Friday, 18 February 2011
Dave Poems
I've really been enjoying reading this blog the last few weeks. Loads of opinions - I don't necessarily agree with all, or even most, of them, but they're all well argued and backed up with close reference to the texts.
Wednesday, 16 February 2011
On the edge
Flicking through the Sunday papers, I came across this review of Edgelands, a new book by poets Michael Symmons Roberts and Paul Farley which looks at those scrappy, scratchy, scrubby places that divide town and country yet are neither one thing nor the other.
Minutes later, trawling the web (what an energetic life I lead), I discovered this new volume from Shearsman - The Ground Aslant: An Anthology of Radical Landscape Poetry. From the accompanying blurb, I'd expect it to touch on at least some of the same territory.
Now coincidentally, the whole concept of 'edgelands' and marginal landscapes has been very much on my mind lately. I've just got back from a fairly brief trip to Extremadura, in Spain, for the launch of Swarovski's new EL50 binoculars, and as always on the Iberian peninsula, I was struck by two things.
One is the fact that many of those previously common bird species which are declining here are doing just fine over there. A good example is the Corn Bunting, now vanished from large swathes of the UK, but whose distinctive jangle was the soundtrack to almost every waking minute spent outside of the centre of Trujillo, where we stayed.
Number two was the 'messiness' of the landscape there, compared to the UK. It's beautiful, and there are plenty of areas that are unspoiled, as well as others such as the dehesa that are, although shaped by man, managed with the intention of maintaining some sort of natural balance.
But there are also plenty of patches that, were they in the UK, would immediately be tidied up or tamed, but which in Spain are simply left to grow wild. Weeds, wild flowers and scrub flourish, with the knock-on effect of providing seed and insect food for birds, as well as cover for nesting.
Back over here, on the other hand, roadside verges are being mown for no apparent reason, and hedges are being stripped so bare that there's no prospect of them being used by nesting birds this year. You'd think that, in these straitened times, councils and landowners would welcome the chance to cut back their maintenance budget and restrict work to those areas where it's absolutely necessary (at junctions, for traffic safety, for example). Apparently not. If it's not farmland, a park or a nature reserve, it has to be neatly manicured.
That has to be one of the major reasons for the decline of so many of our small birds (as well as larger species such as Lapwing). It's nothing to do with predators (the third thing you notice in Spain is the much greater density of raptors), but instead because by eliminating these marginal landscapes, these 'edgelands', we eliminate major sources of food and shelter for all sorts of birds. Instead of pursuing the absurd cull of corvids (and, potentially, raptors) being piloted by Songbird Survival, a body dominated by hunting interests, we should be looking at the root of the problem.
So, if either or both of these two books can do anything to change attitudes, that has to be a very good thing. The Shearsman anthology contains several names - Colin Simms, Elisabeth Bletsoe, Helen Macdonald, Mark Goodwin, Peter Riley and editor Harriet Tarlo - whose inclusion would make it a must for me anyway, but they both look worth a read. Might have to wait a while, though.
Minutes later, trawling the web (what an energetic life I lead), I discovered this new volume from Shearsman - The Ground Aslant: An Anthology of Radical Landscape Poetry. From the accompanying blurb, I'd expect it to touch on at least some of the same territory.
One is the fact that many of those previously common bird species which are declining here are doing just fine over there. A good example is the Corn Bunting, now vanished from large swathes of the UK, but whose distinctive jangle was the soundtrack to almost every waking minute spent outside of the centre of Trujillo, where we stayed.
Number two was the 'messiness' of the landscape there, compared to the UK. It's beautiful, and there are plenty of areas that are unspoiled, as well as others such as the dehesa that are, although shaped by man, managed with the intention of maintaining some sort of natural balance.
Back over here, on the other hand, roadside verges are being mown for no apparent reason, and hedges are being stripped so bare that there's no prospect of them being used by nesting birds this year. You'd think that, in these straitened times, councils and landowners would welcome the chance to cut back their maintenance budget and restrict work to those areas where it's absolutely necessary (at junctions, for traffic safety, for example). Apparently not. If it's not farmland, a park or a nature reserve, it has to be neatly manicured.
