Writing A Life

After a week of heat, autumn rain has hit my little corner of Finland this morning, so I'm soaking up tea and writing since I couldn't manage to sleep in. Back to school blues. I'm happy to be back to work, love meeting the kids again, but miss the slow starts to the day and the empty calendar. 

This last weekend I downloaded all my posts on this blog to a Word file. Yes, I was procrastinating writing poetry, we won't go into that. 

It got me thinking about how much I write about my life and my swirling thoughts. I keep a journal, not every day, but regularly. I write in this blog, I've kept various blogs over the years. I've been in online forums where I've posted regularly in a daily update thread. I've even come across a gardening journal I kept for a few years of what I planted, what the weather was like. I obviously have an obsession to chronicle my life. 

Over the years I have downloaded all this online journalling and have so many files. I could stitch them together to get an interesting view of the past twenty years of my life, from a writing point of view, as a mother (from parenting boards) and just about life in general. It would be reams and reams of words though, this blog alone takes over two hundred A4 pages. 

Twenty years of blogs, 40 years of journals and over 30 years of poems. Which all basically add up to my life story. I can't imagine what I could do with it.

A friend recently wrote a memoir, a non-fiction meditation on her life. I say recently, but she obviously spent years writing it. I'll review it below. I can't imagine writing a memoir. I wouldn't know what angle to take or what theme to spin around. I have done lots of things, lived in some interesting places, lived through 50 years of events, I even taught a writing your life course for a couple of years and I'm no stranger to exposing my life through my poems, but I wouldn't know where to begin. What makes our lives interesting to others? What obsession can we share?

Or have I already begun? I'm tempted to start bringing together the different pieces year by year, to see what I was doing and where I was mentally. It would be a huge job, a distraction. 

In my early journals, I didn't write about what was going on in the world. I was a teenager and was more focussed on what was going on in my own little bubble. I doubt that would have much of a wider appeal. Things get more interesting as I get older and better at writing, go to university, to Scotland, become an adult, enter a relationship and have children. Though I occasionally look over the parapet, I still focus on my own internal world, worries and dramas. And none of it is too dramatic, maybe not enough to write a memoir. 

So I'll probably just keep writing, an archive of my life to leave behind. I'm sure it'll give my kids a laugh. Maybe it'll end up in a museum of Generation X - following my journey from eight tracks to X.com and beyond. 

A quick review of Storm Pegs by Jen Hadfield as I've just finished it. I've mentioned here before that I'm not good with non-fiction. I try to read it but always leave the text unsatisfied. That sense of trying to make meaning of the randomness of our life, to wrap things together, not with a neat bow, but into a useful bundle of sticks often feels forced to me which is probably why I couldn't write one. 

Storm Pegs follows the poet's life in Shetland as she tries to discover 'where am I?' As to be imagined, it's full of poetic wonderings at the Shetland landscape and sea, travels to different corners and islands, learning about the language, the culture and people. It's lush with details and unravellings. 

Jen Hadfield fights against the idea that Shetland is isolated or remote and draws beautiful connections between the community, her neighbours and the creative scene in Shetland. But there is a sense that she's quite comfortable in being hunkered down in her caravan, strapped down against the elements and prefers that edge-of-the-world feeling, that the sparse spaces and distance are something she craves. 

She doesn't try to show us how we should live, where to take your next holiday or how to find the poetic in your daily lives. This is the smallest glimpse of what her Shetland life is, make your own conclusions. 

Jen is an amazing poet, with an eye for the small awkward details of the world, so I knew the writing would be exquisite. From her poetry, I knew she would draw me into the Shetland culture and wade through its language, scooping up glimmering fragments as she does glowing algae. I wasn't disappointed. 

She also gives us a hint of the day-to-day, making a life where she has no history, where she can write her own story as Poet as a neighbour calls her. It's not always simple, of course, but she finds patterns of beauty in even cutting open worms when she needs a non-poetic job to pay the bills. It was lovely to wrap myself in her world for a short time and it left me wanting more. Maybe Jen should start a blog, lol. I wish her the best of luck in the next stage of her adventure. 

Enjoy your weekend. 

A Fallow Summer

My summer break is almost over, I return to work in a few days. I feel like I've barely done any writing which is frustrating when I think how much time I have off from school in the summer. Finland's had an amazing summer this year, really warm and sunny, but I haven't taken advantage of it either. Having a week teaching summer school in the middle of the summer broke the time up weirdly. In the first weeks, I had a rush to do all the appointments I was not able to do while working and then when I was just starting to relax I had to go teach in Scotland for over a week. There was an expected bereavement during that week that also threw things out of whack. We knew it was coming soon, but not just then.

