Blue Moon. Be careful! Strange events!

There's a Blue Moon rising on Friday 31st July. The second full moon in the calendar month, a blue moon is a seemingly random event that is really to do with lunar months being 28 days, and our calendar months 30 or 31.

I wrote a collection of poems about the night of the blue moon, imagining the moon's light shining through the windows of an old map shop, and the maps becoming liquid, and merging in the silvery light. And what happens to them in the shop happens outside as well. Some very odd things happen.

They are published in seed packet form, with the poems on separate sheets, held together with a little full moon shape clip. The packet is individually letterpress printed. I've been trying different packet forms for a few years now, and have finally found the one I really like!

You can buy one from my Etsy shop http://etsy.me/1SmwClh or come and see me at the Bath Artisan Market on 9th August, or Outlaw Summer Market in Falmouth on 10th, 11th, 12th August.
In the meantime - take care tonight and enjoy - the next blue moons are in January and March 2018!

h.Art 2014 exhibition opening. Sales! Hoorah!

Hereford Arts Week! Hoorah! And the opening of the Print Shed Exhibition in Madley.

  The photo below shows my little corner of poetry and print, and the 'celebrate' print sold twice (I did have two), as did the 'this way' print, several packets of poetry AND some greeting cards.

  I completely forgot to take any photos of the event as I was trying unsuccessfully to look nonchalant about my sales. Absolutely thrilled.
I spent the afternoon helping Jill to finish hanging and making the exhibition ready, so now I know how to hang an exhibition AND make brushetta simultaneously - always good to gather new skills.

Green Man Festival. Haiku. Felt.

I have had four days at the Green Man Festival in Glanusk Park in the beautiful Usk valley, helping my friend Emma in her marquee, selling her beautiful felt items, and also helping out with a manic programme of felt making workshops. Here she is, on day one, before nearly everything sold!

It was huge fun, with the extra dimension of contributing to Wales Arts Review's live online response to the Festival, with contributors responding to events, food and the festival experience. I wrote a series of haiku and emailed them during the days.

My experience was necessarily limited by my working, and not wandering around or seeing other events at all! I thought I would put them down here in order, to give you a flavour of my Green Man experience. I was also constrained by my iPhone, which wouldn't let me start the lines of the haiku with a lower case letter, so they do look very different to my usual style. However, it's all part of the experience! I will list the day, and then the haiku beneath, some of which have titles;

Thursday

Wisp of cloud drifting
Across watching mountain top -
Rain falling below

Friday

Discreet sunlight, breeze
Feet whispering through wet grass
Green Man squats, fierce-faced

Green Man Harvest
A convoy of bins -
Green-bobbed acolytes trudge with them,
Gathering garbage

And now, noise begins -
Swirling on the valley floor,
Mountain, sounding board.

Saturday

Knees
Ugly scowling things,
Stranded between shorts and boots -
Please cover them up!

Making felt
Bright strands, water, soap,
Metamorphosis of wool,
Capturing rainbows.

Selfies
On this spot, right here -
Stand with the mountain behind,
Smile for the camera

Sunday

Wet grass
Mud path will emerge,
Recording every footprint
Small destinations

Climbing
Soft skin and rough bark,
Oak trees stadning patiently,
Accepting hands, feet

Air freshens, colder,
Breeze whispers through the valley,
Nearly time to go

Written looking out of the marquee! I hope you like them! I made a piece of felt to go with the series.

Great fun.
www.walesartsreview.org
https://www.facebook.com/Ffolkyffelt?ref=ts&fref=ts

Haiku. Wren. Apple Cake.

Poems, especially haiku, take a long time to write, and sometimes I find one unfinished that I have forgotten about, in amongst my notes. Here is a poem I started at the beginning of this year.

While walking by the Wye I heard a wren singing in an ivy covered tree. It was a huge sound, and it seemed to me that it was calling upon the tree to wake, and on the spring to begin. So I took a photo,

and went home and made a load of notes. I always put the date in my notebook, but I can't quite work out if that's 1 or a 2 for the month, so it was either January or February!

I couldn't quite get to the centre of what I wanted to say. It was difficult to express.

So I left it for a while.  Some time later, after writing down an Apple Cake recipe from the internet, and making some lists of things to do, the haiku came into my mind again, so I started working on it as I was baking.
I found it again recently, having been looking for the recipe, remembering that I had written it in a notebook.

 Note that I have written hoorah underneath the utter confusion of the top right had corner. I think this means I believed the haiku to be complete.

 However, I am not so sure now.
Here it is;

one voice declares spring -
ivy shivering with song
trees compelled to wake

I'll leave it, and see what happens next time I come across it!

