BurnedThumb

Website of poet Elizabeth Rimmer


Events


  • Women’s Work

    sister march edinburgh
    This is what we do with walls

    I’m still processing what happened over the weekend. Global figures for those attending the women’s marches have reached an estimated 4.8 million, and there were 678 events world-wide. I don’t know if this includes the disability march which people who were unable to travel to a live event could sign up to participate on-line, but these figures are astonishing, as is the fact that I haven’t seen any record of any arrests. I’ve heard it said that this is because there were a lot of middle-class white women marching, and the police were merely protecting their own, but I’ve been on marches where the police outnumbered the mostly white, middle-class (and middle-aged, if I’m honest) women, and I can tell you that wasn’t the attitude! There was something very different about the police handling of these marches, and if I were in Trump’s staff right now, I would be seriously concerned about it.
    There was something different about the march, too, and not because it was mostly women, nor because it was well-behaved. The marches I’ve been on have mostly been well-behaved, but they’ve often been tense, or angry, or full of machismo. This one was characterised by wit, courtesy, good humour and plain speaking – no minced words, no alternative facts, no bragging or threats. There were men there, but without white-knighting, or taking charge, and there was certainly no harassment.
    I’ve heard of racist attitudes displayed at some marches, but in this country, anti-racist and green banners were as common as anti-sexist ones, and equality, welcome for refugees and international peace didn’t come far behind. Political changes in the last twelve months have struck at everything many of us hold dear, and Trump isn’t the only villain. He is just the most visible face of all the threats we have come to recognise, and his appalling election campaign has simply made us realise that we have to act now.
    Later, I recognised the feeling I had about this march. When my father died, my mother was so strong, so resilient. My brothers all wanted to help with what had to be done, but they found her already on it. Later she said to me. ‘This is women’s work. Birth and death are women’s work.’I get the feeling that every woman involved had that same feeling – not a war to be fought, but a job of work to be done. Men are not excluded – far from it, but this is something that women are going to do.
    This is a big thing and we are only at the start of it. News from the US is coming in, of lockdowns and rights removed, and also of some spirited resistance. The US is not going quietly into this bad night. But it isn’t only in the US. It’s going to take all of us. We will have to resolve to tell the truth, in spite of the lies and obfuscations of powerful people,to refuse injustice, and protect those who take the brunt of repression,and to come together to create something better.
    If you know the Cherokee story of the two wolves, you’ll know what I mean when I say ‘let’s feed the good wolf’.


  • November News

    dscf1031

    This is pretty close to the weather today, though the wind is getting up as we go through the day. There was frost this morning and starlings all over the rowan tree, and goosanders in the river, so it is officially winter now. Gardening is almost done for the year, the last apples are in the freezer, and there is talk of Christmas.

    But first:

    I’ll be at the launch of a new anthology, Umbrellas of Edinburgh, edited by Claire Askew and Russell Jones and published by Freight Books. It’s happening  at 6:00 at the Scottish Poetry Library, and though I haven’t lived in Edinburgh for many years, I have a poem in it which harks back to the birth of my oldest daughter, which I will be reading.

    I have some new poems in the latest Poetry Scotland, and another has been accepted for the forthcoming issue of The Poets’ Republic.

    My year as Makar of the Federation of Writers (Scotland) is almost up, and the news was broken today that my successor,from the 15th December, when I hand over, will be Andy Jackson. Andy has two collections of poetry  to his name – The Assassination Museum and A beginners Guide to Cheating, and is an indefatigable editor of anthologies, including Split Screen and Double Bill. He will be a wonderful Makar, and I hope he has as much fun as I have had.

    And I will be getting involved in more editing. I’ve found this a fascinating job, which gives me a whole new perspective on the writing of poetry. It’s a bit like hanging an exhibition, as opposed to painting a picture, creating a context for the poems to work together, getting the right lighting and position for each, but it also makes me think more about the process of writing – not just the how of technique, but the why of theme and intention. What is it we are trying to do when we sit down and write?

    I have a lot of thoughts about the subjects of my poems, but if you were to ask me about how I write, or what sort of poetry I want to write, or what I think poetry is for, I tend to get impatient, and simply say I want to write the best poem I can. But what do I mean by that? These questions are not simply navel-gazing distractions, but ways to build a structure of practice so I can get deeper into the kind of understanding I need to write more coherently and consistently. It will also, I hope, give me an understanding of the kinds of poetry I don’t write, and perhaps don’t really understand. I’m loving it!

