Hidden Bookshops and their Treasures

I love exploring second hand bookshops.  They offer not just a fantastic range of books which are largely are out of print, but occasionally a glimpse of marginalia scribbled by an enthusiastic reader, the occasional lost postcard used as a bookmark or simply the name of a previous owner circa 1916 or earlier.  As someone with a reasonable imagination, pictures form in my mind quite quickly.

While visiting Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk last year, I encountered a little shop selling second hand books to raise a few funds for the National Trust.  Paying a small sum for a copy of:  Poetry and Appreciation by A. F. Scott (published in 1952), I remain intrigued that something so small and plain holds such a treasure of explanation to many poems and their techniques.

A tip here for example, on lyrical poetry:

'The total meaning of a poem consists of thought, feeling, attitude and intention.  It is conveyed by the words and their arrangement.  The rhythm produced welds the poem together and gives it a significance beyond any prose rendering.  It is only by a close scrutiny of all the qualities of the words (meaning, sound, associations), and also of the ordering of the rhythm, that the poem can be understood and in its value estimated.

Remember that you must judge the poet in accordance with what he is trying to do.  He may do anything he pleases, provided he can do it.'

I trust critics of Michael Sullivan, the first Poet Laureate in Plymouth will think about this before they criticise any further.  They reacted unprofessionally, to a letter sent to The Herald from a range of artists and writers in the Plymouth area who defended the Poet Laureate, commending him for his hard and unpaid work to promote literature in Plymouth.  The insults (mainly from academics and sycophants associated with them), still seem to flow.  They have pretty much started a death knell on Plymouth being taken seriously as a cultural and literary venue.  They have also quashed enthusiasm for many local writers to meet and discuss their work for fear of continued trouble and ridicule.  Some very big ego's have gone too far.

Overpopulation and Literature of the Future - Perhaps Coming to a Bookstand Near You.

The post Christmas spell has made me read more than usual.  January has that something about it where after the flurry of a Christmas run around, we retreat into the turn of the Winter Solstice and ponder what will come in the year ahead.  Every time we switch on the television or radio we are met with tenterhooks gloom and doom, from migrants wanting that 'better life' sinking on unstable boats in the Mediterranean to a volatile stock market which means we are under the boot of more austerity (according to our illustrious leaders in parliament).  Easy to say for those earning way above the minimum wage in the London power house.  Here in the West Country, jobs which equate London salaries are non-existent unless you are a Doctor or Lawyer.

So, all of this rather negative news throws my mind to future scenarios.  If someone approached me to commission a novel and then asked me what the suggested topic would be, I would say look to the overpopulation of the British Isles.  Something has to give.  The terrible floods in the north of England around Christmas echoed a similar situation to the Somerset Levels in more recent times where some of the residents have still not been compensated.  And the reason for much of this?  The weather causes the flooding - yes - and the meteorological merchants of gloom have been talking about global warming for a few years.  While they have been talking about it, what have the powers that be been doing about it?  Encouraging us to recycle waste products, use less plastic bags, car share where possible or use public transport ... yes, it all sounds nice, sensible and responsible but it isn't the root cause.  The root cause is the amount of people not just on the planet Earth but in the country as a whole.  And, like many stuck in the cycle of the Syrian war, they all want a 'better life'.  If we lay down any more concrete then like the Somerset Levels and Cumbria, the better life will become an unsustainable nightmare. 

Looking at how fit, athletic and energetic some of the young Middle Eastern men are, I would hope they could stand and fight against their oppressors.  They certainly have the enthusiasm to make hazardous journeys with expectations at the other end.  How does this impact into literature?  The stories here are massive.  Images of demanding migrant women with their fat faces pushed into severe headscarves, wailing with their crying babies pushed in front of television cameras for sympathy,  feeds the fuel of journalism, which in turn fuels the socialist echelons for more to be done while ignoring the needs of the indigenous population who are losing their jobs through austerity and often their homes.  Journalists can be very dangerous people.  Trouble keeps them employed so they want more of it.

