Ice Cream For Breakfast

The last two years have been possibly the hardest consecutive years of my life. They’ve been packed with bereavement, sadness, illness (shingles twice, for heaven’s sake) worry, exhaustion, sleepless nights and endless pain. It’s coming up to the first anniversary of my mum’s passing, and today marks the first anniversary of the Covid 19 lockdown in the UK. The last year in particular has been something none of us alive today has ever experienced. The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-1919 devastated the entire world in the wake of the first world war, and one of the things I’ve noticed is there’s very little reference to it in literature dating from the time. The war, yes. There’s a whole tranche of novels, poetry and so on, that deals with WW1 in great depth. But the Spanish flu? Not so much. If anyone has information on novels and poetry of that era that goes into any detail, do let me know as I am curious. But honestly, I’d probably avoid (like the plague?) novels that heavily feature our current pandemic. It’s just too close.

During the last two years, my creativity has taken a massive nose dive. I’ve often felt that creativity is the cream of life, the rich stuff floating up out of an excess of plenty. It’s not something that can be sustained when trauma and illness are ripping through your life. Creativity, for me at least, is about having spare capacity to take the elements around me and weave them into something new. With the last two years, there have been days where just getting through and still be upright at the end of the day was more than I expected when I got out of bed that morning. I’ve been channelling the occasional burst of creative juices into a work-in-progress called “On Hob Hill” which I hope to complete this year. It’s also gone into occasional poetry.

I stopped sharing my poetry on this blog for a number of reasons. One of those is theft. From time to time I notice search terms that suggest a school or college somewhere have asked their students to produce poetry. I’m not happy with plagiarism (who is?) and it worries me that so many seem to be unconcerned about passing the work of another off as their own. It’s rife, apparently. The other reason is that it’s satisfying to my inner needs to collect together every few years my poetry into a collection. There’s three published already, all with slightly different themes. The work of the last six months has been to gather together a new collection and publish it.

This is my longest collection to date. The title poem, “Ice Cream For Breakfast” was written the morning after my father died. The blurb for the new collection is as follows: “So much of life is about contrasts and polarities; a kernel of joy within sorrow, and a hint of sadness within happiness. It’s about finding a tiny taste of sweetness amidst the bitterness of bereavement. These are poems for the liminal times of grieving and trying to make sense of difficult experiences. These are poems about the wonders of nature, of the pleasures of living and of the absurdities and humour inherent in life.”

The amazing art of the cover is by Bethan Christopher, whose book “Grow Your Own Gorgeousness” I reviewed some years ago. She has a new book due out very soon, Rebel Beauty for Teens. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rebel-Beauty-Teens-Unleash-Gorgeousness/dp/1789562252/ and it looks amazing.

The new collection can be found here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08YQR65KM/ and if you are buying from other Amazon stores, please replace in the URL whichever store (dot com, dot de and so on). It’s only going to be in paperback. This helps reduce the chance of piracy, and other things like content ripping. I have a small number of stock copies, so I can supply signed editions in the UK only, if should this appeal.

I’m very proud of this collection, coming as it has in the wake of such a difficult couple of years. It’s taken a ridiculous amount of energy to get it thus far. One of the things I’ve had to overcome is a form of pernicious inertia: the whole, who cares, what’s the point, sort of inertia. I believe that poetry matters, that is says things nothing else can in ways that can reach directly into the soul and touch it deeply.

One more thing. If you are kind enough to buy a copy, please please PLEASE leave a review. It’s not about massaging my ego (nice though that may be) but rather the fact that the number of reviews, and the continuing additions of reviews on older books too for that matter, affect the algorithms and how a book is then added to things like “suggested books like this one” and so on. Thank you so much.

Do Not.

Do Not

Do not tell me

What I am,

What I can do,

What I must think,

Who I must be,

In order to be

A good person,

An acceptable person

A sound person

A person you might like.

Do not tell me

That I must conform

Be like others

Be like everyone

Be like you,

Be positive

Hide my faults

My failings

My pain

And my griefs,

Just so I fit the slot

You have so kindly

Allocated for someone

A little like me.

Ozymandias in the City

Ozymandias in the City

Great blind eyes stare out

From centuries, no, millennia past,

Smooth blank orbs that show

Little or nothing of the man

But everything of the god-king

Who ruled like no-one else.

Full lips that have never opened

And never will, now, nor

Speak the secrets of the ages

Lost now in the sands of time.

A fragment this is, though vast

Enough to crush us all with ease

If toppled from its plinth.

Cracks show, crevices where time

Has not been kind, or, more likely,

Workmen have been careless

And have dropped this colossal thing

That gazes now, implacable,

Over not the shimmering temples

Nor the changeable Nile,

But merely an army of tourists,

The curious and the idle,

Here to get out of the rain.

Rameses 2

British Museum September 15^th 2017

W is for Woman

W is for Woman

“I am woman – hear me roar,”

is what I hear so many say.

I do not roar,

I sometimes squeak

Or squeal or even growl.

