the zen space is ‘my’ on-line-facility/e-zine/whatever for presenting haiku and related writing. I publish it once every three months, marking the four, Northern-hemisphere seasons. On this occasion I gave over the editorial seat to Angie Werren, a haijin of no little repute. To visit, click here or on the picture above. Enjoy.
Poster
Click on the thumbnail of the image you want to open it; right click and save or drag it to your desktop. All images are based on a poster idea used by the wonderful Scottish Poetry Library; they are under my copyright, but are released for use in unmodified form as posters or wallpapers. Enjoy.
M.
PC wallpaper
Mac wallpaper
Ebooks Etc is the name of a bookshop with branches in Pretoria and Centurion in South Africa. If you drop in you’ll find Lupa stocked on their shelves. Discerning folk, these Southern Hemisphere types, if you ask me.
M.
© Oversteps Books
Although my brand new collection of poems, I am not a fish, has not yet been officially launched, I have just been handed a copy. I have to say it looks good, well finished, and of course it’s always a pleasure to see one’s own work right there in hard copy. In due course I hope to sell some signed copies by mail order; I expect that these will actually cost a little more than you would pay in a shop or from a distributor, in order to cover packing and postage, but that can’t be helped. Stay tuned here for more news about the official publication date. (I’ll also be looking at the possibility of selling signed copies of my novel Lupa by the same method.)
The Phoenix Rising from the Ashes, the 21st century’s first major anthology of sonnets, is due for launch in June. More precise details when I get them…
(c) Lesley Haycock
Just a reminder for all writers of poetry that this competition is still very much live, and that there is room for your entry. Click the painting above to go to the competition web site.
M
© Bookseeker Agency
Deep winter in the Highlands of Scotland, with a foot of snow gradually starting to thaw as our changeable weather takes another swing. In the town of Pitlochry, at their famous Festival Theatre, the annual Winter Words literary festival is under way. I have just heard that my poem ‘Beatrice the rat tells Mr. Coelacanth about the Wisecrack city elves’ (from my soon-to-be-published collection I am not a fish) was premiered at their ‘Poetry Please’ event. Also I am once again amongst the winners of their ‘Fearie Tales’ competition for tales of the supernatural, and my ghost story ‘On the Platform’ will be read out during the final weekend of the festival. There are plenty of other interesting events at the festival too. Can you make it?
(c) Lesley Haycock.
A new venture for me (to add to author/poet/editor) is competition judge. Aval-Ballan is a Scottish-based arts and design studio, and they have agreed to sponsor a poetry competition, which you can read about here. I am one of the competition judges, along with artists Lesley Haycock and Victoria Devaney, and poet/editor Lisa Marianne Stewart. Entrants have a chance to win an original piece of artwork.
… on the 20th of December 2012, and you can get to Constantia Park Library, Pretoria, for 6pm, you will be able to attend a mini-launch of three books published by P’Kaboo Publishers. This will include my Lupa. Recommended – a book is always a good Christmas present, and a visit to a library is time well spent.
I mourn the passing of a blog today! Canadian poet Steve Myers – a totally unique voice – has left a farewell note on his now-empty blog. I am glad to see that he may still write, later, but sad to see that his future projects will not involve this medium, which even a technophobe such as myself acknowledges to be a remarkable tool for communication.
A couple of books were put into my hands yesterday. The first was a hot-off-the-presses copy of Lupa, one of the launch batch. It’s an interesting feeling holding the first pukka copy of a published novel. I’ve held the proof copy, but this is a different sensation. The second was a copy of the Realms of Gold anthology which I mentioned before, in which I have five poems. It was nice to find that I had won the Vera Rich Memorial Prize with my poem ‘A Scottish Autumn’. This isn’t a big prize, as the range of contributors to the anthology is limited, so I’m not about to exaggerate its importance, but it is named after a poet for whom I had enormous respect.
I wrote ‘A Scottish Autumn’ several years ago basing it on three paintings by Scottish landscape artist Tom Barron. The committee said of it: ‘The judgment here, with respect to this poem, is that it stood out for its local colour, imagistic clarity, and its intelligence.’ I have reproduced it below.
A Scottish Autumn
i.
when I was wee I used to buy
tiny drums of ice cream
wrapped round with a paper label
the melt ran down my fingers
and scented them vanilla
on train journeys banked above
where the Earn meanders
I would see bales
fallen chessmen on
an abandoned board
and a sudden trove of tastes
and smells would open up
I would find my fingers on
the carriage-window
as though to pick up
a melting memory
ii.
‘lassie – pit a bunnet awn’
the farmer took pity on my reddening face
and the way my hair shone with sweat
we children swarmed upon the stubble field
it was our holiday to help heave the big
brick-bales of straw onto the flat-bed trailer
as the mountain grew the farmboys took them
out of our hands belt-buckle-high for the boys
but where our faces were a glow of heat
and hefted them into the hard-blue of the sky
our reward was some Tizer from the tractor-cab
now look at these – an overturned colonnade
awaiting the fork-lift like a bull awaits an axe
iii.
close-to there is grey
and there is green
and the must
like old clothes
in the Sally Army shop
not the spitting dust
of summer
the icy water from
a seasons-old furrow
overtops one shoe
and these lone
old-men-of-the-fields
stand
mute as blocks
haphazard
lumbered ghosts
of a past
harvest
Marie Marshall 