Corona Virus Week Five: Isolation After Isolation

I missed posting this weekend. I was too busy painting my stairs and making use of some child-free time. Oh well. I'll keep it short. 

What I've been thinking about this week: for most people, this isolation is new and frustrating. For some of us, we've been isolated for longer, either geographically, physically because of illness or disability or because of mental health issues. We've missed out on chances to attend events, take up opportunities because we can't get to them due to work or child care commitments or lack of money or cannot cope with the large amounts of people and social pressures. Some have even been unable to work for whatever reasons.

Some of us have tried to reach out to organisers, employers, friends and family across the emptiness, tried to explain the issues we're facing and no one has answered back. We have tried to arrange activities, talk to more people online, request to work or study from home, but most people are busy and caught up in their own lives or unwilling to even consider changing the way things are done. 

Now that so many people are social distancing, dealing with the consequences of cancellation of events and activities, world suddenly hears and comes up with solutions. Various groups and organisations join together to find a way to include people who cannot be physically present. Online festivals, classes and get-togethers, the ability to work and study from home enhanced. People I've been sending messages suddenly are lonely and write back. No one heard us before because it didn't affect them and they couldn't comprehend the loneliness and frustrations. 

The world is changing, reaching out, but when the entertainment venues are open, the ability to meet up returns, will anyone remember that there are still those of us who can't take a weekend off to go to a conference or have the money to get public transport into a bigger city for an event, who physically can't travel to do a 9-5 job?

I hope this new online, distance-friendly, open culture will continues after the dust from the Corona Virus settles. That my kids can still pop into a friend's birthday in Australia, even if it's only to watch him blow out the candles. That I will be able to 'attend' an AGM or conference via Zoom. That I will be able to read my work at a magazine launch, even if it's only on their website afterwards. 

I hope that we remember that ways exist to include those isolated in our worlds and that we are allowed to continue to use technology to build an even wider community, as inclusive as possible. 

Corona Virus Week Four: Filling Time

I almost forgot about this. I haven't lost track of time due to the kids' schooling and their obsession with Easter, but it's trying to keep all the new things I'm juggling. To stay on top of so many projects, my studies, little jobs around the house and my daily writing.

I've managed to keep up so far with my poem of day challenge for GloPoWriMo. I've written eleven first drafts, some about our Corona Virus isolation, but a few other subjects have popped up. It's strange how you can sometimes fine a new way to approach a familiar prompt. I've had the prompt 'green' about four times now in various challenges and I've usually managed to come up with new subjects to write about, sometimes hitting it in a roundabout way like the green-eyed monster of jealousy. It's nice to get back into the flow and it is just that. I often don't have the time and head space to try and write until the evenings, but they just come, lumpy and rough, but I've managed to get the shape of a poem down every day so far.

I need to make a video reading of one of my poems for an upcoming online journal launch. It's nice that the magazine has found a way to launch in this situation and that for once I can 'attend', but I'm not keen on recording myself reading a poem. The audio one I made last week for my poem in Not Very Quiet was difficult enough. I'm not a comfortable reader, so trying to appear natural and calm while I record myself and try and remember my poem will be nerve-wracking. And also finding a quiet space to do it with a houseful of inquisitive and noisy kids will be almost impossible. If the wind would stop blowing so hard and cold, I'd consider doing it outside. I'll link of course once the launch happens. Try not to laugh.

For my poetry writing month poem for this week I thought I'd stick with women from Scotland. I came across Kathleen Jamie through her nature writings before I found her poetry. Her book Findings introduced me to a different side of Scotland while I was first living in high-rise flats in Glasgow. Her poem 'The Tradition' taken from her collection The Bonniest Companie finds a connection with me on many levels, not only it's connection to the Scottish Independence Referendum in 2014.

The Tradition

For years I wandered hill and moor
Half looking for the road
Winding into fairyland
Where that blacksmith kept that forge

Who'd heat red hot dragging links
That bound me to the past,
Then, with one almighty hammer-blow
Unfetter me at last.

Older now, I know nor fee
Nor anvil breaks those chains
And the wild ways we think we walk
Just bring us here again.

I'm dreading going back to school work on Tuesday, it's been a nice break with the kids, working in the garden, on crafts. I think we're all tired of the isolation and I've seen a lot of people easing themselves out more due to the nice weather and holiday. The shops were jammed when I went for my weekly stock-up and to the hardware store for repair supplies. I'm afraid we'll see an upturn in infections and deaths in two weeks time. Listen to the guidance and be safe.

