New Year Poems

It's 2016 and Spring is on its way! This is how people were feeling at the Care In Mind group I work with on Tuesdays. This is the poem we made, Winter is Nearly Ending. 

It was very spontaneous, with people speaking their thoughts inspired by the sunny, cold weather that morning in Newham. As they spoke I wrote the words they said. 

I also like this New Year poem written by WS Merwin. The last lines are so full of hope and possibility ...


To the New Year

With what stillness at last
you appear in the valley
your first sunlight reaching down
to touch the tips of a few
high leaves that do not stir
as though they had not noticed
and did not know you at all
then the voice of a dove calls
from far away in itself
to the hush of the morning

so this is the sound of you
here and now whether or not
anyone hears it this is
where we have come with our age
our knowledge such as it is
and our hopes such as they are
invisible before us
untouched and still possible



Here are more New Year poems from the Poetry Foundation and some early 2016 crocuses too.   

 

Hidden Stories 2

The White Horse at Osmington, nr Weymouth

Today is the last Hidden Stories writing workshop this term. The theme is Home and Homeland - what home means to us, and the journey involved in leaving, returning to and finding home.

The subject is inspired by Elizabeth de Haas who travelled from her home in Holland in the 1940s to be Dorothy Walker's companion at
7 Hammersmith Terrace,  the last authentic arts and crafts house interior in Britain.

We'll be looking at poems by Bernard O Donaghue and ex Fulham Cross student, Safa, who attended the Write 2Be Me project in 2012. This is her poem, Moving To Another Country.

Moving to Another Country 

It's all confusing

don't know what direction

you're meant to go,

everything is different

you're lost.

All the places are strange to you,

moving to another country

that's a lot different from your country.

It's all confusing

don't know what direction to go

I feel lost.

Everything is different to me

all the places are strange.

Moving to a country

that is a lot different from my country,

all my mind is confused.

I also love Bernard O Donaghue's Westering Home. It reminds me of the feeling I experience each time I visit Dorset where I was born, especially if travelling through the New Forest. We used to picnic there and say goodbye to the rest of the family on our way back to our new home in Kent.

Here we are - me with my aunty Margy on the picnic rug, my sister, Mum, great aunties and Grandad in front of Margy's Ford Anglia in 1967. My Dad is taking the photo.

 

Come On In, The Water's Lovely

The other week I dipped my toes into Brighton radio - on the Paul Stones InBrighton on Mondays show for Radio Reverb, Brighton's local station. I felt a bit nervous as I approached the basement entrance of Reverb HQ, off the New Steine, that chilly March Monday. 

Paul opened the door and led the way along a dark corridor to the studio.
Sue Bartlett from Rottingdean Writers group was already there in front of a large microphone. Paul put his headphones on and I sat down next to Sue. We exchanged greetings and chatted politely. I looked through the notes on my lap. I'd made a list of things I wanted to mention - my workshops, the benefits of writing, the link between writing, health and wellbeing, Lapidus - the writing for wellbeing organisation. Just then the door opened and Pete Sanders, from Coastway Hospital Radio arrived and the seductively inviting, intro music was playing. It was 5 O' clock and we were on air! 

Like many things, it wasn't half as gruelling as I thought it would be. Thanks to Paul and Pete for their gentle interviewing technique. And to Sue with her excellent cache of stories. I've just got round to listening to it and after my initial embarrassment realised I'd mentioned most of the things on my list. I didn't realise how many times I'd said Ummm - that was a surprise!

Despite this, the lovely Pete invited us to Coastway the following Sunday. This was a wonderful experience with Pete and Ruth, who host a regular Sunday morning programme for people in hospital, complete with quizzes! 

I even got to read a poem. It's National Poetry Writing Month  and I was inspired by a friend who told me there is a planet made of water. Apparently he'd heard about it on the radio.

Here's the Reverb show and the poem too:  

Thought Bubbles

They've found a planet
made of water,
like a great big bubble
suspended in sky.
I wonder what it would be like 
to land on?
Or bump into - 

like a bouncy castle
or those balls you squish for stress?
Perhaps you'd bounce right off it 
into space,
or fall into it
and it would fold around you,
like a lovely big hug.   

Christine Hollywood, April 2014