Poetry lately: Sherlock Holmes, Gardens, Coffee...

I tried to imagine what my own presence in the poetry world would look like if it were a place. The image that came to mind was one of the stone benches carved into the wall by the river in Battersea Park. So, here's an update from my stone bench by the Thames in Battersea Park.

To accompany their latest poets-in-residence-in-gardens program, Mixed Borders, the Poetry School released an e-pamphlet of poems from the 2016 program, in which I took part. A couple of my poems are in this pamphlet and you can find it here.

Josephine Corcoran's lovely online poetry journal And Other Poems has published two of my Sherlock Holmes poems, 'Holmes in Florence' and 'Sherlock Holmes in Antarctica'. You can read them here.

Finally, I wanted to mention what I did on World Poetry Day, which was on 21 March. It's a UNESCO event which doesn't get a lot of attention in the UK compared to National Poetry Day later in the year. However, as they've done in other years, the Austrian coffee company Julius Meinl was running their own World Poetry Day endeavour, Pay with a Poem. A lot of cafes and restaurants in continental Europe were participating, but only a few in London. To my great pleasure, though, one of the cafes where I sometimes go for lunch at work, Manna Dew, was taking part. So I got my free coffee, and this is what I came up with (click on the photo to enlarge):

In the evening on World Poetry Day I also went to the launch of the latest issue of Modern Poetry in Translation, including wonderful readings by Denise Riley and Don Mee Choi. You can listen to a podcast of the event here: http://www.mptmagazine.com/article/podcast-denise-riley-and-don-mee-choi-read-at-the-launch-of-mpt-the-blue-vein-88/ 

Poet in Cleary Garden - 18-19 June

This weekend, 18-19 June 2016, I will be in Cleary Garden, City of London as their poet-in-residence  in association with the Poetry School, and as part of the Open Garden Squares Weekend.

The address is: Cleary Garden, Huggin Hill, City of London, EC4V 4HQ

I expect to be there around 11 AM-3 PM on both Saturday and Sunday (though it could possibly be more like 11:30-2, especially depending on the weather!) If you stop by, you may get a personal or group poetry reading, a handwritten poem, or a chat about poetry and gardens...

There will be many other wonderful poets-in-residence around London this weekend, and you can find a full list here.

Cleary Garden, London, 2016. Photo by Clarissa Aykroyd

The Return of Poet In a Garden

This year I will once again be a poet in a garden, as part of a residency program from London Open Garden Squares Weekend and the Poetry School. The Open Garden Squares weekend takes place on 18-19 June 2016.

I will be resident in Cleary Gardens, an extremely historic site in the City of London near Mansion House. Much like last year, the plan is to write some poems and probably do some readings in the garden on the weekend...but I don't have details yet about readings and other activities. Watch this space...

Here are a few photos from the garden:

New Poem Published: 'Sherlock Holmes in Red Cross Garden'

Sherlock Holmes, from The Naval Treaty, by Sidney Paget


The Pakistan-based literary and arts journal/website The Missing Slate, who have previously published my work, have just published my poem 'Sherlock Holmes in Red Cross Garden' .

This poem is, of course, one of the four that I wrote for my recent residency with Red Cross Garden, organised by the Poetry School and the London Open Garden Squares Weekend. It was the first poem that I wrote, since Holmes walked into the garden in a very definite way not long after I first visited it and started reading and thinking about it.

I would call this quite a personal poem, though it's hard to explain how exactly. Sherlock Holmes has accompanied me for so much of my life (since I was seven years old, I think) that he has become a part of me in a way I wouldn't say any other fictional character has (and where Holmes is, there Watson is as well, usually). He's led me down so many literary, figurative and real pathways that whenever he shows up, he remains both familiar and fascinating - and also, a kind of mirror for myself.

When I had written the poem I realised that there was an undertone of anxiety in it which surprised me a little. This is not a Holmes in the best frame of mind, I think. He may be preoccupied with the details of an unspecified case, but Watson isn't wrong when he suspects Holmes's preoccupation goes beyond that. I think he is awaiting a confrontation, to come sooner or later, and he is looking for solace amongst the flowers. "What a lovely thing a rose is" is directly from the story The Naval Treaty, in which Holmes speaks unexpectedly and passionately about the beauty and significance of flowers. It is also a passage which indicates that Holmes was no atheist, which in modern times he is often popularly supposed to be. "There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion," he says. "Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers."