Zoom forwards some forty years.  Britain - currently with a population of 60 million (and that is a conservative estimate) could see a population of 100 million quite easily.  Everyone will have to be housed, fed, educated, cared for through hospitals and expect transport links and green space.  It makes me think of a cinema with a certain seating capacity.  If you pile too many people in, few will be able to see or hear the film, arguments break out and a safety hazard ensues which leads to every man for himself and some injured or killed in a stampede for survival.  Yet everyone expects this 'better life'.  I cannot see anything getting better.  If anything it is already growing worse quite rapidly.

What is to be done?  Build more skyscrapers?  Throw anyone occupying a house where they have a spare bedroom out and force them to hand it over to a larger family?  Enforced euthanasia? A one child policy? Those answers are derivatives of Communism and would be quickly rejected but governments may try to force them in under their right of democracy.   Just look at the recent upheaval over the bedroom tax.  Food production?  If the land is chewed up with so many building and road projects, where will the food come from and surely we will need more reservoirs for vital water supplies?  Off the top of my head I see some terrifying consequences.  You only have to be in a supermarket the week before Christmas to see what tension can do for a mini-siege.  Read 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep' by Philip Dick or 'Rule Britannia' by Daphne Du Maurier for their view of the future.  Different angles on different places but oddly, they weren't far off the mark.

*Recent news of the Zika Virus just adds to the dangerous mix of how fast an illness can spread in overpopulated areas.

The future is full of literature.  Creativity can solve problems.  Start writing.

Let's have some French poetry for Christmas

Over a month has gone by since my last Blog entry and thoughts turn inevitably to Christmas.  Those of you who know me will also know I try to think ''outside the box'' where creative writing is concerned.  Or, as a seasoned Chief Petty Officer once said to me when we were shifting a large amount of boxes from a large space into a smaller one:  ''Think laterally''.

Whatever our religion (or not), we become swept up in festive activities whether intended (or not).  The following poem is one of a collection by Rainer Maria Rilke.  Rilke was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1875 and died in Switzerland in 1926.  He wrote in both French and German although the following is a translation of one of his French poems.

De Pere en Fils (From Father to Son)

Reject the complicated life,

Look at your hand near the bread on the table:

how clear those two things on the clear cloth are

from father to son and from son to father.

Love the Earth's celestial countryside

and it's joy, hidden by manifest pain,

the quiet window, the harsh door

from father to son and from son to father.

And those kneeling things always in place

and the dog who fidgets, yet outdoes them,

very gentle believer who hardly doubts

from father to son and from son to father.

(c) R M Rilke.

Wishing everyone a peaceful Christmas.  Enjoy the simplicity of silence.

The River Plym in Early November

I live close to the River Plym; an area of contrasts with the busy Embankment Road, railway line and yet calm, unbridled views over Saltram park.  Occasionally when time permits (and usually at weekends), I take a very early walk close to the river to watch the sun rise.  Now the night's are drawing in and the morning's have a tardy start of light, the moment to catch the sun coming up is later than I would like but on a morning such as we had today, it is beautiful.  The weather was exceptional - just like high summer or Midsummer's Day.  The hills looking up beyond Plympton were shaded in soft violets, mauves and apricots with a chiffon white mist rising in front of the boat house at Saltram Point.  A wide range of birds from Oyster-Catchers, to Plovers to Warblers swept and swung over the high tide which gently lapped the shore.  Rare species often gather here to the delight of Ornithologists.

At that point I was brought to mind of a typical November day.  Grey, wet, windy, cold and dank.  Yet today was none of these.  My late father (Bernard Snell, who was born in November 1922) was a sun worshipper by nature and hated the winter.  He could never bear the long dark cold days and often referred to November as 'Suicide Month'.  He felt trudging out to work in the dark and wet, returning home in the same conditions and spending much of his time jammed in the hull of a ship (he was a Ships' Welder), meant day light and sunshine were hugely important to him.  Additionally his awful experiences of being in Plymouth throughout the Blitz meant that darkness could mean death.

Below is an extract of Novembrists from the wonderful collection of poems by
Sean O'Brien called November.

