Category Archives: Wednesday Post on Thursday

My Last Scottish Tour

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I wanted to get in one last tour before I flew back to Atlanta, and had been eyeing the trip to the Ayrshire Coast, featuring Burns country and a trip to Culzean (pronounced “Cul-ayne”) Castle.  But it left from Glasgow, and that extra step—going to Glasgow—is what had prevented me from going on the tour any earlier. Did I really want to get up at the crack of dawn and catch a train?  But I put on my big girl panties and took the express to Glasgow for one last adventure.

I had picked up a sandwich and a pain au chocolat at Sainsbury’s for breakfast and walked to the Buchanan Bus Station and found a seat.  The pigeons were interested, and I can’t help it, I threw bread to them—they’re experts at looking so hungry.  But then they frenzied all around me, stepping on my shoes, flying onto my legs, flying to the garbage bin right at elbow level, trying to cadge some food.  One pigeon even perched on my index finger (until I shook it off) and another flew at my head!  The other people in the waiting area were as amazed (and frightened) as I was. What is it about pigeons that they attract as well as repel?  They are kind of charming, but maybe it’s the old idea that they carry disease. (Gross–I just Googled the diseases pigeons carry.  Why did I do this?)  But I kept feeding them as I waited for the bus to arrive.

And when it arrived, who should be our driver, but good ol’ Stewart! I was so happy to see him yet again, and the feeling was mutual.  The tour was small—there were only seven of us: four people from Australia (two were sisters, though one lives in Berlin), a couple from Aberdeen, and me. We bonded pretty quickly, but then Stewart is good about making everyone feel welcome and comfortable. I knew that it would be a wonderful day.

Whitelee Wind Farm

Our first leg of the journey saw us at the Whitelee Wind Farm, on the Eaglesham Moor, about 9 miles outside of Glasgow.  It was an unexpected stop, but something about all the wind turbines, with their graceful lines, and blowing blades, was compelling to watch.  The wind farm has 215 such turbines, with the capacity of 540 megawatts of power, and it’s the largest on-land wind farm in the UK.  It was a chilly and somewhat drizzly morning, so we all went inside to the coffee shop, and sat and chatted for half an hour over a cup of hot chocolate, until it was time to head out.  I would have liked a little time to visit the wind science museum, but it was also nice just to visit with the other people on the tour.  Sometimes it’s ok to forego museums.

Culzean Castle–I love how this picture came out.

Our next stop was Culzean Castle, home of Clan Kennedy (and later President Eisenhower, who was gifted the top floor), and fortunately, the drizzle had stopped.  The sun even popped out a little, making the Firth of Clyde (which feeds into the Irish Sea and backs up to the castle) seem bluer.  There was a bit of a walk through the woods from where Stewart dropped us off but it was pleasant, and when I got to the castle itself, I took a few moments to look out on the Firth and admire the soft waves.  The castle, which dates from the late 1700s, had a proscribed path to follow for touring, which took us through dining rooms and bedrooms and sitting rooms and even a room decorated entirely with pistols and other weapons—like, thousands of them.  (Turns out it’s the armory.)  Of course, the rooms were finely-appointed, with rich red carpeting and bedspreads, and paintings everywhere, including what I’m sure is a Canaletto painting of Venice.  The castle also had a couple of bedrooms with cradles made to look like small boats.  The kitchen was a bright yellow, and led out to a tiny gift shop where (of course) I bought a guide to the castle.

Outside the castle, I walked through the gardens which were nice, but not overly impressive.  They had a great lawn though, and I could imagine someone setting up lawn tennis there.  People walked their dogs and one family seemed to be fighting and shouting at each other in Portuguese, I thought, never mind that I was sitting on a bench seat and couldn’t help but to listen in. I wondered what they could be arguing about.  It seemed like the father was impatient with his younger son, the same younger son that was being bullied by the elder son.  Their mother was shouting at her husband to quit shouting at the kids (I presumed).  But eventually, they slipped past the wall to the garden and I had peace again.  But I was getting hungry, so I made my way back to the main entrance, where there was a café.

My lunch was comprised of “creamy macaroni cheese” (they don’t say macaroni AND cheese in Scotland, I’ve noticed), chips (fries), and a little salad.  I don’t really understand why you’d serve a starch with a starch side, but the chips and entrée were tasty, and the salad was small but good.  Afterwards, I poked around the gift shop but didn’t see anything that spoke to me, and I met up with the Australian sisters and we chatted some more.  They were eating jellybeans.

Stewart and the others arrived, and we got back on the bus and did a little touring.  We drove past Trump Turnberry Golf Course and gave it a universal Boo! And then we drove on something called the Electric Brae (known locally as “Croy Bray”), a stretch of road that appears to be going uphill, but is actually going downhill. (A “brae” is a slope, declivity, or hillside, according to the dictionary.) Stewart got out some water and demonstrated:  he poured the water on the ground, and it looked as if it were traveling upwards on the ground, instead of downwards. I took a picture of the sign, but for ease of reading, this is what it says (punctuation mine):

“This runs the quarter mile from the bend overlooking Croy Railway Viaduct.  In the west (286 feet above ordinance datum) to the wooded Craigencroy Glen (303 feet AOD) to the east whilst there is this slope of 1 in 86 upwards from the bend to the glen, the configuration of the land on either side of the road provides an optical illusion making it look as if the slope is going the other way.  Therefore, a stationary car on the road with the brakes off will appear to move slowly uphill.  The term “Electric” dates from a time when it was incorrectly thought to be a phenomenon caused by electric or magnetic attraction within the brae.”

 

Dunure Castle

Then we made our way into the town of Dunure (which sort of rhymes with—ahem—manure), to poke around the ruins of Dunure Castle, which dates from the 13th century.  There’s not much left—a keep, some outer walls, and a beehive shaped dovecote (or “doocot”) which appears well-liked by pigeons and gulls.  I climbed the stairs to the top to look out on the sea, and passed a fenced-off part of the castle, where an empty whisky bottle lay in the dirt and rocks.

