Cambusnethan Priory

I met my good friend Marie Michlova in Cold Town House and shared our common interest in all things Abbotsford.

Marie whose book Smrt Muz (Death of a muse) Torst 2012 reimagines the home life of Walter Scott and his son-in-law John Gibson Lockhart is now also involved with the friends of ruinous Cambusnethan Priory.

Courtesy Friends of Cambusnethan Priory

Courtesy Friends of Cambusnethan Priory

She has found a family connection with the priory through her academic research on Lockhart and has visited to share her expertise. (And coincidentally this house was also home to family of Scottish astronomer and mathematician Mary Somerville).

Also a chance for nice chat.

If you want to learn more about Cambusnethan or visit it, try https://www.facebook.com/CambusnethanPriory/

Doz

My interest (obsession?) with Dorothy Wordsworth continues.

I cannot work out if I like her or really really hate her at the moment. It used to be very definitely the former so any slip from that position is confusing.

I have sat the book in the bathroom so I can look at it now and then to try and decide how I feel. The passage below is one of many that has made me laugh a lot. I imagine the Scotts fast asleep or otherwise engaged and then lingering in bed for as long as possible; "have they gone yet?" they would have asked each other. Or maybe they had nothing for breakfast - James Hogg famously complained of Scott's poor egg and roll petit dejeuner hospitality and had to reeducate him*. Dorothy's slightly peevish comment "[we] waited some time in a large sitting-room". Perhaps this was why Scott was so helpful later on in their journey. I had forgotten that the Scotts themselves lived close to Roslin at this time before the Abbotsford years (when Scott would copy features of the chapel in his library - he was of course a mason himself). So as usual everything annoying about Dorothy the guest nobody wants to see with her dull brother until you get to the description of the fern in the chapel which takes me even further (than Hogg's breakfast) on an Umberto Eco travel in hyperreality and suddenly I like her again.

Confusing - see for yourself:

Saturday, September 17th.—The morning very fine.  We rose early and walked through the glen of Roslin, past Hawthornden, and considerably further, to the house of Mr. Walter Scott at Lasswade.  Roslin Castle stands upon p. 246a woody bank above a stream, the North Esk, too large, I think, to be called a brook, yet an inconsiderable river.  We looked down upon the ruin from higher ground.  Near it stands the Chapel, a most elegant building, a ruin, though the walls and roof are entire.  I never passed through a more delicious dell than the glen of Roslin, though the water of the stream is dingy and muddy.  The banks are rocky on each side, and hung with pine wood.  About a mile from the Castle, on the contrary side of the water, upon the edge of a very steep bank, stands Hawthornden, the house of Drummond the poet, whither Ben Jonson came on foot from London to visit his friend.  We did hear to whom the house at present belongs, and some other particulars, but I have a very indistinct recollection of what was told us, except that many old trees had been lately cut down.  After Hawthornden the glen widens, ceases to be rocky, and spreads out into a rich vale, scattered over with gentlemen’s seats.
Arrived at Lasswade before Mr. and Mrs. Scott had risen, and waited some time in a large sitting-room.  Breakfasted with them, and stayed till two o’clock, and Mr. Scott accompanied us back almost to Roslin, having given us directions respecting our future journey, and promised to meet us at Melrose two days after.
We ordered dinner on our return to the inn, and went to view the inside of the Chapel of Roslin, which is kept locked up, and so preserved from the injuries it might otherwise receive from idle boys; but as nothing is done p. 247to keep it together, it must in the end fall.  The architecture within is exquisitely beautiful.  The stone both of the roof and walls is sculptured with leaves and flowers, so delicately wrought that I could have admired them for hours, and the whole of their groundwork is stained by time with the softest colours.  Some of those leaves and flowers were tinged perfectly green, and at one part the effect was most exquisite: three or four leaves of a small fern, resembling that which we call adder’s tongue, grew round a cluster of them at the top of a pillar, and the natural product and the artificial were so intermingled that at first it was not easy to distinguish the living plant from the other, they being of an equally determined green, though the fern was of a deeper shade.
We set forward again after dinner.  The afternoon was pleasant.  Travelled through large tracts of ripe corn, interspersed with larger tracts of moorland—the houses at a considerable distance from each other, no longer thatched huts, but farm-houses resembling those of the farming counties in England, having many corn-stacks close to them.  Dark when we reached Peebles; found a comfortable old-fashioned public-house, had a neat parlour, and drank tea.

From Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 and you can read the full text here at Project Gutenberg for nothing.

*Hogg invited Scott to visit for breakfast and when he saw him coming laid out everything in the house for a week and then claimed it was an everyday meal - breakfast was never lacking in Scott's residences for Hogg thereafter even including "reindeer tongue"! this story is found in James Hogg's delightfully frank Anecdotes of Scott.

Scott's Treasures Abbotsford, Scotland Tuesday 18th 2014

Rehearsals have started in earnest for Scott's Treasures at Abbotsford on Tuesday 18th 2014.

And I have to say, though not as as an impartial observer, things are looking pretty good. The interesting things about this project - or rather the staging of it on Tuesday - is the involvement of actors from award-winning Firebrand Theatre Company.

We had a 2 hour run-through which began with techniques for relaxing and breathing followed by a new one to me - talking and listening in different acted situations; we read our poems but as if for example talking to a young child. This proved an excellent way of releasing intonation and meaning. We worked in pairs - I had a dark poem of Dorothy Alexander's to listen to and found my 5 year old self became quite troubled! The end result is a much clearer understanding of the audience as a person you are talking to and communicating with. Something that performing poets (as opposed to actors) may lose sight of.

Finally we got onto the read-through which after the set of exercises seemed a piece of cake - a satisfying workout for the voice and engagement levels.

You can judge the results for yourself on Tuesday. And expect a twist or two!

More and how to book here -http://www.scottsabbotsford.com/event-registration/?ee=44 - and more on Firebrand here http://www.firebrandtheatre.co.uk/

1814 year of Waverley - Walter Scott in context

A very nice book on Scott crossed our path today here at p&g. The kind of book Scott enthusiasts have been waiting for.

 

It is by Christopher Harvie and he describes some talks he is giving below: if you don't know Scots - Chris says he'll be speaking in English too.

 

Tales o' anither Grandfaither, Chris Harvie an his Chapbuiks: he’ll tell ye three tales aboot Sir Walter an oor Borderland, tho he’s a kynd chiel, an they’re no aa in the auld tung! An there’s rhyme an (un)reason forbye. 

• At eleven i the forenoon, young Walter’s borderland, his faimly an freens
•  Twae efter noon, the stations o’ WAVERLEY, when Charlie cam tae Selkirk
•  Thrie, afore tea, hoo Sir Walter took on the warld, no tae speak o Boney!

 

 

You can catch Christopher Harvie's talks at Abbotsford - the home of Walter Scott (i the Gift-hoose …as Harvie puts it)- where he will be signing books on the 17th August 2014. They also have an archery competition. Nice stuff. Scott virtually invented Robin Hood as we know him today.

More on how to get the book here http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/190893123X/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE and the Abbotsford event here http://www.scottsabbotsford.com/events/ or @AbbotsfordScott

 

 

And btw if you haven't found us on Twitter yet - it is @poetandgeek

Scott's Treasures

A wonderful return visit to Abbotsford in the Scottish borders the home and creation of Walter Scott the Scottish poet, novelist, collector and a whole lot more, for this workshop led by poet Dorothy Alexander.

The Scott's Treasures project shares Scott's wonderful collection as a stimulant to creative response. My first participation today and I even got to write a ballad - yes, the ballad form I love - which I may or may not develop; my "object" itself must remain a secret.

More to follow on this as things develop.

In the meantime, this is a picture of Maida, Scott's Scottish deerhound, as sculpted by John Smith - builder and sometimes architect of Abbotsford - who even worked on Christmas Day to complete it. Smith found Maida - who was so used to painters that he used to slope off on their arrival - very wriggly; and had more success with his monumental red sandstone William Wallace further down the Tweed near Dryburgh Abbey where Scott is buried. Maida is buried beneath the statue.

You can find out more about the project here http://cabn.info/events-talks/scotts-treasures-poetry-workshops-at-abbotsford.html.

Scottish Borders Poets' Showcase 26th November 2013

Borders poets read in the magnificent library (and it is) at Walter Scott's Abbotsford for what we hope is the start of a new series of readings in a house built on poetry.

The event starts at 7pm. £7.50 for adults, £5.00 for under 17s.

Five poets read in this first Abbotsford showcase of contemporary Borders writing, organized by CABN in partnership with Abbotsford House and the Scottish Poetry Library. Admission includes a glass of wine and you can buy books too.