Mixed Borders (3): Readings on Sat 13 June at Red Cross Garden

As part of my Mixed Borders residency with Red Cross Garden, the Poetry School, and London Open Garden Squares Weekend, I will be reading in Red Cross Garden (Redcross Way, Southwark, London SE1 1HA) at 2:30 and 4 PM on Saturday, 13 June. The readings will be pretty much identical - I am doing more than one so that different people can experience the poems. Anyone who is in London then and would like to come is very much welcome (it's free!).

Red Cross Garden has proved to be a rich source of material, and I'm happy to say that I have now written a few poems. I went back last week, and a few more pictures are below. There were a very few people in the garden (it was around 7 PM), but it was peaceful and airy, and different flowers were now in bloom. I met a gentleman named Paul, who I think lived in one of the Red Cross cottages or else nearby, who was in conversation with a black cat named Bobby. Paul and Bobby turned out to both be area residents and so I chatted with them for a few minutes - and later I wrote a poem about the cat. It was good timing.

I would love to see a few of you on Saturday, 13 June at 2:30 or 4 PM, for the readings.

 

Mixed Borders (2): Visiting Red Cross Garden

I visited Red Cross Garden to properly start my poetry residency just over a week ago, on an evening when the weather was only somewhat less unpleasant than it is today. Fortunately, it cleared up for most of the time I spent visiting.

Mary O'Connell, who is the Volunteering and Education Facilitator at Bankside Open Spaces Trust (which administers this garden and other green spaces around the Bankside area), gave me a thorough and interesting tour, pointing out the botany of the garden, its features past and present, and some details about the restoration. Red Cross Garden was first laid out in 1887, and along with its cottages and community hall, it was part of Octavia Hill's social housing work. She believed strongly in the importance of decent housing, access to nature and exposure to culture for disadvantaged people. The cottages are still in use as social housing, and they are charming to look at. The community hall was used for concerts and poetry readings. After the garden fell into disrepair during World War II, it was restored by Bankside Open Spaces Trust in 2005-2006, with many of its original features such as the small bandstand and wildlife pond.

I took a number of photos, some of which you can see below. There are certainly a number of possible angles for poetry - history of the garden and the area, Octavia Hill herself, the work to restore the garden, the botany, and so on. I've written one poem so far, but it is under wraps for the moment. Suffice it to say that a fictional character who has played a major role in my life walked into the garden (as it appeared in my mind after visiting), and it made sense to write about him there as I could see him so clearly.

I'm off on holiday in a couple of days, for about a week, but I will certainly be visiting the garden again soon after that, and writing some more.

Mixed Borders (1): Poet In a Garden

Alhambra gardens, Granada, Spain. Photo by Clarissa Aykroyd


I'm very pleased to say that I will be taking part in Mixed Borders, a collaboration between the Poetry School and the London Parks and Gardens Trust, where a number of the gardens taking part in the London Open Garden Squares weekend (13-14 June 2015) will be hosting poets-in-residence. You can read more about the scheme in this blog post from the Poetry School.

I've been assigned the Red Cross Garden in Southwark for my residency, which has a great depth of Victorian and social history, and just looks to be a lovely little garden in a fascinating area - I am about to go and visit it for the first time.

What will I actually be doing for my residency? Writing poetry, of course. Our opening workshop included some exercises which proved fruitful, and various inchoate garden-poem ideas are circling in my head already. I'd like to explore different angles, such as the history, the associated people (particularly the founder Octavia Hill, also one of the National Trust founders), and the interaction with the Southwark area. Botany is far, far from being an area of expertise for me, but I want to have a look, at least. On the weekend itself I should be in the garden for at least a few hours on one or both days - watch this space. I might read, I might hand out poems, I might just sit there looking moody and trying to write. All shall be revealed in time (when I figure it out.) In a somewhat-related way, I might even get back to those translations from French of Rilke's 'Rose' poems which I've been neglecting so badly.

And obviously, I have been reading poetry of the garden, including selections from Flora Poetica: The Chatto Book of Botanical Verse, edited by Sarah Maguire, who herself worked as a gardener for some years.

Further blog posts should follow soon - about the garden, the poetry and more...

Here are a couple of garden poems worth reading, from either side of the pond, by Sarah Maguire (Britain) and Louise Glück (US).


ROSEMARY (Sarah Maguire)

THE SILVER LILY (Louise Glück)