Burns Cottage with vegetable garden

Afterwards, we were off to auld Rabbie Burns’ cottage and museum. We passed by Brig o’ Doon (the bridge over the river Doon), making me think of Brigadoon, the 1954 movie with Gene Kelly and Van Johnson). We listened to “Tam o’ Shanter” on the way—I think I understood maybe 20% of what was said!  The cottage was a long, cream-colored building with a thatched roof.  It was quite dark inside, but all around the walls were words that Burns had used (or made up?) in his poetry.  One wall reads, “This cultivated the latent seeds of Poesy” from a letter (I presume) from Burns to Dr. John Moore, in 1787. Part of the cottage would have housed smallish animals—goats and chickens, maybe sheep—part was an area for a butter churn and other household tasks.  There was also a kitchen with a tiny baby bed constructed into a wall.  I wasn’t sure where the adults slept.

On the Poet’s Path, a bronze mouse

The Robert Burns’ Birthplace Museum was a twelve-ish-minute walk away on the “Poet’s Path,” so after looking at everything in the cottage, I headed there. A few statues stood along the way, representing images from his poems, including a large mouse from “To a Mouse,” and a bench with “The Twa Dogs” (Caesar and Luath).  The museum, when I got there, was also decorated on the outside with Scottish language words that Burns had used.  Inside, again, the room was dark, to preserve the pages of books, ephemera, and portraits of Burns and his family.  To my mind, the room was too dark, so that you had to struggle to read the information cards on the wall, but it was kind of nice to see how appreciated Burns is, not just in Scotland but internationally (on display were copies of his work in Polish and Russian and maybe Chinese).  It does my poet-heart good to see another poet so beloved… even if that other poet writes in an almost unintelligible language (to English ears, anyway).

When I was finished with the museum I stopped in the giftshop and bought a couple of things, including a copy of “Tam o’Shanter,” thinking if I could see the words I could maybe figure out what is being said, a dictionary of Scottish words, and (of course) a museum guidebook.  Then I went to the café and drank a mint lemonade and ate a raisin shortbread (very tough).  And by then the museum was closing, and it was time to ride back to Glasgow.

Stewart very kindly dropped me off at the Queen Street station, and I promised that I would see him again next year (assuming I go back to Scotland to teach).  Then I caught my train and headed back to Edinburgh.  A delightful tour overall.

More photos

A graceful lady, Susanna, Countess of Eglington in the Culzean Castle Round Drawing Room

Twa Dogs 1–Caesar

Twa Dogs 2–Luath

The Meeting of Burns and Captain francis Gros, by Robert Scott Lauder (1789)

Twa Dogs bench

Culzean Castle Entrance and Armory

Painting of Culzean Castle, but no identification card

Scottish words in the Burns cottage

The Birth of Burns, by James Fillans (1836)

The Haggis Feast, by Alexander Fraser (ca. 1840)

Dunure castle from the inside, looking down on the kitchen?

Dunure Castle

Dunure Castle, closer up

Dunure Castle and walls

Culzean Castle up-close

The Electric Brae explanation stone

Culzean Castle LIbrary/reading room

Culzean Castle dressing room

Culzean Castle parlor

Culzean Castle pipe organ?

Culzean Castle Long Drawing room

Culzean Castle nursery

Culzean Castle kitchen

A Canaletto of Venice (I think) in the Blue Drawing Room

A purple flower in the garden at Culzean Castle

Culzean Castle grounds

Culzean Castle chandelier in the round drawing room

Culzean Castle walls

Culzean Castle day room

Culzean Castle grounds–I can’t remember if this is the gardener’s shed or the smoke house. It sort of seems like it would be a smoke house.

Culzean Castle State Bedroom

Culzean Castle State Bedroom fireplace

Robert Burns’ cottage kitchen

Robert Burns cottage dining room

Auld Rabbie Burns statue

Robert Burns’ cottage wall

Robert Burns cottage household activities room

Entrance to all grounds of Culzean Castle

The Ruined Arch to the viaduct to Culzean Castle

Ayreshire Coast/ Irish Sea

The Christening dresses of the Burns’ family in the “bedroom”

Outside of the Burns cottage

Some bawdy fun advice for men

Silver Rain Was Falling Down Upon the Dirty Ground of London Town*

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Virginia Woolf said, “The streets of London have their map, but our passions are uncharted.  What are you going to meet if you turn this corner?” I will tell you what I met:  a new friend.  What I mean is, I felt like I fit in right away. London may have been a city for 2000 years, but to me it was all brand new, and seeing it for the first time is like when you’re 16, and you see a handsome boy and know that you are intrigued.

London intrigued me as soon as I stepped off the train from Edinburgh into King’s Cross St. Pancras Station, where a woman was singing opera to the backdrop of a piano right there in the terminal.

I caught the Tube to Victoria Station.  It was hot, the air stale as bad breath, and so many bodies packed on the subway train I wondered how they could all fit.  A person tripped over my bag and then apologized to me with a very curt, British “Sorry!” and then ignored me as I mumbled “No worries!” I had about six stops to go, and enjoyed the voice-over announcements telling me to “mind the gap.”  A couple of stops after I got on, a middle-aged American couple boarded, the woman looking rather pained and nervous, and her husband a bit aggrieved.  She kept saying, “I don’t think this is the right train,” and he kept replying, “Maybe you’re right.”

So one ugly American to another, I said, “Where are you going?”

“We want to go to Victoria Station.”

“Oh, but you’re fine then.  This train goes to Victoria Station.”

“Are you sure?”

Reader, I wasn’t sure initially which is why I missed the first train that got to the track as I did, but there was a very convenient listing of the stops on the wall tile after the train departed, so I knew that the second train I boarded was going in the right direction.

