About thirty writers, some experienced, some less so, and some who have never tried their hand before at poetry or creative prose, have enjoyed guided walks and workshops on nature writing with poet Mimi Khalvati and nature writer Mark Cocker.
Mimi's group visited Rockland Marsh with RSPB guide, Matt Wilkinson, then worked on their poems in the RSPB's hide overlooking the broad, or lurking among the vegetation for all the world like wildlife themselves! Here are two poems by Millie Comerford which came out of a lovely day in the sun and fresh air:
WHEN YOU WERE ALL GONE
When you were all gone,
I could see again,
This year’s teasels standing there.
The meadow took on colour
And best of all,
A willow smashed up by lightening
Lay scattered
On that Euro funded footpath
Through the marsh.
When you were all gone,
I sank back into that childhood place
Where I could see pink and green.
I played in the ooze and slap of mud.
I could see Paddy,
A blur of old clothes and a hat,
A haze of kindness and delight
From an old bachelor
Allowed to like children.
When you were all gone,
The marsh took me in,
took me in,
Offered me water and warmth,
I felt it in my hand.
When you were all gone,
I could see again,
This year’s teasels standing there.
The meadow took on colour
And best of all,
A willow smashed up by lightening
Lay scattered
On that Euro funded footpath
Through the marsh.
When you were all gone,
I sank back into that childhood place
Where I could see pink and green.
I played in the ooze and slap of mud.
I could see Paddy,
A blur of old clothes and a hat,
A haze of kindness and delight
From an old bachelor
Allowed to like children.
When you were all gone,
The marsh took me in,
took me in,
Offered me water and warmth,
I felt it in my hand.
Worry
It’s like a grip to the wrist.
It fills the mind.
It filters into the emotions,
A peaty place.
I am tangled in the plant
Upsurge,
Losining my way,
Even in the sunlight
Of the bright summer marsh,
Losing my way.
From afar others feel
Pity or horror.
For me the harrier
Hovers his prey.
Don’t let them see the darkness,
The water lapping at your edges.
Determination may emerge coot like
And the crab apple offer it’s fruit.
Dedicated to Mimi Khalvati
It’s like a grip to the wrist.
It fills the mind.
It filters into the emotions,
A peaty place.
I am tangled in the plant
Upsurge,
Losining my way,
Even in the sunlight
Of the bright summer marsh,
Losing my way.
From afar others feel
Pity or horror.
For me the harrier
Hovers his prey.
Don’t let them see the darkness,
The water lapping at your edges.
Determination may emerge coot like
And the crab apple offer it’s fruit.
Dedicated to Mimi Khalvati
Our second workshop took place at Strumpshaw Fen, followed by writing time at Brundall Library where hot coffee was gratefully received by dripping but dedicated nature writers. I shall leave it to participant, Liz Barnard, to give a flavour of the day:
Nature writer
It is one of those drizzly mornings the Irish call ‘soft’ when the air is so heavy with moisture it coalesces into raindrops; ideal (not!) for the nature writing workshop I am booked onto.
On my way to the workshop I get lost in the cats cradle of roads between Lingwood and Strumpshaw and become very familiar with the Household Waste Recycling Centre which I pass three times: ironically it is much better signposted than the bird reserve I’m heading for. I arrive at the car park, flustered, fifteen minutes late, just as the fuel gauge warning light flashes on my dashboard.
The workshop has already started: ten women and one man. What is it about nature writing that draws more women than men? Some of our best nature writers are men, including our tutor: most bird watchers are men - so where are they? Not here, for sure.
Mark Cocker, our tutor, is well prepared with a giant wasps nest and egg boxes full of moths caught in his garden the night before. The nest resembles a lava flow, convoluted and colourfully striped depending on the wood the wasps had scraped that day: the moths so exotic they could have come from a tropical rainforest with names to match; Flame Shoulder; Pale Prominent; Cetaceous Hebrew Character. Their wings have a velvety pile, some shot through with gold iridescence as though conceived and fabricated by an eccentric textile designer. My favourite looks like a Stealth Bomber in camouflage and is prosaically named Snout! (I’m going to recommend this name to the RAF for their next commission). We peer through magnifying lenses, oohing and aahing until shooed out to do our own research.
We disperse to various points on the fen in search of inspiration and I soon regret bringing the kitchen sink: with one hand holding an umbrella against the steadily increasing rain, and the other clutching my bag with stool, camera, coffee, lunch there is no free hand to swat the mosquitoes.