That has to be one of the major reasons for the decline of so many of our small birds (as well as larger species such as Lapwing). It's nothing to do with predators (the third thing you notice in Spain is the much greater density of raptors), but instead because by eliminating these marginal landscapes, these 'edgelands', we eliminate major sources of food and shelter for all sorts of birds. Instead of pursuing the absurd cull of corvids (and, potentially, raptors) being piloted by Songbird Survival, a body dominated by hunting interests, we should be looking at the root of the problem.
So, if either or both of these two books can do anything to change attitudes, that has to be a very good thing. The Shearsman anthology contains several names - Colin Simms, Elisabeth Bletsoe, Helen Macdonald, Mark Goodwin, Peter Riley and editor Harriet Tarlo - whose inclusion would make it a must for me anyway, but they both look worth a read. Might have to wait a while, though.
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
Catching up
Regular readers will know that a monotonous feature of this blog is an endless stream of promises to get round to finishing reading or reviewing certain books, and a parallel outpouring of apologies for failing to do so.
I actually got round to some serious reading over the last week or so, though, thanks to some travelling, so I'm going to start to clear the backlog (yeah, yeah, you're thinking, I've heard that before).
So, first up was Simon Armitage's Seeing Stars. Now, although there seems to have been something of a backlash against him in recent years, I've remained something of a fan of Armitage, although I think his work has been a lot patchier since somewhere around The Dead Sea Poems. Almost everyone I've talked to about this collection, though, has either loved or hated it, no doubt in large part because it consists mainly of prose poems/flash fictions/whatever you want to call them.
Well, I have no problem with the format, but I just don't think the execution is up to scratch. It's fun in parts, and always readable, but too often the strangeness seems a bit forced, and the end result is rather inconsequential, or predictable. I think Ben Wilkinson hits the nail pretty much on the head in this review that originally appeared in the Times Literary Supplement.
I enjoyed Cliff Yates' Frank Freeman's Dancing School a lot more. There's a much less obvious, and thus unsettling, strangeness to his poetry. At first sight it can appear to transplant something of Geoff Hattersley's style from South Yorkshire to the Midlands, but it soon becomes clear that it's heading somewhere rather different. Yates gives seemingly plain language the smallest of tweaks to suddenly switch perspectives again and again. It's a book I'll be coming back to, and writing more about.
A bit of blog trawling produced this excellent piece on Alan Baker's Litterbug, about Don Paterson's book on Shakespeare's sonnets. Hard to find anything to disagree with there, or in the Alastair Fowler review linked to there, from the TLS.
Finally, I've just received Century of the Death of the Rose, by the Ecuadorean poet Jorge Carrera Andrade. There are parallel texts, of the Spanish originals, and the translations by Steven Ford Brown. On a recent trip to Ecuador, my guide, Juan Manuel Carrion, gave me a bird guide he'd written, in which he extensively quotes Carrera Andrade, and I liked what I read, so I ordered this book. Looking forward to getting stuck into it later.
I actually got round to some serious reading over the last week or so, though, thanks to some travelling, so I'm going to start to clear the backlog (yeah, yeah, you're thinking, I've heard that before).
So, first up was Simon Armitage's Seeing Stars. Now, although there seems to have been something of a backlash against him in recent years, I've remained something of a fan of Armitage, although I think his work has been a lot patchier since somewhere around The Dead Sea Poems. Almost everyone I've talked to about this collection, though, has either loved or hated it, no doubt in large part because it consists mainly of prose poems/flash fictions/whatever you want to call them.
Well, I have no problem with the format, but I just don't think the execution is up to scratch. It's fun in parts, and always readable, but too often the strangeness seems a bit forced, and the end result is rather inconsequential, or predictable. I think Ben Wilkinson hits the nail pretty much on the head in this review that originally appeared in the Times Literary Supplement.
I enjoyed Cliff Yates' Frank Freeman's Dancing School a lot more. There's a much less obvious, and thus unsettling, strangeness to his poetry. At first sight it can appear to transplant something of Geoff Hattersley's style from South Yorkshire to the Midlands, but it soon becomes clear that it's heading somewhere rather different. Yates gives seemingly plain language the smallest of tweaks to suddenly switch perspectives again and again. It's a book I'll be coming back to, and writing more about.
