Give Your Writing The Edge Newsletter No.43, January 2019

Due entirely to an error on my part, the online version of this month's newsletter is only available from today, so, while I don't usually use the blog for the newsletter, I am using it now to re-post it across the social media channels. I apologise sincerely to all who may have been inconvenienced between Tuesday and now.

Below is my covering letter; if you wish to leap straight to the newsletter, it is here:
https://perspectivepublications.wordpress.com/give-your-writing-the-edge/  

Dear friends

Happy new year to you all with a whopper of a start for Give Your Writing The Edge.

The editorial, On Building a Theatre for Spirit, is to a large extent inspired by Pulitzer-prize winning poet, Mary Oliver, who died, at the age of 83, on 17th January, leaving behind an extraordinary trail of creative work. Do follow the link (in the second footnote) to the interview with Krista Tippett - it's a worthwhile set of conversations with the deeply experienced and humble writer Oliver was.

I hope you enjoy South African-born, Italy-based feature poet Tania Haberland's series of poems, written during a recent unexpected experience in hospital. The poems are accompanied by haunting images - photographs taken by Haberland herself, who often combines her poems creatively with visual and audio-visual material. An intimate, erotic poem of hers is slipped in, anticipating the month of love that's coming up. Tania's new book, Water Flame, is available ... I think at a special price at this stage still, so you may click on the link provided and seize the opportunity.

Rene Bohnen's excellent review of the Ecca Poets 2017 publication, This Moment's Marrow, is bound to fascinate with her thorough investigation of the concept of 'marrow' and her application of it in her reading of each poet's contributions. May you enjoy it, and please don't be shy to send responses!

I popped in a few links on the Notice Board Page to YouTube channel clips featuring work in process with filmmaker Riccardo Magnanini - those of you with an interest in the way in which moving images can be poetic, and can serve poetry, will hopefully be entertained and uplifted. Your feedback is SO welcome.

Since I was sadly forced to withdraw from the Summer Songs and Poems event on 6th January this year, I have published all six poems, which I had planned to read on that day. I invite you to read them aloud to yourselves or your fellows, in trust that they will move you as I had intended my audience to be moved.

Coming up on February 15th is the launch of an unexpected (yes, completely so) book of love poems I've put together for Valentine's Day which I've entitled Path of Beauty. They're being printed next week - please do let me have your orders. The launch will be complemented by songs and stories of love, in an event held at the Rose Theatre in Hogsback, with Gwyneth Lloyd and Trevor Webster. If you are in or near Hogsback, we would be delighted to have your company. I'll be publishing extracts from Path of Beauty on my blog in the next two weeks. (Most of the poems in there are pulled out of Section 7 of  my upcoming book, Greater Matter, so I guess it amounts to a kind of preview.) 

You'll see a new page in this newsletter, announcing that I shall be doing this newsletter as a charitable venture for another five months. Thereafter, I would like Give Your Writing The Edge to be carried by donations - that is my plan, at any rate. Unfortunately, I am far from being a wealthy widow. Please see p.26 for details.

I'm keeping VERY busy with the fourth draft of Greater Matter and am likely to announce a launch date in next month's newsletter, so if you've been following my Facebook and blog posts, you can start looking forward to that collection (my 'heffalump') FINALLY seeing the light of day :-)

I wish you a beautiful month of reading and writing. 

Yours in fellowship

Silke

'What is marrow?' A glowing review of the 2017 Ecca Poets publication

Ecca Poets 2017 

I am delighted to offer you extracts from a new, beautifully engaged and engaging, review of the 2017 Ecca publication, This Moment's Marrow, by Rene Bohnen. Below I have cut and pasted her words on Norman Morrissey's and my own contributions. For the review in its entirety, please click http://eccapoets.blogspot.com/p/reviews-and-commentary.html

Ecca Poets: This Moment’s Marrow

A reader’s impression by René Bohnen

What is marrow? This question spontaneously pops up as I hold the 2017 publication of the Ecca Poets – their 20^th book in 25 years. This edition, This Moment’s Marrow, offers the reader  an eclectic group of poets in an anthology which makes for an enriching read.

So what is marrow? Dictionaries present definitions we know so well that we probably seldom pause to think about the profound meaning of the word.

Marrow is “a soft fatty substance in the cavities of bones” the internet offers, and also “ the essential part of something”.  Synonyms given are: “essence, core, pith” and “heart”.

In the reading of This Moment’s Marrow,  I discover and experience the whole spectrum of these dictionary entries.

The anthology title is taken from a Norman Morrissey poem on page 26.

Grasp

A dove called,

and I’d a vision

of our lithe boomslang

up in the cherry tree:

the Holy Ghost

and the hero

winding Hippocrates’ staff of healing

in one grasp

of thought:

old myths, symbols

lurking

in this moment’s marrow.

All of the Morrissey poems in this anthology show an accomplished poet at his task. Strong pastoral imagery, bursting with life, alternates with delicate vignettes of tenderness and tranquil silence.

Norman Morrissey passed away in July 2017 and has left a rich literary legacy. Like the butterfly shows us the breeze, this poet shows us wisdom. (Page 24)

            Breeze

You knew there was a breeze

only

because the butterflies

danced

in

it! 

According to the Preface, the poets have had “no real aspirations or manifestos” and their books will hopefully always have “a workshop feel” (Brian Walter on page 1)

If the function of marrow is to generate blood cells, the vital role of Ecca get-togethers is evident. Nurturing and giving oxygen, the group promotes growth in individual poets. All have successfully made their own paths as well – since paths are made by walking, as the Spanish poet Antonio Machado so succinctly put it.

[...]

Children and babies feed the marrow of a mother’s soul, as they do that of the poet. 

            When I fell

            pregnant

            with you I fell

            into new makings,

            poems would wake me”

writes Silke Heiss in “Kept up” on page 27. She is a poet who understands the exquisite tension that is created by holding two polarities at once. I give you the example on page 29, where a surprising contradiction alerts the reader to a vast truth held within a small poem:

            Mist    

Mist is

a revelation,

a happy Gossip –

tells all

where air has been –

is going to.

Almost haiku-like, the short poems sigh with insight and meaning; they show Heiss to be a master of cutting right to the essence of her observation. In her longer poems, she displays an instinctive grasp of the objective correlative, by evoking strong emotion in the reader without annoying prescription. On page 29 we find the

            Wood Owl

            I go outside to fetch some kindling,

            my blankets snag on branches dry –

            unwitting I catch them with the twigs I’m breaking:

            they whirr and cough and patter and sigh.

            Panic I subdue with patience,

            pull away gently, sensing why.

            Free at last I fill the box,

            but am lost in the dark by the Wood owl’s cry.

For the full review please click http://eccapoets.blogspot.com/p/reviews-and-commentary.html