why no knitting in September 2010

I know I didn’t write a word here for more than four weeks or so.
I admit I didn’t knit anything for the same amount of time.

First I was occupied with decluttering my house, then I had my mum and brother visiting, which was great and an intense time that doesn’t happen too often.

I also did take part in the “Landing in Leitrim” poetry workshop in the Dock in Carrick on Shannon. This was a great experience. Alice Lyons, who chaired the course, was a very sensitive teacher. Whilst before the course, given that I was not up to now a poetry reader, I was very uncertain that I could achieve anything in the English language in poetry. Here’s just my first poem I wrote. The task was to write about a place that has various layers of memory to us, and just let it flow. Given what I did in the house I just wrote about it.


Decluttering


Am writing in a hurry.
Started to declutter,
clean,
paint,
refurbish.
My mum and brother visit soon.
Some rooms should be wellcoming.

Kept postponing it.
Knew it would take much time.
After so many years
of changing
circumstances,
activities,
household members,
visitors,
improvisations,
adjustments,
ideas,
politics,
economics.
Not enough
continuity.

Keep making lists of what to do next.

The house was never the main thing.
Some people fondly
renovate,
decorate,
buy and sell,
build
houses.
For me the place is important,
the outside.
Commonly carried in with boots,
the camera,
cats,
and formerly dogs.

Found some of the old dog licences in a drawer and cried.
They had arrived first after us.
A gift.
By someone unknown.
Dirty mangy little puppies. Brothers.
They left us again forever a few years ago.
Weren’t we pictured with them for the papers.
They were still with us then.

Too many layers of memories here for one poem.
So many signs,
things,
relics,
successful
and unfinished
projects.
Stuff that is now redundant.
Things that were kept in case some time in the future…

I used to live in the present
and look to the future.
Have got somewhat retrospective though,
in recent years.

It’s great to throw things out
now,
and update.
For the future.




Alice managed to encourage us, and at the moment I see writing poetry not so much different from knitting
Kind of using the material of language creatively to express what’s in the mind, and, as in any craft, there are methods that can be used to help this.

I also visited the Giant’s Causeway for the first time last Sunday. My brother is working with stone, making and carving tomb stones and similar. So he is always interested in how stones were formed in time. While I was really impressed by the architecture and patterns in the basalts, now there for us to see after 60 million of years. (A poem may result from this visit.) They were formed after volcanic eruptions that resulted from tectonic movements. Ireland wasn't where it is now on the globe then. The Atlantic Ocean was just to emerge from these movements. The same activity is still ongoing in it and in Iceland, which gave us the ash cloud earlier this year. The lava at the Giant's Causeway then cooled slowly because there was a river or similar; that water slowed cooling. That made the column structures possible.

the amphitheatre

some of the organs

I think this is one of the giants eyes, in this case it resulted from "onion skin" weathering

Part of the actual giant's causeway, on which you can walk and everyone of the many visitors does

more of these amazing stepping stones, those in the foreground are called the "honeycombs"