Corona Virus Week Three - Chinks of Light

The online magazine Not Very Quiet, a bi-annual online women's poetry journal, has included my poem 'The Wedding Suit' in their latest issue. There's even an audio file of me reading it. Sorry, I know I'm like everyone else and hate the sound of my own voice, but ouch, I'm so not ready for that. There's dozens of poems, that I have to admit I haven't had a chance to peruse yet, but it looks like a great mix from the titles.

The new Scotland-based magazine Driech has included three of my poems in Issue 2 with poets like Chrys Salt and Hugh McMillan. An honour for me to be included in their ranks and to have my work wend its way home. An issue only costs £3, including postage and a year subscription £10 post free and that's 6 issues now they've gone bi-monthly, so it's a great way to support a small magazine in these tough times for not too much effort on your bank account. 

And I've also had two poems appear in a recent issue of erbacce, the magazine connected with erbacce press which was a surprise as I had submitted them last year for their annual FREE poetry prize (still open until May 1 2020!!) and I know they didn't win that, but I didn't hear anything back, so once they announced the winners I assumed that was it. So it was a nice surprise to receive the issue in the mail this week. I guess I made a sort of long list. Read their guidelines very carefully for the prize, but it's worth giving it a go. 

And back to reality. If you had asked me 3 days ago how I was, I'd probably have broken down in tears. Home schooling is breaking me, but I've had a few days respite as the kids were away to their dad's so I've been able to catch up with my studies, go to the allotment, hang some photos that have been sitting unloved for years, do some reading and crafting and, most importantly for the blog, join in with Angela Carr's new 30 day writing challenge which coincides with GloPoWriMo (or NaPoWriMo if you insist on being US-centric) the poetry writing month which encourages people to write a poem a day. And so far because of the isolation I've been able to keep up. Four new rough drafts done and as soon as I hit Publish for this I'll start on the next one. 

In honour of GloPoWriMo, I usually include a poem by a poet I like. This time I'm including The Hill Burns by the Scottish writer Nan Shepherd. I have to admit I've never read her poems before, but I've recently started her book The Living Mountain which is part of a online read-along started by nature writer Rob MacFarlane. I  haven't been able to keep up with the read-along and discussion, but it's worth following Rob on Twitter and reading his books, he has a lovely way with words and inspiring people to explore nature and to write about it. I've only managed The Wild Places and The Lost Words (written with Jackie Morris and with her beautiful illustrations, a magical book) so far as it's hard to get his books here, but I'm in a queue of about a million waiting for his latest book Underland once the libraries reopen here in Helsinki. 

Anyway, I found this poem by Nan Shepherd and it encapsulates the feeling I get from The Living Mountain, that reverence and connection to nature, to Scottish nature particularly. It reminds me of my time last summer walking in Puck's Glen in Argyll. 

The Hill Burns

So without sediment
Runs the clear burns of my country,
Fiercely pure,
Transparent as light
Gathered into its own unity,
Lucent and without colour;
Or green,
Like clear deeps of air,
Light massed upon itself,
Like the green pinions,
Cleaving the trouble of approaching night,
Shining in their own lucency,
Of the great angels that guarded the Mountain;
Or amber so clear
It might have oozed from the crystal trunk
Of the tree Paradisal,
Symbol of life,
That grows in the presence of God eternally.
And these pure waters
Leap from the adamantine rocks,
The granites and shists
Of my dark and stubborn country.
From gaunt heights they tumble,
Harsh and desolate lands,
the plateau of Braeriach
Where even in July 
The cataracts of wind
Crash in the corries with the boom of seas in anger,
And Corrie Etchachan
Down whose precipitous
Narrow defile
Thunder the fragments of rock
Broken by winter storms
From their aboriginal place;
And Muich Dhui's summit,
Rock defiant against frost and the old grinding of ice,
Wet with the cold fury of blinding cloud,
Through which the snow-fields loom up, like ghosts from a world of eternal annihilation,
And far below, where the dark waters of Etchachan are wont to glint,
And unfathomable void.
Out of these mountains,
Out of the defiant torment of Plutonic rock,
Out of fire, terror, blackness and upheaval,
Leap the clear burns,
Living water,
Like some pure essence of being,
Seen only by its movement.

The poem is so vivid and visceral, it makes me miss the country even more. Sorry, to hit you hard with names and links this week, amazing what you can remember and manage when you've had some actual time and distance to focus on yourself.

Back to the grind tomorrow, but it's a four day week this and next week due to the Easter holiday, so that will help a bit. 

I hope you're all holding up and finding bright spots to help you get through.