I then brought the kids back to Scotland to visit friends and family and that turned a little difficult, I hover between the words traumatic and miserable, but that seems a bit dramatic. All three who came, went into surly teenager mode, even the pre-teen. They didn't want to do anything, even eat and I felt stressed and put out. It left me wishing I had travelled alone as no one seemed to enjoy it. 

I remember a similar disastrous cross-country trip when I was a teen, my headphones on the entire time, not wanting to do anything but wander about alone, so I shouldn't be surprised, but it did put a damper on the summer. 

So this summer feels incomplete. I don't want to go back to work, though I enjoy my job, and I don't want to push into autumn, but I do want to change the soundtrack for the end of this summer. I've had friends over one evening, and I'm trying to write again in the mornings after wandering out into my garden to water. Maybe combine the two, at least at the weekends.

Today I rode my bike to the library and the plant store and then spent ages trying to sort my cottage garden spot. It's not working well in Finland but I keep trying every summer. I put in new flowers for the heavy winter to kill and dig up plants that haven't made it or just don't suit. The soil is horrible, full of house-building waste and it doesn't get enough rain under the eaves, but this year it was full of tulips in the spring and overrun with irises, so it's not all bad. 

I've written a couple of new poems over the past two days which is more than I've written most of the summer. I'm still in the first flush of love with them, but I will let them mellow and see if I can live with them. I have no focus just now, no collection I'm trying to round off or a new theme stuck in my head. Random words or ideas set me off and I just let my writing flow from there. Hopefully, the fallow writing summer will allow for some more growth later on. 

Poetry publication news: my poem 'In My Last Phone Call' was published by Ink, Sweat and Tears. It's my second poem to appear on the website.

Not much else to say, I guess slow movement is movement. 

Subversive Translations - More than Just the Gist

It's the longest day tomorrow. Juhannus in Finland, when the Finns douse themselves in summer; light bonfires, go to sauna, jump in lakes and leave the city. It'll be a quiet day for us. Everything's closed, we don't have a summer cottage to retreat to. It's one of those weird holidays where if you didn't grow up with it and have the associated traditions connected, you wander around feeling out of sorts. It's important, but you can't place why. It always leaves me feeling a little out of sync. 

A new poetry delivery this week, Dastram/ Delirium by Taylor Strickland. Published by Broken Sleep Books, I chose this collection because it is 'versions' of translations of Scottish Gaelic poetry. I've half-heartedly studied Gaelic since I first lived in Scotland in 1991 and have an interest in its poetry, but not the skill to read it. I'd heard of the poet the collection is based on, Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair, but had never read his work. The first person to publish a Scottish Gaelic book, the first Gaelic-English dictionary, he is also considered one of the foremost Gaelic poets and his life was connected to many of the most important Scottish events during his lifetime. 

But beyond the historical interest, I was intrigued by Strickland's translations because this collection won a Poetry Society Translation Choice Award while he says he doesn't speak much Gaelic. The answer to the questions raised by that last sentence is Subversive Translation. According to Strickland via the poet/translator Rody Gorman, subversive translation is 'less a technical methodology and more an accountability act that represents the text through translations, but which accepts the failure in worthwhile translation as sufficient in its own right'. 

I don't claim to totally understand the concept, but my gut is saying these translations owe more to the author's interpretation of the text rather than the exact translation of the words. This appeals to me as this is how I exist in Finnish at the moment. I have enough of the language to understand the gist, mood or theme of a text or a conversation, but I cannot directly translate or understand the nuance and details. If I read a poem in Finnish I can get something, but it's heavily weighted towards my surface understanding of the words rather than a deep dive into the language, the place and the time it's coming from. I also hang my own sense of self, place and time over the poem. 

And this I feel is what Strickland is doing. The first section of poems, praise poems to a lover Morag, are already erotic in the original Gaelic, especially considering they were written by a minister's son (the translation of his name) in the 1700s. The subverted translations in this collection bring a modern sense to the poems, stylistically and thematically. They are loose, savouring the modern freedom of playing with the language in English and with social mores. There's no pulling punches here, but there is a beautiful sense of forbidden and furtive love throughout this selection,

I left you and you left
a burr of whispers in my head, 
a beehive of sex and nectar,

blocked up my nose
as I inhale lenten rose,

                    ('Crùnluath') 

As I can't read the Gaelic well enough to know what's been changed, how the music is different from the rhythms of the original Gaelic, how the poet has adapted them to English, I can only get caught up in his versions. They are like hearing one side of the conversation with the original poems. A chance to embrace being out of sync. They acknowledge their traditional roots, but subverting 'worthwhile' translations opens them up to new generations of poetry readers, those who speak Gaelic and those who don't. They made me want to explore more about the original poet and his poems which is always a sign of a good book for me.