A bit of blog trawling produced this excellent piece on Alan Baker's Litterbug, about Don Paterson's book on Shakespeare's sonnets. Hard to find anything to disagree with there, or in the Alastair Fowler review linked to there, from the TLS.
Finally, I've just received Century of the Death of the Rose, by the Ecuadorean poet Jorge Carrera Andrade. There are parallel texts, of the Spanish originals, and the translations by Steven Ford Brown. On a recent trip to Ecuador, my guide, Juan Manuel Carrion, gave me a bird guide he'd written, in which he extensively quotes Carrera Andrade, and I liked what I read, so I ordered this book. Looking forward to getting stuck into it later.
Friday, 11 February 2011
While I remember...
I meant to post this when it appeared on Gists & Piths last week, but late's better than never. Some excellent points about Luke Kennard's Planet-shaped Horse, and scroll down to the bottom where George Ttoouli helpfully breaks my book book title down into its constituent parts.
Monday, 7 February 2011
Buzzing
Any reading series that's been going for over five years has to be doing something seriously right, and at last night's Buzzwords event in Cheltenham, it was easy to see what.
For a start, there's clearly a really strong hardcore of attendees, who were enthusiastic participants in the workshop and open mic parts of the evening, but as attentive an audience as I've ever seen during the main readings.
It was an all-Nine Arches Press affair, of course, with me and Luke Kennard reading, and Simon Turner among the open mic-ers. And the whole open mic was excellent, with plenty of variety, imagination, and energy on offer from all concerned.
Luke's reading, entirely from his new pamphlet Planet-shaped Horse, was absolutely superb, I thought. His poetry quite rightly gets huge praise for its wit, inventiveness and energy, but I think occasionally reviewers skip over the more serious side. Perhaps it's because all the different elements seem to co-exist happily (rather than him being a poet who writes in distinct modes at different times) that it's easy to miss some of them. But I'm rambling. It's late...
I enjoyed reading, always a sign that it's gone fairly well, I think. I'm very grateful to organiser Angela France for inviting us to read, and I came away with all sorts of ideas skittering around my head (also a good sign, until you try to sleep).
Oh, set-list - here it is:
Prelude For Glass Harmonica
Request Hour At The Numbers Station
The American version
The Meeting Place
Variations On A Theme By J A Baker
The sea at Ashby de la Zouch
West Leicester Lullaby
Warning Against Using These Poems As A Map
Worst Case Scenario
Cahoots
Nocturne For Glass Harmonica
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
Nottingham poets in Leicester
Leicester Poetry Society is playing host to Nottingham poets Alan Baker and Jeremy Duffield next Friday, February 11th.
The reading's at the usual venue - the Friends' Meeting House on Queen's Road - and starts at 7.30pm. I haven't got admission details to hand, but it's usually free to members and a small fee for those who want to be temporary members for the night.
I'll be away that weekend, unfortunately, as they're two poets well worth hearing, but go along if you get the chance.
The reading's at the usual venue - the Friends' Meeting House on Queen's Road - and starts at 7.30pm. I haven't got admission details to hand, but it's usually free to members and a small fee for those who want to be temporary members for the night.
I'll be away that weekend, unfortunately, as they're two poets well worth hearing, but go along if you get the chance.
Buzzwords reading
This Sunday, February 6th, I'll be reading at the Buzzwords Poetry Night, in Cheltenham, with the prodigiously talented Luke Kennard.
Luke's got a new pamphlet, Planet-shaped Horse, out now from Nine Arches Press, so it promises to be an entertaining evening.
It all takes place at The Brown Jug, 242 Bath Road, Cheltenham, GL53 7NB. The readings start at 8pm, but come along at 7pm and Luke and I will be running a workshop. All are welcome.
* Luke's pamphlet is launched tomorrow night (Thursday the 3rd) at The Priory Rooms, 40 Bull Street, Birmingham B4 6AF. Entry is free, and other readers include David Hart, Milorad Krystanovich and Simon Turner.
Luke's got a new pamphlet, Planet-shaped Horse, out now from Nine Arches Press, so it promises to be an entertaining evening.
It all takes place at The Brown Jug, 242 Bath Road, Cheltenham, GL53 7NB. The readings start at 8pm, but come along at 7pm and Luke and I will be running a workshop. All are welcome.