Reactionary elements combining in the dark
To undermine the decent light of trade
With futile knowledge of the spirit's appetite
For somewhere in between this world
And its discarded shadows.  O Novembrists!
At the year's death walking to no purpose
But to walk among the rutted leaves
And dripping hawthorns, in behind
The sleeping yards and the flooded lawns
And air-raid shelters piled with mattresses and comics,
Now I see it is my parents that I walk beside, ..........

If my father were alive today, he would have smiled at the irony.

Ruth

Acrostic Sonnet for Whitleigh

Acrostic Sonnet for Whitleigh


Wend through these ancient Whitleigh trees
Hiding blooms of Cuckoo Flower,
Infused with misted eau de vie
Time flows by on seasons showers.
Lancaster Gardens; bridle path
Encapsulating ghosts of old,
Indentured men grind plane and lathe
Gladdened nights wrap darkened folds.
Hewing five-bar farm gate and post

Guarding green fields of Budshead Road,
Ribboning west towards the coast;
Echoing Whitleigh Hall's abode.
Elegies sing of hearth and home,
Now here we rest, no more to roam.

(c)  Ruth Muttlebury
2015

Literary Festivals

Literary Festivals - there are lots of them around.  I've attended a few and generally, in terms of a popular adage, 'the oldest ones are the best'.  The new ones don't have that wonderfully worn patina about them which give grace to a cosy feeling of piles of books and fascinating writer's of all genres sharing their views.  That said, it needs a certain environment to make a festival work well and Kew Gardens is no exception. 

Details of Write On Kew are here:
http://www.kew.org/visit-kew-gardens/whats-on/write-on-kew

And while we are talking of the right environment for a literary festival, Whitleigh Words Festival Finale will take place on 3 October 2015 to the north of Plymouth.  For more details:
https://whitleigharts.wordpress.com/hiya-whitleigh-newsletter-autumn-2014/whitleigh-words-festival/

As some of you know, I don't involve myself with Open Mic, Performance Poetry or anything else which means I could (and would) bore people witless with my work. Nor do I sit in on endless performances either.  I am happy to be a silent poet, as they say.  However, I look forward to popping over to Whitleigh for a short spell on the day to say hello to Sandy Wager who has worked tirelessly in bringing everything together for the local residents.

Whitleigh has many things which some of the suburbs in Plymouth are without.  Several airy and light church halls for various functions, a selection of shops, some gentle ancient woodlands and a great pub - The Albermarle Inn - which gives a warm welcome and has been a great help to Sandy in the festival.  While many parts of Plymouth are losing their community hubs, Whitleigh is developing its own very well indeed.  Good luck to Whitleigh - and Sandy - for more future successes.

Pseudonyms

Is a pseudonym - or several pseudonyms worthwhile?  In my view yes, it is.  The reasons are various but many writer's like to feel their work stands alone from the day job.  For those fortunate enough not to have to work, a pseudonym is often still worthwhile as it allows an escape hatch into their ideas. 

At a Writer's Convention in Bristol, sat amongst other writer's I was surprised at how many people wrote under fictitious names.  The lady sat on my left hand side was a well known writer of romantic novels.  In the course of conversation it turned out she was also a fully qualified accountant working from home and her husband was a GP.  Living in a rural village in Cambridgeshire (I'll give no more away here!) she didn't want to be the focus of local gossip or bothered by people asking endless questions about her next book or plot.  She wanted to get on with her main day job (Accountant), her domestic life (wife to a GP and mother to two teenagers) and - oh - of course - a Writer too!

Behind me another lady - in a most resplendent hat - was a highly successful historical novelist.  Again, her 'writing' name was also a pseudonym and she is lucky enough to have a holiday cottage in Devon where she goes to write.  Her real home is several counties away.

Lots of writer's and poets adopt another name to free them up from any expectations.  After all, Jean Plaidy, Victoria Holt and Philippa Carr were one and the same person.  William Trevor is really William Trevor Cox.  Even Elena Ferrante is another author by another name but nobody knows who.  She (or he) has created a modern Italian mystery by hiding their real identity.

Am I Ruth Snell?  In some ways yes, although several of you will know me as someone else.