Millais, Monkey Island, madness & more...

This is the third in our series of 'warm-down' blogs in which contributors to the Walking on Wyre publication select their favourite composition from the project and give you an insight into their chosen piece and what inspired them.

Steve Rowland writes:

This poem has at its centre an allusion to the doomed love of Shakespeare's Hamlet and Ophelia. The original inspiration was a walk along the bank of the Wyre at Garstang in May. We passed by a section of the river near Monkey Island that reminded me vividly of Millais' depiction of drowning Ophelia. He used Hogsmill River in Surrey as his backdrop but the combination of colours, flora, light and the flow of the water in Garstang that beautiful spring morning evoked a mental image of the famous pre-Raphaelite painting. [There was no body floating in the Wyre that day!]

Also participating in the workshop was a very knowledgeable Garstang Walk Leader who explained to us that in the 18th and 19th centuries, when the farming families of the north-west were finding it hard to eke a living from the land, many decided in desperation to sell up and set sail for America in the hope of starting a better life. Their arduous sea voyages commenced from the banks of the Wyre.

With the idea of Ophelia already in mind, I turned the doomed love of Prince Hamlet and his Ophelia into an "everyday story of country-folk", transposed the scene from regal Denmark to rural Lancashire, turned Hamlet's banishment from Elsinore into an emigration across the Atlantic - and this admittedly rather sad story of leaving, longing and loss fell into place.

Garstang’s Ophelia

  

In a twisting of the tumbling Wyre

inspirited by April showers,

between steep banks of cicely

smelling of aniseed and myrrh,

lies swollen Ophelia tangled in willow,

the river her bed, its ripples her pillow.

Romance brought low by poverty,

her melancholy prince, sad suitor,

set sail on Wyre tide, New Worlds to discover.

She wove forget-me-nots into a lover’s favour,

and cried hot tears to see him go,

quick with the child he’d never know.

Swallows skim now across her liquid grave,

wild ramson bows its head above the flow.

Her honeyed tresses look almost alive

in this rolling rinse of rusty peat water,

swirling in eddies - as if she’s trying to break free

to follow her Hamlet down Wyre to the sea.

Steve Rowland

Disorienteering!

We continue our series of 'warm-down' blogs in which contributors to the Walking on Wyre publication select their favourite composition from the project and give you an insight into their chosen piece and what inspired them.

Rachel McGladdery writes:

I suffer from poor prioperception, this means that unless I can see them, I don’t know at any given time where my limbs are in relation to the rest of my body or general space. I bump into things, I fall over, I have to concentrate Very Hard to get my limbs to go where I want them to. I consider myself therefore pretty disorientated a fair bit of the time, if I can’t map my own body parts, what chance have I got of knowing where I am geographically?

I also never enjoyed maps, until very recently. While helping facilitate the first Walking the Wyre workshop in Garstang, most of the group went on a walk, while me and one other attendee stayed in the work room at the Fig Tree Cafe and looked at maps. I didn’t have much choice in the matter, my mobility is very limited so although I didn’t really mind staying back, the prospect of talking about maps wasn’t filling me with enthusiasm.

I was lucky and completely unaware of the epiphany waiting for me. The lady who was left in the room with me, a crisp adventuress, had such enthusiasm for maps and where they took her, that I was soon caught up in it. She described them as being like three different books, at first, they are a rough guide, you can only imagine the landscape unfurled on the floor as you excitedly plot your prospective course, secondly, while walking it becomes magical, flat features rise around you and become three dimensional, the colours, contours, terrain and sights smells become real. Thirdly, it becomes a reminder, once home you can spread the map out on the floor again and remember the physical reality as your finger traces out the path you took.

 This idea enthralled me, I was soon on an imaginary journey, she traced paths over places I’d visited before or had at least heard of, showed me how the straight line routes were indicative of earlier Roman roads, explained that the larger roads had all, at one time, been much smaller paths, probably borrowed by early humans from animal tracks. It inspired this poem, which I was lucky enough to have included in the Walking the Wyre publication.

 

SD563543
Across creased landscapes, wide enough to fill a floor

the lines are drawn, nail-scoured a divot deep

cross Beatrix Fell, past Shooter’s Hut, Camp Bridge

her finger crushing vaccaries beneath

gouged damage

where a dint erodes, makes sinkholes swallow sheep,

sends trees on downward heltering

here, where a rabbit run, a badger path, marked with shaving bristles,

caught on staves of fencing, moles as minims

became a rut, a route, a coffin-path, a road,

once was a unique view, hair first wind parted

here

was once a quivered mesh of grass

seen from five foot high

heart opening to the sea.

