Thursday 28 May 2020

Let's get stuff submitted!

Calling all writers but ESPECIALLY the Water Story crew who have produced some excellent work during lockdown. Congratulations to Giovanna who has been published at DEAR DAMSELS

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There are just a couple of days left to submit to PENGUIN'S WRITE NOW initiative - 31st May!

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Angie Strachan has also been marvelously busy and is recommending we some destinations for your writing:
"I have been recording poetry for Radio V for Volunteer Scotland.  They are looking for people to submit their poetry, art, stories, art, etc, for their website.  It's to celebrate Volunteers and Volunteering on Volunteer Week from the 1st to 7th of June.  Perhaps some of our wee group might be interested.  I have also written some hints and tips to get people started with poetry on their website.  This is the link.


If anyone is interested in hearing my poetry for Volunteer radio it is on Spotify, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter under Radio V.  I was also interviewed while at Stanza for Irish radio's RTE poetry program and they recorded my "Stressed" poem.  This is the link for that and the link for my Seagull poem that is on at the beginning of the Loud Poets, Loudcast.  "

Come on people, let's get publishing!

Cap'n Bev


Drookit Doo 
"Please find below the poem about the pigeon.  It's written with some interesting Ayrshire words."
"Angie Strachan ©

Geordie takes a donner doon the concrete slabs,
Pookin at the grass frae the cracks
Watter, hingin from his beak, like a dewdrip snotter
Wearing his feathers like a puffa jaiket,
eyes closed, hen toed, glaikit -
Drookit, foonert and scunnert

The doo hut is shut - it's oot o commission
it's pure pishin,
the pigeons are wishin,
they were roastin like a chicken
The trees have nae leaves, to sit unner n dry oot,
So Geordie stoats aboot, soakin wet, gettin droont


Also, this is my Lockdown Hairdoo poem that I filmed and I hope to be filming my "Fashion In A Crisis" poem this week.

Monday 25 May 2020

Live session 25/5/20 ~ Spring with Manley Hopkins and Burns

This morning's session can only be described as deeply nourishing. There is no shortage of poetry about spring but we settled on Spring     by Gerard Manley Hopkins
to start with. We used the line

weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush 

for our first prompt and went in many directions from there.

After a relaxing few minutes of mindfulness from the skilled Tara Dakini (thank you Tara) we visited the lesser known poem by Rabbie Burns:
O were my Love yon Lilac fair     by Robert Burns

From just two minutes of writing our Angie comes up with not one but TWO pieces like this:

selected line from poem - "And I a bird to shelter there"

Breath moves
with breast
to ear pressed
we rest
like lovebirds
sheltered in a nest


Angie Strachan ©­




LAPIDUS
If any of you are not members of Lapidus International yet
this is the page where you can join.

There is an annual fee but please be aware this membership is not prerequisite for Water Story. However it does give you a warm sense of belonging to an international creative writing body along with regular newsletters and resources - click the logo there to sample them.



It is Lapidus Scotland that makes all our Words Work Well for All projects possible; there are loads of free resources on this website (which is currently being revamped) and you can subscribe here to receive their newsletter.

LAPIDUS AGM (Zoom) - Thursday 25th June from 5:30pm
LAPIDUS Webinar with Kim Stafford - Thursday 25th June from 7:00pm




Thursday 21 May 2020

GWL Poetry Slam

We're all rootin' for our facilitator Lesley O'Brien!

See her here at the GWL Poetry Slam


Lockdown with Wolves and Geese

Sandra Walls is one of our most prolific writers with a gift for effortless fiction. Here we have some unedited tastes of that and also feedback from her Quarantino diary that feels reflective of many ruminations we are sharing in Water Story as we approach the "unlocking"...


Quarantino Diary – Self Isolation Before – During – After?
by Sandra Walls

Stage 1 In and Under Duress
I’ve fallen deeply into a brick well.  Old shiny black stones cobbled up the deep dark circular wall. The bottom is filled with thick warm clay gripping my body and I sink into it.  Sounds frightening when I say it out loud, but I am surprisingly comforted by its depth and darkness.