I lose my companions as I aim for the orchids, hoping that my interest in wildflowers will provide ample material for some nature poetry. I rehearse phrases like ‘trembling grasses’ and ‘raindrops like diamonds’ until I sink to my ankles in waterlogged cattle hoof prints and change my mind. The ragged robins beside the path are bedraggled; I’m bedraggled; there are no orchids and my companions are distant blobs. All of a sudden a rainproof bird hide seems irresistibly attractive.
I step over the red twine directing me across a bridge over a dyke and plod on round the field edge, through a barbed wire fence and up a slippery bank onto the path to the hide - and shelter. The leaves of reeds and flag iris punctuate the dark water of the dyke alongside and I silently juggle words; sheaths, swords, slicing… but the creative well is dry.
I clatter into the monkish silence of the hide and join four other writers just as a bittern starts booming. Well, that’s a first! It has been worth coming just for that!
Through the window the landscape is layered by the rain into a child’s cardboard theatre set; sharp green nettles in the foreground, then reeds and water, elder in flower in the middle distance, then banks of willow and in the far distance the pale, misty outline of larger trees on drier ground. A bedraggled marsh harrier perches damply on an exposed branch. Mark points out another making a ‘food pass’ in the background. I wonder, given the projected global food shortages, whether this is the sort of rationing vocabulary that will soon pass into general use.
In the foreground, on the mere, is a stationary grebe, not doing any of the things I associate with grebes, like diving, but looking, from the rear, like a floating haggis, until with a glorious balletic movement it preens, arching its handsome russet head and white throat over its back.
I drink the decaf cappuccino to lighten my load and wonder if it’s too early to broach the packed lunch. It’s only 10.30. Somehow I’m not in the right mental space for this workshop. That said I could happily sit here all day looking at the view.
We are due back at 11.00am and leave the hide in one by one. I find myself alone on the path enjoying being solitary, aware of the charm of the shell pink saucers of the arching dog rose and the primitive spindles of horsetail. Chilled and damp I head for the toilets, passing a group member earnestly photographing a single bee orchid by the waste bin. I squash four mosquitoes on the loo wall before they can bite my exposed parts.
On the way to the car park a fellow writer tells me that Brundall library, where we are headed next, is ‘on the main road’. Shouldn’t be a problem; public libraries are prominent buildings; I’ll find it, no trouble. By this time my fuel gauge warning light has ceased flashing and is glowing steadily. On my way to through the village is a Budgens store. I stop to replenish my carbohydrates only to spot a notice saying they are closed for thirty minutes due to an electrical problem. Judging by the amount of rain that has fallen I expect their fuse box is waterlogged.
I drive on, confident that Brundall Library will smite me between the eyes. At one point I mount the pavement, a manoeuvre made necessary by a line of parked cars and overtaking traffic. As a result I miss the sign pointing to the Library. By the time I reach the Total garage on the bypass I know I’m lost. But I can fill up with petrol, at least I thought I could until I realised I’d left my debit card at home. Still, a fivers’ worth of petrol, which is all I have, buys enough to get me home and the garage is offering two large packets of Minstrels for £2.67 which will do wonders for my flagging self-esteem. The cashier tells me, in the calm, measured tone you use with panic-stricken children, how to find the library and I set off again.
Somehow I end up outside Budgens a second time where a young man taking a cigarette break tells me they will be closed until 3pm while they wait for an electrician. But, I’ve spotted the library, which, far from being prominent, is a modest building down a long path identified only by a notice on a narrow iron gate. I fall in through the door to face the collective gaze of my fellow writers, grateful for the warmth and the offer of coffee.
Mark scrupulously gathers in our creative contributions in turn, praising our use of language and making constructive suggestions when we anthropomorphise nature too frequently. He’s really very good at this. He laughs so generously at the account of my misfortunes that while I shall abandon my aspirations to become a nature writer I just might consider comedy.
It is one of those drizzly mornings the Irish call ‘soft’ when the air is so heavy with moisture it coalesces into raindrops; ideal (not!) for the nature writing workshop I am booked onto.
On my way to the workshop I get lost in the cats cradle of roads between Lingwood and Strumpshaw and become very familiar with the Household Waste Recycling Centre which I pass three times: ironically it is much better signposted than the bird reserve I’m heading for. I arrive at the car park, flustered, fifteen minutes late, just as the fuel gauge warning light flashes on my dashboard.
The workshop has already started: ten women and one man. What is it about nature writing that draws more women than men? Some of our best nature writers are men, including our tutor: most bird watchers are men - so where are they? Not here, for sure.