What my voice looks like

Last week I went to the recording studio at Ty Cerdd in the Wales Millennium Centre, to record three collections of poetry. I have been thinking for a while it would be a good idea to have a cd as well as the poetry packets to offer.

I really like the space. There's something about all the textured soundproofing around the walls and ceiling, the stillness it gives, the big screen in front of the glass looking through to the studio, and the seclusion within.

Here is Jim Unwin, who recorded my reading, and was wonderfully tuned in to the way I wanted to read and make it sound. He made the session very smooth and painless and I appreciated his patience!

I lined my poetry packets up on the stand in front of the microphone. Then I stood in the small space, and read aloud.

It was very interesting to listen to the poems. I'm always too busy reading them either on the page or out loud, to actually hear them. And I was fascinated to see what my voice looks like. This is how the three winter haiku appear.

A fascinating indoor, inward looking, focussed world.

Then I drove home,  took Thomas out on the rain washed road, and listened to the sound of his hooves. It was a great contrast!

Ready for the Fair

At last, the preparations are over, and all is packed and ready for The Big Skill Craft Fair in Hay on Wye tomorrow. I really like it when it's too late to start anything new, and what I've got is what I've got!

Walking boots an absolute necessity. The fair is in a field which is already very muddy. And I think the umbrella may be useful too, although being curly haired I have no fear of rain.

I went to the fair site earlier this evening to look round and say hello. There was a lovely restored 1900 bow front caravan there. It's for sale.

Hmm, if only my front garden were a little larger. Wouldn't it be a great place to write?!

Printing, Pegasus, and Poetry.

Sunday afternoon, the wind is howling and rain beating down. I am in my shed, printing.

This is the text of a poem about Pegasus. If you look carefully, you can see the errors in my typesetting.

But once that was sorted, I printed onto some pages from an old Romanian book about Roman coins. At least I think that's what it is about. It's one of the books I rescue - so tattered or worn or incomplete that they are never going to be sold. I want the poem to look as though it was part of the original text of the book, but I am not making the print too perfect, or it won't ever be apparent that it's an addition to the page! Fine line to be drawn here.

A lovely opportunity to print the title in one of my new metal fonts. This is 24 point Castellar. Fabulous.

And the finished product hanging up on the washing line. I managed to get three I am happy with, out of six attempts, so that's fine.

I also finished off three other copies of a different poem, with a different look. Here's one of them,

 These prints are coming with me to the Big Skill  craft fair in Hay on 24th to 26th May. It's going to be great fun, and I hope that some of today's prints will find new homes.

Here's a link to their Facebook Page, https://www.facebook.com/thebigskill
I will also be doing Poems While U Wait at the event. Haven't started limbering up for that yet!

An outbreak of poetry!

Last day of Term, children in fancy dress, an outdoor specially constructed storytelling area - how much better can it get?! On Friday I told stories and poems to many groups of marvellously dressed children and teachers at Thornhill School in Cardiff.

I was the first person to perform in the circle. It really was an honour. Here I am with the first ever class to come and hear stories and poems in the area. Their teacher is resplendent in the centre of the photo, in his Cat in the Hat outfit.

The sun was shining, and I had several of those I can't believe this is my job moments!

Then today, Sunday, an event in Cardiff for the Children's Literature Festival, making seed packets, and filling them with poems, and with favourite and precious things - photos, pictures, mementoes. I encouraged the adults to make a packet each as well.

Everyone was quiet, and focussed on their own creations. It was a lovely afternoon.

Two very different events, but both celebrating words, ideas, poems and stories. I am SO LUCKY!

Poetry in Action at Pendoylan

A poetry workshop is an active event, especially with Year One! Here I am with the young poets at Pendoylan CIW Primary School, searching for inspiration,

starting small,

reaching for the heights,

and being proper authors.

I told them the story of Sion Cwilt, and then we wrote short poems about our own houses. Here are two of my favourites,

I don't know which I am more envious of, the pirate wallpaper and quilt, or the 4 cats and a rainbow unicorn!
To finish with we performed a story about Little Bo Peep. Here she is, talking to a cow about her lost sheep.

The children were fantastic. It was a great day.

Willy Wonka's Poetry Factory

Oh my goodness, an absolute gem of a day at St Nicholas Primary School in the Vale of Glamorgan, celebrating World Book Day with the whole school dressed up as book characters, and me telling stories and writing poems with everyone. I was dressed as a poet.

The staff at St Nicholas are enthusiastic about everything, even dressing up as Roald Dahl characters. Here they at the beginning of the day, and they all stayed in character until it was time to go home.

It was great going into classrooms filled with superheroes, princesses, Harry Potters, and other assorted literary characters.

I was asked to judge the World Book Day competitions, one for each class. I did this over lunchtime, helped by Willy Wonka and a golden ticket.