Happy midsummer to you. 

Translating the Cooler Winds of Summer

School's out for the summer and it's such a relief. I've left June free of trips, so the kids can relax, I can catch up on appointments, studying and house stuff and we can enjoy sleeping in. Though a week in and our schedules are already turned upside down. 

We've had weeks of amazingly warm weather, unusual for Finland. But it's gotten a bit chillier, around 15C which doesn't bother me as I'm not big on extreme heat. Anything over 21C is too hot for me. The birch pollen has eased up, so I can go out and work in the garden and allotment. I've been building veg boxes, but a month without rain means the soil is rock-hard and I can't dig to clear a space for the last one. A bit of rain is always welcomed. 

The writing course I was doing in April for the GloPoWriMo is done, so I'm in the process of seeing what I can salvage and develop through editing. But I miss the excitement of prompts and trying to find a way into them every day. I've been wandering through various poets' and writers' accounts looking for something to inspire me. Even with all my free time, I'm not writing every day, but I still manage to scribble something regularly.  

Every summer I buy a pile of books when I'm travelling. I try to get through them during the rest of the year, but there are always a few that get set aside. I've seen a quote from Umberto Eco recently about not worrying about having unread books which appeals. I think it's kind of like knitters saying they can never finish all their projects or use their entire stash of yarn, it's comforting knowing there's always something I haven't read yet on my shelves. A little adventure waiting. I try to review some of the ones that really grab me. 

I recently picked up one of the books I bought last year and haven't found time to read yet. I originally heard the poet and translator Brian Holton on the Lantern Scottish Poetry podcast last summer and fell in love with his Scots translation of Chinese poets. The way he explained his decisions as a translator and poet just captivated me and the Scots versions brought the two cultures together in such an unexpected way. He drew me into his process which intrigues me with poets and I often wonder how translators work on poetry. 

So I had to buy a copy of his work, choosing Hard Roads and Cauld Hairst Winds from Taproot Press. The collection is translations of the Chinese poets Li Bai and Du Fu who I previously knew nothing about. I've only dipped in a few times, but every poem is so fun and evocative. 'Bouzin Ma Lane Ablow the Moon' is a series of four poems where the poet is drunk and considering the moon, the world around him and being alone. The Scots translation and the theme are reminiscent of Hugh MacDiarmid's poem 'Drunk Man Looks at a Thistle' or Robert Burns. With the translation of place names to Scots it's easy to forget this is a 7th-century Chinese poet who is speaking, the situation and emotion are so recognisably modern. I really loved the melding of worlds in these poems.

Publication news: I was recently published in thi wurd's anthology, Earthly Rewards, a mix of poetry, fiction and experimental writing. It's an honour to be included in such a brilliant collection of writers in such a beautiful, substantial publication.

I'm having a lovely, quiet weekend of writing and a slow working through of small jobs. I wish you some time to yourself as well. Relish it.  

Sharing a Personal Mythology

I'd like to say spring is properly here in Finland, but experience has taught me that it may still be premature. We had 20cm of snow on Tuesday, though it took only two days to melt. The roads were a disaster because I and too many others had already changed to our summer tyres. I was luckily on a school strike, so stayed home. Today it's up to 11C and we've had sun all weekend, so hopefully we're moving in the right direction. 

I've been able to work in the garden and allotment this weekend, so I have those dusty, scratchy hands gardeners get which is a good and bad feeling. I love getting back to work and planning for the new season, but I hate the dry cracked skin. And the sore back. I've been building raised beds over the last few years to avoid lots of digging, but even just bending over to weed hurts now. It's no fun getting old. 

GloPoWriMo is almost over and I've managed to write a draft of something every day of April. A lot of it is dross, but I spent 20 minutes or so every day writing, so that's worth celebrating. I no longer struggle to write something, it's just trying to find a way into the theme or to write something I like that is the difficult thing now. I have a pile of interesting drafts and bits of poems to play with once this month is over. 

In some ways, I like that part best, to try and push my original idea into something that stands on its own. I often know what I'm saying, but sometimes it becomes wrapped in symbolism and images that others don't understand. I have my own personal mythology and vocabulary, certain words and images mean specific things to me. Some of the images make sense or are easy to figure out, but often readers won't get what I'm doing, so I need to broaden my ideas and make things work without me explaining them. 

