Cricklewood September 2013: A New Poem

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By Orna Ross

Nail me up, here, at dusk. Roman road crossed
with the world. Tar over mud, strata of

strangers. Horses once had to be galloped
to top this incline: Shoot Up Hill. Whips

cracked. Carriages swerved. Now, needles prick
the crook of a groin, going down.

Raise me up with all the bone-tired, the shapes
who fail to become, the unspeakable tongues,

other-coloured. Here, litter lasts, spit pools,
police can never be found when you need

them, won’t leave you alone if you don’t. Yet
song knows how to be sung. Don’t ask me how

roads cross and uncross. Centuries turn.
A dog cocks his leg. A cafe forgets

the names of the eaten, a phone-box girl
is waiting, blank as an egg. Leave me here,

away, for a while, from the bay of the faux,
the cool crystal cravers; here, with mummified

women steering children to school, with men
who stand for a day’s work. Forced from sleep,

someday they might bite the hands of those
who don’t dream. See. Compose our eyes.

Shine your moon on all glinting splinters.
Wipe the dust from the church, the tour bus,
this cup. Kiss through my mouth. Let us taste.

*

 

Ten More Poems

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I’m working hard on finishing the Go Creative! books and on target to launch in September but poems are no … Read more

WB Yeats And His Family Have Lunch

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WB Yeats
WB Yeats
Maud Gonne
Maud Gonne

Here's a sneak peek at the novel I'm working on now, The Pilgrim Soul. It's the first in a trilogy about love and  loss, based around the lives of the poet, WB Yeats, and the mother and daughter he loved, Maud and Iseult Gonne.

The time is Christmas Day, 1893 and WB, or Willie as his family like to call him, is at Christmas lunch with them. In his late twenties, he is still living at home but beginning to make a name for himself as a poet of Ireland, a mystic whose childhood days in his mother's home county of Sligo inspire lyrical celebrations of  mountain and cloud, lake and moon, wind and stars.

Below the extract is one of my favourites of his poems from those early years, for its dreamy imagery and what it tells us about his attachment to sorrow. Were alienation and separation ever more lyrically expressed?

It began harmless enough, with Papa starting a Christmas speech on the state of the family, of how Jack was soon to marry and become a substantial man, with a cheerful kind-hearted wife and an open-handed welcome for his friends. This was a less-than-subtle hint towards what they all know, that Jack’s fiancée is tying up her money so Papa won’t be able to get his hands on any of it.

Papa's self-serving cheerfulness was already wilting Willie’s spirits, even before he turned his glass on him.  “And Willie will be famous and shed a bright light on us all, with sometimes a little money and sometimes not.” Papa drank, deeply and with significance, then sat, signifying the end of the toast. Lolly’s face reddened and his other sister, Lily, reached over to pat her hand, a gesture that only doubled Lolly’s fury. Papa noticed then and hastily stood back up.  “And Lolly will have a prosperous school and give away as prizes her eminent brother’s volumes of poetry.” This, naturally, only enraged her the more.  At that moment, Maria arrived in and plunked the plate of potatoes on the table.When he reached for one with his fork, his belligerent sister turned her wrath upon him: “You might wait for grace, Willie.  You might

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Mother's Day or Mothering Day?

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Mothering SundayIt's Mothering Sunday in the UK, the fourth Sunday in Lent. On this side of the Atlantic, the celebration arises out of a Christian tradition. This is the day each year, Laetare Sunday, when people used to  return to their “mother church”, the main church or cathedral in their area, for a special service.

To do this was to go “a-mothering” and in those days, servants would be given a day off for the occasion.

Mother's Day, the celebration honoring

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Hilary Mantel & Kate Middleton

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Hilary Mantel Attack kate Middleton?
HIlary Mantel: “We don’t cut off the heads of royal ladies these days, but we do sacrifice them.”

I broke my arm on holiday — and lots of other personals have taken over time during the past weeks — including a burglar who made off with my computer and work I hadn't backed up.

So I'm just tuning in today to explain that I'm on an enforced go slow, which is why you haven't received an update in a while.

I can type only with one hand which, after a short time, creates pain in the broken arm. As recovery is likely to take a while – the break is in an awkward place and can't be plaster-cast – this piece is being written with voice recognition software.

And I'm looking into making more podcasts for the blog, something I've intended to do for ages anyway.

Such transformed work practices, I'm hoping, might be the silver lining of the pain and inconvenience.

In the meantime, I thought I'd share with you Hilary Mantel's controversial article in the

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Goodbye to Blue Mercy

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St Kevin and The Blackbird at Laragh Hermitage, an inspiration for BLUE MERCY
Sculpture of the hand of Kevin and The Blackbird, an inspiration for BLUE MERCY: Meditation room, Laragh Hermitage

I've been doing my last ever read through of  BLUE MERCY as I finalise it for the print-on-demand (POD) edition of the book.

While doing so, I've been enjoying the reconnection with two of its major inspirations. One was a place —  Laragh in County Wicklow, Ireland — and the other a poem: “St Kevin and The Blackbird” by Seamus Heaney.

Whenever I write a novel, I take a writing retreat or two, preferably in one of the book's settings. While working on BLUE MERCY, I stayed a number of times in

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Happy Holidays!

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I hope you’re enjoying a special and happy time over these days.

Here is a seasonal poem for you, based on an old Irish mid-winter blessing, that sends you all good wishes.

Thank you, as always, for reading — and wishing you and yours the very best for 2013.

Read A Poem A Day

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Christmas Poetry
Available now on Amazon.com

A poem a day is my prescription for a good life.  Everyday language is, as Flaubert once said, “a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to — while we long to make music that will melt the stars”.  Poetry makes of language that melting kind of music.

This is why reading a poem a day has a transforming effect on our lives.  It’s not just that artfully arranged words elevate our existence, fulfilling our neglected need for depth and beauty and grace and meaning. Just as more important is the act of making poetry a priority.

Taking the time to open the head, and heart, and soul space that needs to open if this serious pleasure is to be indulged, giving ourselves that gift.

This act, as much as the words ingested, is vital to how poetry melts, melds and moulds us.

The Christmas season provides the

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A Week In Words: "Are You?" A New Poem.

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poetry mother and child

 

 

again. Are you not mother? That

is the question that must be posed

and not just to those who

work the world with their pants

less stuffed, with their arms

held aloft when not wrapped

round the chores and the children

and, yes, round the big boys too, who sooner

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Finally Succumbed to NaNoWriMo

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50,000 words or more in a month. That's the challenge set by National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Leave the editing to December, they say. For November, just concentrate on getting out the words. So many per day. Every day.

Sound advice. The sort of advice I give people myself.

Why would a writer bother with this initiative if they've already managed to complete many a book without it? If I fail to get a – te dah! – NaNoWriMo Winner!'s badge at by the end of the month by not meeting my target, nobody is going to

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