And pictured here after the giving of certificates and prizes,

Amazingly, considering all the excitement, the children produced really good poetry and imaginative work.

There are some lovely displays of work on the walls of St Nicholas School, and I was inspired by this picture. I am going to do a version of it using my wooden letterpress letters making exploding words.

This was another great day. I am so lucky.

Poetry with very young writers - the best fun.

Two schools today, to work with year 1 and 2 children, as part of the outreach for the Cardiff Children's Literature Festival. We were writing poetry, and using the great animal cartoons of Huw Aaron as a starting point.

 First, in Roath Park Primary, where we wrote about a pelican balancing a book on its beak, and other things too. A lot of alliteration followed.

I liked the above example because the pelican has a bendy boomerang, a slithering snake and a kicking kangaroo on its beak, and when the pelican sneezes, they slide off into the stars. I also like it because somewhere in the creative process the young poet obviously needed an energy boost and so took a big bite out of the top of the page!

Here are the children all holding their poems triumphantly aloft,

 This afternoon, to Herbert Thompson Infants, to write about a monkey eating lots of fruit and vegetables to help him with his reading,

This poem is great as it includes two languages! The monkey has a big green lettuce to help him read, and a juicy coch strawberry to help him be strong.

I asked the children to think what book the monkey might be reading, and they made up some titles, and put some illustrations on the pages of the book. The poem above had the monkey reading The Banana Book. In the picture below, the young writer had put some text, which I really liked.

 It is wonderful to see the very young writing poetry, putting their own imaginations and ideas into the frame I provide to produce very individual work. There really is nothing better! A selection of the poems produced today are going to be in an exhibition in Cardiff Central Library in April, and I am going to enjoy seeing the children's work again.

Many thanks to Louise Richards of Literature Wales who arranged the day and came to help with the poetry writing, and to the staff at both schools, who joined in with such enthusiasm and helped the young writers to produce great work.

The festival website is here http://www.cardiff.gov.uk/content.asp?nav=2,2869,6584
and Huw Aaron's website is here www.huwaaron.com

Poetry in Penarth - perfect!

A visit to the grand and stately Penarth Library this morning.

A lovely class of children came to the library, all the way from Fairfield School in Penarth. I told them some poems, and then asked them to be poets too. Here they are, all looking very studious,

writing poems, and then doing some illustration. There is a big display of work planned for their classroom! We finished with a grand reading of poetry, then I taught them my shark song, and ended by reading the very best picture book of all, Where The Wild Things Are. Many thanks to Julie Dutton at the Library for her hospitality.

After the children had headed off back to school, I went to Ikea and bought shelves for my print shed. Here I am, shortly after realising that the table I need to put my printing press on will fit into the car, but not if there is a driver in it,

A minor detail! Happy days.

Odysseus and the parquet floor

A mythological day in Ysgol Bryn Coch in Mold today. The year 5 classes are looking at Greek Myths, and I was asked to fit my poetry workshops in with that theme.

I took my childhood copy of Tales from the Odyssey with me.  I was given this book at the age of five, and I actually lived in the beautifully illustrated pages, and sailed with Odysseus. Looking at it before taking it to school today, I realised how well I know the pictures, and how deeply familiar the story is to me. I know the images and story better than my real childhood, my recollection of which which is a bit hazy, I think because all I did was read!

I'm lucky enough to have been a regular visitor to Ysgol Bryn Coch. The children are great writers, and soak up stories and ideas. The staff do that wonderfully generous thing of stepping back to let me take the workshop, and then supporting the children when they come to write. It's a real pleasure to be there.

And the parquet? Well, the long corridors and big rooms of the school have fabulous parquet floors! Perhaps not that fabulous, as some of the wooden pieces are a little loose, and so make a marvellous sound as you walk upon them! They are being replaced with better flooring, but I know it's a feature that has been commented on by other visiting writers and artists!

The poetry is the thing however, and finishing this great week of writing and presenting poetry in schools and libraries with such a special day makes me feel so fortunate.

World Book Day. Bicycles and banana splits.

An epic World Book Day, out with Paul Doyle of Neath Port Talbot Libraries.

We went to Ynysfach Primary School, where I was captured performing Peter Samson's poem "On My Bike' with a class. It's a lively poem, and leads to some fabulously strange and imaginative writing from the children, after we have all pretended there are pedals sticking out of our ears, of course.

Then in the afternoon to Blaengwrach Primary, where we had a break about halfway through the poetry workshop to devour a huge banana split!

Paul and I were given seats with all the children, and thoroughly enjoyed the fair trade dessert. I have to say this is the most unusual event I have ever attended during a school visit!

Here's Paul, in the background you can see a member of staff dressed as a giant banana.

It was a great day of laughter, imagination, and creating poetry.