“Oh, yes, quite sure.”

“Thank you so much. Everything is so confusing here.”

When we arrived at Victoria Station, everyone piled off the train and made their way out into the late afternoon.  Google’s map directions bewildered me a little bit, but I wandered the way it suggested, and I managed to get to my AirBnB, a single room in an apartment about 10 minutes away.  The room was nothing special, but the bed was so much better than where I was staying in Edinburgh, so I was perfectly comfortable.  I thought about going out for dinner, but the truth was, the first class coach on the train down from Scotland fed us a chalkwater trout supper with broccolini and couscous (free!), plus an apple tart, so I wasn’t overly hungry.  But I was tired after teaching and travel, so I settled down into my room and read for a few hours.

The next day, I had great plans to wake up early to go exploring, but instead I slept in. (Traveling always takes it out of me.)

I made my way to the Victoria Coach Station to catch a 1:00 bus tour around the city which would culminate in a cream tea service at Harrod’s.  I arrived at the station, and waited patiently to be called to my bus, but even though the sign said “Afternoon Tea Tour” the people managing the tour called it a “Vintage Tour” so I never got on and they left without me!  I had asked twice at the gate if this was the tea tour and was told, “No, you must be thinking of another company.”  But I insisted it was a Premier Tour (she was wearing a Premier Tours outfit) and she just blew me off—even though I saw an old-fashioned double-decker bus out in the lot.  What was I supposed to do?  I called the tour company and complained.

The lady on the other side of the phone was very British, efficient and helpful.  She put me on hold and I waited.  Eventually she told me that if I made my way to Buckingham Palace by 1:45, I could pick up the tour there.  It was 1:25.

Big Ben from inside a taxi

I raced to Buckingham Palace, after walking three blocks the wrong way.  I saw the same bus parked at the curb, and some people I had seen at the bus station so I knew I was in the right place—but I was also annoyed that I had received bad information from the woman at the gate and had missed a good bit of the tour.  Still, once there, I happily climbed up to the top so I could see the sights a little better, even though it was drizzly.  (Of course I was wearing my “mac.”)

A lion at Trafalgar Square

London did not disappoint, despite the rain.  I saw places that I’d only seen in films, but places I had always wanted to see in real life.  There was Trafalgar Square, and Piccadilly Circus, and the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben.  There was the Thames and London Bridge and the Tower Bridge and the Tower of London.  We got off our bus at the Tower of London, and by then I was soaked through because the rain had grown serious, but I did not mind.  I was in London!

Our Thames river boat

The next part of the tour included a boat ride on the Thames for about 30 minutes, where we went under many of the cities bridges, including the Tower Bridge, the London Bridge, the Westminster Bridge, and the Millenium Bridge.  I enjoyed the boat ride a lot and the guide was very knowledgeable about various sights and offered suggestions of places to eat, and places to avoid because of pickpockets.  We all disembarked at the London Eye where several people were going, while a few of the rest of us waited again for the tour bus to pick us up to take us to Harrods.

Harrods table service

Harrods Tea Room

Meanwhile, I kept glancing at my watch because the tour was only supposed to go to 4, and it was already 4:35, and I was worried that the cream tea at Harrods would make it difficult to get back to the room to change for the theater which I had plans for later that evening. Traffic was awful, with the rain, and had been so earlier, which is why we were running so late.  When we finally got to Harrods Tea Room, it was 5:20, and all I could think was “Curtain’s at 7:30!  Curtain’s at 7:30!”  But I knew that I had to adjust my plans, and enjoyed a beautiful afternoon tea of 2 scones (one fruit, one plain), and raspberry and cherry jam, and homemade butter (which may supposed to have been clotted cream but it had turned to butter), and tea with milk and sugar, and a glass of Prosecco.  I enjoyed every sip and bite in elegant surroundings, with heavy damask drapes and beautiful, heavy utensils and bright, shiny tea service.  The piano player played songs by Wham and Queen as I tucked into my tea.  And even though I was worried about being late to the theater, I decided to just savor my meal and not worry so much.

Wyndham’s Theatre featuring Oklahoma!

It was a little after 6 when I left the tea room and made my way back out to the street.  I would have loved to have looked around Harrods, and would have had the time had our tour not run so late, but I did get to pass through the jewelry department and was enchanted with all the ice.  And fortunately, there were taxis right outside.  I had to wait behind an entourage of  six beautiful Middle Eastern women, who looked as though they had bought out the store, but I caught a taxi to the Wyndham’s Theatre in the West End and we poked through traffic, finally arriving at 10 to 7.

Wyndham’s Theatre stage

It was Oklahoma! like I’d never seen it. The reviews called it “sexy.” The theater itself was cozy and small, and the stage was a simple set up of chairs and tables and Curly began to sing “Oh! What a Beautiful Mornin’” on his own guitar.  He sang beautifully, even if his guitar playing was only so-so,  Of course, when I had bought the tickets back in April, I thought I was going to see Arthur Darvill play Curly—I had loved him on Legends of Tomorrow, and he was the only good thing about stinking Amy Pond on Doctor Who, so I was a little disappointed that the character had been recast, but the actor who played him, Sam Palladio, was great.  And Laurey was great.  But it was a weird staging, especially with the “Dream Ballet” which included a filmed section of the dancer’s face, I suppose imagining Laurey’s life if she were to be with Jud, and  the scene in the smokehouse, pitch black, and then a filmed section of Jud’s face, as “Pore Jud is Daid” is sung.  And then at the end, when Curly kills Jud, it’s not by stabbing but by gun, and I mean the stunt blood went everywhere, all over Curly’s suit and Laurey’s wedding dress.  It was a little gratuitous.  But overall, the songs were wonderful and I really had a good time. I had a really good seat too—row J, seat 14, right in the middle (but also, on the aisle, because there’s a break in the seating).