     

     


  • Writing in the Forth Valley

    If you are writing in the Forth Valley (any genre, any level,) you might like to be part of the Forth Valley Writers collective, which aims to support promote and encourage creative writing in the area – anywhere from Falkirk and Alloa to Callander and Thornhill. We have regular meetups – the next one is on Friday 23rd September at the Curly Coo in Stirling. And if you can’t make it, but you’d like to keep up, we have a blog at

    ForthValleyWriters.blogspot.co.uk

    And from my own personal perspective, here is a link to a poem I wrote about writing in the Forth Valley – Walking the Territory. It appears in The Territory of Rain, but Stirling Makar Clive Wright has chosen it as his poem of the month for August to September, and you can now find it here.

    As part of the Federation of Writers (Scotland) celebration National Poetry Day (6th October) I’ll be reading at an open mic event at the GOMA library in Glasgow, on the theme of ‘messages’. It’s an afternoon event from 2:30, finishing around 5:30.

    Meanwhile I am bashing on with The Wren in the Ash Tree. It’s at 163 lines so far, and I’m only two cantos in. And the herb poems are coming along nicely. Two of them will be in the forthcoming issue of Poetry Scotland (about borage and sage), and I’m working on meadowsweet and chamomile, getting distracted by issues of land ownership in the Scottish uplands, medieval domestic economy and ghost hoaxes. If you want to know more about the latter, I can really recommend The Folklore Podcast! This is a fascinating project run by Mark Norman, and has lots of interesting things about death coaches and Springheel Jack, and many other things that keep me from working.

    Plus, all the new Red Squirrel poetry has arrived – what a feast that was! There are launch events in both Scotland and North-west England, so if you are nearby, do check out the facebook page.

     


  • Latest News August

    Last week Keith Parker who hosts the facebook group Poetry Talk, was kind enough to publish this lovely review of The Territory of Rain. He has given me permission to share it here.

    Review by Keith Parker

    Also, Soundwaves, this year’s anthology of the Federation of Writers (Scotland) was launched. It is, at 320 pages, the largest anthology the Federation has published, containing a mixture of poetry, flash fiction and short stories from writers such as Colin Will, Etta Dunn, Charlie Gracie, Finola Scott, Ann McKinnon, Marie Therese Taylor, Anne Clarke, Stephen Watt, Sheila Templeton, Maggie Rabatski, Anne Connolly and Kevin Cadwallender. A snip at £9.99. Oh, and Stand in the Light is in there too.

    And, still to come, a reading from the Dazzle Ship pamphlet Signal at the Edinburgh Book Shop (in Bruntsfield, at Holy Corner) on Monday 22 August at 7pm.

    And then on to September when Sally Evans  has a packed programme of readings, performances and book launches already planned for the Callander Poetry Weekend. More details later.

     


  • Callander Summerfest

    callander haiku poster

    As part of Callander’s Summerfest festival , Die-hard Publishers (Sally Evans and Ian King, who also run the wonderfull Main Street Bookshop) have organised the launch of Callander Haiku

    haiku book

    a lovely book,  about Callander and its stunning surrounding landscape. The launch will take place in St Kessog’s Kirk Theatre, the Square, Callander at 8:00, on Thursday 21st July, and there will be several of the poets who have poems in the book. I’ll be reading a couple of haiku, and two or three other poems about the area. For more details, please see

    https://www.facebook.com/events/1324561070904634/


  • News

    DSCF1009

    This blog hasn’t been getting too much love lately, because I have been so busy. There are several anthologies in the works, including one for the rather beautiful Corbenic Poetry Path. I don’t have a poem on it yet, but it is on the way, and the poem in question, Ivy, from Wherever We Live Now, is going to be in the anthology. Jon Plunkett, the creator of the path is a very fine poet in his own right, but this lovely combination of poetry and landscape is absolutely outstanding.

    Then, I posted about this project earlier

    https://www.poetry-festival.co.uk/poetica-botanica/

    and I’m delighted to say that I’ll be reading my poem, Melissa Officinalis, at this event, as part of Ledbury’s Poetry Festival. It’s one of a sequence called Herbs for the Three Musics, which I’m hoping will form a significant part of my next collection. The three musics are the three modes of music in Celtic tradition, summed up in the ballad Orfeo as ‘the notes of joy’, ‘the notes of noy’ (i.e. sorrow or pain) and the notes of healing. Melissa, or lemon balm, is well note for lifting depression, so it will fall under the notes of joy, which tradition says are so merry that no-one who hears it can resist dancing.

