so many words... winter solstice 2017

Usually at this time I post a solstice poem and/or blog. This time, though, I want to tell you a little of my own writing, as it's a bus-story: you know, nothing for ages and ages and then so many you don't know which to catch.

It's hard to post this and not feel boastful. But I also know that I spend so very much of my time catalysing and sometimes critiquing others' writing that my own creative projects are on hold sometimes for months or years at a time. (I also know that many of you are very supportive of my work; thank you.)

So first some news I'm thrilled to share with you. My newest collection, my poems from 18 years' worth of facilitating my writing retreats ISLANDS OF THE HEART on the amazing Isle of Iona, is due out very soon. End of this month, in fact; from Pindrop Press.

I was first taken to Iona in the 80s, by a friend who has since died tragically (some of the poems in this book are for him).

Having become used to hands-off editing on my publications (which means very little editing at all by A N Other), and also usually being the one offering editing suggestions to others, it was a shock and a delight to have the editor of Pindrop, Sharon Black, go through this over and over with her red pen. She saw things I couldn't see; and I saw things that I realised couldn't go without some of the poems losing their integrity. It was a gruelling and very inspiring experience, a great collaboration, and I'm so grateful to Sharon-the-midwife. What a treat, to be on the receiving end of such care.

I'd love you to order it. (You could offset all those Christmas calories with a hit of soul-nourishment.) Plus I think a good New Year's resolution would be to support struggling authors and poets. (It is SO hard to make a living in this way.)

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And here's another bus: probably too late to tell you about it now, but one of my winter solstice poems is going to feature in a wave of DUSK poems, short stories and music being read/spoken/performed in a timeline at exact astronomical dusk tonight throughout the UK. Dusk on this the shortest day begins in the far northeast of Britain, in Shetland, at 16:53, and finishes in the far SW (Cornwall) at 18:21, taking between 40 and 50 minutes depending where you are.  https://arachnepress.com/solstice-shorts/dusk-solstice-shorts-2017/

These pieces are being live-streamed via the relevant Facebook pages of each location. My poem will be performed in N Devon, and then in Redruth at around 5.30-40 pm today (my piece comes later, probably at the end of the first half):

https://www.facebook.com/events/1475576425890030/

You may have read the poem that's being performed before on this blog:


Just now, in the full night of midwinter’s night
over the traffic and the sirens and the late shoppers,
down at the bottom of the hill in the car park
where the red dogwoods flame, a robin started up
her strong ribbon of song in the lee of the storm, and as I
drive up the hill, window open to let in the dark,
a second tunes in, and then on the brow another,
each singing its loud hymn to the night and the cloud
and the brimming tapers of stars between, and this,
this, must surely be grace, a moment’s inbreath, in our
onwards rush, on this northern side of this lost-in-space
spinning-back-towards-the-light planet, our home star.

© Roselle Angwin 2013

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Two more things I want to tell you before seeing if I can catch enough broadband to surf the Dusk wave:

One is that, if you wish, you can read my final essay for my residency at Greenway, on the writer and the spirit of place, here. (I have to say that some of my environmental polemic has been edited out, so it's blander than it was.)

And finally – for the moment – I'm just finalising my programme of courses and workshops in 2018. I love sharing this work with those of you who come, sometimes regularly, and thanks to all of you if you've read this far.

The first date in 2018 is for my annual THRESHOLDS day workshop in Totnes, South Devon. If you're local enough, do join us! (NB much of the websites still needs updating.)

And I'm just through a year-long course I've been leading on the Grail myths, the lost feminine and our estrangement from the natural world; something I've been studying, writing about and offering as workshops since my Celtic degree course at Cambridge too many decades ago to name. I followed that in the early 90s with a training in archetypal psychology, investigating the depths of the Grail Quest in relation to our psyches.

The yearlong course was exciting and very intense, and I think we all learned a lot about ourselves, myself included. This next WELLKEEPERS will happen as a residential, and you can see an outline on the link.

May the longest night be kind to you, and may you remember that the sun is reborn tomorrow; no matter how dark the days we are turning back towards the light now. Here, there are already daffodils, hyacinths and snowdrops spiking through, and hazel catkins are decorating bare branches.