I caught a cab home (like the earlier cab to the theater, this one was pricey), and fell asleep almost right away.  I wanted to be refreshed for my plans for the next morning—the British Museum.

I trekked back over to Victoria Station, after getting an iced latte from Café Nero, taking a different walk from the one I had done previously, and caught the 18 bus to Museum Street.  A lady got on the bus after me and asked me if this was the bus to the museum, and I said yes.  (I must look approachable, since other people in London were asking me for directions!)  When we got off the bus, she got out Google maps and we walked together to the entrance to the museum—where the queue was huge but fast moving, especially because we both already had our tickets.  When I got inside, it was overwhelming.  And I was starving, not having had anything to eat since the cream tea the afternoon before.  I went to the British Museum’s pizzeria and got a pizza with mushrooms, artichoke hearts, and onions.  The bread was very good—chewy but well-baked.  The sauce and cheese disappointed me a bit but beggars can’t be choosers and all that.

The British Museum

When I was done, I walked through Ancient Greece and then Ancient Egypt, which is what I really wanted to see, because I love me some mummies, but the building became so crowded I started to get claustrophobic.  I found an upper gallery with new acquisitions and gazed at a map of Venice from 1500 for a while, then I wandered around and looked at the collection and then called Mom for half an hour.  By then I had calmed down a bit, and made my way through some of the China exhibit, and then I went to the gift shop and outside into the windy, sprinkly London air.  I could have looked at more art, but I really felt oppressed by all the bodies visiting the exhibits, so I figure if I go back to London some day, I will go see different rooms.  I took the 18 bus back to the station, and went to the room for a refreshing nap.

Inside the Barbican Theatre

Of course, I didn’t plan to nap as long as I did; I had intended on getting some dinner somewhere before I went to the Barbican Theatre to see A Strange Loop, but I overslept. Meanwhile, there were outages on the Tube; the Circle Line had seen some questionable behavior on the tracks (apparently, someone got down on the tracks for some reason?), and was running on a delay.  But “delay” is a polite word for “clusterfuck” because it got later and later and later, and no Circle line train ever appeared.  At 6:50, I left the Tube and went outside to find a cab, because it was clear that the train just wasn’t running, and I didn’t want to be late for curtain.  Fortunately, A Strange Loop started at 8.

£40 poorer, I arrived at the spectacular Barbican Centre.  I had seats up in one of the balconies, but ushers were trying to fill the orchestra seats, so I was given a “producer’s complimentary upgrade” to an orchestra seat.  Then I waited for the show to begin. Meanwhile they were playing terrific music on the overhead speakers, but Shazam couldn’t figure out any of the songs.  (Ugh.) I thought some of the songs might have been Liz Phair, but I wasn’t sure.  Anyway,  we were waiting and waiting and finally they announced there were technical difficulties, and the show would start late.  Like 8:30 late.  The show began with real energy and humor but in the end, it was not for me.  I found the singing wonderful, but what they were singing about was awful, hateful, depressing stuff, and the main character (who I also think was the writer?) was so degraded and humiliated as a plot device that the show was just painful to watch.  I kept waiting for intermission, because I was going to duck out and save myself, but there wasn’t any.  Also, I appeared to be the only person in the audience who hated the show—because everyone else gave it a standing O.  I wanted something light and happy and that was not was A Strange Loop was about.

When the show was over and I could make my escape, I looked for a taxi but unlike the night before, there weren’t any around.  I started walking, following the other theater-goers, feeling cold with the wind and a little sorry for myself, but remembering I had seen a Barbican Tube station, and hoping that if I went that way I could figure out how to get back to the apartment.  Fortunately, a taxi whipped by and stopped, and I was thrilled.

The driver, Johnnie, was curious about what I had seen, where I was from, and where I was going.  I told him about living in Atlanta and he butted in and said, “Pardon me, but I heard Atlanta was a shithole.”  I just laughed out loud because I did not expect such a comment.  I tried to enumerate some of Atlanta’s better qualities, but that’s hard to do when you live in a city you basically hate. (Sorry Atlantans!)  Anyway, the drive back was full of such pronouncements.  “Asshole tourists!” he cried when a bunch of drunks practically stepped out in front of him.  “Stupid maniac drivers!” he yelled when a bus dared get too close  “Get the fuck out of my way!” he yelled at a bicyclist. Then— “Ever been to San Francisco?”  “Yes,” I said.  He never stopped talking, and while I didn’t mind the “conversation,” I might have enjoyed the trip back a little more if I could just focus on the beautiful skyline, with the pinky-purple light of the London Eye at the center of it.

Harry Potter Store

The next morning I headed back to Edinburgh, but not before stopping for a falafel sandwich for breakfast and visiting the Harry Potter Store at Platform 9 ¾ which was right there in King’s Cross Station.  (Somehow I’d missed it when I was there before.)  There was a queue to get in, and the store, all things considered, was pretty small,  but there was some really cool stuff there.  If I had wanted to blow a lot of money, I could have, gearing myself up in Ravenclaw regalia.  But I satisfied myself with the one thing I wanted:  a Marauder’s Map scarf, which I can’t wait to wear when it’s scarf-weather again.  And then I got on my train (sadly, not a first class coach this time), and rode back to Edinburgh, with a golden retriever named Chilla in the seat across the aisle.

10/10 would definitely go again.

More Photos

Chilla the Doggo

Westminster Abbey

A very rained-on selfie

View of the Thames

Trafalgar Square

The Courts of Justice

Temple Inside the British Museum

A random Greek lady

“Bohemian Rhapsody” on the piano is…interessting.

