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landscript

~ poetry in the land, the land in poetry

landscript

Category Archives: nature writing

Process

04 Tuesday Aug 2015

Posted by somewhere nowhere in cumbria meadows, nature writing

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cumbria meadows, high borrowdale meadow

I’ve said it before – the meadow speaks in light, shadow, movement, sound. In layers. I wanted somehow to bring the meadow into my writing – to let it seep in, as it has seeped in to me.

The summer rain has been relentless. The meadow can be cut any time after July 20th, by which time the flowers have laid their seeds, but there has only been the odd day of sunshine here and there since then. Once it has been cut, I will gather grasses and flowers and I will put these into a mix to make paper. I’ll also throw notes and poems I have hand-written into this mix. I’ll dry and flatten the paper, then cut it into smaller pieces and on each, I’ll write a new flower name and I’ll pin these, in layers, to create a 3D written meadow.

But it’s still raining, and the grasses and flowers are still swaying in the wind. While I’m waiting for the cutting, there is time to process what is in my notebooks.

buttercups shadow on paperI let the meadow make its marks. The wind was gentle enough for me to trace these.

drawing flower shadows

Then colour them in. I have created monochrome photos – without film or darkroom – that will become the backdrop for writing.

meadow shadows

I will overlay this shadow with fine translucent paper, and add my words to the silent memory of moving flowers.

Writing the Meadowsong

01 Monday Jun 2015

Posted by somewhere nowhere in meadows, nature writing, poetry

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poetry of the land, sound maps, writing sound

While I am in the meadow I will be keenly listening to the sounds around me. Creating sound maps and working these into poems will be one of the activities school children will be doing when they come to visit.

There are countless ways to react to sound and it’s a perfect opportunity to make up words. Be truly explorative.

Here’s a poem by Italian writer Radio Sintesi:

A Landscape Heard

The whistle of a blackbird, envious of the crackling of a fire, ends by extinguishing the gossip of water.

10 seconds of lapping.
1 second of crackling.
8 seconds of lapping.
1 second of crackling.
5 seconds of lapping.
1 second of crackling.
19 seconds of lapping.
1 second of crackling.
25 seconds of lapping.
1 second of crackling.
35 seconds of lapping.
6 seconds of the whistle of a blackbird.

 

Translated from the Italian by Victoria Nes Kerby, and published in the anthology The Thunder Mutters, edited by Alice Oswald (Faber & Faber 2005).

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recent posts

  • Meadow : the Book
  • Working offline
  • Let’s not get too romantic
  • After the cut
  • Process
  • A written meadow
  • A new word
  • New Names
  • Open Pages
  • What’s in a name?

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