 

Rachel McGladdery 

Just When You Thought It Was All Over....

...the Walking on Wyre blog takes on a new lease of life. Over the next few weeks, several of the contributors to the Walking on Wyre publication will be selecting their favourite composition from the project and giving you an insight into their chosen piece and what inspired them.

We thought the honour [or burden] of being first out of the blocks should go to Adele Robinson, whose idea the whole creative writing project was in the first instance.

Before that, however, we're delighted to announce another chance to hear Walking on Wyre:

Readings from the Walking on Wyre publication will feature as part of Blackpool Council's WORDPOOL event to celebrate National Poetry Day on Thursday 2nd October.

Writers who contributed to the Walking on Wyre project will be reading a selection of poetry and prose from the publication at Blackpool Central Library between 1:30pm and 2:30pm.

If you couldn't get to the original launch reading at Garstang Arts Festival, come and listen to the recital in Blackpool on Thursday - upstairs in the Brunswick Room at Central Library. Refreshments will be served and copies of the publication will be on sale. We hope to see you there.




Adele Robinson writes:

Walking on Wyre has been a very interesting and challenging journey for me.  I love to walk, but as an ex-professional ballroom dancer and teacher, diagnosed with a degenerative spinal condition in 1995, I have tended to shy away from joining a walking group.  My pain is affected by wet weather, the cold, draughts, stress and sometimes just by lack of sleep.

Walking on Wyre began as the seed of an idea that poetry is bound up with landscape and community spaces.  On their journeys around Europe, the Romantics would write poetry about the wonderful landscapes they saw.  In a recent TV series an art historian and a chef were travelling in Italy, tasting and cooking local recipes, visiting galleries and museums. In one episode, they sat overlooking the cliffs at Livorno eating local food and reading aloud: a poem by Shelley, written at that exact spot. Suddenly there was the idea for Walking on Wyre: let’s take people from the community on short walks along the Wyre Way, a public footpath that covers the whole of Wyre borough, let’s include some creative writing workshops with local poets to stimulate creative ideas, then see what they produce.  And WOW!!! As you will have read in all the submissions to the blog this summer, they came, they walked, they created.

Arts Council England provided the funding for the project and the fantastic team at LeftCoast gave us the platform and support to manage, from workshop timetabling to final publication and performance.  For me it was a dream realised – a tangible map of my home borough in poetry and prose, written by members of the community. What has been happening since our publication launch at Garstang Arts Festival has exceeded expectations.  Alison Boden and Mike Tattersall who work for Wyre Council and run the Wyre Health Walks asked to buy copies of the publication, not only for sale at Wyre Information Points but so that their team of volunteer Health Walk Leaders d could read the poems to people who join the walks.

So as you see … if you believe in dreams and if you really work hard to make them happen, they can come true.

I attended all six workshops, wrote seven pieces and have thinking material for dozens more. My co-project manager, Steve Rowland, tutored the final workshop in the picture postcard village of Scorton. It poured “sweet Summer rain” most of that June day. We walked along watching the sand martins nipping in and out of burrows along the riverbank while bulls paddled in the water. I was reminded of a Constable painting, especially on the return walk with the church spire, blossoming trees and Bowland Fells  as a dynamic backdrop.  Steve drew my attention to the pock-marked mud, made by hoofs, filled with pink-stained rainwater. Suddenly I was a bird, flying over cattle on a wagon, heading for market and the inevitable slaughterhouse. Other connotations developed from there and the poem that came out of the workshop is deeply reflective. For me it is a warning to live in the moment, to really stop and enjoy the world that you see in front of you. For, like the “beef-boys”, enjoying their carefree days in the lush green pastures, the future is unpredictable.  On the 75^th Anniversary of World War II, I am reminded of the plight of six million Jewish Nazi victims, loaded onto cattle trucks and taken to slaughter.  I hear dark echoes that disturb me now … 

Birdsong

Black Angus heifers paddling in the Wyre,

St Peter’s spire and Nicky Nook

brush stroke a pastoral scene.

A landscape from the past,

lacking only country folk and horse-drawn wain.

Ripples circle outwards from hoofs in the

shallow ford between two luscious,

green- mile fields.

They lap contented at the  tea-stained water

as it slugs along the Martin-pitted slopes.

Nesting  birds dash in and out,

bank left, then right,

fly-catching on the wing,

sky ballerinas in sweet Summer rain.

Today they will not sing their freedom in the sky;

will not mock the beef- boys happy with their lot.

They see the pock-marked soil,

over-flowing with rose-tinted rain

and offer only birdsong in their wake.

