Live poetry, an exhibition and Christmas

I have been without the internet for three days. You never quite realise how much you miss it until that happens. Some workmen drilled through the Virgin Media fibre optic cable, near me, along with some gas pipes and it affected a large part of south west London. The priority was to get the hospital back on line and then everyone else. I'm not sure if everyone has been re-connected but ours came back at eleven o'clock last night.

At one point I used the internet via my son's mobile so I could do some essential things, but his data was going so I was quick. Even our local coffee shop had no wi-fi! While there is something to be said for getting away from social media for a while, the internet has become an everyday essential.

And now I'm back I can do a catch up. Last Sunday afternoon I went along to the Boulevard Theatre in Soho again. This time Live Canon presented an event with Valley Press - four of their poets were reading. I came across Valley Press some years ago and have bought books from them. Recently they started a subscription service and, liking what they do, I have signed up for a year. So I was keen to support them at this event and I got to see the theatre itself. It is a small and very intimate space. I booked a seat in the second row. I hadn't expected to be so close to the stage. This is an excellent space for poetry. Helen from Live Canon introduced Jamie McGarry from Valley Press who then went on to introduce each poet. The four performing were Ralph Dartford, Cherry Taylor Battiste, Adham Smart and Julia Deakin. I had not come across any of these poets before but their poems were powerful and very different. While I enjoyed all the poets my favourite was Julia Deakin for her variety.

I hope to return to the Boulevard in the future and hear more poets. There is something going on there every Sunday afternoon. There is a lovely bar/restaurant area, which was quiet by that time. I had a nice pot of tea, but I had to smile. With all the drinks machines around these days huffing and puffing through frothy coffees and different teas, my tea was made by boiling a kettle. How quaint!

Since that event I have received my first newsletter and book from Valley Press as part of the subscriptions service (you get to choose your books). I have a book of short stories by Judy Darley, and I think next time I will choose Julia Deakin's book.

Now Christmas is upon us and I've been baking biscuits and making my marzipan sweets. It's something I used to do to you use up left over marzipan after covering a Christmas cake. I no longer make a Christmas cake as only I eat it. There is a limit even for me! But I adore marzipan. I cover glace cherries with it and roll them in icing sugar. There are variations and this year I've covered some in chocolate and cocoa.  My elder son is going to make a non-Christmas cake (an orange cake) and I've still to make mince pies.

These Amaretti biscuits are the best! First time making
them. Going fast. Everyone loves them.

Cranberry Thumbprint Biscuits

Marzipan sweets (first layer!)

In between the cleaning, baking and shopping I'm still writing my one-a-day poems. I went along to the British Museum on Tuesday to see an exhibition. Inspired by the East shows how we fell in love with tiles and ceramics and copied them. Paintings, sculptures and sketches of objects and costumes were also on show. While at the museum I looked at an art exhibition in room 90 featuring contemporary art from the 1970's to the present day, with art from Tracey Emin, David Hockney, and a favourite of mine, Anselm Kiefer. I found the day inspirational especially when it came to some poetry writing.

Anselm Kiefer

I also managed to get back to writing group in over in Hammersmith yesterday afternoon. I've really missed it, though it took me a while to get my head into gear. I'd not had a lot of sleep and felt quite tired. But it was fun and good to see everyone. The cafe was almost deserted. I guess everyone was off Christmas shopping.

Finally my new laptop has arrived and my son has been setting it up for me. I used it briefly yesterday but I need to transfer some files over (my writing ones) so today I'm using the old one as it's quicker and easier until I get to grips with the new one and have everything I need on it. I was amazed at how quickly it boots up and shuts off. This one takes about ten minutes!

This will be my post until after Christmas, so I'd like to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas and thank you for taking the time to read my blog. I do hope you'll come back now and then.

HAPPY  CHRISTMAS

Not quite poetry but still art

Imperial War Museum, London

I hadn't intended to go to the Imperial War Museum yesterday, but I was a little early for the Morley College Winter Fair, so I nipped over the road just to kill some time. I ended up spending about an hour there taking in the free exhibition Culture Under Attack, which is split into three sections - Art in Exile (the choosing of which art works in museums and galleries to store away during World War II), What Remains (why culture and heritage is attacked during war) and Rebel Sounds (how musicians used music to resist and speak out against war and oppression).

I found these exhibitions really interesting. The first thing of note was whose paintings were saved. Mainly William Orpen as he was highly thought of. Paul Nash (a favourite of mine) had just three paintings saved (his prestige is higher these days and it was admitted that more of his work would be saved now!). What's in a name one might ask!

I'm sure we all remember seeing artifacts and historic buildings being smashed by Isis. I still remember how that made me feel. This was what was looked at in What Remains along with other war destruction like Dresden in WWII. History and culture are important. It's where we come from, our roots and can leave us devastated at the sheer mindless destruction. At the end of each exhibition is a chance for visitors to vote on different questions, like is it important that buildings should be restored? Even...would you die to save a building? When you vote you get to see the percentage of people who agree or do not agree with you. It's a nice interactive task.