An Egyptian ram

On the Tower Bridge

Mosaic wall in the British Museum

Going under London Bridge

London Bridge Hospital undergoing renovations

King Ramesses II

Large Chinese incense burner

View of the Globe Theatre from inside the boat

Big Ben

Inside the British Museum

Cat mummies at the British Museum

More cat mummies

British Museum courtyard

A Chinese decorated wall

Colossal Scarab

Another view of the Colossal Scarab

Funerary statuettes

Greek redware urns

British Museum dome

Egyptian cat figurine side view

Egyptian cat figurine front view

Egyptian statue

Egyptian statue

Across from the Tower of London

A cool clock I saw hanging off one of London’s buildings

Across from Wyndham’s Theatre

The Tower of London

The Tower of London

An accidental selfie

The Tower Bridge

The London Eye

The Tower Bridge

Queen Hathor

London’s Egg Building, aka “The Gherkin”

Amitabha Buddha

Khorsabad, the Palace of Sargon

Palm-leaf column of King Ramesses II

Cornelis Bloemaert, Owl on a Perch (1625)

Mabel Dwight, Queer Fish (1936)

*Note:

The title of this blog post is a lyric from Paul McCartney & Wings’ song “London Town.”

Memoir, Poetry, and Why Can’t I Do Both?

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Pastel image of a black woman wearing a blue dress and writing in a notebook.

from the NYPL Digital Collections

Yesterday I met up with a lovely colleague, Ida, to chitchat and catch up, and we spent a good amount of time discussing my writing.  I am in the middle of two projects right now, and one of them includes poems about my family or based on my family.  Ida and I had that age-old question about memoir and life writing:  what’s true, what’s what you remember, and do you dare to speak your truth?  I don’t think it’s any secret that the relationship I’ve had with my father has been fraught for most of my life, particularly late childhood and the teen years, and there are poems I want to write about certain times in my life with him, but I’m not sure I should/could.

Part of my concern about writing memoir in general (not just in relation to my father) is that I don’t feel like my life is particularly interesting (ergo, who would want to read about it?). Yes, I’ve dealt with trauma and abuse, but where most memoirists could find lots of fodder to write about on those subjects, I find that I have a very intellectualized perspective—which is not surprising, because as I’ve said other times in this blog, I live too much in my head—that resists doing the lyrical work that memoir is good at.  I also just don’t remember the feelings I had, beyond fear and anger, and even they have been dulled with time.  How can I reflect on memories I don’t really have anymore, except as brief snapshots from my life?  How can I delve into the specific details of a life which even to me are fuzzy at this point?  Where does that leave me?  Writing really banal poems, I guess.

(Hmm:  an aside. It just occurs to me that a few times I have written poems that didn’t work as poems, and I took out the line breaks and submitted them as flash memoir and they not only worked, they got published.  Hmm.  Need to think about that a bit more. I want to write poems, because poetry is where I live, but I wonder if my voice is too prosy for that—at least when it comes to writing about family.)

Back to Ida.  I was listening to her talk about her own creative writing, which focuses on Hawaii’s historic relationship with its Japanese settlers, and her own father’s participation in that system.  And I thought, she really gets how poetry collections can be about so much more than their individual lyrics—that they can tell a story that has panoramic scope.  And maybe it’s because she’s looking at a particular historic period as well as her relationship with family that the project comes across as so interesting to me.  Whereas my own life seems so whitebread and humdrum and disjointed that I can’t imagine anyone would find value in reading about it.  Hell, I’m pretty sure not even I would want to read about it.  (I’m only half-kidding.)

And yet, the desire to write poems about my life remains there, as a way to make sense of these experiences—and maybe not to lose them any further than I have.  I should have kept up with my journaling—then at least I’d have material to draw from.  But there was such darkness in my life in the terrible depression of my graduate school years that I just quit, because it was too painful to document. And then I had gotten out of the habit, even when times were better. The upshot? I’ve relinquished my past—which is a terrible thing, when you want to write about it, or need to write about it, or think you should.  And everyone knows a good journaler makes for a better writer.  But anyway.

Ida encouraged me to write a real article (like for a scholarly journal) about my process, and I can’t think of anything more gloomy and dull.  (And scary.) And to be fair, I wouldn’t know where to start.  It’s been so long since I had to do any writing that uses critical research, I’m not even sure I know how to do it—I think I’ve completely forgotten how to flex those critical muscles.  (I barely remember how to write poems, let’s be honest.). She says she would help me, but I hate to be a burden on someone who has her own important writing to do. But we’ll see.  Especially now that my job is in transition, it might make sense to try to write something real and get it published.  It could maybe help me down the line.

In other news, I’ve sent out a bunch of submissions lately… I hope I get lucky. I would love for you to read some of my new work (including this poem, How the Heart Works, which appeared recently in Third Wednesday.)

Thanks for reading this latest post, my lovies.  I hope your own writing is going well!

Climate Change & Christmas

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Old-timey Santa carrying a Christmas tree and backpack of toys while two little girls look at him happily.

from the NYPL Digital Collections

Christmas carols may play on my Spotify playlist right now, but it’s 70+ degrees out which feels decidedly not Christmassy. (Maybe if I lived in Florida?)  Of course I know this is due to climate change, something we’re all culpable for.  But I remember cold Decembers, and having to wear snuggly coats and scarves.  I remember snow falling in December and having to defrost my car windows to crack the thick layer of ice. Today I’m wearing bare legs and Birkenstock sandals, and the flowers are coming back out.  It offends me.

We should all be offended by climate change.  Forty-odd years ago, during the energy crisis, President Carter was interested in moving the U.S. to renewable energies, and if he had succeeded in his plans, we could be like Scotland now, carbon neutral and getting most of our energy through wind and solar farms.  But Big Oil and the combustion-powered car industry made sure that the U.S. stayed addicted to oil, and now the entire Earth is warming and our politicians can’t seem to agree on what should be done—mainly because many of them are beholden to the status quo…and to Big Oil and Coal.  Forty years ago, we might have had a chance to change things—now we’re trying to play catch-up, and catastrophic global warming, like the Grim Reaper, is on our doorsteps.

