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Education » Virtual
poets › NPD poet blog 2007 › Diana Hendry Monday 1 October 2007Welcome!Hello! I've been looking forward to writing my very first Blog. I like the idea of being a 'Virtual Poet'. It makes me feel as if I'm floating about in cyber space. Bodiless and talking to equally invisible people. So I wondered if you-out-there would like to be 'Virtual Visitors' to my study? My study is where I'm writing this. Actually, 'study' is rather a grand name for it because it's the smallest room in the house. It's so small that I never shut the door and there isn't really room for anyone but me in here. But 'Virtual Visitors' are very welcome! Come in. Let me show you round! On the wall I've got post-cards of poets I love. Seamus Heaney (who's my favourite), Ted Hughes (looking very young and handsome) and John Betjeman laughing. There's also a photograph of my grandson, Ruairidh, and a cut-out shape of his right foot when he was very small. (He's 3 now). The other books on the shelf are books of my poems. There isn't room for my children's story books, they stay in the bedroom - all but one, which is perched in a box above all the other books. The book-in-the-box is The Very Noisy Night. It's a story about Big Mouse and Little Mouse and the publishers have made a soft toy Little Mouse. So he's in the box sort of waving at me and with his whiskers looking rather alarmed. Notebooks Ducks, names, dreamsAt the weekend my son and his wife and my granddaughter Talia came to stay. Talia is two and I think she's very pretty. I see my grandson, Ruairidh, quite often because he doesn't live far away, but I don't see Talia often because she lives in London. So this was a very special visit. When she was six months old we went to London for Talia's naming ceremony and I wrote a poem for her. Here it is:
I'm really interested in names. I think I might write more about names
tomorrow. Monday's questions› Do you ever dream poems? Do you ever dream poems?Question sent from Jane I don't think I've ever dreamt a complete poem. Sometimes I dream a line of a poem - some words that sound surprising and unexpected. Writing a poem can be a bit like dreaming when you're awake. All sorts of thoughts and feelings and strange ideas can come into your head (if you allow them) and then when the dreaming part is over, you can work out what the poem wants to say and start shaping it and getting the words absolutely right. Do you know how a poem will end when you begin it?Question sent from Louise No. I think not knowing is part of the excitement of writing a poem. Where will this poem take me? It's like a mystery journey. But I do find ending a poem difficult. I think it's because I want a happy ending, or an ending that sorts things out or answers a question. So I'm often tempted to stick on an ending that does one of those things. And then the poem sounds false and I have to cross out my stuck-on ending and leave the poem to find its own way home. Tuesday 2 October 2007
The very fast postman Sometimes I get letters from children who have liked a story I've written. I keep them very carefully. Often I just get junk mail, but this morning I had some really good post. A poetry gameFirst there was a post-card from my poet friend, Tom Pow, sent from France. A couple of years ago, Tom and I began a game that was a bit like a dare or a challenge. A poem challenge. Write a poem about what is in your handbag or in the drawer of your desk, Tom challenged. And I did! Write me a poem about back gardens I challenged Tom. And he did! So between us we wrote 24 poems and published them in a pamphlet called Sparks!Imagination medicine When I left the hospital, Tom's daughter Jenny made me a little boat out of a stone, a matchstick, a bit of Blu-Tack and a very, very, very delicate autumn leaf for the sail. The boat is like a poem in a way because Jenny made it out of her imagination. And what's so surprising is that it's lasted and lasted, the way a poem can. I keep it on the mantlepiece in my bedroom. The Very Fast Postman also brought me not one, but two books. The first one is a collection of poems for children called This is the Blackbird by John Mole. I've liked John Mole's poems for a long time. My favourite one is called 'Goodbye' and it begins like this:
This new collection has a dream poem in it, called 'Once in a Dream'. Here's a bit of it:
There's also a poem about a lonely monster and another called 'Learning to be a Ghost'. Which reminds me of… The spare room'The Spare Room' is the title of a poem I wrote quite a long time ago. It's in the second book the Very Fast Postman brought this morning - The Oxford Book of Children's Poetry. I wrote this poem because when I was a little girl we had a really scary spare bedroom. Most of the year all the furniture in it was covered up with dust sheets which made it look spooky. Once a bird got trapped in there and my sister's friend said that if a bird died in a room it meant a ghost would come. Well, at Christmas time, because we had a lot of visitors, I had to sleep in the spare room and I was very scared. The room had two doors and I tried to stay awake but it was so difficult watching both doors, turning my head first left then right - as if I was watching a tennis match - that I soon fell asleep. So I can't tell you if a ghost came or not, though I don't suppose a ghost needs a door. About namesYesterday I was telling you (are you still out there?) about the names my granddaughter, Talia, gave to her doll and teddy (Tatty-Bumpkin and Sorriander). Well this week, I'm writing a review of a book about an American poet called Edwin Arlington Robinson. He wrote a lot of poems about people with strange or curious names. There's 'Miniver Cheevy', 'Uncle Ananias', a butcher called Reuben Bright and 'Bewick Finzer' who lost all his money and kept borrowing other people's. I like writing about books almost as much as I like writing my own. I think it's amazing to be paid (although not very much) for doing what I love doing - reading. Anyway, when I'm writing my own books, the names of my characters seem very important. They don't become real until I've given them a name.
I've written three books about a magical electrician called Harvey Angell. I gave him two Ls at the end of his name because he might be an angel, but then again, he might not be, so the second L works as a kind of question mark. I have a cardboard cut out of him in my bedroom. His head's got a bit wobbly over the years, but I'm very fond of him. A garden giant More about dreamsNo, I didn't remember last night's dream either! I think I'll have to buy a dream-catcher and hang it over my bed. But I do have eight dream poem post-cards from the Scottish Poetry Library. There's poems about spells, one about a boy day-dreaming in a puddle, a poem about a house dreaming and 'A Little Nap Rap' in which a squirrel, a fox and a hedgehog do all the cleaning. I wish they'd come to my house. Maybe I'll try dreaming them. You can get the set of post-cards by sending a stamped SAE to the Library. Talk to you tomorrow. Wednesday 3 October 2007
A birthday hat
My partner, Hamish, is also a poet. He gave me some reporter's notebooks with bright neon covers. And he's written me a poem! Here's the first verse.
But the best present of all came from my grandson, Ruairidh. It's a mug, with Granny written on it and and a heart and a moon painted on the side. I love being a granny. It's one of the nicest things that has ever happened to me. And in about six weeks time I'm going to have a third grandchild because Kate (Ruairidh's Mum) is expecting another baby. That's why there's a great many things under my bed at the moment. A travel cot, a play mat and one of those little chairs babies sit in. Spinning plates A visit to the Botanic Gardens
What is the pond doing? Ru asked. I though it was such an interesting question that I wrote him a poem as an answer. Here it is.
Jolly cool wordsI like using words like plopping, slopping and slurping. Words that sound like what they mean. A word I use a lot when I'm talking is 'jolly'. I say 'jolly good' quite a lot. I think 'jolly' has become an old-fashioned word. My son, Hamish and my partner's son, Kenny (who has been taking the photographs for this blog) use the word 'cool', meaning - well, I think much the same as my 'jolly'! There's a poem by Charles Causley, called 'I Saw a Jolly Hunter'. Causley uses the word 'jolly' sixteen times! I wonder if anyone could write a poem using the word 'cool' sixteen times? Sleeping and waking dreamsI still haven't managed to remember a complete dream. But in last night's dream there were green galoshes and a man with a red wallet. I don't know what either of them were doing in my dream.