The poets invited to take part are: Anita John, Laurna Robertson, Julian Colton, Stuart Delves and p&g's own Bridget Khursheed (reading some Abbotsford poems).

More information available here http://www.cabn.info/events-talks/scottish-borders-poets-showcase.html and here http://www.scottsabbotsford.co.uk/whats-on

Don't forget to look for the hedgehog

Abbotsford reopens

Walter Scott's house due to unlock its doors to the public again on the 4th July 2013.

Everything old will be new.

Find out more here http://www.scottsabbotsford.co.uk/visiting-abbotsford

Ukraine garden

Russian poet and writer Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin (Ива́н Алексе́евич Бу́нин) was inspired by gardens, travel and the Alupka palace (designed for Prince Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov by one of the architect team for Walter Scott's Abbotsford Edward Blore).The first Russian to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, he was born in 1870 and died France in 1953 (having emigrated there shortly after the Revolution).

His visit to Alupka in the Crimea and the Vorontsov Palace in 1900 resulted in the poem Long alley leading down to the shore. This is a poem of sensual intent reminiscent of Tennyson's conflation of gardens, paths and sexual availability. But with a bitter sweet edge and a big sky. Pushkin meets Russian Symbolism.

More information here http://worontsovpalace.com.ua/ and the poem in Russian can be found here http://bunin.niv.ru/bunin/stihi/231.htm.

Hard to find a book of his poetry translated...let us know if you find one...

Little gothic orangery

You will notice a hiatus in entries - the first of its kind in p&g history - I have finished the commission and it was a relief. In fact I feel that I have been relieved of my commission.

Sometimes writing a poem to order can be a pleasure. By coincidence last week,  I met the great [x] grandson of John Smith - a builder who worked for Walter Scott at Abbotsford. He lived in Darnick and was also a sculptor (his most famous work being a giant statue of William Wallace) and like many builders of his generation architect and designer too. I wrote a number of poems about his practice. How strange to find myself discussing them in my own kitchen with his direct descendant.

This is one of those poems which was first published in Gutter in 2010.


The little gothic orangery

Best work I did there
but I had nothing to do with oranges
the glass panes the cutting of them
and their angles
we had worked on stained glass
and its leading but these
the panes their fine-ness
a meadowsweet head
cut down its shapes
in glass and the curve of it
all to hold oranges
I had nothing to do with oranges

And when we placed the glass there
the rain came in from the hills
we saw its curl
in the glass placed on hessian
in trays from the gardener
he had lent us
before the oranges which might fill them
and then each piece
its position as intricate
as a flowerhead as grass seeds
or crops a harvest of glass
cut and winnowed
with lath and putty
into a shape that caught the hills
each piece of them
their incline and steep upwards
slope in the window’s pattern
I could only look out
I had nothing to do with the oranges

© Bridget Khursheed

Like an iPad...

Delighted to find a bit of geek slavering over the latest in mobile technology in the Bronte novels. I have been focussing on Anne Bronte's work - youngest sister of 5 like me, grew up in a clerical household like me and of Irish descent (an Irish father to my Irish mother)...

Anyway to cut to the chase: in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall a book I urge you to read if you have only teen memories of Bronte novel sets as the complete and unabridged version was only released in its entirety in 1992. Yes. 1992. Prior to that the copy in circulation was based on a horribly purged version of one volume published against Charlotte's wishes in 1854...and she didn't like it because of its unsuitable subject matter and wanted it suppressed altogether. Poor Anne. Wildfell was the best-selling of any of the Bronte sisters works and sold out its initial print run. She was left to be remember by the charming but admittedly slight novella Agnes Grey.

Anyway back to the geek stuff and you can skip previous paragraph if that is your whole interest. Gilbert Markham who is fascinated by the said tenant Mrs Graham (who is Not What She Seems) brings her a gift which she insists on paying for until a compromise is reached. It is a copy of Marmion by Walter Scott - a long poem about the original Byronic hero Marmion - why do we call them Byronic btw if Scott invented this type...because Byron had better PR? Marmion is a man who is outwardly charming but is a depraved immoral hedonist so the gift is a wrapped motif for the book's own theme.

The geekiness of it is the way the book is described and bear in mind that books at this time would have arrived from the bookseller unbound to be covered in your own choice of binding...but this "smart little volume [is]..an elegant and portable version of Marmion."