* Luke's pamphlet is launched tomorrow night (Thursday the 3rd) at The Priory Rooms, 40 Bull Street, Birmingham B4 6AF. Entry is free, and other readers include David Hart, Milorad Krystanovich and Simon Turner.
Sunday, 30 January 2011
Under The Radar 7
The new issue of Under The Radar arrived in the post the other day, and a very handsome publication it is too. It's now perfect-bound, giving a higher quality feel to what's already a fine magazine.
It's a short-story special, too, a welcome boost for a form that has been increasingly sidelined in the last few decades, but which seems to enjoying something of a resurgence. Joel Lane (whose poetry collection The Autumn Myth I'm currently reading) and Tony Williams are among the writers featured. UTR publishers Nine Arches Press are planning to launch a series of short story pamphlets - HOTWIRE - so expect to hear more.
On the poetry side, there's excellent work from the likes of Nigel Hutchinson, D A Prince, Roy Marshall and A C Evans, plus Alison Brackenbury reviewing Anne Stevenson, Roz Goddard on three HappenStance chapbooks, and my reviews of Angela France's Occupation and Deborah Tyler-Bennett's Pavilion. All for just £4, too. What are you waiting for?
It's a short-story special, too, a welcome boost for a form that has been increasingly sidelined in the last few decades, but which seems to enjoying something of a resurgence. Joel Lane (whose poetry collection The Autumn Myth I'm currently reading) and Tony Williams are among the writers featured. UTR publishers Nine Arches Press are planning to launch a series of short story pamphlets - HOTWIRE - so expect to hear more.
On the poetry side, there's excellent work from the likes of Nigel Hutchinson, D A Prince, Roy Marshall and A C Evans, plus Alison Brackenbury reviewing Anne Stevenson, Roz Goddard on three HappenStance chapbooks, and my reviews of Angela France's Occupation and Deborah Tyler-Bennett's Pavilion. All for just £4, too. What are you waiting for?
Saturday, 29 January 2011
The Suitable Girl, by Michelle McGrane
While I was away, Michelle McGrane's third collection, The Suitable Girl, was launched by Pindrop Press. There are some sample poems from the book, and details of how to buy it, here.
I'll be reviewing it in due course, and hopefully featuring some poems from it and an interview with Michelle.
I'll be reviewing it in due course, and hopefully featuring some poems from it and an interview with Michelle.
Friday, 28 January 2011
Costa Prize
Hot on the heels of the T S Eliot Prize announcement came the news that Jo Shapcott has won the Costa Prize for her collection Of Mutability.
Most of the papers followed the same line as The Guardian, here, by trumpeting it as a surprise victory for poetry. And so, I suppose, it is, given that it has rarely won in the past, but had done so (in the form of Christopher Reid) last year.
As with the TSE Prize, I'm not really in a position to make a very informed comment. I haven't read the book, and although I've read quite a lot of Shapcott's work over the years I can't claim to know her poetry that well. But whatever, it seems to be a thoroughly good thing that a poetry collection can scoop this major literary prize again - it can only help raise profiles all round.
Most of the papers followed the same line as The Guardian, here, by trumpeting it as a surprise victory for poetry. And so, I suppose, it is, given that it has rarely won in the past, but had done so (in the form of Christopher Reid) last year.
As with the TSE Prize, I'm not really in a position to make a very informed comment. I haven't read the book, and although I've read quite a lot of Shapcott's work over the years I can't claim to know her poetry that well. But whatever, it seems to be a thoroughly good thing that a poetry collection can scoop this major literary prize again - it can only help raise profiles all round.
Wednesday, 26 January 2011
First review
I'm very grateful to Spain-based UK poet Matthew Stewart for this very kind review of hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica on his blog Rogue Strands.
I'm delighted he highlighted the various historical strands, history remaining something of an obsession with me. Hopefully it will be the first of a few reviews - quite apart from the fact that they help to sell a book, it's a relief to get some outside opinions on a book that, during the writing process, you inevitably get far too close to.
I'm delighted he highlighted the various historical strands, history remaining something of an obsession with me. Hopefully it will be the first of a few reviews - quite apart from the fact that they help to sell a book, it's a relief to get some outside opinions on a book that, during the writing process, you inevitably get far too close to.