    Saturday 9 July

    Poetica Botanica: Making Words from Healing Herbs with Adam Horovitz

    Saturday 9 July |  11am–12noon | The Walled Garden | Free

    Herefordshire poet in residence Adam Horovitz was commissioned to write ‘February in the

    Physic Garden’ at Hellens, Much Marcle. This inspired the Poetica Botanica. Contributors will

    read their poems at this delightful event.


  • Summer News

    peonies and rocket

    The news should be that we have summer – a whole fortnight, it seems, of glorious sunshine, warmth, swallows and swifts scissoring up the sky. It’s only June and already we’ve had gazpacho four times – here:

    garden furniture

    But I haven’t been idle. There are some new poems, some of which are in exciting places. I hope to have news of an anthology of Edinburgh poems later in the year, but sooner than that, there will be  a pamphlet produced by Marjorie Lofti Gill of work by women responding to this dazzling beauty.dazzle ship MV Fingal

    This is MV Fingal, a ‘dazzle ship’ painted by a group led by artist Chiara Phillips. There will be a community event as part of the Edinburgh Art Festival on the 19th June, which will include a reading of some of the poems we have written. I won’t be able to be there myself, unfortunately, but there are about twenty poets included in the project and all the poems I’ve seen so far are brilliant.

    And then there’s this:Fed anthology

    This is the cover for the new anthology from the Federation of Writers Scotland. It is currently with the printers and copies will be available by the end of June. There is a lot of outstanding work here of all kinds, and also includes my Stand in the Light, which so many people said kind things about when it was first published on And Other Poems.

    The back cover reads:

    This anthology, the seventh from the Federation of Writers (Scotland), has more than fifty percent greater content than any other year. A massive three hundred and twenty four pages of fascinating fiction, non-fiction and poetry from fifty contributors’ works, selected anonymously by our editorial board from members’ submissions, plus eighteen  prize-winners from six open international competitions run by the Federation. This reflects the exponential growth of our membership, now almost a thousand, from under two hundred when our first anthology, Catch the Tide, was published with only seventeen contributors’ works included.

    Readers will find both new and established writers’ works within these pages and subjects as wide-ranging as classroom shenanigans and Native American pow wows. If you love a varied literary diet, you’ll love this book. It’s a veritable feast.

    And if that doesn’t make you want a copy, I don’t know what will!

     


  • Merry is Maytime

    culinary patchOr it was. The last few weeks have been delightful, warm and sunny. This week has been cooler and cloudy, and today the only word for it is dreich. But the garden has bulked out, and I’ve already harvested and dried sage and thyme for the winter. And I’ve achieved an ambition I’ve had for forty-five years, in that I’ve candied angelica stems.

    angelicaTo be exact, I’ve cracked how to candy angelica stems, just not why. They smell fresh and sweet and inviting when you cut them, but the after-taste is definitely weird.

    knot garden

    Many birds have fledged in the last fortnight. One day there were blue tits everywhere, then the lawn was full of squawking starlings. There were robins and dunnocks hopping among the herbs and fruit bushes, and yesterday some new and shiny goldfinches on the greenhouse roof. And I’ve already seen  more butterflies this year than last, including orange tips, which are extending their range into Scotland as the earth gets warmer.

    I haven’t been out and about as much this year as last. Some of this is down to family events – illness, house moves, a ballet exam and an escaped snake (don’t even ask, it’s been re-homed now) – but some of it has been actual poetry. I’ve had poems accepted for four anthologies and for the on-line journal Interlitq, which will be out shortly. I’ve written a couple of reviews, and there’s another in progress. The results for the Vernal Equinox Poetry Competition which I’ve been judging are in and will be made public as soon as the winners are notified. I’m very excited to find out who they are, because the standard of entries this year has been very high. And the Federation of Writers (Scotland) very kindly gave me this:

    shields

    I am so honoured and so grateful.

    Also, two new writers’ groups have been started in Stirling, one for writing poetry and one for supporting and promoting creative writing, which will meet some long-felt needs. After a long period of turbulence and transition, I’m beginning to feel that my writing life has some solid foundations, and it is such a satisfaction.

    So, in spite of today’s drizzle and the wall to wall grey outside, I’m looking forward to the summer!

    peonies and rocket


  • Federation of Writers (Scotland)

    I’ve been a member of the Federation for several years. I’ve read at open mikes, I’ve been to meetings, I’ve engaged with the facebook page, and, as I’ve mentioned once or twice, I have the honour to be this year’s makar.