Stage 2 Acceptance
I’m enveloped, right up over my ears, neck, chin and hairline. All that’s there is my oval, my front mask, forehead, eyes, nose and mouth.
I’m stuck.
But I think I like it
I can’t move.
It feels like being cocooned, surrounded, wrapped – like a newborn.
I can speak but I don’t – there’s no-one to listen
It’s so hard, too hard to be up top and out in the old world
I’m scared
It’s so cozy
In the dark
In here
Down here – in the deep
Down here – in the dark
Come down here with me
Down here I can hide
I am hiding from the rest
From the world
No-one misses me anyway
Why would they
I’m useless, I’m fat, I’m ugly, I’m stupid
I hate my reflection
In the mirror – I’m done
I’ve outlived my usefulness
I’m sick, I’m dying
In the end it would be best
The best for everyone

Stage 3 Reluctance
It’s all black, it’s dark, the clay that holds me is getting cold.  I don’t like this so much now
It’s a warning. If I stay down here, I will die.
I will die while in self isolation
I will die, die lonely and alone
Do I really want to die?
Alone
Do I really want to die at all?
Half says yes, the other half no.

Stage 4 Inner Resolution
Now I say no, no to dying. But it’s so dark
There’s a point, a pin dot of light
White brilliant light
It’s the light of life, light of hope, new beginnings
Yes.
But the dark said, you made your choice – “Cozy in the dark” remember
No hope, right? Let’s just die, right?
No!   … I can change my mind
I know now I need the light – I’m not cozy in the dark anymore
It’s not cozy, it’s cold and clingy
I need the light, the light of my life, my life’s light
That tiny pin sized light that’s looking for me
Searching, move, move! I stretch my head
My ears are out!
Sandra? … Mum…?

Stage 5 The Rescue
I’m here… I’m down here!
I can hear them
Sandra, I’m here with Grant
My man, my boy.
I can see his beautiful face.
Mum? Yes! “We’re coming”
They climb in
To my depth – the depth of my despair

Stage 6 Re-Freed
They talk me through my exit strategy
My escape from my binds, my bonds
They slide me out of the cold lagging clagging clay
I’m out, I’m exhausted, I’m crying, I’m relieved
I’m out.

Stage 7 The Revelation
Mum, we missed you, you were locked in
We were all calling for you, you couldn’t hear us
You were calling me?
Yes, Dad, me, Nanny, everyone
I never heard anything
It’s just because you were so far away, so far down
I knew you’d hear me.
Our bond, you told me when I was born you knew my cry.
Yes, I did
So, I knew you’d hear me.
I’m out?  Yes.
I’m finally out the other side, I’m exhausted, I’m scared, I’m loved, I’m relieved.
I’m loved, I’m hugged, I’m safe.
What happens now?

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Prompts from Mary Oliver:   
"Wild geese high in the clean blue air are heading home again."
Wild Geese
by Sandra Walls

The flock gathered on the brown lake and in the sparse branches of leaf-free trees; waiting for someone else to make the move. Never thought of birds having an alpha, but somehow, they must.
Geese noises, squawks, and bills wide, all saying something at the same time. Maybe something like - let's get a move on its getting too hot in these hot sticks.

A few take a run and flap deeply to get up and over the updraft of the heavy air of gravity.  Flapping noises waft through the flock and they all start following.  They’ve seen the first ones get up in the air, so the going must be good. They concentrate on getting up into the cooler atmosphere and winds that can now hold them up in glide mode.  This is when they can relax and watch everything below now the size of ants. The greener trees look like moss on the brown bush landscape, and they look forward to getting home to the cold but fresh days in Scotland.  The lakes are clear and pure, water is transparent, and they can see the fish slinking about under the skin of the water, just waiting to be picked at random.

"Welcome home girls" shouts the farmer, when he sees them settle on the banks and braes and on Cool Water Lake.


Poem: The Chance to love Everything
Prompt: "The dark heart of the story is all the reason for the telling"

In my little log cabin, the loggers are getting closer, sending the wildest of animals into populated areas.  Not populated like a city, but in the sense of land and farmers, poachers, and hunters, the blackest of hearts for greed, mostly bears, deer, wolves and beaver pelts - and all living close by in their own territories.

I am not a killer. I love nature and the trees and all things that breathe.  Who are we to decide who or what lives or dies?  I rescue bees from spiders’ webs.  They can take the midges. Bees are far too important for the world.  Everything feeds everything else.