Elegant and portable. Such suggestive adjectives. They could come straight from a modern media advertising campaign. In 1848 when the book was published they suggest freedom, movement, travel, independence and of course, the whole idea of such a book is a little bit sexy which is why Mrs G initially refused it.

Oh Anne Bronte - I wish I had met you - you would have got on so well in 2013.

Bronte sisters

I am preparing a talk for next week on the Bronte sisters and Scott. Charlotte Bronte: "For fiction, read Walter Scott and only him – all novels after his are without value." You can see I am going to enjoy the preparation and my presentation centres on Scott's influence on their work.

Coming to their work afresh...I wander how many of their modern reviewers can claim to have grown up with five sisters in a Vicarage and have Irish descent. As I can. Having five girls in a house together seems to encourage outsiders to think there must be a kind of madness, a destructive creativity, a Wuthering Heights or Virgin Suicides.

But instead what I think of is strong female role models.

The two elder Bronte girls died young but the women in their sister's books do what they must to survive. Northern girls who speak out.

I look forward to a week or so in their company again.

Statue update

Good news is that Walter Scott's memorial statue in George Square Glasgow will stay - by popular demand. It was due to be removed this month in favour of a new look.

Oddly Scott himself was all in favour of statues, interiors, plaques, fireplaces and doors being moved to begin a new life as part of his house and garden at Abbotsford. He even made a runic tomb for his dog. Inspired no doubt by Lord Buchan, one of his own antiquarian heroes, fake monk graffiti at Dryburgh Abbey here in the Borders.

More on the change of heart can be found here http://www.thesouthernreporter.co.uk/lifestyle/life/public-pressure-pays-off-as-glasgow-s-scott-statue-saved-1-2754260.

Poetry statues

I had the great pleasure of meeting an old Finnish man shortly before Burns night (our Scottish celebration of the poet Robert Burns on the 25th January each year) and he told me of his worship of Burns.

"There are many statues of Burns" he explained, "throughout Finland and Russia." It didn't surprise me for who couldn't love Burns' work and his message. But then he added, "And of Walter Scott too."

That stopped me. The man had come to Abbotsford Scott's house having made his pilgrimage to Alloway Burn's birthplace. He spoke English with some difficulty but offered several corrections to the information on the display boards in the house. He knew Scott as if personally.

Why? To Finns and Russians and Czechs and many more Scott was a great nationalist pushing countries to recover and expand their language with its historic words and rediscover their sense of identity.

In Scotland, it is a little different.

Glasgow is dumping Scott's statue unless it fits in with the new design scheme of George Square. The poet who celebrated the city in his book Rob Roy is well, what? I don't know... The old guard don't like Scott and they are the managers now.

Perhaps they should read the poems and the novels before making up their mind to erase what is celebrated and seen so differently in the rest of the world.

You can find out more here http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/opinion/glasgow-says-goodbye-to-sir-walter-scott/8640085.article

Empty room

Attending a book launch before Christmas, I was drawn up the staircase of the old house into empty rooms above. The furniture had been removed after the owner's death and subsequent auction. And the reading we were giving was one of the first money raising activities to save the fabric of the house which has now been left to (and claimed by) the community. The space was full.

There is nothing like peopling a place with your imagination. I think this was one of the great attractions for me in working as a guide at Abbotsford (Walter Scott's house) which at that time had just ended continued occupation by his descendants following the death of his last direct line relative.

It is something startling to wait for a tour party in the quiet of Scott's library and imagine him seeing the same light on the lion at the end of the bannister or letting his dogs out of the window or simply escaping visitors by using the stairs straight up to his dressing room above. Visitors felt the same showing each other secret ways to open cupboards, sharing knowledge or one tucked away Maori object among all the other paraphernalia of Scott the antiquarian.

Daniel Clark's evocative memoir of the Crossley Sanatorium in Cheshire, England is lit with the same revelatory lamp. It shows the ward rooms prior to any renovations in a state of encroaching dissolution. The gallery allows you to walk around the hospital seen through Daniel's eyes; detail, decay and form. Visual poetry.

You can find out more here http://www.daniel-clark.co.uk/crossleysanatorium/ or about the beautiful house and its grounds where I read at http://www.thehaining.co.uk/.

There is sweet music here that softer...

Some poets have made enough from one lyric to buy houses - Tennyson purchased Farringford House on the Isle of Wight on the back of Come into the Garden Maud (and of course Walter Scott purchased Abbotsford after publishing and bestselling the Lady of the Lake.)