At times I even purr.

In truth, mostly I am silent,

Unable to find a voice

Or words that fit

The needs that change

From day to day.

Sometimes I whisper

Into the void

Until my throat is sore,

As much as if I’d screamed.

It is not this lioness who roars.

(edited to clarify: have changed the to THIS. I know lionesses do actually roar. )

T is for Triggered

Triggered

I’d expected the land to be silent,

For willows to weep and doves to mourn.

Yet larks sang, rising over acres

Of emerald green winter wheat

And bare fields sown with a million flints

Shattered by behemoth harrow and plough.

I’d expected rain, at the very least;

Tempestuous clouds letting rip

With a deluge to drown us all.

Yet the sky is merely grey and dull,

The usual March dampness to the air,

And the temperature hovering at mild.

I’d expected signs and portents

Speaking of grim days to come,

Harbingers of doom,warning us.

But only a confused owl hooted in a copse,

Awoken by smaller birds, squabbling,

Fighting for territory and for mates.

I’d expected the little river to be

Cloudy with mud and debris

From passing storms upstream,

Yet it flowed clear and fresh,

And I found myself expecting the kingfisher,

Sticklebacks and the elusive dipper.

When we go, nature will not mourn or miss us.

She will sigh with relief like a hurricane.

A few generations of cats and dogs

May remember us vaguely,

Fondly even, and with regret,

Before going from feral to truly wild.

I will seize that ice-cold comfort,

Clutch it to me as a child might,

That life and the land go on,

Even when the world, for me,

Has shattered irreparably and forever;

I am bereft but I still stand.

© Vivienne Tuffnell March 29^th 2017

(this poem appeared in The New European newspaper a few weeks ago)

P is for Poetry

P is for Poetry

Or possibly, predictable.

Come on, you didn’t expect me to use P for anything else, now, did you?

Sorry. This whole A-Z thing is inherently predictable, after all.

Anyway. Poetry.

I wrote my first poem (I’ve probably said before) at infants’ school, so somewhere between the ages of 5 and 8 (when I went up to junior school). My memory suggests 6 or 7 as the age; the title of the poem was Blue. It extolled the virtues of my favourite colour. There’s no copies of it anywhere, for which I am sure you are all profoundly grateful.

At school I was one of the few who enjoyed both the reading and the writing of poetry. Yet after the school days were gone, I seldom wrote any. There’s a few tucked away; angsty, angry ones from university days but I think the sheer wall of hugely brilliant poets I’d studied rather impeded the idea of actually writing anything myself. Even my fiction dried up at uni; it was not until my daughter was a baby that I started tentatively to write again properly, having spent my childhood and teens scribbling.

Why poetry? What’s the point of it, is a question I’ve heard too often. Poetry says things in ways prose cannot and will not. It’s not about flowery language but about finding a way to express something (often deep and hard to articulate) in a manner that transcends age, culture, and sometimes even language itself. The brevity of some forms is like an expert ink drawing that captures a moment so perfectly, it never needs the colour adding. The longer forms tap into our unacknowledged need for rhythm and draws us in, with repetition and with something older and more arcane than the familiar story-telling of a novel.

As a mature* adult I’ve written more poetry and have found some sense of calling in writing it. It’s been published in assorted small journals (some now extinct) and more recently in national newspapers (I’ve had some in The New European). My first collection of poetry Accidental Emeralds https://www.amazon.co.uk/Accidental-Emeralds-Vivienne-Tuffnell-ebook/dp/B00LM890TG/ several times reached the sweet spot of number one in Love Poetry. My second Hallowed Hollow https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hallowed-Hollow-Vivienne-Tuffnell/dp/1544615779/ made it to four in the category Religious and Inspirational poetry. It got its first review the other day and glowing doesn’t come close to how enthused the reviewer was (proud moment!)

But stuck in the pipeline was another, longer tome. A Box of Darkness stalled at the last minute. I’d got some proof copies and then realised I’d messed up the table of contents, and couldn’t figure out how to do it properly. I’d also used a quote from American poet Mary Oliver and I realised that this was unethical. Despite the quote being all over the internet, I couldn’t use it, either inside the book or on the cover or blurb. So I had to think again. Two years on, I was still thinking. Then a couple of weeks ago, I dragged myself back to it, and did it. A recent purchase of a traditionally published book of poems gave me a clue of how to present the contents page without having to jump through hoops.

A Box of Darkness (like Hallowed Hollow) is only available as a paperback, as I don’t feel a longer collection fits digital format There’s 60+ poems in it, so at the current temporary release price of £5.00 (or local equivalent) that’s extremely good value, but it will go up very soon. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Box-Darkness-poems-darkness/dp/1505904285/

Subtitled Poems from the Darkness, the theme is obvious. The blurb is as follows:

“Sometimes we fear to go into the dark places that depression and mental distress can lead us into. Yet as many mystics and seekers over the centuries have found and spoken about, those dark places often contain the treasures we did not know we were searching for. These poems are the results of my walking into the darkness and bringing back the beauty and wisdom that is hidden there. Some painful, some humorous, but all poignant, I hope you will find these poems inspire and encourage you to seek your own treasures in the darkness.”

