The Memory Tree and a Sunday Stroll to the Moated Manor

The Tolworth Memory Tree has taken root at the Court Farm Cafe – Alison Fure has created a tree, and it even has mistletoe! The tree is starting to bloom and sprout memories of Tolworth. We would like it to blossom with as many memories from as many people as possible. The tree will still be at the cafe for our next walk, so please do come and write a memory to hang on it!

The next Tolworth Treasure and the Hogsmill Hum walk takes place on Sunday 18th March. If you would like to come on a walk but prefer it to be a gentle stroll, then this one is perfect for you! We will meet at the Court Farm Cafe for a coffee and preamble at 1pm, and arrive at the Tolworth Court Farm Moated Manor site at 2pm.

This is the site of a medieval moated manor house – you can still see parts of the moat! In the last few weeks we have seen kestrels (who are nesting there), woodpeckers, herons and peregrine falcons – to name just some of the birds which regularly inhabit this place. Come and discover it for yourself, and imagine it as it was way back in the 13th century, and see what a lovely wild space it is now!

Facebook event here

Cost: FREE

MORE DETAILS TO FOLLOW

Disclaimer: walks undertaken at paricipants’ own risk & responsibility. Please contact re. accessibility / mobility.

Mapping Memories, Over the Fields, on the Isle of Wight

I am currently preparing for a talk I will be giving this Thursday, 22nd June at Quay Arts, the Isle of Wight’s leading art gallery and venue for live events. I was thrilled to be invited to speak about my poetry map, Over the Fields, as part of the events and activities taking place around Richard Long’s show, The Isle of Wight as Six Walks, 8th April – 1st July.

I will be talking about how and why I came to make the map. Regular readers of my (somewhat irregular) blog will know that this was a process of going for walks with my Dad and my son, over 18 months, beginning in January 2014, and ending in August 2015. The map was self-published after being beautifully designed by my best mate, and printed and folded into a pocket-sized A6 fold out full colour working map, with poems on one side and photos and map on the other.

Since then the map and I have been on quite a journey, and I have been able to achieve some of the aims I had for it, and other things have happened which were unexpected but equally wonderful.

I will talk about this tiny piece of greenbelt, and the impact it continues to have on my family. I hope you can join me for a walk through the poems and a chance to think about memory, family and place. And walking itself, and why it continues to inspire creativity.

Information and booking here.

Facebook event here.

Thursday 22nd June, 7.30pm – 9.00pm £7

Quay Arts, 15 Sea Street, Newport Harbour, Isle of Wight PO30 5BD

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Over The Fields Poetry Map: It’s Coming…

The new poetry map I have been working on for the last 18 months is on its way to being published…there are still final bits and bobs of writing to do, photos to select and final edits but the art work is taking shape. I am very excited about this as it is highly personal – a map of Furlong territory, especially my Dad’s, and his brothers’ and sisters’ – their ‘second home.’ It continues to amaze me, how much this small piece of land contains in terms of stories, nature and deep history. I cannot possibly cram all the writing and poems, pictures and information I have gathered and created, and am continuing to amass on to two sides of A2 map…maybe this will become something else in the future…

More news and updates on this as it continues to materialise into something tangible. For now, the photos above are of where I lay the other afternoon, listening to many different birds singing, bees buzzing, watching fronds and flowers swaying in the breeze… a ten minute walk from the white noise of the A3 in one direction, and the train to Waterloo in the other.

This is the sound of the suburbs.

Cherish Your Churchyards Week! And Poems about Carshalton…

Apparently it is Cherish Your Churchyards week– the things I find out from BBC Springwatch… It is and here are some of the reasons why we should Cherish Our Churchyards…

They often contain a rich diversity of plant and animal life.
They are important places for archaeology and history.
They often have distinctive and veteran trees.
The stonework and boundary walls provide a home for a mosaic of mosses, ferns and lichens.
They provide a tranquil place for quiet reflection.
They are a resource for inspiration and community learning.

Recently I went for a walk through All Saints Churchyard in Carshalton, with a couple of writer friends, Neil Horabin and David Russomano, as part of a drift around the village after work last Tuesday.

We are currently writing poetry about this historic town and its connection with water, for a poetry event at The Carshalton On Sea festival, which takes place from Friday 19th- Sunday 21st June.

The Water Poets event takes place at the Cryer Theatre, Carshalton, on Saturday 20th June from 12-1pm, and is FREE!

I will be posting some photos and writing about Carshalton in the run up to the festival.

A Fool for Bristol

The picture above is a photo of a photo in Bristol’s wonderful M Shed, which I visited recently for the first time with my son, when we were staying with friends for the weekend.

I lived in Bristol from 1997 to 2005. I moved back to London nine years ago today. I loved living in Bristol – my love was for the city as much as it was for my ex, my friends and life there. I was hopelessly head-over-heels for Brizzol…

I did not expect to see this photo, lump-in-throat time, as I stood for a moment on my own, everyone else busy looking at the Bristol Dinosaur or playing on the old omnibus. The shop in the picture is my old corner shop, Solanki’s at the end of Gwilliam Street, where I used to live, in Windmill Hill. The kind of shop where you would pop in for a paper early on a Sunday morning, and queue up to pay behind someone who was buying 20 fags and a two litre bottle of White Lightning. Solanki’s, a legendary shop in its locality- and now making its mark in the museum.

In all the years I have been feverishly writing long pieces of psychogeographical memoir, poems and stories, I have only very briefly touched upon my time in Bristol, which was mostly very happy. I came away from this visit knowing that in the next couple of years I am going to finally do the writing I started to plan over ten years ago, when I was still living there. It won’t be this year but might be next. Yer’ tis…

Free, Free, Free Nelson Mandela

Borderline

broadcast #15

there isn’t anyone

……… there isn’t anyone

……… ……… ……… there isn’t anyone

i can think of none

— small contributions

to the scene – were they kept out?

were they?

is this the truth or an angle?

how will i know where to find them?

it is all so long ago

the web is torn ………

what seemed different was just a version of the same refrain

it is ……… unsatisfying

Wordless Wednesday: Not Fade Away

Responses to Art In Situ.

Here are two short poems, written in response to two different works of art. The first was written as an immediate response to the ‘window’ part of Anish Kapoor’s Memory at the Guggenheim in New York. The second was written sat in front of Chris Ofili’s painting The Healer at Tate Britain.

I have been doing this on and off for years. I find a work that resonates and then write down my thoughts as a poem. I might tweak it a bit afterwards but essentially what is written here is faithful to what I felt at the time.

I do not read anything about the work until I have written my poem. Sometimes, of course, it is impossible to approach something well known without already having some information or opinion about it.

Memory

Window of darkness-Lack of light

Sucked-in black velvet illusion of infinity

Vacuum of warmth

To crawl in and be forgotten and to forget for a while

In a cocoon of sensory deprivation

Of longing for simplicity

Wipe the slate clean of chalking up experience

Amniotic amnesia

The Healer

Folding up the sun, eating the star

Dark emitting light

Yellow and black

Name above the crown

Hurling gold

Spew as gold

Base material transformed

Mends the whole

LucyFurLeaps

Tag: memory