Barbara Hepworth 2011 visit
I visited Barbara Hepworths’s garden in St Ives this summer and was very inspired. Even though there were crowds of people, the seclusion and beauty of the setting was very moving. I loved the way she matched the landscape and scale of her work together. My favourite piece lay at the front of a small lawn and contained a small pool of water in an oxidised bronze hollow. Ripples were reflected on the surface if you dipped your fingers into the water when the sun was shining. Perfect! I hate to say this but I think sometimes words can get in the way of an experience. Barabara Hepworth seemed to capture the complex relationship between self and landscape, the natural and human worlds within her work and space was as important as a solid form.
On another note, I am still touring my Some Girls’ Mothers event and project with my fellow writers in Yorkshire this autumn so please feel free to drop in any of the following dates:
MORLEY –LIT-FEST
11 October2010
Workshop (Char March ) 2.30-4.30pm: Bees Knees, 27 High Street, Morley, Leeds LS27 9AL
Performance - Char March, Clare Shaw, Anne Caldwell, Suzanne Batty
Morley Library – 7.30pm
Event location Morley Library, Commercial Street, Morley, Leeds, LS27 8HZ (The Baker Room)
Morley Litfest
Jenny-harris@blueyonder.co.uk (07505 127631)
www.morleyliteraturefestival.co.uk
Calderdale Libraries
12 October 2011
Northgate
Halifax
HX1 1UN
Contact:
Anna Turner - annaturner@calderdale.gov.uk
Wakefield Libraries- 19 October – 1.30-3.30pm
Workshop – Anne Caldwell and Char March
Stanley Library
Lake Lock Road
Stanley
Wakefield
WF3 4HU
Phone: 01924 303130
Email: stanleylibrary@wakefield.gov.uk
Tickets will be free.They will be available from Stanley Library and Drury Lane Library from 18th September.
21 October – 7.30pm
Performance – Anne Caldwell, River Wolton, Nell Farrell, Char March
Wakefield Drury Lane Library
Drury Lane
Wakefield
WF1 2TD
Phone: 01924 305376
Email: drurylanelibrary@wakefield.gov.uk
New writing project and gig this weekend
I am begining to work on a new writing project this week, exploring the theme of sound scapes and visiting a range of different locations where I might find silence. Here is a section from an early poem that I have been working on:
The absence of sound is bell-shaped and green.
I’ve time to contemplate millions of insects
in the oak spreading above my head:
pupating, living and dying in the variegated shade.
A crow squawks. The bell ringers are ready.
I have just been up to the Lake District to visit tarns - including the man made Moss Eccles and another more remote location above Haweswater.
I am looking forward to a Some Girls Mothers’ event in Hebden this weekend - 1st August, 5pm at The Town Hall on Bridge St. It would be great to see some of my friends and all the writers in the book together for one evening. It promises to be a good gig!
Some Girls’ Mothers book trailer and tour
Some Girls’ Mothers
Publishers Route have been creating a new trailer for the current tour of the book Some Girls’ Mothers, which features creative non fiction by six fabulous women including myself. The book explores the theme of mothers and daughters and has been going down a storm at gigs all over the country. You can get a flavour of the performance by watching this:
Let me know what you think! The book is also now available in audio version from the Route website. The stories are read by the authors featured in the book including myself. Hearing it really brings it to life and recording the material was quite an emotional experience for us all, bringing back the highs and lows of our relationships with our mothers, or with our daughters.
We are in the middle of a live performance tour at present. If you are in Hebden Bridge on the 1st August please come and see us at the Town Hall, George St - 5pm. Tickets are £3 on the door. Myself and Suzanne Batty are also on the radio on the 12th July - BBC citzen manchester. It will be available via iplayer so I will post up some details.
Readings and Workshops
This spring has got off to a flying start with poetry readings at The Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal and the ArtsMill in Hebden Bridge. I have also been running writing workshops for MMU in Cheshire on Lifewriting and a wonderful new writing group in Warrington. The students at MMU were great, and we had a good debate about age and memory - is it true that we get more interested in memoir the older we get? I would love to hear your comments.
I have also just got my manuscript off for a first full length book to Cinnamon Press and havent managed to write a thing since? Is this a common problem when you get to the end of a big project?