Part of the process is adding and chipping away at my poems, playing with form and theme, another part is sharing with my writing group to see what they get and how close it is to my original idea. Or to see if I'm happy with their alternative readings. Often I am. 

I think the personal language is for myself. I feel my poems are an internal conversation that I sometimes want to share. I could be working out a dilemma or having a moan or rant or just playing with memories or wishes. If I decide to share the poems, I want them to work without me, but I don't mind if my some of my personal references are missed if the general idea of the poem still works. 

I hope the sun is shining for you. Enjoy.

More GloPoWriMo and Writing Off Topic

The snow is for the most part gone. The piles where they dump what they clear off the streets will be around for months, but out and about there are only a few miserable, grit-covered piles on the side of the road. My croci are making an attempt at popping up. The long days mean that my tulips and alliums are growing a hand's breadth a day. It won't be long before the grass greens and the flowers are blooming. Once Finland decides on a season, she's serious about it.

I've had my job confirmed for next year so I won't have to worry about that over the next month and a half. Usually, they wait until the last week, so big relief. And I've signed the contract for my summer job, so I might be able to afford to take the kids on a break in the summer. I'd like to go to Ireland, but the loudest voice is shouting for Scotland. I'm also cool with that. It's nice to start thinking ahead a bit, instead of worrying. 

I'm still ploughing ahead with Angela Carr's Songs of a Pagan Place course. I've managed something for every day this month of GloPoWriMo. Some have been crap, some have really surprised me and some have potential. It's satisfying to press send on whatever rough draft I've managed. 

Though the course is about Irish mythology, I love how my mind takes weird leaps. For the Wooing of Etain, I wrote about James and Nora Joyce, for the Battle of Moytura I wrote about a nightclub. I just read all the texts, the poems, listen to the music and then just roll everything around my head and let the first words that pop up take the lead in my notebook, even if it makes no sense. I scribble there until I see something forming and once it feels like I have a direction, I start writing on the computer as it's easier to move things about.

For the Hound of Culann theme:

a dog to fill in the blanks

a reason to come home after work
a reason to walk out 
when it all becomes too much

I'm never bothered if I go off-topic, I enjoy how the mind finds a way of saying what it wants when you give it free rein. It's often how I find out what I want to write about, what topics are niggling at me. Sometimes I get stuck on writing the same thing over and over, but it never lasts. I find focusing my writing on a subject I feel I need to approach often restricts me, the writing seems forced. Allowing ideas to flow freely brings the most interesting results. 

I've been pleasantly surprised this month by the topics I've stumbled on, but also the emotion of my writing: unexpected anger, bitterness and grief. Not always places I want to go, but it's good to give them a bit of space to see what develops. Sometimes it's touching a wound I thought healed, but maybe I need to face it one more time before stepping away. Writing helps me do that. 

Today's poem from the course that I really enjoyed is Robert Duncan's Childhood's Retreat. It seems fitting for the beginning of spring. Enjoy.

Brightening into April - GloPoWriMo

Spring in Finland. There's a sense of the mood lightening, but we've just been hit with 20cm of snow. It's supposed to warm up next week, but I'm not holding my breath. I am changing my winter tyres on Monday, so I am whispering a few words to the weather spirits to stop with the snow.

I'd forgotten it's GloPoWriMo, Global Poetry Writing Month, or NaPoWriMo, even though I've started Angela Carr's writing prompts course, A Pagan Place. I've managed to write something every day, even though I'm back to work. The course is brilliant, based around Irish mythology, but the prompts include music, other poems and stories often inspire something totally unconnected. I don't expect to continue to write every day, but I like having the prompts for the days when I do get a chance. 

In today's prompt, I especially liked this poem by Mahmoud Darwish though my writing was inspired by the Big Country song In a Big Country.  I don't usually listen to music when I write, but have been stuck on a Big Country loop today. 

My writing group Helsinki Writers has produced its first anthology of members' poetry and short fiction. We're still figuring out the technology and formats, but we're very proud of the writing. We've done other smaller activities such as writing poems for events and recording our work for and with other organisations, but this was completely our own project and, to be honest, it was difficult to organise and produce. Those who did the work were unpaid and put in a lot of hours, but we're happy with our first attempt. Please check it out. 

Another bit of writing news, my Finland-inspired poetry collection Invocation Against Winter was short-listed for the Cinnamon Press' 2025 New Voices Award. Congratulations to all the finalists and winners. I don't usually try competitions, so it was nice to be recognised. It's also encouraging since I'm still sending out my collections to poetry publishers. 

I need to go shovel my drive and soak up the bit of sun we have today. Enjoy.