Poetry is an important but under-valued art form; there’s a lot of baaaaaad poetry about too. But there’s a lot of very good stuff too, and I think mine falls into that camp, not the other.

*however you define mature, I’m using it to mean over the age of 21.

All links are to Amazon UK but it’s in other Amazon stores if you look under my name and the book title.

M is for Monsters

M is for Monsters

Monsters live among us;

They live right in our midst.

They may be someone close to you,

someone you’ve even kissed.

You cannot spot a monster

By their growl or grin,

Nor by their claws or teeth or fur

But by what’s deep within.

You may see them on the telly

Or on the internet.

You might see them at the cinema

Or at the shops, I’ll bet.

But you won’t know they’re monsters

Until they bare their teeth,

Or when they steal your soul away,

For a monster is a thief.

They’ll take your trust and honesty

And throw it in the dirt

They do these things for fun, you know

Because they like to hurt.

B is for Broken

B is for Broken

Sometimes you think,

You know what?

I’m broken, busted,

borked, ruined, wrecked, a mess.

Every flaw, fault, failing,

Feckin’ awful mistake,

Every missed chance

Every lost hope

Every last ditch,

All pile up into

A stinking heap of pain,

And I can’t find the glue

Can’t find the energy,

The will, the incentive

The power to start

To piece together

Go back to the start

Figure out the puzzle

Of what went wrong

And why I am what I am.

Unexpected item in the bagging area ~ oh look it’s a new book!

Unexpected item in the bagging area ~ oh look it’s a new book!

It’s not unusual for women at the crossroads between childbearing age and the end of that era to produce an unexpected little bundle of joy. In days gone by, I suspect it was a lot more common, even if some of those babies were those of a teenage daughter passed off as Mum’s late addition to the family.

So perhaps a book sneaking out at this time of my life is a similar thing. In this case, though, all the material was there, waiting. Waiting for me to look at it, consider it and then do something brave with it. And believe me it is brave to the point of being foolish, to put out a book of poetry on the themes of doubt and faith and all the grey hinterlands between the two, in a world that cares little for poetry of any ilk. Yet once I began, I couldn’t stop. I have had concerns that this surge in …motivation… might be a manifestation of a manic phase but so far it seems benign and controlled, so perhaps it is that the wheel of life has turned and I am rising, slowly.

Hallowed Hollow is a collection of 40 poems. If I had been canny, I might have marketed it as a book for Lent, but I’m not, so I didn’t. It might make a good non-chocolate Easter gift, though. The poems reflect my journey of doubt and faith, one that spends much of its time in the no-man’s land of being drawn by the numinous but of being repelled by dogma and by the often impossibly clubbish-ness of organised Christianity. I veer towards a panentheism that would have got me burned as a heretic or hanged as witch. They’re poems I am intensely proud of, for what that’s worth, and I am also proud of the fact that I have managed to get them off my hard drive and out into the world.

I’m not intending to release them as a Kindle version, unless by some extraordinary miracle, the print edition is wildly successful. There are reasons for this. The first is aesthetic; as a reader of poetry, I much prefer to have a paper edition. One can flip through, caressing pages, and finding poems as if by magic that speak to you that moment. Reading stolidly through, one by one, is not for me. I jump around. The second reason is that I believe that lovers of poetry tend to be collectors of it, who love to display their books and Hallowed Hollow is (in my humble opinion!) quite, quite lovely in its dove-grey cover with an image of rippling water in a holy well. The third reason is that I cannot construct a table of contents that works interactively. While Accidental Emeralds does not have such a contents page, there are only twenty poems in that collection; it’s no great hardship to scroll through the pages. Poetry does not sell well on Kindle, and it’s pretty depressing to see a volume sitting there, its rankings starting to look not so much like a telephone number as the numerical value of Pi to the nth degree.

I’ve not done a launch for this book, not because I don’t love it but because I do. It will find its readers in its own way, but I’d be very grateful for anyone getting the word out, as well as for reviews as and when folks have read it.

Links to US and UK Amazon pages below.

https://www.amazon.com/Hallowed-Hollow-Vivienne-Tuffnell/dp/1544615779/

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hallowed-Hollow-Vivienne-Tuffnell/dp/1544615779/

God 1

God 1

I do not want your slot machine god

Powered by caprice and uncertainty.

Nor do I want your vending machine god:

Pop in a prayer and out pops a reward.

I want the untamed god

Unknowable as the badgers

Deep in ancient yew woodlands,

Wild as the flight of goldfinches

Bathing exuberantly in a forest pool.

In one glimpse you see more of eternity

And the vast untouchable sweep

Of a deity too broad

To be trammelled by walls and words,

Yet tender to his creatures who

He holds cupped in his wounded palms.