{"id":192,"date":"2013-10-22T10:02:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-22T10:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/keithchandlerpoet.com\/?p=192"},"modified":"2013-10-22T10:25:04","modified_gmt":"2013-10-22T10:25:04","slug":"thank-you-katrina-porteous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/keithchandlerpoet.com\/?p=192","title":{"rendered":"Thank you, Katrina Porteous"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently Bridgnorth Writers were privileged to enjoy a four hour workshop with Katrina Porteous \u2013 all the way from Northumberland.\u00a0 Though the subject was ostensibly \u201cPoetry and Nature\u201d what she said and showed us could equally be applied to prose writing as well as to any subject matter (not least to Human<\/span> Nature, which I\u2019m beginning to think is my own real interest).\u00a0 With exercises\u00a0 – responding, for instance, to a tray of beach-found objects – Katrina emphasised the importance of close first hand observation clothed in as fresh a language as one can summons.\u00a0 I especially enjoyed her choice of exemplary poems, most notably by Alice Oswald and Kathleen Jamie, neither of whom I had paid much attention to until\u00a0 Katrina\u2019s recommendation.\u00a0 Here are the last 4 stanzas of Jamie\u2019s \u201cBasking Shark\u201d. \u00a0Lying on a cliff top, she sees, becomes mesmerised, by a dark shape below…<\/p>\n

“…\u00a0 precisely that its ore-<\/p>\n

heavy body and head \u2013<\/p>\n

the tail fin measuring back,<\/p>\n

forth like a haunted door \u2013<\/p>\n

could come to sense the absolute<\/p>\n

limits of its realm.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

While it hung, steady<\/p>\n

as an anvil but for the fins\u2019<\/p>\n

corrective rippling \u2013 dull,<\/p>\n

dark and buoyed like a heart<\/p>\n

that goes on living<\/p>\n

through a long grief<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

what could one do but watch?<\/p>\n

The sea heaved; fulmars<\/p>\n

slid by on static wings;<\/p>\n

the shark \u2013 not ready yet<\/p>\n

to re-enter the ocean<\/p>\n

travel there, peacable and dumb \u2013<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

waited and was watched;<\/p>\n

till it all became<\/p>\n

unbearable, whereupon the wind<\/p>\n

in its mercy breathed again<\/p>\n

and far below the surface<\/p>\n

glittered and broke up…”<\/p>\n

Aren\u2019t these verses full of wonders?\u00a0 Not just Jamie\u2019s precise, entranced observation of the creature from above (that sense of weight and gravitas in its patrolling movements!) but also the very accurate observation of her own ecstatic preternatural state of observation becoming \u201ctoo much\u201d, needing to be dissipated by that final glittering dissolve… SUPER!\u00a0 I was fascinated by Jamie\u2019s deployment of line breaks over a series of short lines (and made a mental note to try and write in shorter lines myself \u2013 generating a more tightly stretched tension?)\u00a0 Look at the way the line breaks mimic the to and fro movements of the great fish in the first 2 quoted stanzas, for instance.\u00a0 Also inseperably part of the total magic are the deft, apt yet always surprising<\/span> metaphors and similes\u00a0 – that movement of the fin \u201clike a haunted door\u201d,\u00a0 the grey mass \u201csteady as an anvil\u201d, and, most unexpectedly, the likening of that presence to a heart that \u201cdark and buoyed, goes on living through a long grief\u201d…. comparisons that open doors to further dimensions of thought and feeling?\u00a0 I was reminded of Elizabeth Bishops\u2019 close observation of the \u201cFish\u201d as well as by mystic elements in Emily Dickinson\u2019s natural observations.\u00a0 Aren\u2019t we blessed to enjoy such treats in the West Midlands?!\u00a0 (And thanks especially to our friend Nadia Kingsley for conjuring up and managing Katrina’s visit).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently Bridgnorth Writers were privileged to enjoy a four hour workshop with Katrina Porteous \u2013 all the way from Northumberland.\u00a0 Though the subject was ostensibly \u201cPoetry and Nature\u201d what she said and showed us could equally be applied to prose writing as well as to any subject matter (not least to Human Nature, which I\u2019m […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-192","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/keithchandlerpoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/keithchandlerpoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/keithchandlerpoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keithchandlerpoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keithchandlerpoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=192"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/keithchandlerpoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":194,"href":"https:\/\/keithchandlerpoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192\/revisions\/194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/keithchandlerpoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keithchandlerpoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keithchandlerpoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}