Coral bleaching, whales not being able to spawn, extinctions, glaciers melting, shorelines being devoured by global sea rise, worsening wildfires in the West, more devastating hurricanes, flooding, droughts across the Southwest and South—everywhere we look we can see the effects of climate change, and we do nothing because we don’t want to be inconvenienced.  Because it will take money and cultural change and thinking to make the environment a priority—and frankly our capitalist system is designed to exploit the environment, not protect it.  And as I said before, we’re all culpable.  We participate in the system that will eventually kill us all and will decimate life as we know it for generations to come, if not forever.

But we’ll be dead by then, so why does it matter?  That’s a comment I’ve heard more than once, and I think about the inherent selfishness implied with such a remark.  Yes, we’ll be dead at some point, but shouldn’t we want something better for the folks who come after us? And not just folks, but all the animals in the world too. If I’m honest, I really worry about the animals most—people will be fine—but animals are losing their habitats and becoming extinct because of our selfish over consumption of natural resources and our careless stewardship of the Earth. Why are we like this?  And who benefits?  A handful of billionaires, that’s who.

Starting small isn’t ideal—we need grand gestures at this point—but even incremental changes can help. I’m only driving three days a week, so that’s something.  I try to turn off the lights when I leave a room. And this year, after much debate, we decided to get an artificial Christmas tree instead of a live one this year.

Of course, a lot of energy was expended to manufacture this tree—not just in the production process, but in materials use and shipping as well.  It’s not carbon neutral by a long shot.  But it’s also not cutting down a new tree every year just so we can have it six weeks in our house, only to dump it in the woods where it doesn’t really do anything.

Granted, live Christmas trees are raised to be cut down and Christmas tree farms provide jobs—a good thing.  And since Christmas trees grow for eight to ten years before they can be harvested, they give off a lot of oxygen during their growing seasons.  But in the end, the tree dies and no longer produces oxygen.  It doesn’t seem worth it.

Do I love a fake tree?  Not at all.  We’ve had fresh trees my whole life, and nothing beats the scent of balsam and fir floating in your living room.  But I just don’t see how cutting down a tree makes sense anymore, especially given the environmental crisis.  We need trees to eat carbon dioxide and give off oxygen.  Killing one so I can enjoy it in my living room seems antithetical to my concerns about climate change. Hence, the fake-a-roony.

It will take some time to get used to.  But really, this sacrifice is small.  If I wanted to make a real difference, I’d invest in a horse and buggy.  (As if that’s even a possibility!) But at least the artificial tree is reusable for as many years as planned obsolescence has in store for it.  And if it doesn’t look like a real tree, or smell like one, at least once it’s decorated it will look like all the trees we’ve had in the past, and that’s not nothing.

Morning Musing

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5 a.m. from my bedroom window. It ain’t what you call “dark.”

It’s 5 a.m.  I’ve been awake since 2:30, when the seagulls decided they wanted to hold a concert right outside my window. In case you haven’t heard a seagull lately, its cry falls somewhere between a half-cranked motor and a baby being stabbed to death.  Seagulls like to fly over the courtyard out back of my apartment, and I like to watch them…but not this early.

Since I’ve been in Edinburgh, my sleep patterns have been disrupted.  Partly that’s due to sleeping in a strange bed, one that lacks multiple blankets and too many pillows.  Partly it’s the light situation. I can tell you that around 3:30 the sky was definitely turning lighter, and I’m used to dark nights and black-out curtains back home, so that my bedroom is cave-like and no light enters in to bother me.  (Yes, yes, I could wear a sleepy mask here—and I have one—but I never can keep it on my face long enough to let it work.)  I also miss my cats, especially Jenny, who keeps me company at least for a little while as I sleep.  All of these things combined have contrived to keep me up later and to sleep less deeply when I finally go to bed.  Even my Fitbit has been giving me poor sleep marks since I’ve come to Scotland.

I’m not sure why I couldn’t just roll over at 2:30 and fall back asleep.  I guess I do have some weighty thoughts on my mind.  For one thing, I remembered I promised to write a blurb for a new poetry book, and I was suddenly panicked that I was late with it.  (Turns out I’m not; it’s due mid-July, not mid-June). For another I guess I’m worried about my class.  Discussion is going really well and what I’ve graded so far has been good, but teaching a new class is difficult and I worry my students may be disappointed with me.  (I’m so used to teaching creative writing these days, that teaching literature seems just so much harder than it used to be.)  And finally, as I mentioned before, I’m lonely, and also finding it hard to write.  My Dad asked me if I’d written a lot of poems since I’ve been here when we talked on Father’s Day, and I bashfully admitted I have not. (On the other hand, I didn’t write about Venice when I was in Venice, but when I did finally write about it, I came up with a book.  So perhaps a book of Scotland-related poems might be percolating in the back of my mind?)

I suppose I’ll wind up taking a nap at some point today—I suspect I’ll just crash.  (But hopefully not while I’m teaching. 😊)

Anyway, I just wanted to jot a quick blog for my five loyal readers, and to take a picture of 5 a.m. so you know what I’m dealing with.

New Poems in Hole in the Head Review

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Well, sadly, I may be back in The ATL again, after my wonderful time at Rockvale, but some good things greeted me on the way back:  Jenny (of course!), and five new poems up in Hole in the Head Review.  So very grateful for their support of writers and their belief in my work!

The poems are kind of a mixed bag–they all belong to several different collections I have going on at the same time.  I was really surprised and delighted they took all of them, especially because they are basically unrelated to each other.  So anyway, if you want to see a range of new work, check out my new poems.

I hope you like them!

Yes, Virginia, I Do Need a Room of One’s Own

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Ah, to be outside one’s typical milieu for the first time in 16 months!

