The British allotment fascinates me. Gardening seems like it should be an act undertaken with others – to have a chat with, a shared cup of tea, admiring others’ progress and swapping advice. Of course, I always think of our invisible animal others and take quite a bit of delight in the local bird-watching blackboards, the progress of the honey hives and the tell-tale signs of the neighbourhood fox(es) and moles.
In rather stark contrast to the allotment, I have recently been avidly reading about this research on Zelda Fitzgerald’s flowers (see below for an incredible image of Zelda in the garden), undertaken for the filming of the new Gatsby film, indulging in descriptions of the magnolias of Montgomery and the icing-like white tulips and the purrs of the black tulips of Paris. When dwelling on gardens in Fitzgerald, I always turn back to Beatrice’s elaborate garden vision that she tries to communicate to Amory in This Side of Paradise: ‘I saw bronze rivers lapping marble shores, and great birds that soared through the air, parti-coloured birds with iridescent plumage [...] it merely recurred and recurred – gardens that flaunted colouring against which this would be quite dull, moons that whirled and swayed’.
It was with these thoughts in mind (and this inspiration below) that my poem ‘Night visitor’ came about. Otoliths accepted the little square of otherness, much to my delight, and it was published at the beginning of this month. I have been immensely slack in keeping up-to-date with posting my poetry publications lately – of course, as long as I have time to write the poetry, the announcements of publication can come later, right? (this is what I have convinced myself) – so apologies on the late posting. But the good thing about online publication is that the volumes stay available for perusing! In other creative organisational blog news, I’ve been updating my ‘Creative Publications’ page so that there are links to my online publications. It was a bit of a trawl, but was worth the effort. Do check it out!
