Bluebells, Alice Beer and a FREE writers’ retreat

May 5, 2011 at 8:55 am


First of all, I want to let people know about a FREE writers’ week that starts on Monday 6th June and finishes on the following Saturday.

The main theme for the week is , ‘Memoirs’, and I’ve been asked to run one of the workshops, and also to give a talk about self publishing, so if you know anyone who is interested in creative writing and lives within a reasonably easy journey from Erdington in the north of Birmingham, please direct them to this site – whatever kind of writing you want to develop, there’s bound to be something there for you.

In my previous post I mentioned the latest Soundswrite Anthology of poetry. This cover was taken from a painting by the talented artist and poet, Helen Jayne Gunn, one of the many contributors to the anthology.

It will be available from the Soundswrite Website.

(This site is about to be about to be updated)


Anyone who has attended courses on writing poetry, is more than likely to have met Alice Beer, whose obituary appeared in The Guardian on Thursday 7th April 2011. Click here to read more about this amazing 98-year old poet. I met her at my very first residential poetry course in Yorkshire in 1996, and was immediately impressed by her active mind and mischievous sense of humour. I hope that in my 80s and 90s I’ll still be signing up to creative writing courses around the UK and Europe.


I’m posting this picture of ‘my’ local bluebell wood because it’s a place I visit several times every April, checking on the progress of the brand new beech leaves and the mass of bluebell spears. There was a bluebell wood not far from the house in Sussex where I spent my childhood, but this one is the best I’ve ever come across.

Here’s a poem I wrote several years ago – this photo doesn’t illustrate the poem, but it captures the beautiful light of an April day, two or three weeks ago

Taking Amy For A Walk

When we reach the wood, anemones
like sackfuls of spilt stars
lie scattered between birch
and sycamore. I can only guess
how green spears poised in shade
are holding hidden blue as tight as breath.

Wind tosses sunlight down through
restless branches - her long pale hair
becomes a blur of light. She wears
her denim the way a dryad might
disguise herself to walk with humans.
Eyes as far away as shards of sky.

I thought the bluebells would be out, she says,
half petulant, as though she’s been misled.
She hesitates beside a mound of earth,
amber and burnt sienna, glistening with
movement of seething bodies,
a million legs bent on a single purpose.

They clamber over identical neighbours
without a qualm – those brains
hold nothing singular or strange.
I wriggle a dead stick inches down into
their huge construction. I want to uncover
its hundreds of intricate channels, reach

into secret chambers where white eggs
are hatching in the dark, like thoughts.
I want to bring them into the light of day.
Amy shudders, watching the creatures
scurry and cluster along the stick.
I throw it down and take her cool dry hand.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 5th, 2011 at 8:55 am and is filed under Creative Writing Courses, Poem of the Week. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Bluebells, Alice Beer and a FREE writers’ retreat”

  1. LindyLouMacinItaly Says:
    May 19th, 2011 at 10:38 am

    A beautiful poem Christine, I do miss bluebells.

  2. admin Says:
    May 30th, 2011 at 10:33 pm

    Thanks for this, Linda - I’m glad you liked it.

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