Tuesday, 25 January 2011
Poetry in motion
I came across this earlier - apparently Sachin Tendulkar's father and brother are both poets, but he has no plans to try his hand at it himself.
The Little Master's response is characteristically modest. Most of his fans, me included, might point out that his batting is a kind of poetry in itself.
The Little Master's response is characteristically modest. Most of his fans, me included, might point out that his batting is a kind of poetry in itself.
Walcott wins the TS Eliot
Nobel laureate Derek Walcott won this year's TS Eliot Prize last night for his collection White Egrets, which was described by the judges as "moving and technically flawless".
I'm in the unfortunate position of having absolutely nothing useful to say on the matter, not having read any of this year's shortlisted books yet, although a couple are sitting there on my growing 'to read' pile. And while there are quite a few collections I might like to have seen on that final shortlist, I can't argue with the final selection. The few poems that I have read from Walcott's book, including one that appeared in one of the papers over the weekend, I've liked a lot.
But anyway, Jane Holland has blogged entertainingly about the Prize Reading here.
I'm in the unfortunate position of having absolutely nothing useful to say on the matter, not having read any of this year's shortlisted books yet, although a couple are sitting there on my growing 'to read' pile. And while there are quite a few collections I might like to have seen on that final shortlist, I can't argue with the final selection. The few poems that I have read from Walcott's book, including one that appeared in one of the papers over the weekend, I've liked a lot.
But anyway, Jane Holland has blogged entertainingly about the Prize Reading here.
StAnza 2011 brochure
As mentioned a couple of weeks back, I'm delighted to be reading at this year's StAnza, which runs from March 16th-20th. A full brochure is now online here.
Monday, 24 January 2011
Horizon Review 5
I've been out of circulation for the last 10 days or so, and returned to the usual backlog of emails, plus all sorts of interesting goings-on in the poetry world. I'll post more on some of those, such as the TS Eliot Prize Readings and Michelle McGrane's new book The Suitable Girl, later in the week, but for now, I'll just flag up the latest issue of Horizon Review.
I really do think it's going from strength to strength, so kudos to both former editor Jane Holland and new editor Katy Evans-Bush. There's a wealth of reviews. essays, interviews and stories in there, before you even get to the poetry from the likes of Julia Bird, Alison Brackenbury, David Briggs, Ian Duhig, Roz Goddard, Mark Granier, Helen Ivory, Ira Lightman, Rob A Mackenzie, Andrew Philip and Andrew Shields, to name just a few. I've got a piece in there too - Zugunruhe - which appears in hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica.
I really do think it's going from strength to strength, so kudos to both former editor Jane Holland and new editor Katy Evans-Bush. There's a wealth of reviews. essays, interviews and stories in there, before you even get to the poetry from the likes of Julia Bird, Alison Brackenbury, David Briggs, Ian Duhig, Roz Goddard, Mark Granier, Helen Ivory, Ira Lightman, Rob A Mackenzie, Andrew Philip and Andrew Shields, to name just a few. I've got a piece in there too - Zugunruhe - which appears in hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica.
Wednesday, 12 January 2011
City Voices
Last night I dashed over to Wolverhampton to read with Jane Commane and Matt Nunn of Nine Arches Press at City Voices, at the City Bar.
In fact, it was the 99th monthly City Voices event, a run of over eight years. That's really pretty impressive, given the amount of commitment it takes to even set up any sort of reading series or poetry group. There was a good turnout, and they were an excellent audience - very attentive and appreciative.
Anyway, it was an excellent night. The first half consisted of us reading, while the second half was three young local poets (and I mean young - at least one was 14). They were pretty astonishing, to be honest, not only for their technical skill and sheer imagination, but for the poise with which they performed. I didn't catch the names, stupidly, but I'll find out because I suspect a lot more will be heard from all three.
My setlist was:
In fact, it was the 99th monthly City Voices event, a run of over eight years. That's really pretty impressive, given the amount of commitment it takes to even set up any sort of reading series or poetry group. There was a good turnout, and they were an excellent audience - very attentive and appreciative.