I think about how it is when I am at home, trying to write—the cats are constantly jumping up on me, getting in the way of my computer, sitting on the books I’m using for research, whatever.  There are endless things to clean (not that I get up and clean them, but whatevs, they taunt me).  The phone rings constantly.  The emails and work fires intervene.  Someone in the cul-de-sac invariably manicures on his lawn, the incessant whine and growl of lawnmowers and weed-whackers destroying my concentration. It is hard to find a creative “zone” when too many things make demands on your attention.

Scout, with Sandy petting him

Since I have been here at Rockvale (in Tennessee, 35-ish miles south of Nashville as the crow flies) I have reveled in the almost uninterrupted quiet.  I read here in my “cell” (a beautifully appointed room with a cozy chair and desk and bed with a quilt on it from 1925) or in the fireplace room (which smells of a century of winter fires), and write in a little pool of sunlight on the enclosed porch.  It is almost like I alone have run of the place.  But there are other women here too, working on their own writing, finding their own paths.  Except for a little chitchat in the kitchen when preparing meals, the only noise is the AC turning on and off.  What must it be like to have this kind of quiet all the time?  I think I didn’t realize how exhausted and depleted I’ve been feeling until I rediscovered my own being here in this writer’s colony.  I am truly decompressing.

Mama… a.k.a. Little Mexico

From my window, I can see a paddock, and usually there’s a mama and her foal far out on the other side, nipping the grass.  Today they were over by the fence nearest me, so I went out there and got to pet Scout.  His mama (whose real name is Little Mexico (?)) didn’t come too close, but Scout seemed pretty interested in me, and in debonair Finn and chonky Ollie, the two cats who came running when they saw me.  (I can’t escape cats!)  Scout was so interested that he gave me a big chomp on my forearm—which hurts a bit, but didn’t break the skin.  Still, I’d pet him again if he came to this side of the fence.

Finn

Ollie (who is really Oliver)

I feel grateful to be here.  I think after a year and a half-ish of being shut in the house, I just needed…another house. 😊 I needed a place of clutter-free, basically cat-free peace.  (And wifi and cell service are spotty, so I’m even hard to reach, which actually, I love.) I am hoping to get some good writing done.  I’ve already brainstormed a number of ideas of where to go on my next project, I’ve organized a list of what I have, I’ve done some journaling (I know, what a shocker!) and I’ve read two whole books for research already.

Tomorrow, I’m writing two poems if it kills me.  And maybe I’ll go visit Scout again.

Solstice

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Long beach postcard 1910

Image from NYPL Public Domain Digital Collection

It’s the summer solstice, the longest day of the year.  Sunset tonight is technically 8:51 p.m., but of course it will still be light out closer to 10 (for a total of 14 hours and 24 minutes of sunshine).  It’s the kind of day I could imagine myself being out by the ocean for as long as possible—you know, if Atlanta was on the coast.  Which alas, it is not.

I simultaneously love and hate this day—I love it because it’s high summer and there’s something interesting about the sun being out as I’m (supposed to be) readying myself for sleep.  But I also hate it because it means the days will now get progressively shorter, creeping as they do towards the fall and a new school term.  (I’ve had this love-hate thing with the day since I was little.)

Anyway, here is a poem I wrote several years ago commemorating the summer solstice.  Initially I planned to write something New Agey and mystical—but then I defaulted to funny.  This poem has always been one of my favorites, and it always makes me laugh.

Solstice

Tonight is the shortest of the year,
not enough time to break into Mr. Next Door’s
shed and rearrange his tools,
hide the scotch he keeps on a ledge
beside the coiled snake of orange power cord,
let the air out of the tires of his ’87 Impala,
fray his collection of ropes,
steal the front wheel of his Schwinn
and replace it with a stale doughnut,
spill turpentine into his jug of marbles,
stuff his sleeping bag with twigs and old leaves,
or tangle his fishing wire into knots
not even the navy knows about.
Tomorrow, the night is two minutes longer.

 

If you like this poem, you might like the others in my collection, La Petite Mort.

Hostage Situation: When Your Accepted Work Doesn’t Actually Get Published

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handcuffsI’ve been mulling over my C.V. and noticing that there are a number of acceptances that are still listed as “forthcoming” because the journals where my work was accepted haven’t yet published them.  This doesn’t bother me with recent acceptances, of course, but three pieces (two poems and one flash fiction) received acceptances last year and have yet to be published.

I think this is unconscionable—especially because the journals that accepted them are little.  It would be one thing, if I were waiting on a print magazine like The New Yorker, which accepts work with the caveat that there is considerable lead time until publication. But these online journals are neither large nor prestigious, so what’s the hold up?

I am especially annoyed at the situation surrounding the publication of the flash piece because that had been accepted at another journal (in August 2015), and it never came out.  I guess the journal folded before it ever even released an issue—although the journal still has a webpage and an active Submittable site.  I wrote them an e-mail to withdraw the story, and began sending it out to other places.  And after a time, it was accepted again (October 2016).  And then nothing.

I’ve looked at the journal and its Duotrope statistics, and it appears that nothing has been updated on the journal, and the most recent response reported on Duotrope was—wait for it—October 2016.  Two e-mail inquiries I sent have received no response.  So the damn story is just in limbo.  I plan to give the journal one more month, and then I’m withdrawing it and starting the whole process again.

The publication sitch with the poems is similar.  Both poems were accepted in April 2016—while I was at AWP, no less—and I waited and waited for some news about their publication.  First I went to Duotrope to see what was the most recent reported response and saw that Duotrope apparently considered the journal “defunct.”  When I went to its listing in Poets & Writers, I clicked on the website, and it brought me to their former website, which had been sold to some rando guy who was now going to post his own stuff on his new blog.  The journal was missing.  I tracked down the journal’s FB page, and sure enough, it had a new website address, but no information about when any new issues would be appearing.

