Tree graffiti

Can't stop thinking about how writing distorts as trees grow and pinning poems on trees and other John Clare-ish and Arcadian oaten lyrics....

...into a wonderful thinking period prior to a project proposal.

Back soon.

Talking to birds

Sometimes it is worth stopping. And listening.

Even on a Monday AM.

See what you hear.

The cowboy with his oaten straw,
Although he hardly heard or saw
No more of music than he made,
Twas sweet; and when I pluckt the blade
Of grass upon the woodland hill
To mock the birds with artless skill,
No music in the world beside
Seemed half so sweet, till mine was tried.
So my boy- worship poesy
Made e'en the muses pleased with me,
Until I even danced for joy,
A happy and a lonely boy,
Each object to my ear and eye
Made paradise of poesy.

Extract from The progress of poetry by John Clare

You can read the full poem here http://www.archive.org/stream/poemsbyjohnclare00clariala/poemsbyjohnclare00clariala_djvu.txt.

Standing in the rain

...The busy falling rain increases now
And sopping leaves their dripping moisture pour
And from each loaded bough
Fast falls the double shower

Weed climbing hedges banks and meeds unmown
Where rushy fringed brooklet easy curls
Looks joyous while the rain
Strings their green suit pearls...

John Clare lines from The Summer Shower

Degrees of nature

Another tempting confection of writing and where you are: a Masters degree in Creative Writing: Place, Environment, Writing at Royal Holloway London University.

The spectrum defined from "nature poetry" to psychogeography via daydreaming wandering . A journey that John Clare might have enjoyed from the field path in this case to Bloomsbury.

More details available here http://www.rhul.ac.uk/geography/prospectivestudents/postgraduatetaught/creativewriting/macreativewritingplaceenvironmentwriting.aspx

Nests by the chestnuts

In the recent big wind, I took shelter in one of my favourite hedgerows.

Tempted to crawl right inside like a badger, I got on my hands and knees and started to brush softly at the dying back long grass and briars. Of course, I took a thorn. And my hand bled like black bramble juice.

The drops drew my eye to an interlaced layer of lichen caught up between the beaten grass and fireweed. I drew it out with my good hand. It was a nest. A nest like a whisper. Made of moss with a structure of the lichen that hangs in our trees here.

Once I could see them, the hedgerow berm of grass was studded with these dreams of home. Every two or three metres, another variation. And in some, the feathers from the small bird who had created this haven.

All blown out by the wind like dead leaves.

Green woodpeckers

I have been over in a wood in the west of the Borders. It is private. A private space in an otherwise land of open walking. In Scotland, you have the right of way. Unless specifically told not to. Here you are told not to.

I have been living in the wood for the past few weeks. They know me in the pub even. It has been relatively easy to keep clean and tidy. I have surprised myself.

I have been waiting for green woodpeckers.

They are a large bird. And they live in this wood in numbers. You can hear their cry going from tree to tree. And in quite open places, you think you must see them. But I haven't.

Just the laughing cry that gives their old name of yaffle.

What makes the wood so attractive to them (and me) is the leas within it. Open clearings, mown flat, and surrounded by wild geranium, foxgloves still out in shady places, shot dog's mercury and russian grass and ragwort that has stolen in from the surrounding fields. The deer, whom I encounter often, keep the centre of the clearings green and short like a lawn. It is like a garden.

And I expect the woodpeckers. They like to ground feed I know.

I have met people on the road who have seen them close by. But whatever glade I choose, the ash tree, the newty pond, the balsam. The laughing cry comes from elsewhere.

I have become light and clean waiting for them. I have surprised myself.

John Clare tweet poetry 02

From 1837 until 1841, Clare spent his first years in the Dr Matthew Allen's private asylum High Beech. He didn't stop his creative work. He re-wrote famous poems and sonnets by Lord Byron but skewed. A version of Child Harold became a lament for lost love, and Don Juan, A Poem a rant redolent of an ageing misogynistic dandy. 

"I'm John Clare now," the poet claimed to a newspaper editor, "I was Byron and Shakespeare formerly."

poetandgeek poetandgeek.com 

How sweet thus nestling deep in boughs An ashen stoven pillowing me Faintly are heard the ploughmen But not an eye can find its way to see

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The full poem:

In Hilly-wood

How sweet to be thus nestling deep in boughs,
Upon an ashen stoven pillowing me;
Faintly are heard the ploughmen at their ploughs,
But not an eye can find its way to see.
The sunbeams scarce molest me with a smile,
So thick the leafy armies gather round;
And where they do, the breeze blows cool the while,
Their leafy shadows dancing on the ground.
Full many a flower, too, wishing to be seen,
Perks up its head the hiding grass between.-
In mid-wood silence, thus, how sweet to be;
Where all the noises, that on peace intrude,
Come from the chittering cricket, bird, and bee,
Whose songs have charms to sweeten solitude.

More John Clare tweet poetry: http://poetandgeek.blogspot.com/2011/04/john-clare-tweet-poetry.html

John Clare tweet poetry

poetandgeek poetandgeek.com 

A WEEDLING wild on lonely lea My evening rambles chanc’d to see And much the weedling tempted me To crop its tender flower

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These are the opening lines of a poem from The Village Minstrel John Clare’s second volume. It was published in 1821. Read it to the end.

 Ballad

A WEEDLING wild, on lonely lea,
My evening rambles chanc’d to see;
And much the weedling tempted me
              To crop its tender flower:

Expos’d to wind and heavy rain,
Its head bow’d lowly on the plain;
And silently it seem’d in pain
             Of life’s endanger’d hour.

“And wilt thou bid my bloom decay,
And crop my flower, and me betray?
And cast my injur’d sweets away,”—
             Its silence seemly sigh’d—

“A moment’s idol of thy mind?
And is a stranger so unkind,
To leave a shameful root behind,
             Bereft of all its pride?”

And so it seemly did complain;
And beating fell the heavy rain;
And low it droop’d upon the plain,
             To fate resign’d to fall:

My heart did melt at its decline,
And “Come,” said I, “thou gem divine,
My fate shall stand the storm with thine;”
             So took the root and all.

A link to all of John Clare's poems online at this site http://www.johnclare.info/sanada/. And more information here on John Clare's cottage http://www.clarecottage.org/