Anyway, it was an excellent night. The first half consisted of us reading, while the second half was three young local poets (and I mean young - at least one was 14). They were pretty astonishing, to be honest, not only for their technical skill and sheer imagination, but for the poise with which they performed. I didn't catch the names, stupidly, but I'll find out because I suspect a lot more will be heard from all three.
My setlist was:
Prelude for Glass Harmonica
Request Hour At The Numbers Station
The Limits
Fantasia for Glass Harmonica
The Memory Of Water
Variations On A Theme By J.A. Baker
Worst Case Scenario
Cahoots
Nocturne for Glass Harmonica
Saturday, 8 January 2011
Eureka!
You might not believe me, but I think I may have discovered the first truly great fantasy writer of the 21st century. He's called Will Swanton, and just a brief read of this little masterpiece, in which he constructs a parallel universe that's a mirror image of our own, ought to be enough to convince you of his genius.
Friday, 7 January 2011
Hearing Voices
Monday (January 10th) will see the official launch of the excellent Hearing Voices magazine, at The Western pub, Western Road, Leicester LE3 0GA (it's just off Braunstone Gate and Narborough Road).
It all starts at 6.30pm and will run until around 9.30pm, and admission is free. There'll be readings from contributors, guests and open mic slots, and you can sign up to read on arrival.
It all starts at 6.30pm and will run until around 9.30pm, and admission is free. There'll be readings from contributors, guests and open mic slots, and you can sign up to read on arrival.
Thursday, 6 January 2011
Sphinx 15
The latest issue of Sphinx is online, including a couple of reviews by me, of Andrew Nightingale's The Black Madonna, and Alan Hill's No Biography (one of HappenStance's own chapbooks). Both are excellent, in quite different ways.
There are a couple of Nine Arches chapbooks among the reviews, too - Claire Crowther's Mollicle, and Ruth Larbey's Funglish, both of which I'm reading at the moment.
There are a couple of Nine Arches chapbooks among the reviews, too - Claire Crowther's Mollicle, and Ruth Larbey's Funglish, both of which I'm reading at the moment.
StAnza 2011
StAnza 2011, the 14th annual poetry festival at St Andrews, takes place from March 16th-20th, and the final, full programme is out now. Tickets are available from today.
I'm delighted to be a small part of this year's event. I'm reading on Thursday the 17th, with Dawn Wood, as part of a series of readings called Border Crossings. It's from 11.30am-12.30pm, in the Supper Room at the Town Hall. Incidentally, my fellow Nine Arches poet Mark Goodwin is doing a similar reading the following afternoon, so it'll be nice to be part of a Leicestershire contingent!
I'll certainly be there for the first three days, and hopefully the whole festival if I can manage it, so there'll be plenty of time to see some of the many fine poets in the line-up. They include Selima Hill, John Burnside, Paul Farley, Ciaran Carson, Penelope Shuttle, Don Paterson, Claire Crowther and Carrie Etter, to name but a few. It'll be a nice bonus that the Fife coast in mid-March should be pretty good for birding, too.
I'm delighted to be a small part of this year's event. I'm reading on Thursday the 17th, with Dawn Wood, as part of a series of readings called Border Crossings. It's from 11.30am-12.30pm, in the Supper Room at the Town Hall. Incidentally, my fellow Nine Arches poet Mark Goodwin is doing a similar reading the following afternoon, so it'll be nice to be part of a Leicestershire contingent!
I'll certainly be there for the first three days, and hopefully the whole festival if I can manage it, so there'll be plenty of time to see some of the many fine poets in the line-up. They include Selima Hill, John Burnside, Paul Farley, Ciaran Carson, Penelope Shuttle, Don Paterson, Claire Crowther and Carrie Etter, to name but a few. It'll be a nice bonus that the Fife coast in mid-March should be pretty good for birding, too.
Tuesday, 4 January 2011
Wolverhampton reading
Next Tuesday (January 11th) I'll be reading with Nine Arches Press founders Jane Commane and Matt Nunn at The City Bar, 2-3 King Street, Wolverhampton, starting at 7.45pm. If you're in the area, come along and enjoy an evening of poetry (and who knows, treat yourself to a copy of hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica or one of Nine Arches' other fine publications).