A few weeks ago, I went back to the site, and there was a notice that the journal was restructuring and would be on hiatus until Fall 2017.  I will give them some time before I withdraw the pieces; maybe they are still planning on publishing them—I have to cut them a little slack, since there was obviously some kind of problem.  And at least they (belatedly) had the courtesy of posting a note on the website about the hiatus.

All of this gets me to thinking though about how important it is for editors to be ethical about the writing they accept from people.  Editors should say, in their acceptances, when publication will happen—or at least give a ballpark figure.  (At Atlanta Review, the expectation is that any work accepted will appear in the next issue without question.  If there is some reason why the poem will not appear in the next issue—like if we miscalculate the number of pages we need—you better believe I contact the author with an updated ETA when their poem will appear.)

Of course journals—especially little ones—come and go, but it seems to me that when a journal has accepted work, if some catastrophic tragedy happens, and they can’t actually fulfill their contract to publish the piece, they have an obligation to e-mail the writers and explain.  It’s wrong to keep work hostage, and it’s wrong not to respond to polite and professional queries for updates.

Writing and publication are a writer’s livelihood—and sure, I’m not getting paid for this work—but publications add to my reputation as a writer, and I count on my work being available for people to read.  When work is accepted, and then not published for whatever reason, and editors don’t respond to emails asking about updates on the status, that’s unprofessional behavior.  And they shouldn’t be editors.

Not publishing accepted work compounds the already problematic issue of not getting paid for work (yes, yes, I know poets and most fiction writers don’t get paid—and don’t get me started about that) by denying writers exposure—the exposure that being published for free is supposed to bring.  Exposure helps you to create name recognition and to build your brand.  (Not to be all corporate-business-speaky about it.)

Additionally, when journals charge submission fees (as one of these journals charged me), not publishing my work as promised becomes even more egregiously unacceptable.  It is, in some ways, outright theft.  To wit:

  1. I’ve paid for them to read my submission.
  2. They accepted my story for publication.
  3. They have not published the story.
  4. I’m out the $5 bucks and the story.

That’s not ok.

Journals that engage in behavior like that are not ok.  And they should be called out for their unethical practices. I haven’t named the journals here only because I’m still giving them a chance to redeem themselves.  But if it doesn’t get fixed, I certainly would want to warn other people about the treatment I’ve received at the hands of these journals.  I would hate for other writers to have a similar, crappy experience, getting work accepted and then all their hopes dashed when the journals flake out.

I hope none of you, my five loyal readers, have experienced such a thing.  But if this has happened, what did you do to set it to rights?  (Looking for suggestions.)

Brushing with Fame When You Don’t Know You’re Doing It

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I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t know what a lot of writers look like.  Unlike movie and television stars, whose photos are ubiquitous, writers—even most superstar writers—don’t get their photos splashed everywhere.  I don’t watch TV, so while writers might be doing the book tours, and showing up at morning chat shows, I’ll never see them there.

Authors I would recognize if I saw them walking in the streets:  Stephen King, John Grisham, Roxane Gay, Joyce Carol Oates.  (And Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman and Audre Lorde—but of course, they’re long dead.  And if they were walking in the streets, that would be terrifying and highly inappropriate for a corpse.)

Forget poets, I have no idea what they look like.  We live in obscurity.  The only poets whose faces I’d recognize are the poets I know personally—not an insignificant number, but not a huge one either—or the poets I follow on Twitter, though their images are about the size of a finger nail.

My point being, sometimes you bump into a famous author—whose name or work you know, but you don’t know the person, so you’re caught a little flat-footed until you see his or her name badge.  This very sitch happened at AWP this year in Washington D.C.

Working the Atlanta Review table on Friday morning (Feb. 9th), I perfected my carney act, trying to entice passers-by to get interested in the journal and maybe buy a subscription, when a handsome older man in a dapper hat, too polite to pass on by after I flagged him down, stopped.

“Do you know about Atlanta Review?” I asked in my dreadfully cheerful, most hopeful voice.

“Yes, I do,” he said.

“Are you a poet?  Have you sent us some submissions?”

“Well, I have a list of 100 journals that I’m currently going down the line and sending work to.  Atlanta Review is somewhere in the middle, a great journal.  But I’m mainly a fiction writer.” (Dramatic pause.)  “I’ve written…oh, maybe 50 books.”

And that’s when I notice his name badge, peeking out from his scarf—Walter Mosely.

Oh, geez, do I feel stupid.  Of course he’s written 50 books, he’s Walter Fucking Mosely, famous for his Easy Rawlins detective novels, like Devil in a Blue Dress, which came out in 1990.

walter-mosely-photo

via John Winokur on Twitter @AdviceToWriters

We chitchat a little longer, and then he promises that he’ll send some work our way soon, and wanders away from the table.

I’m standing there, bemused, thinking, If I had just seen his name badge, I could have been a lot more effusive in my interaction with him.  I could have sounded like a fan.  (Not to hustle him into buying a subscription, but because writers like to be appreciated for their work.) But he was absolutely charming, and didn’t seem to hold it against me that I didn’t recognize his face.  (Thank goodness.)

Of course, this is all by way of saying, we should know what authors look like—they should be in our collective consciousness, like movie actors—writers are just as important and affect people in personal, sometimes lifelong, ways.  And it’s just too bad that on some arbitrary scale of cultural significance, writers, and especially poets, fall somewhere near the bottom.

I think they should make posters of famous authors, and there should be issues of the equivalent of Tiger Beat for poets.  Wouldn’t that be cool?  If suddenly we had magazines full of poet pinups?  (I think that would be fun.)  Or if there were trading cards with bubble gum which you could collect?  Or glossy, autographed headshots?

On a last note, I realize I do live under a rock, so perhaps others are more aware of what their literary heroes and heroines look like than I am.  But I wish that as a group, we were a little better at publicity.  That fame game is hard.  (I wish I was a little better at it myself.)