In my little log cottage, with only the company of Molly, my Jack Russell; I hear things at night.
I write as writers do, in a journal of thoughts, feelings, the past, future, my imagination takes me to paradises and hells and back.  And sometimes I try to make sense of it. Mostly I don’t.  I heard a howl, the wolves were stirring, one was much more powerful, either the alpha or one in a trap.
I put on my jeans and leather chaps and boots, fur coat and hat. I see her in the brush, the alpha female, panting hard - not a good sign.  Her back paw caught in a hunter’s steel jaws left indiscriminately.  I have my gun and shoot it off into the black blue starry backdrop.  It did its job and the pack disperse.

She is pure white all bar the blood streaming from her crushed muscle.  She knows me, I have seen her hunting for her young, four cubs.  They will die.  I approach her slowly, she lets me. I get to her and give her a drink from my bottle.  I put a blanket over her and give her some pain relief and sedative.  I take the metal evil thing and prize it open. I carry her back to the cabin, with yellow pairs of eyes watching from the dark heart of the forest.  I give her antibiotics, shave her fur, clean the gaping wound with doused alcohol and sew her flesh as best I can, then rub tar over the wound to stop infection. She’s lying on my small mattress near the crackling fire still wrapped in the blanket, breathing well, I steal a stroke while I can, she is a beauty.

Eyes twitch, she comes around and I give her meat.  She eats lying down, backing off to sleep again, so I pull the blanket to prop her up. I open the door.  She’s dizzy but stands up and bears weight on her leg, shakes off the human touch and limps out. Away she goes, but she gives me a look back.  “Go on” I shout. Back to the pack and her babies.

The chorus of howling begins as I lie warm on the mattress, inside cosy golden walls reflected by the low flames, and I smile.

Monday 18 May 2020

Live session 18/5/20 ~ Fear, with Stafford and Keats

Open the Door Logo
This Glasgow Women's Library event kept some of our writers busy today but it look fantastic - click the picture to link to 5 days of events >>>>>

Just a small group gathered today to explore the insidious fear that seems to be seeping into our collective psyche; as Sheila says, "No one realised it was going to be a lot easier to lock the nation down that it will be to unlock it."  Our first prompt came from William Stafford's poem:

For My Young Friends Who Are Afraid

One and all agreed that we couldn't exactly make sense of the whole poem but we were able to take heart from it, particularly the last line that assured us:

"That's the world, and we all live there."



We finished the session with a shorter timed writing; prompts being individually chosen from John Keats' poem:

When I have Fears That I May Cease to Be

When I have fears that I may cease to be
   Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,
Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,
   Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starred face,
   Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
   Their shadows with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
   That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
   Of unreflecting love—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.



I wish Keats was in my group to reassure us all that our creativity should be considered "rich garners of fully ripened grain". I would say:

Oh to look upon our THINGS TO DO
as "richly ripened grain".... Go on and write... don't hold back!
Love your gifts and live your loves, in fantasy or touch.
Then stand upon indifferent shores until you know
it matters not that much.

Saturday 16 May 2020

Looking forward

During one of the recent sessions we indulged in some street party planning. Here we have two very different pieces that both capture the trepidation with which we approach that elusive exit from lockdown.... when will we ever "coorie in" aboard the barge again?

Heading away from home
by Sheila Buchanan

It’s a wild goose chase
Filtering an abundance of facts
Delivered every day to keep us tethered indoors
Search the clear blue skies for the flocks flying over
We struggle with this new normal
Filled with a human perplexity And losing our own controls

In the hope of heading out of home again
I know what I know Distorted by a new reality
And mindful of an old existence.



Street Party
by Lou Terry

A street party for the end but
How will we know when it’s the end?
That nothing will come slithering back
To suffocate us?
Who should we believe?
The donkeys who led us here,
Or the unprotected lions who tried to save us?
Lions led by donkeys
Yet again ...
When will we take over
And be led by lions!?
Then I’ll party in the street..






Wednesday 13 May 2020

Some darker ruminations...

Sometimes our work takes us to darker places and these too are important to explore. Sheila's piece follows Mary Oliver and Mary's arose after the Poems for Refugees book - these were selected for the anthology by a variety of artists after the horrors of 911.


