Corona Virus: Week Nine: Back to Semi-Normal

The kids in Finland went back to school on the 14th for about two weeks before the summer and I started subbing yesterday for 4 of the last 7 days. I'm not going to get into the wisdom of that decision as I'm not sure where I stand on it, but regardless, we're all looking forward to a break from this new normal.  

On the days I'm not working, I have plenty of things to keep me busy with my course, my writing and other things on my To Do List. They're opening the libraries to pick up reserved books, so that's something to look forward to. As I've said before I'm used to social isolation, it's the strain of home-schooling 3 kids on my own that's been getting to me. 

My focus has changed, so I've struggled to keep up with this blog. I'm back on my course work, trying to get my allotment sorted before my birch allergy gets so bad I can't go outside and I've finished painting my stairs, so I can focus on the kitchen cabinets next, if I'm not going back to work. I'm still trying to write my poem a day, but usually late at night, so I barely remember what I wrote in the morning and it feels like a new poem. 

The High Window has published three of my poems in their early summer issue. 

The Winnow has also published two of my poems in their summer issue. 

To be honest, I haven't had a chance to check out either of these issues, but will try at the weekend or summer break for us is after next week, so I will have more time then. And a pile of reading to catch up on. 

Things feel kind of back to normal. We can't go out to eat or go to the pool, cinema or amusement places for the kids, but basically life is continuing on with some adjustments. We're not a terribly social family anyway and have few friends here, so staying at home didn't affect us much. We'll see how the infection levels react and whether we have to go back to a form of lockdown again over the summer.

I hope everyone's adjusting and keeping well. 

Corona Virus Week Eight: Distracted

I've been too busy to keep up with this. I can't believe it's May already.

Richie McCaffery has included two of my poems on his website The Lyrical Aye. I'm honoured to be on the site with Scottish poets such as Mario Relich, Sally Evans, Bashabi Fraser, Morelle Smith and Chris Powici, names I knew when I worked in Scottish publishing.

I've also had a poem appear in From Glasgow to Saturn which features writers who are alumni of the University of Glasgow. They've done a virtual launch of this issue with readings from many of the writers. Here's mine, not something I'm comfortable doing, but it was a good challenge. They've also decided to offer this issue for free due to the Virus situation. They were fun to work with and I wish the new editorial team good luck with their future projects.

I've finished Nan Shepherd's A Living Mountain. I love her sweeping language, totally caught up in her place. As a sweet coincidence, my copy of A Scots Dictionary of Nature by Amanda Thomson has arrived. I knew the author as an artist before I left Scotland, so I was surprised to see there's not a lot of illustrations in the book and they seem to be photographs. But I'm looking forward to rummaging through the book with ideas for writing. I don't write in Scots often, but I love the feel of the words I do use. I mean, curl-doddy for a pine cone just screams 'write a poem about me,' doesn't it?

I also ordered Moder Dy/ Mother Wave, a poetry collection by the Shetland writer Roseanne Watt. The poems flit between English and Shetlandic, sometimes as translations, sometimes within the same stanza. I can't wait to have a look tonight when the craziness of home-schooling and kids has passed. I just had to interrupt writing this to help a child understand his math lesson and because another dropped a laptop on her lip?! But even the first poem pulls me in.

Haegri

The day your mapped your bonhogas
out for me, we saw it
curled like a question mark
at the lip of the hill -

I totally forgot about GloPoWrMo in my last post and didn't get this posted last week, but I have been keeping up on my own. I have written a rough draft of a poem for every day of April. It's become a mini-challenge to myself. Even slightly tipsy on Friday after my writing group Zoom session I pushed myself to write something about the third half of the session which we usually spend in the pub, but we now just break out a glass of wine while online. I haven't gone back and looked at any of the poems after I've posted them in my course's space, but will have a look later and see if there are any worth moving forward.

I don't know why, but I haven't finished many poems this year so far, I have a 'Roughs' file full of half-finished poems, but it's rare that I decide one is good enough to send out to magazines or even just move to a finished file. But the rough drafts keep stacking up.

I'm too unorganised and just want to get this posted.