A choral version of There is sweet music here another popular lyric of Tennyson's can be found here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpY8YK-WyY8; it is just one version of many. Or make your own...and send it to us.

There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
Or night-dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes;
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.
Here are cool mosses deep,
And thro' the moss the ivies creep,
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.

from the Lotos Eaters Alfred Lord Tennyson


Details of other versions can be found here http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=15694

Bitch reviews

It is so tempting isn't it? Using a review to promote yourself or score a point or worse...

It isn't new either. The bitch review has been in existence as long as writers. Walter Scott had a long-standing hatred of his antagonistic reviewer Francis Jeffrey in the Edinburgh Review. Even going so far as to publish himself anonymously in a different series of novels against his own already anonymous works to escape what he felt was a personal antipathy.

p&g was minded of the bitch review when reading a recent UK Times newspaper poetry critique. It concerned the new title Stag's Leap by Sharon Olds. I suppose the tone is set in the opening line:

"Sharon Olds (b1942) is the leading ­contemporary exponent of the “confessional” mode in American poetry..."

Goodness me! Twenty years ago when I was studying poetry at Ohio State University Sharon Olds was already known as a leading American poet. Period.

The reviewer goes on to pull apart her work in a patronising way that suggests she doesn't know how to string a line together. Odd. Sometime poets work like that in my opinion. Anti-structure. Not a stanza crime just a technique.

Anyway you can see what you make of it here http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/culture/books/fiction/article1174550.ece (afraid you have to log in...)

Book of wonders

Monk Lewis the eighteenth century English gothic novelist also put together this book of fantastical ballads with help from his friends including Walter Scott, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (translated by Scott and Lewis), Robert Southey and yes, John Leyden in 1801.

Leyden's own contribution is The elfin king - an atmospheric more robust predecessor of Keat's La belle dame sans merci (1819).

lines from The elfin king


How swift they flew! no eye could view
Their track on heath or hill;
Yet swift across both moor and moss
St. Clair did follow still.

And soon was seen a circle green,  
Where a shadowy wassel crew
Amid the ring did dance and sing,
In weeds of watchet blue.

And the windlestrae, so limber and gray,
Did shiver beneath the tread  
Of the coursers’ feet, as they rushed to meet
The morrice of the dead.

Come here, come here, with thy green feere,
Before the bread be stale;
To roundel dance with speed advance,  
And taste our wassel ale.


You can find the full text of the poem here http://literaryballadarchive.com/PDF/Leyden_2_Elfin-King_f.pdf

Simon Armitage walking home

New book out today from the big Armitage and it may interest you to know that poetandgeek organised the first gig on the troubadour Pennine walk he describes. It was at Abbotsford, the home of Walter Scott, in the Scottish Borders. He collected money in a sock and then left without signing books. Shame.

We hadn't offered him a lift from Berwick station suggesting he might like to take the bus to get into the spirit of the thing. And things seemed to go downhill from there a little. Oh well. And so another celebrity encounter failed to quite live up to expectations.

He did read Shout which is the one I hoped he would; one of my favourite poems apart from the one about hairspray spores. Probably shouldn't quote anything here because... But they are both in his 1989 Bloodaxe book Zoom. I think.

And in fact you can listen to The Shout here http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=88

Smrt Múz

Marie Michlová's novel ("Death of Muses") about the Scottish poet Walter Scott, his family, J.G. Lockhart, James Hogg, Lord Byron, Benjamin Disraeli etc. was published last week. Read it if you can. There is no English translation on the cards yet so I encourage someone with a good head on their shoulders to get it translated from Czech into as many languages as possible, publish it and make a lot of money. It is a one off. The next Wolf Hall. Don't forget to buy the film rights too...

Michlova herself is a Scott geek - I have learned more from her about his life than anyone else in spite of her youth - and such obsession earns her place here: she says "I had been working on [Smrt Múz] for eight years (since I was 15-years-old) and it was not an easy task at all because I wanted to make all my heroes as real as possible, so for example everything what my heroes say in the novel are their authentic quotes (taken from their letters, journals etc.)." btw it's Lockhart's self-portrait on the cover

You can find more about the novel here:  http://www.torst.cz/czech/detail.php?pk=610

Beautiful books 02

Lady of the lake by Walter Scott (ASLS 2010)