Stonehaven may well be my new favourite Scottish town. In spite of the nightmare of cancelled trains, the journey turned out to be lovely – I must admit, Scotrail staff are enormously kind and helpful if you get caught up in this kind of thing. I was only just thinking how much I missed the open fields at harvest time, but going up through the East coast big sky country, there were fields of wheat, packed heavy and still in the gentle morning sun – how good the weather was! – hayfields all harvested and open to the sparrows and finches, cows and sheep, white houses knee deep in the hedgerows and little green wooded river valleys.
Stonehaven itself is lovely. I’m not sure what I was expecting – something industrial and abandoned perhaps – but it isn’t like that at all. Its seaside resort days are past their best, but the lovely stone houses are still there and the main street and market square have interesting shops and evidence of a thriving artistic community. And there’s the harbour and the sea, though I didn’t have time to see them.
The Festival is brilliant. It is very well-organised – communications from the organisers have been uniformly timely and helpful, and the venue Number 44 Hotel was very generous and hospitable. I hope they made a packet from all the poets and friends who came, because they deserved it. The contributors are a rewardingly diverse bunch – different levels of experience, different genres, different backgrounds – and the audience was the warmest and most receptive I’ve seen in a long time. I sold a book, and bought three – that’s how these things go – and we swapped books and news and met and made friends as happens at all the best festivals. And heard some great poetry.
The squirrels: From left to right – Carolyn Richardson, Edwin Stockdale, Judith Taylor Helen Boden (behind), Elizabeth rimmer, Tim Turnbull, Hazel Cameron.
Thank you to everyone who organised, participated, attended or otherwise enabled such a lovely day. Especial thanks to Judith Taylor who organised the showcase in the absence of publisher Sheila Wakefield who is still battling long-term illness, and to Edwin Stockdale who – with Judith – manned the stall. I’m really looking forward to furthering my acquaintance with both the Wee Gaitherin and the lovely town of Stonehaven next year.
In the unusual circumstances posed by the corona virus, formal launches of Poetry have been cancelled – at least for now. So I would like to welcome you to the virtual launch of publications by Red Squirrel Press.
Electric Minstrel
Plugged-in and tunes selected,
the electric minstrel fills the air
with a beat they will know
and a voice that must coax.
Some may glance her way
in the lull of conversations,
but she is the salt of the diners;
the liquid of the glass.
Her mother was a jukebox,
her father played the fiddle.
Long ago there was someone
playing a lute while people, as always,
shouted over the racket.
Her job is to entertain,
distract and take away the silence.
She is in every town, every encampment,
wherever people have knotted together.
She drives through the rain, as she always has,
down mud-spattered lanes
with carts or whatever could be carried
on groaning backs. And this road is no place
for the squeamish. Many have fallen; Buddy Holly,
Johnny Kidd, Eddie Cochran are just a few.
Yet she will battle above the rows,
the women who teeter towards a fight
and the drunken laughter. She
will get their attention.
Now someone is singing in the corner,
bodies unwittingly move to the beat.
They have learned to accept her voice
and there will be dancing.
Every Drop
I am the drip that wears the stone,
darkly I fill the upland wastes,
then trickle the hillside where I
crash and fall. I am the roar
at the valley’s heart where I sing
my song as I dash to be free.
I am the green upon the lawn,
the juice that feeds the forest pine,
each little sip the sparrow takes,
each cup of tea, each cask of wine.
Trapped underground, I have distilled
the years where I’ve been the maker
of caverns and spires. Caught out by
the cold at the roof of the world
or at the Earth’s poles where I turn
so solid I can crush the rocks.
Your great ships may cruise me, careless
you’ve abused me as you clutter
the oceans with pain. But I am
the one drop inside your collar
who’ll shudder a chill down your spine.
Tougher than Belfast steel, I am
heavier than the air you breathe;
I am the force that can sweep you
away. I will rise and fill up
these fields, drown your crops and livestock;
this planet has always been mine.
From the stiffness in the plant’s stem,
the liquid in the blood, I float
all the things you do and I am
always
the better part of you.
Offa’s Dyke Path: In Mist
The pace of life slows to a step
along each rugged or muddied
path. We slide in the wetness, feel
the fall of the earth beneath us.
All sense of place is muddled here
in the fog of the hills. Valleys
are lost, even the route ahead
is consumed by the fallen cloud.
Company is sparse. Huddled shapes
mist past: walkers, wild ponies, but
mostly sheep. Few words are spoken,
just the duplicitous skylark
singing us away from her nest.
Through faith we follow the way down,
markers mostly point the right way,
though some need interpretation.
Guidebooks and GPS all help.
We enter each new town the way people have done throughout the years; strange pilgrims in search of shelter.