I'm hoping to do a lot more readings this year, and I'll be posting details of some more forthcoming events soon, but in the meantime, I'm always available...
I'm hoping to do a lot more readings this year, and I'll be posting details of some more forthcoming events soon, but in the meantime, I'm always available...
Monday, 3 January 2011
Out and about
I made a proper start on my birding plan for 2011 today, with a long circular walk from home, through New Swannington, Swannington and Thringstone. There were still plenty of Redwings around, although rather fewer Fieldfares, but the real highlight was finding little groups of Tree Sparrows and Yellowhammers at a farm not half a mile from home. I've never seen either at this particular site before (although Yellowhammers are reasonably easy to find in some parts of Charnwood Forest), so I'll be keeping an eye on it as the year goes on to see if there are any signs of breeding.
Friday, 31 December 2010
Best poetry of 2010
Trawling back through the blog archives for the year, and picking my way through my bookshelves (well, and several piles of books as yet unshelved), I've come to the conclusion that I read an awful lot of good poetry in 2010. Not all of it was necessarily published this year - I think several of the volumes I'll mention probably came out at the tail-end of 2009.
Having said that, I don't seem to have read that many of the collections that gained most column inches. I did enjoy Philip Gross's TS Eliot Prize-winning The Water Table, although I'm not sure it was necessarily superior to several previous books by a consistently fine (but low-profile) mainstream poet.
Towards the end of the year, David Morley's Enchantment justifiably gained all sorts of plaudits - I've still not had time to digest it fully, and I'll be posting a full review once I do, but its packed with both superb storytelling and sparkling use of language. And a little earlier in the year, John Ash's In The Wake Of The Day was well up to the high standards of his previous work. I thought there was a more direct political edge than has often been the case in the past, too - a welcome development.
Simon Turner's Difficult Second Album was an absolute pleasure, full of quiet innovation and wit, while Tony Williams' debut The Corner of Arundel Lane and Charles Street deserved all the praise it got, adding some subtle European influences to a mainstream template, something that could also be said of Helen Ivory's The Breakfast Machine, which conjured a nightmarish atmsophere seemingly from nowhere. Damian Walford Davies' Suit Of Lights should have got far more attention, and I look forward to seeing what he does next.
Other collections worthy of note were Kona Macphee's eclectic Perfect Blue, Simon Perril's Nitrate (as good a themed collection as I can think of), and David Briggs' The Method Men. At the moment, I'm enjoying thoroughly digesting Gill McEvoy's The Plucking Shed, and Helena Nelson's long-awaited Plot and Counter-plot. Oh, and CJ Allen's e-chapbook Lemonade was a treat from another small press stalwart who really ought to be far more widely read.
I continued to work my way through Michael Haslam's past work with surprise and delight, and I've also liked Robert Hass's The Apple Trees At Olema: New and Selected Poems. Some of it doesn't hit the mark, but there's a lot there to appreciate.
Last, but certainly not least, there was Martin Figura's Whistle. The subject matter is harrowing and heart-breaking in equal measure, yet the end result is a collection that's genuinely uplifting and (this actually makes you feel guilty, at first) hugely enjoyable. It's a genuine poetry page-turner, but for all the right reasons, with Figura's precise, restrained telling of a story of family tragedy deserving great praise.
I may well have missed one or two other favourites, and as I said, it seemed a strong year all round. Here's hoping that 2011's even better.
New Year birding resolutions
A few months ago, I decided I wasn't going to keep a county or patch list in 2011, and instead would try to stick very close to home. I also thought it might be a good idea to try to record and map a handful of individual species along the way, and while travelling to and from work. So, my three birding resolutions for 2011 are as follows:
1. To list only those species that I see within walking distance of home. Realistically, that's going to mean Charnwood Lodge LRWT, Bardon Hill, Blackbrook Reservoir, Snibston Discovery Park, and the various bits of National Forest land along the Coalville bypass, plus non-reserve land like Cademan Woods. I might walk as far as Kelham Bridge, at a pinch. It'll save petrol, and shift some of this weight, if nothing else!
2. To religiously record sightings of the following species whenever I'm out and about in the county - Buzzard and Kestrel (I'd like to get an idea of whether the former really is becoming more common), and Yellowhammer and Linnet (two of my favourite farmland birds). This will include looking for sites where breeding can be proved.
