Yang Lian Lee Valley Poems

I first came across Yang Lian at Stanza, Scotland's International Poetry Festival where he reminisced about his relationship with Harvey Holton, a mutual friend, Poet in Scots who died early last year. His energy and exuberance is evident in the video of the occasion.

Yang Lian Lee Valley Poems.
A review.
Yang Lian is one of the most astonishing poets I've read for years. He has a westernist, modernist sensibility allied with an ancient Chinese, almost shamanistic one. He can both excite and frighten you - like MacDiarmid meets Rilke with Samurai sword drawn! --W.N. Herbert, Scotsman

Yang Lian distinguishes himself in representing the pain of life caught in between historic eras - a new version of an old issue for world literature as well as Chinese literature is proposed: how to continue writing, relying on individual rather than enforced communal inspiration. --Allen Ginsberg

It wouldn't surprise me if he became a future Nobel Laureate. His style is one of extraordinary grandeur and ambition - a monumental drive, a sensuous strength and intellectual clarity. --David Morley, Stand

Before and since his enforced exile, Yang Lian has been one of the most innovative and influential poets in China. Widely hailed in America and Europe as a highly individual voice in world literature, he has been translated into many languages. "Lee Valley Poems" is his first book to be wholly conceived and written in London, once his place of exile and now his permanent home. It includes an extended sequence, "What Water Confirms", translated by Brian Holton and Agnes Hung-Chong Chan, and a suite of shorter poems translated by several poets, most of these working with Yang Lian: Polly Clark, Antony Dunn, Jacob Edmond, W.N. Herbert, Pascale Petit, Fiona Sampson and Arthur Sze. The book's preface, A Wild Goose Speaks to me, takes as its springboard Yang Lian's comment 'There is no international, only different locals'. With this perspective, the Lee Valley of his first London poems becomes the international inside the local: the poet may travel far but never really leaves the ground of his own inner self, and the value and joy of poetry is seen as fishing in the deep sea of existence. This title is available in a bilingual Chinese-English edition.

A must.Lee Valley Poems

In Memory of Harvey Holton Scots Poet.

On Sunday, The Vernal Equinox, a tree planting ceremony took place in the grounds of Birkhill, North Fife in memory of Harvey Holton, poet in Scots, a fitting memorial given the Celtic significance of The Hazel Tree, as described below.

A demonstration of what to do.

Work in progress.

Anne and Brian holton planting one of the Hazel trees.

One look at the hazel tree and it's easy to see why the Celtic meaning of the hazel tree deals with creativity, and why the druids held it in such high regard amongst the Ogham ranks.

The hazel's unusual branch formations make it a delight to ponder, and was often used for inspiration in art, as well as poetry.

The bards, ovates and druids of the Celtic day would intently observe its crazy curly-Q branches. Doing this would lead them into other worlds of delightful fantasy. Much the same way our modern imaginations can be captured by a good movie, the creative Celts were artistically motivated by the seemingly random and wild contortions of the hazel.

A more commonly known fact is that the hazel is considered a container of ancient knowledge. Ingestion of the hazel nuts is proposed to induce visions, heightened awareness and lead to epiphanies. Indeed, the legend of Fionn Mac Cumhail tells of his gaining the wisdom of the universe by simply coming in contact with the essence of the hazel nut.

He did this through the salmon, which was known to eat the hazel nuts that dropped around a sacred pond encircled by nine hazel trees. It was fabled that from their diet of the nuts, the salmon too were keys to infinite knowledge. Fionn burned his finger while preparing a soup of these very salmon. Instinctively, Fionn thrust is finger in his mouth to soothe the burn and by this slight contact he became enlightened.

Interestingly, in modern times the hazel nut has proven itself to be a brain food. Pound for pound the hazel nut have double the protein, and good fats than eggs, making them natural nourishment for brain function.

When you are creatively stuck, or your intellectual growth seems stagnate, call upon the energy of the hazel tree. Better yet, eat a few hazelnuts, or make a necklace from the nuts. Often such necklaces were worn for protection as well as to illicit visions. Likewise, hazelnuts were (still are) eaten just before engaging in divinatory, foretelling or meditative practices.

Post script: Pick your hazelnuts after they have fallen from the tree. It is considered bad form to pick them unripe off the branches.


In Memory of Harvey Holton Scots Poet.
Harvey's view from Corbbie Hill.

Harvey's view from the glade and Hazel trees.

Georgina Parkins at The Steeple Newburgh North Fife

This weekend Georgina Parkins, fine artist exhibited some of her recent works in the project space in The Steeple Arts Newburgh North Fife
Georgina Parkins.


