Our extremely large and heavy tabby cat, Heidi, is curled up on a cushion on my lap, purring like an engine. Without the cushion, I’d be at risk from her long claws – the slightest sound of footsteps in the kitchen, and she’ll be digging her claws through my thin summer skirt as she hurls herself halfway across the floor and out of the door with the speed and agility of a much smaller, lighter creature, determined to greet the real love of her life, my husband.

Now that she’s stopped gazing up at me, asking for her head to be rubbed, and appears to be asleep, I can get on with my Writing Matters. I’ve been finding it strangely helpful to look back on the various stages of my writing ‘career’ over the last 25 years. Reflecting on the pattern of my ‘two-steps-forwards-one-step-back’ journey, confirms for me what I already (partly) knew – persistence is even more essential when times are difficult, and, you never can tell what’s round the corner.

Although at the end of my last post, I said that I’d be talking about novel writing and the events leading up to the publication of my book, I’ve let myself be side-tracked to my other passion: poetry. At Erdington Library last Wednesday, I was being asked lots of questions about my poems, and I’ve just been browsing through some older files on my computer, and my small collection, Single Travellers; Flarestack 2004 –there’s a story behind that, and I’ll come to it sooner or later.

I’ve dabbled in writing poetry since I was a child, but it wasn’t till my Arvon Course at Lumb Bank in Yorkshire that I ‘came out’ as a poet.(see my post: an Arvon Course and a Poetry Prize….)
I think that some of these poems have stood the test of time and ‘work’ on me the way they did when I wrote them – others, are just not ‘me’ anymore. I probably wouldn’t write those poems in that way these days - my circumstances are different, and I’ve developed some different techniques, but they’re part of my writing history.

So I’ve decided to start a new category, ‘Poem of the Week’ where I’ll give an airing to some of my poems, old and new. I’ll aim for doing this every Sunday. I expect this’ll be a fairly random selection, based on something in my day or week that’s triggered a memory of the poem itself, or the experience that led to it, or simply because it seems in keeping with the weather or season.

This is a fairly recent poem, inspired by a wonderful creative writing course, led by Mimi Khalvati in Crete in June last year. I was delighted when it was selected by Penelope Shuttle for inclusion in the second edition of ArtemisPoetry, published this May.

In this hot weather, I’ve thought about that beautiful place, and how grateful I was for the patches of shade on a long walk up the mountain side.

Climbing to Livaniana

I thank the hands
that balanced
these small cairns
at each turn of the track

and the owners
of the olive trees
for their caves of shade
and those who tend
the hairy goats
for ripples of wind-chimes
in this airless heat

not forgetting
the keeper of the bees
that stream from their
white hives
each morning
to graze the purple
cushions of thyme

and I thank the thyme
for its crushed scent
the way it nudges
against something
I can almost
open

1. why my novel is ‘a difficult subject’ | ChristineColeman.net Says:
   July 8th, 2009 at 8:35 am

   [...] I’m constantly torn between my novel writing and my poetry. In my last post I introduced my ‘Poem of the Week’, so now it’s fiction’s [...]

2. At Athens Airport: Poem of the week | ChristineColeman.net Says:
   July 12th, 2009 at 9:45 pm

   [...] is now my day for posting one of my poems. As I said last week, I might not feel the same about some of my poems as I did when I wrote them, [...]