A Poetry Catch-Up

It's been a while since I posted a poetry update here, and that's because it's been a really quiet year after the hurly burly of launching and giving readings from my 2024 collection, 'Love the Albatross'. The rest has been much needed; there's something uniquely exhausting about reading poems so painfully close to personal experience as estrangement is to mine. I'm pleased to have made something positive out of (what is for me) a graceless situation, and to have made connections with others struggling to carry the same burden from whichever side, but at the same time, I'm glad to have left those poems behind me now. (Apart from the copies of 'Love the Albatross' I have left; message me via social media or the comment function here if you'd like me to post one to you.)

The good news is that I'm continuing to write my way back; I might even start considering myself a poet again soon, which is a relief as that's basically my entire identity. And to help me on my way, a smattering of poems have continued to find their forever homes.  

One of those destinations is The Hen, a new poetry magazine based in Bristol, and it was a delight to read at the launch of the first issue, held at the jewel that is Heron Books in Clifton, a few nights ago. Thanks for Nicola Heaney and Marie-Louise Eyres for publishing my poem and inviting me along to read it.) 

You can read the first issue of The Hen here. 

Though my favourite gig by far this year was at the school for deaf children where I work, when I was invited to talk to our Year 2 children about being a poet. I also got to hear - and see in sign language - the inventive kennings they'd come up with. 

And I was able to tell the children about meeting two of my very favourite poets, Ilya Kaminsky and Raymond Antrobus, who are both Deaf. 

In April I read at Lyra Bristol Poetry Festival, as part of the Street! project which featured poems by poets tasked with responding creatively to the city's neighbourhoods and geo-located across thirteen Bristol libraries ... 

... and in July as a guest of the organisers of the annual Resonate barbecue in the shady garden of St Stephen's Church, just off the city centre, which, coming at the end of a very hot day, was blessedly cool and a welcome pleasure.

I also finally got to read at the Berkeley Square Poetry Revue, after having to duck out back in March, when I completely lost my voice for several days. This subsequent reading, alongside poets Daniel Richardson and Rebecca Shamash, and accompanied by music from the hugely talented Teri Bramah, made for a bubble of creative wonder and was a welcome distraction from what was, for me, a difficult summer. 

Last of the summer walks

 

Leaves have been falling since late June, and it's now much more autumnal than summery. This summer has been very difficult for a number of reasons, and although I dislike the winter dark intensely, I can't say I'm sorry to see the back of the last couple of months. 

I'm writing this listening to incessant rain, which doesn't bode well for Cwtch's long walk later but which is very much needed. 

Purdown

Blaise Castle

Collapsed ferns at Snuff Mills

Fishponds Brook

Patchway Brook

The River Trym at Badock's Wood

On the first day of the hosepipe ban here in Bristol, it rained so much the previous night that at Snuff Mills, the River Frome was bursting its banks in one or two places and the weirs were running through their winter repertoire ...

... but - we are told - it would have to rain for 90 days to replenish depleted water stocks.

As I've had to stay close to home, it's been pretty much the usual haunts, although, I did explore the Leap valley in Downend, which is hollowed by the tiny stream that gives it its name and which was new to me ... 

... and the Three Brooks nature reserve in Bradley Stoke, but both lack winding paths alongside the streams that are their arteries, and that are such a feature of walks along the River Frome (which they'll presently flow into).

Dockham ditch flowing under the M4 and about to join Patchway brook

And yes, the needs of nature have to be prioritised in these places, but if you're telling me here be kingfishers, I'd like to have a fighting chance of seeing one.

Talking of which ...

a kingfisher and its fish at Frenchay bridge ... 

Meanwhile, Cwtch and a friendly magpie had fun playing up on Purdown ... 

... and we also had a close encounter with a wren.

Other than that, the fauna we saw up close and personal was dead. 

Death also crossed over into my feather hunting activities. The season is tailing off now, and to date I've ferreted out 14 jay coverts, which matches the number I found last year. Except that last year I also came across a whole dead jay, which made a total of 48 blue coverts, only I don't really count the job lot as there's no joy in finding so many all at once. 

There were a couple of minor synchronicities - a covert found under the same tree as last year, another in the same lane as last year - but I wasn't expecting to find another jay predation (minus the bird this time).

Not all of the feathers were there, but the 34 blue coverts were. Which brings the season's total up to ... 48.
 

But as I said, only the ones found individually are to be celebrated. I'll post a collage of them in my next local walk blog, by which time I'll know if this is the final total.

Meanwhile, I was particularly interested in this covert, from a juvenile jay. Apparently it takes some practice to achieve neat, regular barring.

I also found a green woodpecker tail feather, which I'd wanted for a long time - two, in fact, the first being dark and very tatty, the second practically perfect. 

tawny owl, buzzard, jay, goldfinch, sparrowhawk, magpie, great spotted woodpecker, great tit, ring-necked parakeet, thrush, greenfinch

CLOCKWISE from top left: carder bee, wasp nest, light emerald moth, clouded yellow butterfly

Cwtch and I also went for a walk up to Ridgeway Cemetery, which was more overgrown than ever with summer greenery. Even though I know they're there, it's always a small shock to see the headstones poking up out of bramble thickets. 

There have also been favourite trees to visit ...

cherry resin

... and lots of 'tumnal fungi. 

And finally some hoggin, though I must admit, my focus is always on feathers during the fleeting moulting season ...

... though I always feel touched that one particular path at Snuff Mills likes to remind me where I'm from every time I walk it. 

Westridge Wood and Weston Big Wood

The only place to be in extreme heat is under cover, so when I've taken a break from walking Bristol's feral woodlands this summer, it's been to visit more woods a little further away ...

... like Westridge Wood, up in Gloucestershire, which I last visited with the Northerner in 2017, when his knees still worked after a fashion.

Westridge Wood has the bonus of a hill fort within its confines, the pleasingly-named Brackenbury Ditches. The view from it these days is of trees, but in the late Bronze Age/early Iron Age, when it was built, it would have had a commanding view of the Vale of Berkeley and the River Severn. 

Dead Man's Fingers

There are a lot of splendidly-shaped beech trees in the wood.

Speckled Wood

As well as the lovely wood, I was also there for Tyndale Monument on Nibley Knoll, which I can see from my bedroom window on a clear day, but which I also need to touch every few years or so ...

... not to mention the stunning views of the Severn, its bridges and flood plain, all the way down to - yes - Bristol. 

woolly thistle

sloes

piece of slipware found in the wood

Wotton-under-Edge quarry

And ore recently, given that it's now cooler but still quite humid, my friend Liz and I put off our planned church-hopping trip in south-east Wales until not-summer and decided instead to go for a walk at Weston Big Wood, just outside of Portishead. 

The disused Black Rock quarry, where peregrine falcons nest

The ruins of Manor Farm

Nightingale Valley