Georgina states:
My work mostly draws inspiration from architecture, in particular older buildings in decaying areas of the city. The combination of flaky surfaces and clean, hard lines intrigues me, and it is this combination of textures and mark making I enjoy the most. I also take inspiration from horizon lines, especially the horizon at Leith Docks, as it is constantly interrupted by tall towers. These breaks in the horizon often map out my composition, as if I find a particularly pleasing horizon line to look at, I will take that horizontal and any corresponding verticals as my intitial composition before editing.
I do try and recreate lines and surfaces I have seen,however it is not so that I'm able to imitate that object or space, but rather so that I can apply it to my own composition to improve the aesthetic. Things that inspire me become links, and I order these links so that I am happy with the arrangement, in most cases this includes a lot of editing. Any information I consider unnecessary I will not include, as I do not feel the need to over complicate my work. I reduce my chosen subject to the bare essentials, and manipulate it for my own aesthetic pleasure. In doing this, I believe I make my original subject irrelevant to the piece, as it has been so heavily edited by myself. I would like the viewer to see my work as an object itself, rather than a representation of something else.
I hope the viewer to take in the initial experience as if taking a breath, then to allow their eye to consider the details. If a composition is too complex, or has too much information, then I find myself trying to take in all the information, rather then just enjoying the moment of first seeing it.
The history behind the sufaces I create is fundamental to my paintings. I am constantly clearing my paintings, by covering them in a layer of paint, or wiping away what I have worked on with lemsolve. By constantly clearing, then once again building up the piece, I give my painting a past, a sort of time line of paint. A completed painting in the colour blue at some stage might have been yellow, green, black, etc, and all these different stages with have an effect on the finished work.




More on Georgina.

In Celebration of Harvey Holton Scots Poet

In Celebration of Harvey Holton Scots Poet
I first met Harvey when I moved to North Fife in 1979, we became good friends and enjoyed many convivial, sometimes merry, sometimes deeply conversational times over the years. Latterly we were to collaborate in creative projects, Harvey's poetry, my pictures, alas this was not to be. Not everything in life turns out. Like many creative people his skills and production will be only now fully recognised, albeit posthumously.


Harvey Holton at home a few years past.


Twin brother Brian Holton and Yang Lian Chinese Poet remember Harvey at Stanza, Scotland's International Poetry Festival, St Andrews. Entitled "Past and Present"


More on Harvey.


The empty chair. I am sad.

Knit a Poem Stanza St Andrews

Poetry in motion
There it was waiting to swaddle.
Left to right measurement: 13 metres (43 ft) at its widest point
Top to bottom measurement: 8.7 metres (28 ft) at its widest point
Number of squares: 1200+

The poem is the work of more than one thousand knitters and crocheters worldwide, who furiously clicked needles and hooks throughout September, to turn the individual letters of Thomas’s poem into colourful 12-inch squares.

Judith Palmer, Director of the Poetry Society, commented:

“We wanted to celebrate the Society’s centenary with a fun, grand-scale project in which many people could participate, that was about ‘poetry’ but also summoned up the idea of ‘society’, to reflect all the thousands of people who’ve kept the Society going since 1909. The time, commitment and creative skills that people have given to this enterprise has been overwhelming.”

Knitted poem strewn upon the floor in the town hall St Andrews.
Dylan Thomas
In My Craft or Sullen Art
In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.

Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.

Copyright Dylan Thomas. Used by Permission of David Higham Associates.

Ten Poems of Hafez: Jila Peacock Scotland's International Poetry Festival

I was delighted to come across this exhibition at Stanza, Scotland's International Poetry Festival. Ten poems of Hafez: Jila Peacock.
Iranian-born painter and printmaker Jila Peacock has created Persian calligraphic shape poems using words from Hafez of Shiraz. In my ignorance I thought Shiraz was a wine grape variety but this work is equally intoxicating.

Jila Peacock

Calligraphic Poem by Jila Peacock.

Hafez horse poem.

Ten Poems from Hafez.
Hafez (d. 1390) is Iran s premier and most quoted lyric poet. His status in his own country, and his universal appeal, can be compared with that of Shakespeare in the English-speaking world. The painter and printmaker Jila Peacock has chosen ten love poems from Hafez and following the footsteps of the great Islamic calligraphers, has produced ten shape-poems that sit by her own translations from the Persian. Accompanied by Robert Hillenbrand's erudite introduction and a foreword by Parvin Loloi, this book is an exceptional achievement, a celebration of the marriage between word and image.
From the Publisher
The original limited handprint edition of this book forms part of the collection of many important institutions, among which are the British Museum, the Fitzwilliam Museum and the National Library of Scotland.
A superb production and worth having. RRP: £25.00
Price: £23.75 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. Ten Poems from Hafez

Tayview 18th March and Garlic

Tayview 18th March.

