriesshire, remember). The "I" is not me, but to read it, me becomes "I", Georgia accent included. My discomfort surprised me, and needs thinking about.

Here it is, so you can see what I mean:

Homemaker

Lord, I simply love washing, let me clarify:
I don’t mean myself, but sheets, towels, laundry,
I love washing clothes and watching them dry.

To the world of the soiled and the sundry
creased unsorted chaos of the laundry basket
I restore order on every Monday.

I learnt from my mother, my daughter’s debt,
for it’s ever been a woman’s right
to order the world thus, so we’re washing yet.

Children and husband can shine and be bright,
and I as wife and mother may feel some pride
in that shining, and catch reflected light.

I never get it wrong and I can be your guide,
follow these simple rules which will supply
such pleasure in what’s hanging on the line outside.

Never mix whites with coloureds.
Whites means pure whites: never contaminate
with other dyes.

And do not forget
there are light coloureds and dark coloureds:
do not confuse these either.

Darks, obviously,
are only washed together, and alone,
else they will dull everything.

Finally, never ever trust reds.
Always wash them separately
and consider a rinse programme

for the machine once they are removed.
Red can spread.
It is not to be trusted.

Do these things and you will have
an unchanging world of order
in your linen cupboard and your wardrobe,

and like me you will be happy
for the hour a day
that you are washing.

To sum up: I had a good time, heard interesting and diverse work and met some lovely people, the loveliest being Munayem Mayenin himself. Long may he reign.

Ooh, and I sold some pamphlets too!

The official Festival Report can be found here: http://www.londonpoetryfestival.com/5thFestivalReport2009.htm

Finally, for Eryl, did I rock that poet's look? Oh yes, I think so. Smug Mothers-of-the-bride unite!

Royal Victoria Dock

I grew up in Romford, Essex. Our journey up to "the smoke" was via the A13, and at exactly the right spot (which changed according to traffic conditions, time of day etc.) my father would dink down towards the docks to pursue an arcane route through decaying parts of London to get us to the city quicker. So Canning Town, Limehouse, Poplar and Shadwell are areas I knew well.

And I know you can't drive through the area the same way now (I tried last Christmas, and the short cuts and secret by-ways have been blocked up or sliced off) and that the regeneration of the whole of docklands to an up-upmarket residential area has been happening for a couple of decades now, but I hadn't actually stayed in the place. Until now. And what a strange feeling brew of nostalgia and promise and lost childhood and a lost identity for London I experienced.

Silvertown Way - where are you?

The Royal Victoria Dock was the first of London's "Royal" Docks, and was opened in 1855 on the Plaistow Marshes. It was the first "modern" dock, built to accomodate large steam ships and with hydraulic power operating its machinery. Once built, it was the largest dock operating in London, taking the steam vessels but also the clippers. It was a huge, and immediate, commercial success, and was particulary known for its meat trade with South America, also for the tobacco trade with America in the 1920s and for fruit in the 1930s. The Royal Docks began to decline in the '60s, with the onset of containerisation and the growing importance of Tilbury, but they were still working docks when I was a child and within my memory.

Somewhat rosy and Soviet Realist sculpture commemorating what once was.

And now? Now Royal Victoria Dock is a huge block of expensive flats with a few huge expensive hotels and the ExCel Centre (a conference/event venue type affair run by the Abu Dhabi Conference Organisation. I think.) And there are no people. I stayed there for three days and I still never found the people. I did locate what I suspected was the "affordable" housing, but they'd stuck it on the other side of the dock, over the new Royal Victoria Dock Bridge and guess what? The lifts weren't working.

View from footbridge (long way up, lots of steps) looking towards the City

View from footbridge looking towards Holy Essex.Old Warehouses. Nice.Old converted warehouses. Nice.ExCel Centre. I know it brings business and jobs, but who gave it planning permission to look like this? Not nice.But they left the midnight dinosaurs.

Now the history of the London Docks, and the appalling working and living conditions of the casual dock workers before unionisation must never be forgotten. It was this dock, and its meat trade, that gave birth to Canning Town.

And here are two contemporary accounts of the area;

"Canning Town is the child of the Victoria Docks. The condition of this place and of its neighbour prevents the steadier class of mechanics from residing in it. They go from their work to Stratford or to Plaistow. Many select such a dwelling place because they are already debased below the point of enmity to filth; poorer labourers live there, because they cannot afford to go farther, and there become debased. The Dock Company is surely, to a very great extent, answerable for the condition of the town they are creating. Not a few of the houses in it are built by poor and ignorant men who have saved a few hundred pounds, and are deluded by the prospect of a fatally cheap building investment."

Charles Dickens

"As we are on the Thames, let us look at a swamp which is called a town - Canning-town,-unknown to the great mass of Londoners. We all know the consequences of planting large populations on ill-adapted lands, without making provision for that most important necessary of accumulated life, drainage; and it might have been hoped that the sad effects in known instances would have led to the prevention of other similar mistakes. It is, however, not so; for in the Plaistow Marshes, Canning-town has been commenced, without the provision of either proper roads or drainage. .... The artificial bank of Bow Creek and the embankment of the Thames are all that prevent the houses here from being flooded every high tide. To provide for the effectual drainage of this district, by the ordinary means, is impossible. The houses here have been erected without the means of either carrying off the refuse or properly avoiding damp. In course of time the debris of these and other houses will raise the level ; but in the mean time what will be the sacrifice of human life which must take place without prompt measures. With some difficulty we managed to reach the place on foot from the turnpike road, and found the condition of the streets miserable : many of them, although the day was tolerably fine, were almost impassable, and vehicles sank nearly up to the axletrees in the mud. In many parts were great pools of stagnant water. At the beginning of 1856 the writer said, "If something is not done, in two or three years' time the ground will be poisoned by cesspools, water will stand on the surface, and evils of a serious nature will follow. In a score of years or less, Canning-town will be an important place, with its churches, omnibus and cab stations, and its masses of rich and poor. Let us hope for the introduction of measures proportionate to the extent of the future requirements. Flesh and blood are precious materials."
George Godwin, Town Swamps and Social Bridges, 1859

And Canning Town, though now part of Newham, was in the Essex constituency of West Ham South, where in 1892 the legend Keir Hardie was elected as the first member of the Independent Labour Party to enter The House of Commons. (Guide to pronunciation - though West Ham is Wes' tAM and East Ham is Eas' tAM, Newham is New'um).

So this area did not have an easy birth or an easy history - it was truly poor, and truly working class. But the area I remember had a vibrancy and life that has not been replaced by the new development. I know it's cheap nostalgia I feel, for an area I never had to live in, but for me, something has been lost. Flesh and blood are precious materials. Enough, ennui.