The 'Dream Poets' tourTonight I'm going to the Scottish Storytelling Centre to hear the four dream poets who have been travelling round the country reading their poems. There's Patience Agbabi from England, Robert Crawford from Scotland, Gwyneth Lewis from Wales and Gearoid MacLochlainn from Northern Island. I wonder what they've been dreaming about? I'll let you know tomorrow - National Poetry Day! Thursday 4 October 2007 - National Poetry Day!
The Dream Poets I wore my new birthday hat and was very glad to get a lift home from another poet, Christine De Luca. Poets can be very competitive and sometimes jealous of each other. But they can also be very kind! Like Cristine. AngelsMy National Poetry Day poster arrived today. There are four poems on it and one of them - 'A Child Asks Jacob About His Dream' - is mine. The poem was sparked by the story in the Bible about Jacob who dreamt of a ladder that reached up to heaven with angels climbing up and down it. I'm not sure why the story has stayed in my head for so many years and has only just now come out in a poem. Maybe a poem is like a seed that waits in the dark of the mind, growing. Sea poemsI'm pleased that two of the other poster poems (which you can see on the Scottish Poetry Library website and/or send for a copy) have something about the sea in them. Gillian Clarke's poem has the sea tapping on her door and Seamus Heaney's poem has a boat coming down out of the air! (Maybe a bit like Jacob's ladder!) I grew up by the sea in a small village not far from Liverpool. My parents wanted me to speak what they called 'proper English' - which meant they didn't want me to have a Liverpool accent. A Liverpool accent is called 'Scouse' and I really like it but it was forced out of me by those elocution lessons. Much the same thing happened to lots of Scots children who were told not to speak Scots in school. If you want to know about that you could read Liz Lochhead's poem 'Kidspoem / Bairnsang' which is in Scots and English. Reading aloudAnyway, there was a bonus to elocution lessons. I had to learn lots of poems by heart and I liked sea poems best. I liked John Masefield's 'Sea Fever' and I liked reciting a poem by Walt Whitman called 'O Captain! My Captain'. In a very tragic voice I recited, 'But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.'
This week children from Craigroyston Community High School have been reading poems aloud, and publishing them as podcasts for you to hear. Poems get everywhereI was in prison recently. No, not because I'd done anything wrong but because my daughter, Kate, teaches creative writing at Barlinnie prison. She made a book out of the poems and stories the prisoners wrote and Hamish and I went to hear them read their poems. The prisoners were very nervous but I think they got a real buzz out of reading their poems to an audience. I'm hoping that those of you reading this blog will have a go at writing a poem - and reading it aloud. Give it your best! More about growing upApart from Shakespeare and Chaucer, we didn't read much poetry when I was at school - certainly nothing modern. A poet to be a poet had to be dead! So I didn't really discover poetry until I'd left school. Then I found the Liverpool poets - Adrian Henri, Roger McGough and Brian Patten - who were writing about the same time as the Beatles. They seemed so fresh and new and funny. Roger McGough remains my favourite. I love his poem 'First Day at School' which includes this.
