Two Trees house for Sale

Casa Taramas, the house with the patio and the tree which inspired the poem Two Trees (from Rain, Don Paterson, Faber, 2009) is for sale for 80,000 euros

Those of you who have been in the house for tutorials with Don will know it well.

However, there is a website with more pictures:

Casa Taramas

Get in touch if you know of anyone interested.

Helen Mort's First Collection

I was very pleased to see the news, officially out this month, that Helen will have her first collection published by Chatto and Windus.

Assistant editor Parisa Ebrahimi said:

"Helen Mort is one of the most promising poets of her generation. Hers is a wonderfully distinct and assured voice, and the poems are taut and punchy, yet capable of moments of astonishing tenderness, as well as being superbly musical and accessible. We're thrilled to be welcoming such a gifted young poet to the Chatto list."

And who could disagree.

Titled "Division Street", the book is scheduled for early 2013 (yes, 2013, such is the speed at which the mills of big publishers grind... but the collection will certainly be fine... and hopefully not small)

So it will be a bit of a wait, but well worth it.

Next month Helen is at the Geological Society in Piccadilly for their Poetry and Geology celebration on the 10th of October. I'm going, so we'll get a chance to catch up then.

Forward Prize Shortlist

First news for a while - and great news too:

Judy Brown's new collection "Loudness" has been shortlisted for the Forward prize for a first collection, so congratulations and best of luck to Judy for the prize.

The collection is published by Seren, and should be available soon from their online shop.

The Forward Prize for Best First Collection shortlist:

Rachael Boast Sidereal
Judy Brown Loudness
Nancy Gaffield Tokaido Road
Ahren Warner Confer
John Whale Waterloo Teeth
Nerys Williams Sound Archive

The Forward Prize Best Collection shortlist:

John Burnside Black Cat Bone
David Harsent Night
Geoffrey Hill Clavics
Michael Longley A Hundred Doors
D Nurkse Voices Over Water
Sean O’Brien November

The Forward Prize for Best Single Poem in memory of Michael Donaghy shortlist:

R. F. Langley To a Nightingale
Alan Jenkins Southern Rail (The Four Students)
Sharon Olds Song the Breasts Sing to the Late-in-Life Boyfriend
Jo Shapcott Bees

Picador Prize Winner

I went to the Picador Prize award evening. It was a bit tense in the lead up to the announcement of the winner, the poets having to do a reading while trying to maintain their composure. However, they all managed it. The prize went to Richard Meier, despite his never having been on Cerca de Ronda...

It was a good night (free wine) and I enjoyed the evening even though somewhat tempered by the fact that Helen Mort didn't win. She took it well though. And in any case, everyone I spoke to seemed in agreement that Helen's poetry future is assured. So, we should see her first collection before too long.

Don Paterson and John Stammers were two of the judges and, as it's been a while since I've seen them, it was good to catch up and hear how they're doing.

I also saw Jacqueline Saphra, who has a collection coming out soon. So I shall look out for that.

The Picador Prize

We are pleased to see Helen Mort's been shortlisted for the Picador Prize. The results aren't out till January, so she'll have to contain herself for a bit.

You can get all the details here:

http://www.picador.com/poetryprize2010/

It's been a good year for Helen, what with being the Wordsworth Poet in Residence as well, and getting to live in the Lake District, where currently, as the pic she sent us this week shows, it is a bit wintry.



Not that different from the view from my window in London recently, just fewer houses and higher hills. But the amount of snow was the same...

We are hoping to drop in on Helen en route to Glasgow this weekend, weather permitting. She was also saying she might be having some more permanent company - in the form of a dog. Looks like it's going to be a whippet - appropriate for a runner.

So will A Pint for the Ghost be followed by The Hair of the Dog? Perhaps it would be a natural progression, especially if the whippet's done a bit of wraithing....

Don's Official Website

Having been so used to seeing the "under construction" welcome on his website I've been a bit tardy in realising it was up and running and so not posting the links here. Anyway, just mark his handsome coupon on the right with a click and be transported... or click on this link
http://donpaterson.com/index.htm


The other new item is, of course, his book on Shakespeare's sonnets. But don't bother to click on it here: the link doesn't work.

The image was borrowed from Amazon, where, of course you can buy all of Don's books if you haven't got them already.

You won't be able to buy any of his CDs, although, given the amount of material on his website, you hardly need to.

Congratulations to Judy

Good news to hear Judy Brown is the winner of the Manchester Poetry Prize 2010.

http://www.manchesterwritingcompetition.co.uk/poetry/winners.php

I'd love to be able to say she has offered to give us a few bob to tide us over these crisis-ridden times, but, no.

Though I shall be giving her a call....

It´s Hail, Mary...

Extreme weather is not that unusual here.
Last winter brought the floods, and this summer has been really hot with temperatures in the 40s. The swimming pool did good business....

This week has been ridiculously windy, with all sorts of stuff flying around the village. But worst of all happened last month.

In the middle of August, with high temperatures, a freak combination of conditions led to a really heavy build up of clouds.


Even the swimming pool closed early having been given warning of what was to come. It got darker and darker, then the thunder and lightning started, followed by hailstones. We were in the car, having just parked outside the house, and the noise inside was ear-splitting, as though army of drummers were banging on the roof. We had left windows open in the house, so I had to make a dash for the door and even in that short distance I got soaked and whacked by lumps of ice the size of grapes. I dashed upstairs and closed the shutters, then went up to the roof terrace. The cotton sunshade was almost touching the table underneath, so full of hailstones it was. It took half a dozen pushes to gradually empty it out onto the roof. I reckoned there was maybe 10 buckets-full of ice. One load landed on the terrace, so I took a pic.

Then, of course, a village load of ice melted and the streets were flooded instantaneously, though thankfully only for a few minutes.

I've never seen anything like it - ever.

The weather does give us some great images though. Like this pic of the church with the storm clouds behind.

Helen Mort - Wordsworth Poet in Residence

Belated congratulations to Helen on getting herself a new job. Swapping the flats of Cambridge for the fells of Cumbria.





And a rather nice little pad (B&B possibilities there, I should think...)






She´s mentioned that she´s been doing a fair bit of swimming in the cold, cold water of Grasmere, wandering the fells and catching the sun glinting on water... cue for a poem, I'd say:

Helen´s on the up and up

with honours she´s been garnished,

but she went for a swim

in a mountain lake

now her reputation´s

tarn-ished...

No excuses now for not having space to write.

Check out her page on the Wordsworth Trust site.

http://www.wordsworth.org.uk/information/index.asp?pageid=53

Martin Gil

The big adventure of the Spring was undoubtedly the climbing of Martin Gil. From the village there is one mountain that takes the eye - a nice cliched pyramid shape - and which dominates the view. Interestingly, I know a chap in Cortes (from where the mountain can't be seen) who didn't know which one it was... we are so parochial here. Even the accents change from village to village.

On the only day forecast not to be rainy, we climbed up from Cortes in the morning, via the track to the Llanos de Libar, on the other side of the ridge, then cut across and climbed up onto the peak.











The views were stunning. Jimera was tiny.



We could see south to the Rock of Gibraltar, the Mediterranean, and over to the Rif mountains in Morocco.















One of the surprises was the number of flowers so high up, especially some tiny wild narcissi growing among the rocks.















We had lunch watching the vultures beneath us, scrambled about on the rocks (at least I did) then headed down along the ridge towards Cortes, eventually getting back to the house at 8.45, just as it was getting dark.









And was I sore the next day?.......