Wild garlic pushing its way up, always a welcome early culinary delight. We make a pesto sauce with it instead of garlic cloves. Good in salads too.

Tayview 17th March 2011

Tayview 17th March. I was just about to stop and record this view when this truck came into view.

Old Ford flatbed chugging uphill, probably a model T circa 1925 in the livery of Fishers, an acid green quite a change from the original, Ford having said that one could have any colour as long as it was black.

A more up to date mode of transport.
Fishers Services (Cupar) Ltd is a private company categorized under Laundries and located in Cupar, United Kingdom. Current estimates show this company has an annual revenue of 16,260,472 and employs a staff of approximately 150. Companies like Fishers Services (Cupar) Ltd offer: Laundry Clothes, Cleaning And Laundry Services, Laundry Business, Pick Up Laundry Services and Drop Off Laundry Services.

Making it up the brae, it disappears round the bend.
The Model T engine was produced continuously from September 27, 1908 through August 4, 1941, exactly 12,000 days. This makes it one of the longest engines in series production, especially considering that the specifications remained mostly unchanged for this entire duration. Its production run for the U.S. consumer market for passenger cars and pickups was shorter, being the 19 years' production run of the Model T itself for that market (1908 to 1927). But the engine continued to be produced and sold to various consumer, industrial, military, and marine markets throughout the world until 1941.

Manufacturer Ford Motor Company
Production 1908-1941
Displacement 177 cu in
(2896 cc)
(2.9 L)
Cylinder bore 3¾ inches (95.2 mm)
Piston stroke 4 inches (101.6 mm)
Valvetrain side
Cooling system water
Power output 20 hp (15 kW)
That's nearly 3 Litre, such an engine size produces 10 times the horse power these days.

Tayview North Fife 16th March 2011

A bright sunny day after a dull and cold start with a lingering mist. What a joy to see the Pinkfoot Geese, everyone I met was happy and full of the joys of spring, twill all change back tomorrow as more rain is forecast. Och well.

Tayview 16th March.

Alert and quite nervous, heads up and ready to fly.

Pinkfoot geese alarmed by my presence take off.

The pinkfoot geese quickly back again and settling down to forage the short grass.

Ballinbreich Castle on the River Tay, long shadows falling over the field from Higham woods.

Higham Woods bare of leaves, mainly beech trees.

Here on Earth: A new beginning

There is so much going on in the world, cataclismic change, geological, climate and political, this new publication by Tim Flannery puts it into another perspective.

Here on Earth: A new beginning.
Tim Flannery is here to offer us a change of perspective. And he is here to inspire us. He invites us to consider again our place on earth, what it really means to be alive.

Here on Earth is a revolutionary dual biography of the planet and of our species. Flannery reimagines the history of earth, from its earliest origins as a chaotic ball of elemental gases to the teeming landscape we currently call home. It is a remarkable story. How did life first emerge here? What forces have shaped it? Why did humans come to dominate? And when did we start to have an impact? More importantly, how has this changed us as a species?

The awesome hand of nature has never been better portrayed than in this book. Nor, remarkably, the transformative power of ideas. From the most intense competition for survival, cooperation has emerged. The challenge we now face is to sustain our fragile hold on life.

Our fate is in our own hands. But first we have to realise who we are.

RRP: £14.99
Price: £9.74 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery.
Food for thought. Here on Earth: A new beginning

How to Develop a Brilliant Memory Week by Week: 52 Proven Ways to Enhance Your Memory Skills

More and more I experience those CRAFT moments, (can't remember a flipping thing) and today I am prompted to explore a remedy by an article in the Observer newspaper. Ed Cooke, memory coach and a world memory championship grandmaster points the way. Below is a publication that can assist in the process of improvement.

How to Develop a Brilliant Memory Week by Week: 52 Proven Ways to Enhance Your Memory Skills [Paperback]
A practical year-long programme to bring the benefits of a better memory
to one and all.

Few would disagree that improving our memories can enrich our lives in countless little ways – from ensuring that we remember birthdays, anniversaries and appointments, to having impressive facts and figures always at our fingertips; and from recalling names and faces to being able to speak in public without notes. This book is an expert course in memory enhancement, organized in 52 key lessons, complete with self testing. Dominic O'Brien offers us tried and tested strategies and tips that will expand your mental capacities at a realistic but impressive rate to make your memory bigger, better and sharper, week by week.

RRP: £5.99
Price: £4.49 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery.

Buy now lest you forget. How to Develop a Brilliant Memory Week by Week: 52 Proven Ways to Enhance Your Memory Skills