I promised with the return of the light and the fresh growth of Spring I too would create afresh. As a teenager I ran across a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins on the subject of Spring. Some lines have resonated with me as fresh as morning bird song ever since,
“Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing; ”
So, inspired anew by the time of year I’m going to try a new approach and bring to you some preliminary inspirations underlying a recent poem. The next post will show some images related to the poem which will then follow.
But for now, the snowdrops I came across yesterday, February 12th and loved the way they display themselves in glorious clusters. Where did I meet them? In a place in Wexford, Ireland, by name of Aiséirí, a beautiful Irish word meaning re-birth.
In March I had the honour and privilege of being the first Irish poet to take part in the exchanges between Ireland and Wales as part of the recently established WISPA, Welsh/Irish Spoken word and Poetry Association. It was a wonderful experience and one I will return to a number of times here. For now I want to present a brief outline of what was involved while I continue to absorb the whole experience and wok through at least a few months worth of inspirations of a creative nature and find expression for them. Monday 24th Ferry from Rosslare to Fishguard and train to Swansea, strolling then to the University. There I spent the afternoon in an informal workshop with a group of academics from the Art departments who are diversifying into the written word as a medium of expression. We had a great exchange of creativity and approaches to expressions. It was a marvellously enlightening afternoon for me and I hope for the others too. Like everything that I met on the tour there will be, somewhere in time, a poetic response, in it’s own good time.
Then it was back along the rails with Dominic Williams to Ferryside and from there to Carmarthen for an evening of poetry at the Queens. There I met so many others who featured later on the tour and the featured reader was a young poet by name Tom Miller, winner of The Other Side competition, by the end of the tour we were planning performance duets. We differ in style and are the same in love of the spoken word. A great night all-in-all with a large and lively audience. the group were celebrating four years of poetry, great to be part of that.
Tuesday 26th was spent in the morning/afternoon following Dominic’s instruction, spend time “wandering my village.” Easy to follow that, always a marvel to take time absorbing somewhere else and out that a number of creative projects are swimming around in my mind, bursting to find expression, for now, an image or two must suffice.
It was a lovely Spring day and I had some fascinating encounters with others just wandering and soaking up the welcome sunshine.
That evening it was on to Lampeter, to the Red Heron group and to meet my host for that stay, Jane Llewellyn. The Red Herons meet at the Kings Head and were a very appreciative audience, we had great conversations and again I shared the stage with Tom Miller, we work well together and I look forward to more of that in the future. Keep an eye out, more to come, that’s it for today,
