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Website of poet Elizabeth Rimmer

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A Few Updates

I have a new computer, which is very lovely in many ways, but I am struggling to find the photos I uploaded yesterday, so until I learn the file management system on this beast, there will have to be old photos. This is one of my library, which was set up last year. Although it has a lot of books in it, it is mostly used for a chill out space for those of us who need a break from the chatter when we’re all together, and for crafting. Sometimes I feel rather uncomfortable about having so much space and access to books, when some people, especially the younger generation, find themselves struggling with access to resources to support their writing, so I’d like to find a way to share this. If you are a writer who needs to borrow or consult books that I have, let me know and we’ll see what can be done.

This is a bit of a distraction from my main intention which was to remind everyone about the poetry event at the Little biggar Festival on 28th October. The Facebook posting reads:

Biggar-based publisher Red Squirrel Press invites you to an afternoon of Red Squirrel Press poets and friends in aid of MacDiarmid’s Brownsbank, held in Biggar & Upper Clyde Museum on 28th October.

Featuring some of the best-known names in poetry, WN (Bill) Herbert, Dundee Makar and Professor of Poetry, Sean O’Brien, multi award- winning poet and Emeritus Professor, Colin Will, writer, musician, former Scottish Poetry Library and StAnza International Poetry Festival Chair, award winning Biggar-based poet Lindsay Macgregor, Andrew Forster, poet and literature development worker and was previously Literature Development Officer for Dumfries and Galloway. Elizabeth Rimmer widely-published poet, reviewer and editor, author of four collections from Red Squirrel Press and editor of the eco-poetry discussion website Ceasing Never.

Tickets available from https://www.biggarlittlefestival.com/literature/red-squirrel

There is another upcoming reading in Stirling on 4th November as part of Paperboats Day for Nature, but I will post more about this later when further details are available.

Also, I am sorry to announce that I am going to stop sending out my newsletter. I used Mailchimp, but as the parent company has announced its intention to scrape content in order to train AI, the potential for copyright infringements eems too high to be worth it. I’m looking for alternative ways of keeping in touch, as there are some subscribers who don’t follow me elsewhere on social media, but in the meantime, I can be found on BlueSky, (mostly poetry) Mastodon (mostly politics and environmental stuff) and Instagram (herbs, cooking and gardening). That’s a lot, and I’ll probably refine it as the platforms develop, but that’s where I am just now.

October 20, 2023
Bringing in the Summer

All the cow parsley

We have had erratic weather, sometimes very warm, sometimes cold and windy, a lot of sunshine, a bit of cloud, but on the whole, not enough rain. The garden is unusually dry, and what is particularly annoying, it has done nothing to discourage those well-known wet-lovers, slugs and horsetails, which are flourishing mightily.

Fortunately, so is almost everything. There is a good set of fruit on the gooseberries and redcurrant, and a massive crop of rhubarb. The tulips are over, except for the fabulous black parrot ones, but the aquilegias and peonies are looking wonderful, and the first rose – a pink zephirine drouhin, is out.

Peony

It has been a wonderful year for bees and butterflies. I have just seen an orange tip male knock a small white – that was about twice its own size – off a rocket flower it fancied. Orange tips seem to have the same feisty reckless spirit as Jack Russell terriers. There were so many bees on the rowan blossom that for two days the whole tree was humming, and they are making the most of the thyme flowers.

The birds are loving the new bird feeder, and several broods have fledged – sparrows (of course – the hedge is a yelling tenement of lust and gossip, and they are on their second brood already), starlings and goldfinches. There are blue tits and great tits too, but they are shyer, and only seen in glimpses among the leaves, and chaffinches and at least one robin nest somewhere, but they are slower off the mark.

Further afield, I’ve seen goldfinches even on the most silent stretch of the road out of the village, and whatever the long-term situation of the planet (it’s not looking good, whichever way you look at it), it does seem that last year’s good summer and the mild winter and sunny spring, have really strengthened the wildlife of this patch.

May 24, 2019
Bluebells at Inchmahome

We always try to go to Inchmahome in spring to see the bluebells. They can be up to three weeks behind us here at a much lower level, so it’s a guess when the best time is, but this year, I think we hit peak bluebell.

They are everywhere under the trees

There has been a flood. The rising blue
fills the hollow space between the trees,
and washes over hillocks with a strange
still completeness, as if the sea had learned
to flow uphill.
(from my poem Inundation, in Wherever We Live Now )

I took the camera and tried a few experiments. It was a beautiful day, and we saw peacock and orange tip butterflies, swans and mallards, a great crested grebe (the first time for here), and best of all, the osprey.

There were wrens, robins and a thrush singing, and we saw the first swallows as we came home. If you were to celebrate Beltane, that would have been the day to do it!

May 1, 2019
Ark

I’m fairly grieved by what I see on social media just now, as many genuinely well-meaning people find their concerns polarised and misused to demonise other people. The story of Noah’s Ark is only one iteration of the myths about a great flood – traces of which can still be found by archaeologists. I’m finding the symbol of the ark leads me in many directions, but this is the one for today.

Ark 2
And how could they believe it, those ancient societies –
a floating box, with all those animals, the food enough
for all of them, and the extended family, and servants,
all squabbling no doubt, and the questions of which
would get to eat which? And how would it float?
Yet every culture had it, the record of a great flood
still seen in the soil, and a story of a box
holding the seeds and survivors, renewing the earth.
Somewhere we believe that when the worst happens
there will be a shelter, a covenant with our God,
a safe haven for all of us, both clean and unclean,
and what we think of as goodness will save us,
send us a rainbow, shelter us all.
This poem first appeared in Penning magazine, produced by Scottish PEN

Not everyone will be celebrating Easter – some faith traditions have their own festivals now, and a lot of people just have a holiday. But I wish you all a very happy weekend.

April 19, 2019

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