Adele V Robinson

Last Post...the final four poems!

 

 

 

We Sheep

 

Gurgling, burpy bleats

Lolling sloppily from the

Green endangered throats.

Heather Taylor

 

 

 

 

 

Kiss  Me  Quick

 

Hey  look  at  me  all  drenched  and  wet

Oh   forgot  you  haven’t  met  me   yet

I   was  left  behind  on  this   wrought  iron  bench

By  that  bleached  blonde  wench

I  was  so  glamorous  when  new

Glittering  pink,  edged  with  cream  feathers

And  a  ribbon  of  blue

She  was  in  awe  of  my  silken  rim

When  she  and  her  pals  were  swilling  the  gin

They  hugged  and  kissed

Cackled  with  laughter  and  danced  the  twist

I  was  placed  aside

But  I  couldn’t  hide

I  craved  the  calmness  of  the  tide

“Here  let  me  try  it  on!”   was  the  cry

I  wanted  to  curl  up  and  die

My  novelty  worn  off

The  night  club  closed

She  wondered  on  the  prom,  concrete, sand  and  sea  tickling  her  toes

In  her  sleepy  state

She  watched  the  fisher  men  dig  for  bait

Enfolded  by  the  damp  sea  mist

She  staggered  away,  shoes  in  hand,  sparkly  bracelets  on  her  wrist

Leaving  me  here  for  the  next  misplaced  tourist.

 

Anne Ward

Birdsong 

Black Angus heifers paddling in the Wyre,

St Peter’s spire and Nicky Nook

brush stroke a pastoral scene.

A landscape from the past,

lacking only country folk and horse-drawn wain.

Ripples circle outwards from hoofs in the

shallow ford between two luscious,

green- mile fields.

They lap contented at the  tea-stained water

as it slugs along the Martin-pitted slopes.

Nesting  birds dash in and out,

bank left, then right,

fly-catching on the wing,

sky ballerinas in sweet Summer rain.

Today they will not sing their freedom in the sky;

will not mock the beef- boys happy with their lot.

They see the pock-marked soil,

over-flowing with rose-tinted rain

and offer only birdsong in their wake.

Adele V Robinson

Stalking Stanah Saltmarsh Blues

Well I woke up this morning

a memory in mind,

you, soft hipped and glorious,

sweet kissing kind -

but my reed bed was empty

so lust ebbed away…

oh mama, I’ve got them old

saltmarsh blues today.

I stalked you to Stanah

by the widening Wyre,

whose muddy shore ciphers

proclaimed you a liar -

all blue-eyed and blowsy

left soft by the fray…

oh mama, these saltmarsh blues

quite blow me away.

We talked of zonation

like estuarine hex lines,

how time changes everything,

mutating love-signs.

It’s tilting at windmills,

keeping sadness  at bay…

oh mama, we’ve all got

our saltmarsh dues to pay.

Steve Rowland

Penultimate pieces from the project:

Walking Upstream

Look to your right as we pass

Notice the tidal wash on the grass -

The dried remains of last week’s high tide

Now exposed to sun and wind.

A twig brought down in a recent gale

From far upstream, beyond the wave’s ride,

Wind-blown blossom lost its vibrant colour,

All now golden brown,

Soon to be absorbed into the ground

Gone until the next high tide.

 

Look to your right as we pass by.

Notice the tree roots high and dry,

Twisted into poetic shapes unsculpted,

Raw, not meant to see the light.

A roosting place for a nesting wren

Taking a chance on the vagaries of the tide.

A climbing frame for an eager toddler

Learning to be brave.

Pity now the tree roots left naked and bare,

Waiting, waiting for the next high tide. 

Kathleen Curtiss

Hunting

A path of moonlight flows to the sea

black like soft pillows bordering

Two dots of light dance

like fireflies in the dark

stopping to focus on sand below

a curse as metal strikes metal

torches dropped in the sand

the treasure is not worms tonight.

 

Lindsay Mulholland

Old Weather Tales

On Wyre river bank,

ancient weinds pave down to water’s edge,

A crooked ash is tipped by breeze,

to trail her pink bud fingers

through mountain gathered flow.

She rises late this spring,

her oak companion, already in full show.

Old weather tales predict Summer

fragrant  as the sweet wild rose

diffused in solar haze.







 

The farmer’s child interprets portents.

“Ash in leaf before the oak predicts an earth bound soak.

Yet oak so green before the ash, will only bring a splash.”

I see the hawthorn,

buxom with a bloom like fallen snow.

Another sooth I know.