In the Bleak Midwinter
This photo was taken up in Hardcastle Craggs this week to inspire a new personal writing project I have just started. I have decided to do the same route once a week for a year and write about this walk from different angles - observation, sensory details, diary thoughts and research. I am going to see what kind of material comes out, but I started this week in appalling weather and came across this extraordinary wall of icicles half way down the main route into The Craggs. It looked like the entrance to The Underworld!
I am also going to be working in South Leeds Academy this term with year 11 pupils. I am looking forward to meeting them all on the 25th January. I am running a writing project in Warrington for Anna Wenlock which will be open to local writers (and non writers). It is based at Birchwood Library and will look at unlocking creativity, helping new writers get started and building confidence and self esteem. I intend to do a mixture of poetry, creative non-fiction and short stories with the group.
I did a project last year at Birchwood as part of a ‘Some Girl’s Mothers’ tour, and had the best workshop experience I have ever had! It was a very mixed group of young people and retired people and they all clicked. The evening flew by.
Review of my first pamphlet
Here is a snippet from a review of ‘Slug Language’ by Christopher Horton. If you would like to read the whole review, please follow this link. I am really pleased with his perception and obvious enjoyment of the work. Slug Language was published last autumn and is now out of print, but I still have a few copies left if anyone would like one!
‘Anne Caldwell’s Slug Language is a seductive, though at times chilling, pamphlet that demonstrates careful craft and a deftness of touch. The word ‘touch’ seems particularly apposite here because Caldwell so frequently expresses meaning through the human senses, bringing to bear the rawness of physicality.’
Here is the link:
http://www.saltpublishing.com/horizon/issues/03/text/horton_christopher.htm
I hope you enjoy reading it!
Poetry Success!
I have just found out that I have won the Cinnamon Press first collection award today. I am delighted. The book will be published early 2011. I am joint winner alongside Sally Douglas and my draft title is ‘Talking to the Dead’.
Here is some further information from Cinnamon on their current submissions:
We also currently have a submission call for an anthology of poetry sequences and one place left on our women’s writers course at Hebden Bridge in November. You can find full details at www.cinnamonpress.com
Boys and Reading
I have been working with animation artist Jack Lockhart this year in a number of different schools, looking at the connections between animation and poetry, and encouraging boys in particular to get into reading by making their own book trailers. It has been great fun! The biggest lesson we have learnt I think, is to allow the young people involved to really take the lead and create their own film material. Sometimes things have therefore not turned out in expected ways, and there are a lot of ’special effects’ and references to Star Wars in some of the work produced. In one primary school in Oldham half way through a session, I overheard a pupil say ‘This is the best fun I’ve had at school all year.’ Whether or not you can really encourage a love of reading in just five short sessions is a tall order. But many pupils reported that they had a leap in confidence because of the project, and some tried books they would not have attempted before the workshops this summer.
Two events coming up this summer
I have just had a poem published in Magma no.44 and I am delighted as I think it is such a good magazine. I am going to its launch event at The Troubadour in London 8pm on the 22nd June. Please come and join me if you are around that evening. I will post up the poem once the magazine is in production.
I am also doing an event with Nell Farrell, Char March and others at the Lowdon Literature Festival on Saturday 20th June at 6.30pm. We are reading from ‘Some Girls’ Mothers.
I have been following quite a lot of material in the papers about the Poet Laureate and want to congratulate Carol Ann - this seems a very important step forward for women and poetry in particular and I am really pleased to see the raised profile the art form has. I just hope the actual Laureate post does not have a detrimental affect on her work. I wonder if there is a better way of celebrating poetry in this country? It seems such an archaic institution. I would prefer something that did not focus on one person and had a wider spread. I would be interested to hear what other people think.
Working in Schools
I have been doing quite a lot of new residencies this year -both with animation artist Jack Lockhart and by myself. A lovely primary school in Wetherby called Lady Elizabeth Collingham employed me to work over a number of days with their pupils on the theme of the second world war - which was quite a challenge. A year three class wrote fantastic poems on the theme of evacuation and a creative teacher called Pauline Ross came up with the idea of putting these poems inside suitcases made of paper:
I have also been working in a primary school in Oldham on the theme of encouraging boys to read more books where the boys have worked separately from the girls. This process was interesting, as the boys freely admitted they were keen readers without the girls present!
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About
Anne Caldwell is a poet and literature consultant. She works for NAWE and the Open University, Bolton University and runs workshops in schools and community settings.
Contact Tel. 07818 052108
email a.caldwell@nawe.co.uk
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Read This
'A Wilder Vein' edited by Linda Cracknell
