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:

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)