The Wet Dark Slips of Gold

Wet, windy and dark, we're properly into autumn, but it's been so delayed this year which hasn't been a bad thing. The lingering heat is very welcomed. The leaves are starting to turn, maples first and then the birch. My garden covered in gold flakes that I will have to rake and rake, but I will never stay on top of them. 

Seasons cycle and I fall into the same routines, with my gardening and in the house, my moods. Even in my poems, I find myself caught up with the same images, the same thoughts. The geese leave depresses me, leaves falling are beauty but an ending. The cold is sneaking in. I rake and prune, tidy the garden for hibernation, trying not to think of the next season. Trying not to count the seasons that have passed and the emptiness of uncertainty of the season before me, but the certainty that they will follow the same rhythm. I try to capture the positives of the moment, focus on those slips of gold. 

I'm still only really writing on the weekend, so trying to see the positive of that. Starting one poem a week is good, submitting once a week is good. I was playing with images this week in connection with my poems, maybe something I can use if my book is ever published. Things have slowed up at my publishers, so I'm guessing everything has been pushed back again. 

I've been playing with combining photos that I've taken and adding lines from poems.  I'm not very artistic, but I do love to take photos. The act of collaging multiple images with words is something I've never tried before and I am enjoying it. I have about 5 pieces so far. The group that hosts our writing group meetings has a regular call for art for its window space, so maybe I could aim for posters to hang as a display. Then once I have a book in my hands I could use them for a reading.  

Here's one I've posted with these lines on Insta:

Thi claik are gangin awa,
arrows lowpin aff,
takin a daud av mah hert
jist like they dae ivery year.

I'm enjoying playing with them for now.

Publication news after a dry spell:

Two of my poems are appearing in the new issue of Aimsir. It was lovely to be included and the editors worked with the writers to get it just right. It looks amazing. Best of luck to them. 

Scottish Book Tour: Scotland Ten Years On

My attempt at Substack didn't work, so I'll stick to notes there and my blog here. 

The sun's back. Two weeks ago I had solar panels installed and then Finland went into autumn mode with mists and overcast darkness. It's good to have this burst of sunlight to make the huge cost seem worthwhile. The cats and I have been recharging our batteries in pools of light, though the throw blanket has found it's way back to the couch. I'm not ready to turn the heat on yet. 

The trees are just starting to turn, hints of gold and red around the edges. We're about a month behind season-wise. I have pictures of the kids from past years, knee-deep in piles of leaves. Gold birch coins and mushrooms are just starting to sprinkle the lawn. 

My pictures also show the Scottish Independence Referendum from ten years ago, September 18. My social media is full of people remembering, many mourning the loss. It's still a blow, especially after Brexit and the recent mess in the Scottish Government. The possibility of independence seems further away than ever before. 

Speaking of Scottish, I'm still trying to work my way through the pile of books I bought this summer in Scotland. I picked up a few older books that I had never read, including Jackie Kay's Trumpet and some George Mackay Brown titles. 

I also tried John Burnside's Dumb House. I haven't been able to get through it. It reminds me a lot of The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks which I love. Burnside was a poet, novelist and editor who recently died and I had never read any of his work. But I couldn't get into this book, the main character is messed up. The book starts with him just saying that he's fed a set of twins poison, similar to Banks' character Frank announcing he'd killed three people so far in the opening scene. I couldn't find anything redeemable in the main character, even though the book tries to show the loss that led to his horrible actions. I may go back to it as it's impelling to find out about the twins, but I just can build up any sympathy for the main character. 

Trumpet, however, really builds empathy for the characters, Millie and Colman, the wife and son of a famous trumpeter Joss Moody who has just died. Joss's secret is out and his family are left to deal with the aftermath of the explosion left between them, Millie by hiding herself away and Colman by exploring his father's past with a journalist. Here the backstory doesn't truly explain Joss' choices but lays a foundation for the person he becomes. The writing is beautiful and quite raw with emotion, beautifully done.

