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poetry workshops

Poets in my Garden

Four people seated beneath an apple tree
Poets sur l’herbe

I have been hosting Planet Earth Poetry workshops in my home and garden for the past 8 years or so. It is a glorious time for me, feeding creative spirits and having poets roaming around the property.

This year the workshop was led by Jenna Butler, who kindly and carefully led poets of all levels of experience through some difficult environmental territory, under the theme “Songs for a Changing World: Writing Our Hope and Grief About Place”.

Two people writing at a tableParticipants spent some time introducing themselves and reflecting on their relationship with land (and water) before embarking on studying poetry models and being sent off at intervals to write.

My role in these events is Chief Eavesdropper and Provisioner, and it gives me a chance to do some recreational cooking and try out some new recipes. It’s also an opportunity to relive a past life: long ago I spent weekends and holidays enjoying the warmth of the kitchen at Strawberry Creek Lodge in Alberta, cooking alongside my remarkable mentor Tena Wiebe at workshops, retreats, wedding celebrations and meetings.

There’s a favourite New Yorker cartoon of a kitchen, captioned “So this is where the magic happens“. Here’s my version, showing my PEP workshop catering preparations. Kitchen countertop with messy arrangement of baking ingredients

One of my tasks is to provide a lunch to the poetry mentor, and this was Sunday’s lunch for Jenna: Watermelon Gazpacho, Pepperwiches, and Plum Panna Cotta (with fresh blackberry sauce). I was relishing the opportunity to use some summer ingredients, including plums from my garden, some salad vegetables and local blackberries. My nutrition training also influenced the menu which was strong on colourful vegetables and containing no ultra-processed foods. Tena taught me the powerful lesson that serving food made from scratch, with love, is a truly satisfying way to live (and eat)!Tray with food dishes as described

Larder.. the cover!

And the winning cover image turns out to be.. Still Life with Bowl of Citrons, by Giovanna Garzoni. Very pleased with the look of this one.

Much as I would have liked to feature the work of a living woman artist, Garzoni is an impressive figure in art history, and the Italian connection is satisfying, given the presence of poems written during my studies in Italy.

I had wanted something food related, but also to bring in the natural world. The insect figure may or may not be a wasp; but for purposes of this collection, that’s what we’re calling it, to chime with the wasp poem within!

The book will be out sometime in May, but pre-orders can be taken now by visiting Caitlin Press.

Upcoming readings and appearances are on my News page, which I’ll update as details change or get added. But here’s what’s coming up in the next couple of months:

Copenhagen to Cambridge

How quickly five Danish days can whistle away. I landed on Monday and spent a rainy Tuesday in the Nationalmuseet (National Museum) looking at treasures of prehistoric Denmark, having first been fortified by a deliciouslunch of smoked sausages in the museum cafe. The most moving exhibits to me were the bog people, and the oak coffins made from hollowed-out whole tree trunks, all of them behind immaculately clean glass, dimly lit and fully labelled.

On Wednesday I tackled two places: the wonderful Rundetårn (Round Tower) which gives one a brisk, stepless walk up to a viewing platform 39 metres above street level, where we were battered by wind but treated to bright views of Copenhagen. The bellroom has been partially restored and the library turned into a shop, cafe and art centre where visitors can try their hand at making art in response to the visit, as various school classes had done on my visit.

 

 

 

From there I proceeded through the winding streets towards the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. The wind was starting to bring some rain with it, and when I paused to check my bearings I noticed a cafe below street level, so I stepped inside just before the rain descended in force, by which time I was tucking into a most delicious lunch of smoked eel and scrambled egg on rye bread in the warm and friendly Tivolihallen. It was so good I went on eating and had some very tasty lamb meatballs with creamed spinach.

 

 

 

 

 

I had a hasty visit to the Glyptotek as time was ticking on, but did enjoy my fleeting tour of the ancient art – Etruscan, Greek, Roman and Egyptian all well represented. I was sorry to have missed the Gaugins, Rodins and Munches that were lurking upstairs, but I did love the courtyard. I trudged back along Kampmannsgade into Frederiksberg where I was staying, and later dined at Ambrosias Have (Ambrosia’s kitchen), which offered a fine vegetarian buffet from its cafe adjoining a yoga centre.

 

 

 

 

On Thursday the storm was lashing down as we stumbled about in search of the Freiheitsmuseum (Museum of the Danish Resistance) which turned out to be closer than we’d thought. An excellent museum this, with film and audio and nicely arranged displays that gave a feel for the everyday life into which the German occupation came, as well as clothing and objects relating to the Danish resistance movement and the German prison camps where Danes were imprisoned and killed – in lesser numbers than some other groups and nationalities.