Dark heart of a story that is all the reason for its telling
by Sheila Buchanan after Mary Oliver's "The Chance to Love Everything"


The dark is dark long after the sun has set
The light has energy; its spectrum splits into many colours
Each with its own absorption.

The dark heart is heavy and weighed down
With no people to tell us the story
In years to come will we know the dark truth.

The heart can be heavy or light as a feather
It beats reliably without tether
It beats without knowledge of stories untold
Doubt is the reference to be welcomed not feared

The heart will skip a beat
Be light hearted it’s the only way
With The chance to love everything
as the moon shines over the light sky.




REQUIEM FOR 9/11
by Mary Lazou  07/05/20

The cries and screams of shattered dreams
The scorching heat beneath my feet
That choking smoke - I have no wish to burn alive
So raise my arms and through that window dive.

Suspended for a moment in the sky
My life in seconds flashes by
Now plunging downwards to the ground
Too stunned to utter any sound.

Soon to keep my rendezvous with Death
Upon my lips, your name I whisper softly as I draw my final breath.
"Love is all and all there is" I sigh
For us denied the right to even say "goodbye".

For all watching World  confusion and an everlasting sorrow
My pain today but surely yours tomorrow.




Monday 11 May 2020

Live session 11/5/20 ~ Trees by Herman Hesse

Today's writing prompt

a kernel is hidden in me

was taken from the remarkable 100-Year-Old Love Letter to Trees by Herman Hesse. It was brought to my attention through the marvellous Sunday delivery of "Brain Pickings" by the Bulgarian writer Maria Popova. This week she features an art video taking you on a virtual tour of Kew Gardens while  the dulcet Natascha McElhone reads - this is a highly recommended escape from lockdown! This project of Natascha's film is called Wander, and this is episode 4.

With a little time to hand near the end of the session we sought out a second writing prompt from "The Weighing" by Jane Hirshfield:

only the strength we have

A typically powerful and moving collection of pieces came out of both prompts today (come back to this blog to see it) - a mixture of fear, compassion, frustration and uncertainty that seems to be the result of our locked down status.

Water Story aching to be out on Loch Lomond again...


I am moved to share with you a sound piece of advice I received from a wise woman in Zimbabwe after I called her this week in a floundering state of angst.

Stay Sharp
by Sonia Pereira

One would have to be an incredibly realised being to know what's actually going on amidst the magnitude of forces and influences from a multitude of dimensions impacting this existence at this time. Given that, it would seem the best orientation would be to be as informed as possible keeping an open mind and also bearing in mind that in a wounded, fragmented world there are all manner of distortions at play.

We cannot in any way predict what will unfold here in the interplay between the polarities of 'this is the evolutionary leap' to 'this is the ultimate dystopia in the making'. Neither is that far fetched and certainly either are plausible/possible. We don't know... 

Perhaps the more important question to ask rather than trying to project into the future from the place of not knowing is:

What am I aligned with?
What am I giving my life force to?
Fear, separation,  blame and judgement    OR     love, connection, inclusivity and empathy?

My personal belief is that this is what will ultimately influence what is to unfold, not our argument about what is true or not true... we don't know! Be informed as best you can - inclusivity means listening to all points of view without adhering to any.... an open mind knows it doesn't know anything for certain and thereby remains alert and responsive. A closed mind that thinks it knows is much more likely to get hoodwinked or blindsided.

Stay sharp people!

However this major disruption unfolds one thing's for sure - we're all in this together so let's take a breath and stay grounded as sensibly as we are able.

Friday 8 May 2020

Twilight and Mary Oliver words

Twilight 
by Aileen Paterson

The terns hover over the estuary at dusk, plummeting into the water. Turnstones fly in a flurry of white wings before settling into the shallows. Twilight is the magical time when all the people disperse and the tide recedes to leave a shoreline for me to wander on. Trees become silhouettes against an amber sky. The beach is abandoned except for the birds. My feet make soft footprints in the sand. The water has woken from its sleep and glimmers with hope. I walk home and hear the owls calling and a dark shape swooping high in the air over the fields. Dusk clings to my skin and infuses me with magic, the sunset caught beneath my skin.

Photo by Aileen Paterson







Using Words from Mary Oliver
by Kay Ritchie

Times turned strange.

