Morning folks
I’ve been down a bit of an Ada Limón wormhole this week. Despite her being the current Poet Laureate in the US, I’ve not read much of her work before.
I listened to this:
which is one of my favourite conversations I have earwigged on in a long time. They talk about all sorts of life-affirming things, but one bit that stuck out in particular was where Limón talked about as a poet, she was forever describing the way things are to people, but one day having the realisation (mid-lockdown) that;
“it’s not about just looking at the trees. It’s also the birds and the mosses and the trees looking back.”
I love this idea. I think I felt the same in my own version of lockdown, confined with Covid mainly to a bedroom and deck chair in the back yard, with a brain that made everything fuzzy. Where everything slowed to barely-moving speed for months on end, and like many people all at once, I became just that bit more aware that “every natural being is making communication” (Kae Tempest- ‘Tunnel Vision’).
Perhaps that sounds insane? Or perhaps you know exactly what I mean.
Regardless, here’s a poem I wrote at the time, when I became super familiar with the tree just outside my back gate. Or ‘Branchy’, as my 10 year old calls it.
Of course, this is not really a dialogue, more just me imposing my own thoughts onto another living thing. Poor Branchy.
We are a house of Covid once more (though I’m currently fine), and it all feels a bit Déja-Vu like, especially when reading this poem again. Another round of waiting to see if it will take 18 months or 10 days or 2 months or 6 weeks or 14 days or 5 days or no time at all to get over- all of which are true for me, my husband and the kids at some point over the last 3 years.
I was happy to stumble on “Instructions on Not Giving Up” by Ada Limón after listening to the podcast.
I love her description of the leaves returning as “patient, plodding”, rather than something more grandiose, like re-birth, or new life as is often found in Spring poems. Things carry on, fall apart, come back together, re-green, same as always. “Fine then, I’ll take it.”
Invitation to write/play…
Could you write about Spring, but from the point of view of something else? What might the slugs/your hastily chopped fuschia bush/the frogs have to say about it?
Or simply take the title “Instructions on Not Giving Up” and write your own set of instructions. Print them off. Laminate them. Pass them around.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for the things you send my way to read.
Please do feel free to forward these newsletters to anyone you think would enjoy them.
Much love
Em x
Things things things, to read, see and hear…
Watched this NPR concert with David Byrne and St Vincent (the horns!!!!)
Also watched Hello Tomorrow on Apple TV. Despite the Guardian reviews, I found this quite watchable. Odd pacing, but the aesthetic is quite something.
Listened to Simon Armitage’s Plum Tree Amongst the Skyscrapers. Biased as someone who works for the National Trust (by whom it was commissioned) and specifically with urban trees, but I really like this.
I read your blog that Sunday morning, hung over and resentful about the calls of duty to my family. Naturally, I misread your writing prompt, and produced this:
On being asked to write about Spring
I was asked to write about Spring
While the leaden sky tenses to rain
And the breakfast needs washing up
I want to refuse
To object
To complain about the government
And go back to bed
Before confronting the stale wine of last night
Again
But sneaking a look at the garden
Where
The little birds fight over the fat balls
Weeds resume their flowerbed squat
A stray daffodil stands absurdly happy
The mint shrugs off last year’s attempt to constrain it
And the hard clipped roses start to sneak their hopeful buds out
I relent
Though the washing up still needs doing
I saw the subject and thought you must be in my brains. Thanks for sharing xx