Ok. I gave in and went to the doctor. Thank goodness for Amoxycillin. After three weeks of throat and ear infection I'm feeling seriously grateful to live somewhere where I can just go to the GP and pick up a prescription. I don't know why I'm so stubborn - I should have gone weeks ago. For the rest of the time it's revision for the anatomy and pathology exams and no chance of thinking about writing. I'd love to be able to sit down with a big sheet of paper and just scribble ideas.
There is always reading though, and I'm reading Michelle Margorian's Goodnight Mr Tom, my absolute favourite book when I was a child. There's something immensely comforting about reading it - especially from the same copy. I realise that when I read it as a 10 year old I imagined the layout of the cottage and the village slightly differently than how it is described, and now I can't see it any other way. Never underestimate how strong the imagination is, or our power to hold on to imagined or remembered landscapes.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
About Me
- Name: Liz Bassett
- Location: Glasgow, United Kingdom
Liz Bassett writes poems about skies and elephants and the occasional ship. In her poems people fall asleep under their duvet and wake up under lines of migrating geese, and in love. Her poems have been placed in the Bridport competition, short listed for the Plough Prize, and been published by The Red Wheelbarrow, Agenda Broadsheet, White Leaf Review, The Guardian Poetry Workshop, and in the anthologies My Mother Threw Knives (Second Light Publications), Solitaire (Templar Poetry)and New Poets from Britain and America (White Leaf Press). She is a reviewer for Sphinx (HappenStance Press). Her pamphlet 'How to Wire a Life for Love' is available from Knucker Press.
Previous Posts
- A new year and it's been lovely here on the coast....
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- A shameless plug ( - if not here, then where?) Tw...
- A wonderful evening yesterday at the Glasgow Plane...
- Douglas Dunn's reading at St Mungo's Mirrorball th...
- A blustery day at home working my way through lect...
- CANDLE FOR TIBETI'll be lighting a candle as part ...
- The post delivered a pamphlet today for me to revi...
- I've just found out I have some poems published on...
- A gorgeous morning in Matlock - one of those autum...
3 Comments:
Thanks for the tip ['Goodnight Mr Tom], Liz.
A USAmerican, I'm always eager to know more about the UK, particularly England and Scotland, and especially about rural and village life. Have just finished the subtle-witty, gentle Flora Thompson's 'Lark Rise to Candleford' [circa 1943]. Am now into Ronald Blyth's straightforward myth-dissolving 'Akenfield' [1969], his interviews with oldsters remembering WWI and their hard hard lives in rural Suffolk. These books as well as 'A Scottish Quair' [a novel], by Lewis Grassic Gibbon, each singularly rich, show village folk strong in tradition but who choose to leave the villages for more money, more comfort, easier lives. Same thing here in the States, and it continues to be, since small farms perish regularly, and those farmers who stay with it always need to have one or two extra jobs to stay afloat. How will we 'save' our local, small farms and ourselves, I wonder?
Best,
Judy M
Flora Thompson's Lark Rise was always on the shelf as I grew up and I read it many times. I also read and re-read "A Child in the Forest" by Winifred Foley. I haven't read "Akenfield" though, I will look it out.
Yet another thanks to you, Liz! I've just ordered [amazon.com] Winifred Foley's book, 'A Child in the Forest', as well as Michelle Magorian's 'Good Night, Mr Tom', the book as well as the BBC DVD. Blythe's interviewees, such distinct personalities, work, memories propel me fast through the book 'Akenfield', but compel me to go back immediately, and slowly reread each interview. They're not in Q and A form, but rather single long memories narrated. Hard lives, hardworked folk, little time for leisure, but remembered joys often hooked to singing and dancing. The author's brilliant and writes packed, clear prose. I was struck by his saying that when the horse was gone [from farms], the entire farm/village/rural style went, too.
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