Next stop was the extraordinary David Collection where the top two floors of Islamic art and history are absolutely stunning and beautifully presented. It’s a private museum, but so well funded that admission is free (as it was for the National and Resistance museums). All that gawping makes one work up quite an appetite for sild (herring) which we satisfied at Aamans smart little cafe. We had two kinds of herring: one was marinated and the other curried, which curiously seems to be one of the characteristic flavourings for this fish. I was told that Christmas lunches can feature as many as a dozen different styles of herring: marinated, curried, pickled, fried, smoked… And before long we were on the road to Rungsted where Karen Blixen Museet waited in the rain. We whirled around the rooms in which she wrote and entertained, and admired the drawings and paintings she’d left with her estate where the Danish Academy – which she co-founded – still meets in accordance with her wishes. And that was about all I had time to do on this trip, other than to hope that I will be able to return for another look (preferably not during a winter gale!)

 

 

 

 

 

I flew back to London on Friday afternoon and rose bright and early (or more accurately in the dark at 5am) Saturday morning to catch a train to Cambridge, where I arrived as the sun was rising. I made my way to the Fitzwilliam Museum where the hugely popular Vermeer’s Women: Secrets & Silence exhibition was entering its final week. Happily I had managed to squeak onto a poetry workshop led by Tamar Yoseloff which she had cleverly arranged with the museum’s educational department so that we could have a precious half hour alone with the paintings. Which were wonderful (only four were Vermeers; the rest were by his contemporaries) and the more so since we’d had some quiet time with them before the hordes crowded and elbowed their way through (there were 25 minute queues by the time we left).  We discussed some poems inspired by the paintings (including this Derek Mahon number) and then marched across town for some another private viewing at Kettle’s Yard, a uniquely domestic setting for an art museum, where we spent some time  writing and discussing before hopping back on the train to London.

Rundetårn

Climate of the Poem workshop with Sean O’Brien, in France

Last week at Chateau Ventenac sped by. Having made note of the interesting (to travellers) fact that it takes about 2 hours door-to-door to reach Stansted from Turnham Green, I have little else of comfort or interest to report about that journey.

There was that traveller’s moment when I learned, at Victoria Station, that there was no underground service on the Victoria line the day I travelled, and so I had to make one of those Londoner rolling-gear changes, where you must always expect the unexpected whenever making a journey, and I got there in the end.

Can I just say what an appalling place Stansted is for anyone who cares about food, comfort, manners or convenience? And to mention that you can pay stupid amounts for just about anything there… speaking as one who forgot to pick up that essential item (for the borderline flu-sufferer, namely Twinings Ginger & Lemon tea) at my local groceteria and was forced to hand over the extortionate price of forgetfulness.

Seeking literary consolation, I visited the book concession and – in a vain quest to find any section called “Poetry” – stumbled upon a promising new tome by Felicity Lawrence (Eat Your Heart Out) to keep me company on my journey. I have already learned more than I wanted to know about the evils of cereal and some scary things about milk, meat and vegetables. Happy landings…

Here was our view from the chateau:

and another, of the many surrounding windmills at sunset:

Here’s a view of our first evening’s supper, first and last course: some grilled goat’s cheese on bread on salad:

and a bit of apricot tart with ice cream:

Each day’s lunch included a decorative platter of sliced beets garnished with creme fraiche, as well as a good selection of salads, sausages and and cheese.

Happy tutor packs his pencils at the end of the week:

The end of the prairie

Sunday’s treat was a trip to Mr Spudd’s Snack Shack, which was busy even before and even after we taxed the kitchen’s assembly skills with our multiple orders for veggie burgers, smokies, monster burgers and the like. A surprising number of locals were stopping in for ice cream treats, although the temperature hovered just around 10 degrees celsius. Well, prairie folk: hardy or what?

But all too soon it was bye-bye blackbird

and little bird-house on the prairie

and prairie dog

and tick-proof walks

which a number of us decided to have, against all sanity, on the last morning whose weather was too sweet to leave outside. Off we went through the long and short grasses…

And subsequently, consequently and unwillingly, a number of us carried eight-legged souvenirs back with us on planes and buses and body parts. So I confess I’m quite pleased to be out of ticksville once more, although it is true they are also present here on Vancouver Island. Just not as numerous or active as in this particular season in the lovely Qu’Appelle Valley.