Drought Thoughts

I recently had my first proper rural trip away since my hip op, staying in the Yorkshire Dales for a week. I mention it because it inadvertently tied into what I've been working on recently, writing wise.   

An erstwhile sailor and hydrologist, I often write about watery subjects, but recently I’ve capsized that to explore “drought thoughts” as a poetry project – researching and writing while adjusting to life with severe arthritis. Drought was officially declared in the “Rainy City” of Manchester where I live the same week that my name went on the waiting list for a hip replacement, so it seemed appropriate to tie in this personal experience of creaking, crunching bones with the driest summer since 1976, when I was growing up on the Wirral Peninsula, a kind of island. That was last May (a year ago!) and I’ve since really enjoyed researching “drought thoughts” – from “dry-bathing” in the UK’s only desert at Dungeness before I ground to a halt completely, to charting the progress of Haweswater’s lost villages flooded to supply Manchester’s drinking water slowly resurfacing as the reservoir dropped. I’ve been thinking about daylighted rivers and winterbourne waterways, limestone and sandstone, the moon and tides, and the sun, responding to the recent “Helios” installation at Victoria Baths, where I was writer-in-residence, and the “Phoebus” print commissioned by Liberty for the Festival of Britain from the sculptor Mitzi Cunliffe, who lived and worked down the road from me. 

(Here's me with "Phoebus" on my actual first trip involving stopping elsewhere than my own house – at the amazing Women In Print exhibition at the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow, and on until 21 June if you're in that neck of the woods; highly recommend.) 

Being Yorkshire born, of course the "Drought Thoughts" project led to me to giving a certain amount of time to dry stone walls, even getting in touch with the Dry Stone Wall Association (“lunky” was a particularly chewy word they proffered when I asked about terminology), so Yorkshire was top of my list for an escape t'country. I was rewarded with many delights including St George’s mushrooms and willow warblers warbling and bright yellow patches of cowslips and a robin singing from his spot atop an erratic and a wee hatched blue egg fallen from a hawthorn tree just coming into bloom and conversations with blackbirds and goldfinches and sightings of oystercatchers and buzzards and hearings of curlews and owls. I managed to go off road and my health app told me: “So far this year, you’re taking more steps a day than you did last year.” All good. I even managed to climb over a few dry stone walls, and I gave up on a few as well, but either way, it all fed an overall good disposition – as well as into some new poems. 

And how excited was I to go up a valley for other stuff (a craft brewery and an exhibition) and come back with a totally dry riverbed?!!!! The pebbles looked like potatoes scattered willy-nilly as if from a burst shopping bag, just dropped mid-flow as the waters of the River Skirfare disappeared underground, leaving a bright white scar, the likes of which I am all too familiar with. I'm so glad I shouted over to a farmer, despite a sign at his gate that clearly stated “No Idiots”. He told me it's because of a fault and that if there’s a sudden and sustained substantial rainfall, the river returns, bombing it down the dry channel like a tidal wave, or a bore. Quite the sight, he told me. I don’t think he thought I was an idiot as I excitedly explained my presence peering over his dry stone wall and apologising for interrupting while he fed the chucks. Then again, maybe he’s since replaced the sign at the gate with one that reads “No Poets”.

Anyway, "more water for the Wharfe, more words for the poets" as someone (me) once said, and I've just finished another poem, about this karstian wonder. It's another new poem for the upcoming performance slot I've secured at Didsbury Arts Festival later this month to premiere some of the new poems. I'm really looking forward to sharing some of the new work, and if you enjoyed my special DAF commission “Flight Patterns”, which fed into my most recent Wainwright Prize-nominated book “Wanderland”, or indeed if you liked my concrete poetry shown at last year’s inaugural Didsbury Open, then “Drought Thoughts” may well be up your street! Join me as I transform landscapes into soundscapes on Saturday 27 June, 5pm, Emmanuel Parish Centre (Upper Hall). Tickets on sale now here. (Thanks to James for the fabulous flyer!)