    I wrote about the Fed in March 2011 – you’ll find it here. That was a great night and summed up what this organisation has meant for me. Although I’ve been writing something or other most of my life, there was a long time when poetry wasn’t happening, and when even the live-the-dream self-help books tell you no-one will publish your poetry unless you have a ‘story’, you don’t have much hope it ever will. And yet —

    Last time I started writing, I didn’t know what contemporary poetry was like. If I hadn’t found Kenneth White’s Bird Path, I wouldn’t have thought I could even write it. I certainly had no idea whether I was any good, or whether anyone would be interested. Three things happened. The first was the friendship of Sally Evans, who was my first publisher. Once you know Sally, you gradually get to know everyone, because she will invite you to everything that is happening (poetry writing group this morning!), and I began to realise that writing is a very live, active and diverse thing here in Scotland. Then there was Stirling Writers under the tuition of Chris Powici (now editor of Northwords Now). It didn’t matter how raw and unfinished your work was, he could find the three good words on the page, and help you to see why they were good, and what you could do with them to make something work.

    And the third was the Federation. This organisation is FREE to join, and completely open access. Here you could meet writers of all genres and at all levels, from the people who had just joined their first writing group to people with several publications and prize-winning careers behind them. You’d get all the news, all the contacts, a chance to present and advertise your work, your events, your projects, and make some good friends. I found it was a safe place to try my wings,  a grounding, supporting and encouraging experience, and it was enormously helpful to me.

    This year, as Makar, I’ve judged the poetry competition, and it has been a delight. We have so many good creative, truly inventive poets here, as well as a lot who are still perfecting their craft (but who will be pretty exciting in a year or two) and some who are still feeling their way.  There is so much to be proud of.

    But the organisation is showing signs of strain. The newsletter, which goes out to over 1000 people, comes out every fortnight, and must take enormous amounts of work. The facebook page has over 2000 people engaged. There is a website which has to be maintained and updated, and there is a committee which has been holding the whole enterprise together, and which depends on members to keep it running. This year several committee members have to stand down, and volunteers are urgently needed. If you can give any time, any admin, financial or social media skills, please think about standing. The details of the AGM are here:

    AGM and Open Mic Wednesday 25 May 7-9pm
    FWSlogo
    McTurk Room
    Waxy O’Connor’s
    44 West George Street
    Glasgow G1 1DQ
     FWSlogo
    Please make a note of the AGM date. It’s really important to come along and have your say which this year you can do in two ways: by voting on issues raised and by reading a poem or two in the open mic slots we’re having this year. 
     FWSlogo
    The McTurk function room is downstairs from the main bar. Anyone who cannot manage stairs please use the Buchanan St. Entrance and let a member of staff know that you require the lift. Someone will assist you on the staff lift.

     

    Bookings for slots at the open mic should be made through Finola Scott. finolascott@yahoo.com

     And I hope to see you there.

  • #Deranged Poetess

    DPfilofaxThe #derangedpoetess debate seemed to me important on several levels. It wasn’t only that Oliver Thring seemed to me to be condescending to Sarah Howe as a poet and an academic, nor that he dismissed a lot of reasoned and specific criticism as the work of ‘deranged poetesses’. The very fact that such an interview of a prize-winning poet – the equivalent of a who made your dress to an Oscar winning actor – was deemed appropriate in a serious literary column is demeaning to poetry itself. It implies that the readers of The Times cannot be assumed to be interested in the actual poems, and have to be sweetened with discussions about the pretty girl’s nice house and family background.

    If you would like an example of how I wish Thring had treated the subject, here is the equivalent column in The Honest Ulsterman.

    The meme on twitter is a distant memory now, but the issues remain, and I know a lot of people are still engaged in the debate. Some of us wore paper stickers at StAnza, but I wanted something more permanent. So I asked my daughter NMRimmer to design me some artwork, and she has posted it on Redbubble so that it can be printed on demand, if anyone would like it –

    https://www.redbubble.com/people/turnupthedial/works/21296068-deranged-poetess

    You can get heavy duty stickers, dpstickerat reasonable prices, but also, redbubble being what it is, mugs and posters and laptop cases.

    However, I have also had some button badges printed.

    DPbadgeI got a hundred done, relatively cheaply, and I will take a pocketfull wherever I go, and give them to people, if they’d like one – at least until this batch runs out. This means Stirling, Edinburgh and Glasgow in the near future, but I’ll also give some to Sheila Wakefield so that Newcastle people can get some too. I’m willing to post them to people who will send me their address, but as it would cost about £1 even for a single one, perhaps you might request a few to pass around?

    If there’s still demand when the first batch is done, I’d be willing to reorder, but would have to charge 30p for each of them



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