Kemal Houghton lives on the Wirral. He is Chair of the Chester Poets, a co-presenter
at First Thursday in Heswall and of Poetry Roundup on the internet
station Vintage Radio. He is on the
planning group for the Wirral Poetry Festival and has run numerous workshops
for both the festival and other community groups. He has a diverse body of work which has
appeared in Chester Poets’ Anthologies since 1981, Poetry Scotland, Poetry
Cornwall, The Jabberwocky Green Book, and on-line on Three Drops of the
Cauldron. A retired social worker,
Kemal now chairs the charity and not for profit organisation, Wirral
Independent Living & Learning who provide support to people with learning
disabilities. In his ‘spare time’ he
enjoys hill walking and completed the 189 miles from Chepstow to Prestatyn
along the Offa’s Dyke Path in 2018.
This is Kemal’s first pamphlet on Red Squirrel Press and sets
out with A Sense of Purpose to explore, not just people and places, but
attitudes to and our relationship with the world we live in. Amongst the many ideas collected over the
years, be assured ─
There Will Be Dancing.
“There is a reassuring solidity in these poems, which encompass themes of time passing, evanescence and journeying on foot. Yet conversely there is also a disconcerting sense of the poet observing life from a very distant vantage point. A worthy first collection.”Gill McEvoy
You can buy copies of this book from the Red Squirrel Press website, or signed copies from Kemal’s site when it goes live. And later this year, we hope to have live launches, with the usual wine and (potentially) squirrel cookies!
In the unusual circumstances posed by the corona virus, formal launches of Poetry have been cancelled – at least for now. So I would like to welcome you to the virtual launch of publications by Red Squirrel Press. The first is Heft by David J Costello.
Heft
Altitude affects them.
Fixes contours in their flesh.
They learn the valleys from their mother’s milk,
assimilate the paths’ worn ink, the brutal rock,
the hoarse voice of the heather.
Every lamb is impregnated with its map.
Each day the shepherd and his dogs corral them on the lower slopes but their internal compass tugs them back into their heritage of rock, the heather’s cackle, and the milky-white cartography of snow.
Visiting Time
He found her name
amongst the unused words
his mouth forgot it knew
and like a moth
discovering a flame
he caught the flicker
of her face inside it’s frame
and for the briefest time
became aware
of all the loss and loneliness
that kept him there
until his tears erased her to a blur and cleansed his grief. Her visits seemed so very brief.
Moth
Drawing the curtains dislodged it.
Now it bothers me at night.
The whirr of its wings.
Its little thermals bristling
the stubble on my face.
The way it nuzzles into dreams.
I see it with my eyes closed.
Its floury wings dibble
powdery clouds all over the place
and now it speaks to me as well.
I never catch its question
but I recognise the voice.
Your last words when you fell asleep and I got up and drew the curtains back.
David J. Costello lives in Wallasey, England. He has been widely published and anthologised. David has won prizes in a number of competitions including both the Welsh International Poetry Competition and the Troubadour International Poetry Competition. His latest pamphlet, No Need For Candles, was published by Red Squirrel Press in 2018. David’s first full collection Heft is published by Red Squirrel Press in 2020.
You can buy copies of this book from the Red Squirrel Press website, or signed copies from David’s site at https://www.davidjcostellopoetry.com/ . And later this year, we hope to have live launches, with the usual wine and (potentially) squirrel cookies!
I was at the opening event of Celtic Connections Yesterday, to hear a commissioned piece inspired by the Declaration of Arbroath and played by the Grit Orchestra which seems to include almost every musician in every genre in Scotland. Words by Liz Lochhead were included: ‘A declaration is a clear and open statement about who we are, and what we stand for. And what we do not stand for.’ It was quite a striking statement, but I was more moved by Greg Lawson’s words later: ‘Don’t just tolerate difference and diversity – welcome it, explore it’ and ‘Freedom that comes at the expense of other people’s freedom is not freedom at all. It requires inclusivity, tolerance, kindness, forgiveness, empathy – and then freedom becomes about your identity, and it is global.’
This was about as political as it got, and if it was fair to say that independence supporters were, on average, likely to be more comfortable with it than the embittered unionists who complain so much, it was a useful corrective to the kind of people who want ‘freedom’ to mean ‘I’ll do as I like and you can just take a hike if it doesn’t suit you’. It is also a spin on what I understand as ‘identity’. It isn’t just who you are, or feel yourself to be; it’s who you recognise as being like you, who your peers are, who you feel you have obligations to, or common interests with. It isn’t something monolithic or pure and self-contained, your sense of identity shows and shapes your connections and relationships with the rest of the world. In my case, as regular readers will know, this extends to all the ‘more than human’ beings, down to the wind and rocks and rivers.
I feel that we are increasingly being exhorted to see ourselves as individuals, sold a package of liberties and choices that are supposed to be uniquely our own, exhorted to see our destiny as entirely our own creation, regardless of truth, physical reality or community. And the only outcome of this atomised conjunction of insecure and aspirational individuals, is a social media characterised by anxiety, anger and shame, and a politics of naked greed, narcissism, aggression and fantasy.
Which is where I come to the purpose of this blogpost. In view of the isolationist decision of Britain to leave the EU, and in the light of the Scottish preference for a national identity defined by inclusion, openness and connection with our neighbours, I have decided I don’t want the .uk suffix to my domain name. As of the 31st of January, this website will fly under the .com label. There will be a redirect for a good long while, so that anyone using the old address will still find me, and plenty of warning.