I wrote my first poem when I was about 20. I was trying to write a short story and it kept going wrong so I thought I'd turn it into a poem. After that I was hooked! In the swimGrowing up by the sea I learnt to swim (a Scotsman taught me) when I was six. Perhaps because I miss the sea I like going swimming. I've had a bad cold this week, so I haven't been, but usually I go early in the morning to Glenogle Swim Centre. It's just across the road from where I live so I could go there in my pyjamas, if I had the nerve, which I haven't - yet! Glenogle Swim Centre is a beautiful old Victorian building. Recently there was talk of pulling it down but everyone made such a fuss and thousands of people signed a petition so I think it will be saved. Meet Banksie… The first story I had published was called Midnight Pirate and it was about a stray kitten that we adopted. I wrote another story called The Carey Street Cat which is about a cat that jumped so high he caught a star. It was based on a cat we had called Sprogs. Sprogs couldn't jump that high, but he could jump on top of the piano and using his paw, knock off any ornaments as if he was practising football. …and Singing JimmyThe second thing I enjoy when I'm swimming is listening to singing Jimmy. Jimmy sings and swims and swims and sings. Not both together, perhaps, but he sings while he's getting changed and he sings after his swim when he's getting dressed again. He has a grand, strong voice and sings lots of song that I know. Sometimes I try to join in, but quietly because I can't sing very well. I've put Jimmy into a poem I wrote about swimming. Today is National Poetry Day. In my house I think it's poetry day every day! Happy writing. Happy reading. Talk to you tomorrow. Friday 5 October 2007
TravellingOnce upon a time people thought that poets lived in garrets and stayed up writing all night and never went out. If you're a poet today you get to do quite a lot of travelling. This is because it's very hard to make a living by writing poetry. So most of us earn extra money by giving readings, visiting schools, taking part in Festivals, becoming a writer-in-residence. Being a writer-in-residence can be very interesting because you experience other people's lives. I was writer-in-residence at a hospital but I know of a poet who had a residency with a football club and a Scottish poet, Liz Niven, who had an Inverness Airport residency. 'Residency' seems the wrong word for that one, Liz did a lot of flying about. There was an ITV programme about it called 'Poet on a Plane.' Armchair travel One of my favourite poems in the book comes from Tanzania and is called 'The Ten-Day Visitor.' Here's two of the days.
I think this visitor stayed far too long. But the poem sparked me to write a visitor poem of my own. Mine was a very welcome visitor and she only stayed for a weekend. Here's a few verses.
Real travel
We wrote lots of poems while we were there and I also wrote a new children's story called 'A Dragon in the House'. It's to be published next year in an anthology of fantasy stories. I've a picture book coming out next year too. It's called Oodles Of Noodles and it's about a pasta-making machine that won't stop. Very soon the mother in the story is so wrapped up in noodles that she's totally noodled. Then the noodles slide under the front door and out into the street and tie themselves round lamp posts and dangle from trees.
I know it says at the end of this blog that I've written more than thirty books for children. The truth is that I've lost count! It might be more than forty. Poet at seaAfter France, I was invited to be Poet-at-Sea for a week on a P&0 cruise ship, The Oceania. Now I know this sounds a lot of fun and I know I love the sea but actually I didn't enjoy this much. There were too many people (2,000!) and too much eating and too much dressing up. An adventure, in a way, but maybe one I won't do again. Go-carting Off againFrom time to time I wish I could stay in a garret and never go out but next week I'm going to Orkney and I'm really looking forward to it. I'm a member of a group of poets called The Shore Poets. We meet once a month. In July a group of Orkney poets came to read their poems to us. Now it's our turn to make a return visit. I went to Orkney many years ago. I'm fond of the poems of George Mackay Brown who lived in Stromness and died in l996. I'll be staying in Stromness so I'll be thinking about him. Sometimes when I do a workshop in schools I use a poem of his called 'Beachcomber'. It's a kind of diary poem of a week and describes the things found on the beach each day. Once we've read the poem the children have a go at writing their own poems about things they've found. You could try it. Here's a couple of verses from George Mackay Brown's poem.
('Thirty bob' is old money, by the way. 'A bob' was a shilling. Thirty bob is probably thirty pence today.) Well, I've come to the end of my diary/blog week and it's the end of the National Poetry Day week. Maybe I'll be able to do some real beachcombing on Orkney. And I'm going to take one of my new birthday notebooks - just in case I find a poem.About Diana HendryDiana Hendry grew up by the sea and lives in Edinburgh. She has published more than thirty books for children, including Harvey Angell which won a Whitbread Award in 1991 and You Can't Kiss It Better, set in Edinburgh (2003). Her collections of poetry for adults, Making Blue (1995) and Borderers (2001) are published by Peterloo, and Twelve Lilts: Psalms & Responses (2003) by Mariscat Press. She has also published a collection of poems for children, No Homework Tomorrow (Glowworm, 2003). Related links |
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