3. To look for some genuine rarities in NW Leicestershire and Charnwood Forest. Back in November, John Hague suggested that the Forest, including Charnwood Lodge, would be a good place to find Great Grey Shrike, so that might be one of the more likely possibilities.
Of course, all this doesn't mean I won't be doing some birdwatching elsewhere too. Quite apart from anything else, I have to do quite a bit of driving for work, so I'll still drop in at places like Cossington Meadows, Swithland Reservoir, Eyebrook Reservoir and Rutland Water as and when I'm passing.
1. To list only those species that I see within walking distance of home. Realistically, that's going to mean Charnwood Lodge LRWT, Bardon Hill, Blackbrook Reservoir, Snibston Discovery Park, and the various bits of National Forest land along the Coalville bypass, plus non-reserve land like Cademan Woods. I might walk as far as Kelham Bridge, at a pinch. It'll save petrol, and shift some of this weight, if nothing else!
2. To religiously record sightings of the following species whenever I'm out and about in the county - Buzzard and Kestrel (I'd like to get an idea of whether the former really is becoming more common), and Yellowhammer and Linnet (two of my favourite farmland birds). This will include looking for sites where breeding can be proved.
3. To look for some genuine rarities in NW Leicestershire and Charnwood Forest. Back in November, John Hague suggested that the Forest, including Charnwood Lodge, would be a good place to find Great Grey Shrike, so that might be one of the more likely possibilities.
Of course, all this doesn't mean I won't be doing some birdwatching elsewhere too. Quite apart from anything else, I have to do quite a bit of driving for work, so I'll still drop in at places like Cossington Meadows, Swithland Reservoir, Eyebrook Reservoir and Rutland Water as and when I'm passing.
Tuesday, 21 December 2010
Birds on the move
The Big Freeze (or winter, as we used to call it) goes on, and as always the cold weather has brought some interesting bird movements.
We haven't done too badly in the East Mislands this past week. It's been very cold (-14C when I came out of the house yesterday morning), but we've only had a thin covering of snow, so perhaps we're getting refugees from the parts of the UK that have been badly affected.
On Sunday, there were Waxwings in the car-parks of both Lidl and Aldi in Coalville (they show a refreshing willingness to shop around), and there are still plenty of berries left in that area, and along the bypass, so they'll probably stay for a while yet.
The previous day, I popped round to my parents' house, and they had both Fieldfares and Redwings in the garden (a first), along with a Treecreeper. I think the latter - which was also a first - was probably tagging along with a mixed tit flock, and there were also good numbers of finches. These included quite a lot of Greenfinches, which have been conspicuous by their absence for the last couple of years.
Finally, on the way into work the last couple of days, I've seen really large numbers of Blackbirds feeding in a hedge alongside the A47 between Uppingham and Glaston (you have to slow right down because they keep doing their kamikaze dash just in front of the car). There's been a few Redwings and Fieldfares among them, too, but I'd guess this is an influx of Blackbirds from elsewhere in the UK, or the Continent.
We haven't done too badly in the East Mislands this past week. It's been very cold (-14C when I came out of the house yesterday morning), but we've only had a thin covering of snow, so perhaps we're getting refugees from the parts of the UK that have been badly affected.
On Sunday, there were Waxwings in the car-parks of both Lidl and Aldi in Coalville (they show a refreshing willingness to shop around), and there are still plenty of berries left in that area, and along the bypass, so they'll probably stay for a while yet.
The previous day, I popped round to my parents' house, and they had both Fieldfares and Redwings in the garden (a first), along with a Treecreeper. I think the latter - which was also a first - was probably tagging along with a mixed tit flock, and there were also good numbers of finches. These included quite a lot of Greenfinches, which have been conspicuous by their absence for the last couple of years.
Finally, on the way into work the last couple of days, I've seen really large numbers of Blackbirds feeding in a hedge alongside the A47 between Uppingham and Glaston (you have to slow right down because they keep doing their kamikaze dash just in front of the car). There's been a few Redwings and Fieldfares among them, too, but I'd guess this is an influx of Blackbirds from elsewhere in the UK, or the Continent.
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