I would also like to give you the first intimation of the publication of the new book. Thanks to the kindness and generosity of Sheila Wakefield (without whose faith in me I can’t imagine having come so far), Burnedthumb is due to be published in February of 2021, by Red Squirrel Press. It is a reflection on the many kinds of knowledge and connection which go to make up our awareness of ourselves as ‘persons’, and the the kinds of conversations we have with external reality that make it possible. And the Burnedthumb poem, which you will probably have seen on the front page of my site, will take its place there. It deals with listening and diversity and patience – and the accidental gift of being able to do it – and it is my personal ‘declaration’.
I keep saying I’ve finished the herb poems, and they still keep coming. In today’s Atrium you will find the one about costmary – the long grey-green leaved one in the centre, just behind the lavender stoechas. This picture might be familiar – it is one of the headers on the site, and the source for the silhouette on my business cards. Atrium is one of the best on-line poetry journals going, and I’m very flattered by being published there. I’m very fond of the poem too – it was longlisted for the Poetry Society competition on its first outing, which was a great honour.
You can find out all about the project on the website, and even see the digital version, but I promise you, you’ll want the actual book. My poem, The Herb for Nightmares, is in it, and I was there to read it, along with Bradley Fairclough, who wrote about a fungus called cramp ball, which could smoulder gently for days, and was used to carry fire on long journeys, and Josh Armstrong, the director of the project. It was a very stylist event, sponsored by Botanist Gin, which formed the basis of some very classy cocktails. I don’t drink, so I had the soft version – a hawthorn blossom soda – it was amazing! I have never really like elder flower cordial, but I can see myself making one with hawthorn blossom next year. There was gorse, nettle and rhubarb too, all concocted by Josh, which I might have to try sometime too.
You can find out all about the project on the website, and even see the digital version, but I promise you, you’ll want the actual book. My poem, The Herb for Nightmares, is in it, and I was there to read it, along with Bradley Fairclough, who wrote about a fungus called cramp ball, which could smoulder gently for days, and was used to carry fire on long journeys, and Josh Armstrong, the director of the project. It was a very stylist event, sponsored by Botanist Gin, which formed the basis of some very classy cocktails. I don’t drink, so I had the soft version – a hawthorn blossom soda – it was amazing! I have never really like elder flower cordial, but I can see myself making one with hawthorn blossom next year. There was gorse, nettle and rhubarb too, all concocted by Josh, which I might have to try sometime too.
It’s been a miserable week for rain – though the garden needs it! But if the sun comes out tomorrow, I’m going to pick thyme for drying, before I go the the Red Squirrel Press launch of Peter Jarvis’ Land the Colour of Heat and Helena Nelson’s Branded in the Scottish Poetry Library, at 3 pm – later than usual, because of another booking. It doesn’t matter how much of this poetry stuff I do, I still seem to be all about the herbs!
This is a ragbag of a post, but if you don’t do Facebook you will have missed some interesting bits of recent news.
Firs ts that the second imprint of Haggards has sold out ( I still have a few though—-). The third imprint has been ordered and will be available from Red Squirrel Press as soon as possible, and I will have more copies to sell in the shop too. Neither Red Squirrel Press nor I charge for postage and packing within the UK (please add £2 if you live abroad). And I will sign any that you order from me.
becoming botanicals
This is a glimpse of the new anthology Becoming Botanicals, in which I have a poem. You can find more information on the post, which also includes a link to the fundraiser, and a glimpse of the perks on offer. The proofs are coming out very shortly, and publication will be in June. But don’t you think it looks lovely?
Then another anthology I was involved in, Umbrellas of Edinburgh, which was edited by Claire Askew and Russell Jones and published by the ill-fated Freight, is now going to be reissued by the imaginative and innovative Stirling Publishing (nothing to do with where I live, the reference is to the Commissioning Editor, Tabatha Stirling). It’s going to have a new cover, illustrated maps, a new foreword and some new poems, and should be out by Christmas. And as part of the project, some of the poets (Harry Giles, me, Gerda Stevenson and Alice Tarbuck) will be filming a reading of their poems in situ. My poem, Grassroots in Edinburgh, is going to be filmed in the Meadows, and it’s all very exciting.
A third anthology I’m involved in, Scotia Extremis, is going to have an Edinburgh launch in Blackwells on South Bridge in Edinburgh, on the 3rd of May at 6.30pm.
Now, switching to my editor hat, three poetry collections I’ve edited are going to have launches in the next week. On Saturday 6th April at 1pm in the Scottish Poetry Library, Red Squirrel Press will be launching books by John Bolland (Fallen Stock) and Mandy Haggith (Why the Sky is Far Away). And on Tuesday 9th April, in the Scottish Writers Centre, Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, John Bolland, Jon Plunkett (whose debut, A Melody of Sorts I edited), Anne Connolly (Once Upon a Quark) and Thomas Stewart (Empire of Dirt), will be reading from their new publications. It has been an enormous pleasure to be involved with these books, and the events should be a delight.