Days seemed weeks.

Weeks seemed hours &

after months locked down,

when only watching seasons

saved our sanity,

autumn comes &

wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

(where planes once sliced through cloud, streaked skies with crystalled contrails),

are heading home again.

A plump of v’s.

Black on blue.

Their honks & hoots,

like those we made each Thursday,

surely signal hope.


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influenced by Mary Oliver’s "The chance to love everything"
by Kay Ritchie


this may be the first story

shared amongst us all

this plague-time-telling

whose dark heart

left an ancient ache &

there are many reasons for its passing

down to children

and to children’s children

and their children’s children’s children

for the world stood still for once &

took a look

at what was going wrong &

people learned to take more care

to be aware of others

of themselves &

of the planet

so let’s not be the first to

forget

Monday 4 May 2020

Live session 4/5/20 ~ Poems for Refugees

Today we made a difficult journey towards our awareness of suffering in less privileged parts of the world. This might usually be considered an armchair approach to altruism, but the unfolding implications of Coronavirus on international economic activity are devastating. I guessed, correctly, that these concerns would be lurking among Water Story writers as much as they are with me, waking me in the small hours with fathomless despair.


Writing prompts drawn from the anthology POEMS FOR REFUGEES (Jarvis and Haywood) were called on to help us invoke such worries in the hopes of pouring positive energy towards situation so far from our control:


by W. H. Auden - 1907-1973
from which we used the prompt

children afraid of the night

by Wendy Cope
from which writers chose their own prompts

Midway through the session Tara led us through a 5-minute mindfulness session; these have become part of our regular Monday mornings and go a long way to stopping the slosh in our brains! Thanks Tara!

To ease out of the intense emotion of today's subject we noted some trivial afternoon activities only to discover some concerted insustry:
Tara will clean the fishpond for Samuel the fish, Aileen begins art journalling! Helen has some serious sounding dyslexia reporting to do but will reward herself with the last brownie, carefully hidden from her husband and son. Sandra will deal with some clutter and Sheila, an abstract painting... I was mortified to confess my much lesser ambition of eating a roll and sausage till Giovanna joined me in the realms of humdrummity with a clear determination to do no more than make a coffee. Kay will lie on the floor and Pat will exercise for just two minutes while Mary cuddles her cat. 
Now that's more like it!

Word processing skills came up and it occured to me that zoom might be a handy opportunity to show some basic settings... which I duly did while sharing the wrong screen. Rather than create a fact sheet I will zoom this in another session soon. 

Finally the group asked if I would share my blog about Peccadillo's journey to capture waters of the 5 canals of Scotland.... here it is. Thanks to one and all for another rich session.

 

Sunday 3 May 2020

Rannoch Moor and Shed Bodegon

Roaming on Rannoch Moor
by Pat Sutherand

Seasonal chameleon, backdrop for epic history, epitome of bleak. The world saw the moor in Skyfall, but seeing is a poor substitute for standing there, breathing bog myrtle air, transfixed among the cries of its marsh-loving birds.

Winter freezes the tiny Lochans and the burns tinkle under ice. Horizon peaks are snow shrouded; mist hangs heavy over the rushes and silence rules the icy vastness.

Spring is a latecomer to Rannoch Moor. Its herald is the curlew making its  nest among tussocks, sending its come-hither song through warming air.  In Summer the moor tumbles through rain and sunshine, the network of waters flashing  mysteries in signals.  Treeless in Autumn, without  gold or scarlet relief, the moor is lonely, sinking into its history.

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In the absence of a Rannoch Moor photo I am sharing promised photos of MY shed. Many of the zoom sessions have been taking place in our writers' delightful sheds... Here too is my attempt at a "Bodegon"... a still life.






SHED BODEGON
by Cap'n Bev

Ah my shed.
Hopeful queues of things to do
a mix of screws
and here, a scented pile of sawn dust.
A rusted file, grinding paste,
ancient as this precious fid and darning tool
from which, atop my happy stool,
I long to coax old shine.
Dull, white glow of snow seals up
the sleepy garden window.
Ardent Tits inspect their old box,
but here’s another partly made.

Magic spell of sanity
laid out upon the table
awaits my incantation
to make, fix, sing and do… waits…
till I am well and better able.