In the Rebel Sounds exhibition there are videos and info about various conflicts and the part music played to rebel. From the Hot Club in Frankfurt during the war, The Undertones (Teenage Kicks) from Belfast in the Troubles, Public Enemy and a group from Africa. The Taliban banned music but people still listened despite the consequences of being beaten. I certainly remember when my hubby and I were in Belfast our guide talked about the Punk era in Belfast. Our guide was friends with the DJ Terri Hooley (featured in the exhibition). Punk was a backlash to the Troubles.

The room where you can sit and listen to four tracks is great. It has the sound of the stylus making contact with vinyl (you can't beat it). The bass notes vibrate through the benches so you really feel the music! I loved it. I did my voting in the end room and I heard Teenage Kicks playing again next door, and yes I did do a little dance (I love that song and I have it on vinyl). It probably gave the CCTV security guy something to smile about! I just can't keep still when music is playing.

What does this have to do with writing? Well, certainly a lot of poetry was written during the wars. Like the war artists I'm sure some was censored. Many paintings were rejected because they didn't want the folks back home to see what war was really like (not good for morale). Poets and painters told it like it was. It was their way of expressing their emotions. Sometimes writing poetry is the only way you can do that. It's cathartic.

Anyway, this turned out to be a nice little diversion yesterday. A good hour well spent. The exhibition is on until 5th January if I've whetted your appetite.

The collection to save during WWII

Paul Nash - The Ypres Salient at Night  (1918)

Outside the Imperial War Museum

Antony Gormley at the Royal Academy

Slabworks

Did the Antony Gormley exhibition live up to my expectations? Oh yes! There was something very powerful about being close to his work, a totally different feeling from looking at paintings.

There are twelve rooms in all, the first one is called Slabworks and consist of steel slabs cut with precision using industrial methods then stacked. Each represents a body lying, sitting, leaning etc. The closer you look the more you see. The really big installations are awesome - The Matrix and Clearing - and the  there is the room called Lost Horizons with the body cases at all angles - hanging from the ceiling, projecting from the wall. It's quite disorientating. There are rooms with paintings and sketches and Gormley's workbooks. And then there is The Cave. If you don't want to walk into the dark tunnel you can go around the outside. Though I don't like dark spaces I ventured in, hand to the wall (as advised) to make sure I followed the wall round. You come out into the cave where light filters in at odd angles before you exit down another short corridor back out (I did hit my head once on the low ceiling!).

When you leave the exhibition there is a room with a large table and benches. Here  you can sit and look through a selection of books, including the exhibition book (which I did!).

How ever many photos you take (and I took a lot), nothing can be as powerful as being there and seeing it for yourself. The exhibition lasts until the 3rd December, so not long to get there if you want to see it. I very rarely book exhibitions in advance, but I would advise you do so as times slots are selling out or have already sold out.

Will I find something to write about here, to put into a poem? Oh I think so!

Matrix

Matrix

Clearing

Clearing fits the room and in some place
is right against the wall. Care needs to be taken!

Subject

The Workbooks

Lost Horizon

The cave (entrance on the right)

The outside of the cave structure

Host

Seeing how the real writers do it!

Writing Britain: Wastelands to Wonderlands at the British Library has been an exhibition I've been meaning to go to all summer.  Finally I went yesterday. The exhibitions explores literature and place over a period of 1,000 years of English literature drawn from a unique collection of works from Chaucer to Rowling.  Not only are there hand written manuscripts but also readings accessed via headphones as well as film where modern authors talk about how 'place' draws them into a story.

It was wonderful to see the scribblings of authors and poets - all those neatly written words and some not so neatly written pages with crossings out, additions and side comments.  Included here are the writings of William Blake, Charles Dickens, William Wordsworth, Robert Louis Stevenson, Daphne du Maurier as well as JRR Tolkein artwork for The Hobbit and some lines to the Beatles song In My Life by John Lennon.  Then of course there is the hand written manuscript by JK Rowling of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.  The exhibitions was split into 'zones' - Rural Dreams, Dark Satanic Mills, Wild Places, Cockney Visions and Waterlands.  A whole range of books were on show from the mythical to horror and everything in between.

This took me back to the days when I wrote stories in exercise books.  I guess I was in my teens and I had so much time then!  I still have the exercise books, a few completed stories and some which never got past the first chapter.  Those were also the days when I didn't know much about how to construct a story.....um...possibly still don't!.  I just wrote what I liked.  Funnily enough most were sci-fi.  I guess I watched a lot of Doctor Who and Star Trek!  I grew up with original series.  But my stories didn't have monsters in them.  Anyway, the exhibition re-kindled a flame......okay a spark.....but maybe more nostalgia!

If you can get to London this is an exhibition well worth viewing.  It finishes on 25th September so time is short.  The British Library shop is great to walk around...so many books but I kept my purchases to a minimum and came home with Selected Poems by Sylvia Plath and a few postcards.