And beautiful isn't quite the right adjective for George Mackay Brown's seminal novel Greenvoe. Wrapped in myth, landscape, history and humour, Greenvoe is a village full of character and characters set on an imaginary Orcadian island. Their secrets are all laid bare and knit into the village's spirit, Alice has seven children all named after the men she had affairs with, guileless Timmy buys his meths for his Tilley lamp, but everyone knows he drinks it himself and the school teacher impotently lusts after the ferryman who has his eye set on a bigger prize. Mackay Brown builds up a close-knit community that doesn't always have each others' best interests at heart. When modern incursions of an secret industry called Dark Star threaten the island, the villagers have little choice, but to accept their own natures. The writing is poetic, woven with sea and island culture. This is no surprise as Mackay Brown is also a brilliant poet. An absolute gem and I'm looking forward to my next book by Mackay Brown. 

It's been over ten years since I left Scotland and almost twenty since I completed my Masters in Scottish Literature and there's still so much to explore in its literature. 

No real news in my own writing. Moving forward slowly. 

If anyone is interested in Scots language, the Dictionary of the Scots Language has their own version of Wordle - https://www.macwordle.co.uk/ which is quite fun. 

Moving into Autumn, Moving On

Finally autumn is here. I'm not complaining about the long summer, but it's been slightly surreal, the heat and the bright sun. But last week had a hint of 'mists and mellow fruitfulness', one of my favourite descriptions of autumn, especially when I go out to my damp apple trees, but also a humid heat. This week things are definitely starting to move more towards autumn. Lots of rain yesterday, gold birch leaves scattered on my lawns sweaters needed in the morning.

I've been making applesauce, apple cakes, courgette/ zucchini cake, stews and fruit compotes. Autumn to me is a lot about food, obviously. But I'm also doing a tidy of the garden and my allotment, curling up in the mornings to write to the rain. My favourite season, except for the awareness of winter stomping in at the end. I just want to focus on the hazy, cool and damp moments in front of me.

I'm booking another trip to Scotland for October which I'm getting excited about. This one is just me for five days. I'm heading to Fife where I haven't spent much time. Hoping to do a lot of writing and wandering around little towns, visiting cafes and bookshops. Big plans, lol. 

I have no news on publications, magazines or otherwise. I'm still submitting my Finnish collection here and there, but my Scottish collection has been delayed again. Surprise, surprise.

Even though my book publication is probably still a ways off, I'm trying to psych myself up by figuring out how to promote myself on social media. I've joined various platforms and occasionally spend some time reading, but I'm not very good at posting on them. I wonder if poets really get many sales from social media. I think online sales will have to play a big part for me as I won't be able to do the book tour thing as I did with my last book almost 20 years ago. 

I was lucky that another poet who was being published by my press was a Writer-in-Residence and had the contacts to set up a poetry reading series around southern Scotland and I set up a few of my own with groups and places I knew. I'll do a reading or two here in Helsinki, but otherwise as far as I know there isn't much of an English poetry network here. If anyone knows differently, please contact me. 

So I've joined Substack recently, but haven't really posted and I'm still finding people to follow. I'd like to get off Twitter, but I don't want to lose that sense of network, even if I'm a quiet member. I'm not sure where to start with being a more active poster. 

I'll post this on Substack and Twitter and Bluesky, but otherwise I rarely post on social media. So many platforms that I lurk on. I don't like that they are such time-suckers, but it is what poets, artists in generally probably, need to do if they want to have a presence. It feels like you need that presence to be accepted for publication, especially when I cannot have a physical presence in the UK where I am mostly published. So I'm trying again with this . . .

My long weekend is drawing to a close. It's wet and moody out, bringing dusk earlier and earlier. The days are slowing down and I'm giving in to them. There's never enough time, there's still a sense of urgency different from what I get in the summer. To nest, to harvest, to prepare for what's coming. 

I've made banana bread, apple cake and applesauce cake for home and school, two types of chicken with apples and applesauce. All trying to use up my apples from my cinnamon apple tree. I've wrangled my reluctant daughter into dinner, homework and taking out the rubbish, but not a shower. Compromise. 

And writing, I've managed a little. Sent out some submissions, one already declined. I've fought with a poem that I can see but can't express. It's coming, gradually. 

We'll see how it goes.