Mark Cocker, our tutor, is well prepared with a giant wasps nest and egg boxes full of moths caught in his garden the night before. The nest resembles a lava flow, convoluted and colourfully striped depending on the wood the wasps had scraped that day: the moths so exotic they could have come from a tropical rainforest with names to match; Flame Shoulder; Pale Prominent; Cetaceous Hebrew Character. Their wings have a velvety pile, some shot through with gold iridescence as though conceived and fabricated by an eccentric textile designer. My favourite looks like a Stealth Bomber in camouflage and is prosaically named Snout! (I’m going to recommend this name to the RAF for their next commission). We peer through magnifying lenses, oohing and aahing until shooed out to do our own research.
We disperse to various points on the fen in search of inspiration and I soon regret bringing the kitchen sink: with one hand holding an umbrella against the steadily increasing rain, and the other clutching my bag with stool, camera, coffee, lunch there is no free hand to swat the mosquitoes.
I lose my companions as I aim for the orchids, hoping that my interest in wildflowers will provide ample material for some nature poetry. I rehearse phrases like ‘trembling grasses’ and ‘raindrops like diamonds’ until I sink to my ankles in waterlogged cattle hoof prints and change my mind. The ragged robins beside the path are bedraggled; I’m bedraggled; there are no orchids and my companions are distant blobs. All of a sudden a rainproof bird hide seems irresistibly attractive.
I step over the red twine directing me across a bridge over a dyke and plod on round the field edge, through a barbed wire fence and up a slippery bank onto the path to the hide - and shelter. The leaves of reeds and flag iris punctuate the dark water of the dyke alongside and I silently juggle words; sheaths, swords, slicing… but the creative well is dry.
I clatter into the monkish silence of the hide and join four other writers just as a bittern starts booming. Well, that’s a first! It has been worth coming just for that!
Through the window the landscape is layered by the rain into a child’s cardboard theatre set; sharp green nettles in the foreground, then reeds and water, elder in flower in the middle distance, then banks of willow and in the far distance the pale, misty outline of larger trees on drier ground. A bedraggled marsh harrier perches damply on an exposed branch. Mark points out another making a ‘food pass’ in the background. I wonder, given the projected global food shortages, whether this is the sort of rationing vocabulary that will soon pass into general use.
In the foreground, on the mere, is a stationary grebe, not doing any of the things I associate with grebes, like diving, but looking, from the rear, like a floating haggis, until with a glorious balletic movement it preens, arching its handsome russet head and white throat over its back.
I drink the decaf cappuccino to lighten my load and wonder if it’s too early to broach the packed lunch. It’s only 10.30. Somehow I’m not in the right mental space for this workshop. That said I could happily sit here all day looking at the view.
We are due back at 11.00am and leave the hide in one by one. I find myself alone on the path enjoying being solitary, aware of the charm of the shell pink saucers of the arching dog rose and the primitive spindles of horsetail. Chilled and damp I head for the toilets, passing a group member earnestly photographing a single bee orchid by the waste bin. I squash four mosquitoes on the loo wall before they can bite my exposed parts.
On the way to the car park a fellow writer tells me that Brundall library, where we are headed next, is ‘on the main road’. Shouldn’t be a problem; public libraries are prominent buildings; I’ll find it, no trouble. By this time my fuel gauge warning light has ceased flashing and is glowing steadily. On my way to through the village is a Budgens store. I stop to replenish my carbohydrates only to spot a notice saying they are closed for thirty minutes due to an electrical problem. Judging by the amount of rain that has fallen I expect their fuse box is waterlogged.
I drive on, confident that Brundall Library will smite me between the eyes. At one point I mount the pavement, a manoeuvre made necessary by a line of parked cars and overtaking traffic. As a result I miss the sign pointing to the Library. By the time I reach the Total garage on the bypass I know I’m lost. But I can fill up with petrol, at least I thought I could until I realised I’d left my debit card at home. Still, a fivers’ worth of petrol, which is all I have, buys enough to get me home and the garage is offering two large packets of Minstrels for £2.67 which will do wonders for my flagging self-esteem. The cashier tells me, in the calm, measured tone you use with panic-stricken children, how to find the library and I set off again.
Somehow I end up outside Budgens a second time where a young man taking a cigarette break tells me they will be closed until 3pm while they wait for an electrician. But, I’ve spotted the library, which, far from being prominent, is a modest building down a long path identified only by a notice on a narrow iron gate. I fall in through the door to face the collective gaze of my fellow writers, grateful for the warmth and the offer of coffee.
Mark scrupulously gathers in our creative contributions in turn, praising our use of language and making constructive suggestions when we anthropomorphise nature too frequently. He’s really very good at this. He laughs so generously at the account of my misfortunes that while I shall abandon my aspirations to become a nature writer I just might consider comedy.
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