Abundant blossom brings a russet

Autumn store

for bird life.

Old weather tales foretell

that childhood seasons find reprise.

Summer dry but Winter freeze. 

Adele V Robinson



 

Silt and Roses

Less than a lifetime ago

where Wyre and Irish Sea commingled,

waves washed right up to the esplanade

splashing those who strode atop

with surprises of spray. 

The brief passage of time

has wrought a subtle coastal change;

and now a strand of silt and shingle

on which wild roses grow

interposes between the promenader

and Fleetwood’s estuarine flow.

Steve Rowland

It's all about the aqueduct!

This week, three poems all inspired by the same location - the aqueduct at Garstang where the Lancaster Canal passes over the River Wyre.  Compare, contrast, but - most importantly - enjoy.

 

Aqueduct

It’s not in watercourses’ nature, crossing one another

so Rennie pulled a rope of water taut, to let the Wyre

glide beneath and wriggle down to greet the sea.

And, if he hadn’t, the canal perhaps would form a dam

backed up with centuries of rain to make the plain

a lake enough for the moon to take a midnight swim in.

Norman Hadley

 

 

 

Titan

 

Mighty titan hewn from stone,

feet planted solid on each bank.

Salt stalactites, cold knives hung from his belly.

Twelve wooden steps curve upwards round his form,

Inviting to ascend to shoulder height.

A purr of diesel power

confuses human senses.

The giant sputters in his sleep?

 

Stretching into middle-distance,

straight and true,

along the titan’s outstretched arms

a mirage waterway appears.

Bobbing wooden barges

bright in primary hue,

mallards trailing in their wake.

The traveller peering from his collar

sees the river surging to the sea.

An Intersection for adventurers.

Inland my love or on to destiny?

 

Adele V Robinson

 

 

 

Crossflux

 

X marks the spot

in Garstang on Wyre,

where water passes over water.

A rare enough feature

gives cause to consider

how like a drawing

by MC Escher

[fittingly, son of a civil engineer]

this construct by which

artifice mirrors nature

and is reflected back therein;

not a crossroads exactly,

more a liquid geometry:

underflow with overtow -

canal atop and river below.

 

Steve Rowland

 

 

 

 

 

WoW! Hot off the presses - more contributions from our publication.

 

 

 

Broom

 

                            Broom

Pale 
   Golden                         Pollen
                              Purses
Sweet
                      Sickly         
                                      Perfume
                Caressing
Warm
                Gentle  
                                   Sea   
                                       Breezes
Swirling
                                Swaying
Sweeping                            
                            Broom.

Anne Ward

 

 

Garstang’s Ophelia

In a twisting of the tumbling Wyre

inspirited by April showers,

between steep banks of cicely

smelling of aniseed and myrrh,

lies swollen Ophelia tangled in willow,

the river her bed, its ripples her pillow.
 

Romance brought low by poverty,

her melancholy prince, sad suitor,

set sail on Wyre tide, New Worlds to discover.

She wove forget-me-nots into a lover’s favour,

and cried hot tears to see him go,

quick with the child he’d never know.
 

Swallows skim now across her liquid grave,

wild ramson bows its head above the flow.

Her honeyed tresses look almost alive

in this rolling rinse of rusty peat water,

swirling in eddies - as if she’s trying to break free

to follow her Hamlet down Wyre to the sea.

Steve Rowland

 

 

 

 

Muddy Lass

Slimy soft and slippery,

yet still she dips her toes,

and paddles to the other bank,

the trusty Wyre Rose.

Ami Noone

 

 

Beyond the cabin door

Metallic blackness unwinds, revealing sea and shore.

Salt watercolour seeps into sleepy eyes.

Soft powder blue, a wash of endless sky,

Shot with sugar arrows to the tip of Morecambe Bay.

Copper sand rolls in like cool carpet at my feet,

strewn with pebble voyagers and

crumpled lager can, clutter of the night,

invading gull kissed walkway of the day.  
 

Settling on rocks that pier into the surf,

unexpected touch brings voices.

Windermere days of burning coal and whistling steam,

Brasso, pink on copper kettle,

and the port and starboard lamps.

Crimson swirling into crystal water,

Seeping out of crescent scar an inch above my heel,

sliced open on the slimy rocks at Wray.   
 

Beyond the wind farm ranks,

a distant boat, bobs like a bath toy,

in shadow lands between the sky and sea.

On shore, the stone hewn ogre of the deep

groans,  longing for his precious stranded shell.

Sea breath billows into winter lungs

and we rise to share the spray at water’s edge,

bursting into waves of carefree dance.

Adele V Robinson