Quite a week

New Poetry Bus magazine cover - “Red Wolf” by Abby Diamond

The Monday just gone was my 45th birthday and whilst some birthdays can be pretty crappy this recent one was really quite enjoyable. It started well on Sunday night when we managed to see the Aurora Borealis out of our bathroom window. We didn't get any great pictures – partly because it was all a bit last minute (“get the camera!”, “where's the tripod?”) but it was amazing to see it anyway (our first time). It seemed a good early birthday present.

I remember back on my (very drunken) 30th birthday saying I'd like to try and see the Northern Lights on my 40th. The thing was that once I got to that next milestone I had other priorities so instead of Mother Nature's greatest light show I managed a (very welcome) trip to the Glasgow music festival Celtic Connections in 2007 (saw Kate Rusby and Crooked Still – both grand). All this considered, I thought it very considerate of aforementioned Mother Nature to arrange the lights for my 45th. Better late than never.

On my birthday itself (this year) ever-thoughtful and beloved man took the day off work and away we went to Aberdeen to just be somewhere different (we like that)... to look at stuff, eat, drink fancy coffee, watch a movie. A friend had recommended “The Artist” so we caught a matinée of the silent one (friend was right – it is a gorgeous film). Whilst the star (Jean Dujardin) is great and the little dog cute-as-cute a lot of the gorgeousness, it must be said, is down to the actress (Bérénice Bejo) who is simply stunning (and on screen a lot so why she is nominated for Best Supporting Actress and not Best Actress I have no idea). It did make me remember once again that whole “male gaze” thing I studied years ago though and how so often, in movies and in life, women are pretty much allowed to be beautiful/sexy above all else (depressing) whilst men can be “interesting”, “tortured”, “deep”... all sorts of things... as well as beautiful/sexy. People debate about this don't they (has it got better? has it got worse?) and to an extent it depends which film you saw last (I saw “Bridesmaids” the other night on DVD... it had some good moments and certainly not all the actresses were out of the cookie cutter... but still... it was just a rom com with a few feistier bits... everybody did get their guy in the end...).

Anyway, all that considered I did really enjoy “The Artist” – the music, the acting, the writing (not many lines as such, obviously, but still a lot of writing in there somewhere!). You really have to look and concentrate on it (and I liked that). I especially liked that for much of the early part of the film we could hear the guns of the First World War (coming from a nearby screening of “Warhorse” I imagine). It added another dimension of strange (and I like that too).

Then we went home, ate fish and chips (lovely), ate chocolate birthday cake (delicious – thanks cousin, Jo!) and, as if my day wasn't going well enough, there, amongst the post, was my copy of the new Poetry Bus magazine! Hooray!

If you haven't ordered a copy of the new Poetry Bus yet you can do that here (and don't forget you get a magazine and a CD too). I haven't read the magazine at all yet but I listened to the CD yesterday and the pieces that first jumped out at me were the ones by Quincy R Lehr, Pamela Clarke Vandall, Paul T Dillon, Kalle Ryan and Kate Dempsey (though it should be noted that not all poems from the magazine are on the CD, as before). I'll be interested to read the magazine now and see how my first favourites hold up as I get to the know all the writing in the magazine better. I was very excited to hear the song “Happy Ending” by the Watercats at the end of the CD too (I am more and more of a fan of theirs – I wrote about them not long back, here) and in a way the CD needed it because there's a lot of sad stuff on there – a lot of winter, a lot of wrong... another reason Kalle Ryan's lovely, funny “The Night Before...” spoke loudly to me on first listen I suspect. Also listening to the CD I was horrified to learn that I seem to have picked up a bad case of “poet's voice” (ugh! Where did that come from? I never used to do that...). Maybe I'll get someone else to read for me next time (if there is a next time...).

My poem in the new PB3 is “Mélodie” which I wrote for the old online Poetry Bus so I'm glad it's found a new direction. I first posted it here (and you can see the, ahem, intended lay-out there...) and I was interested to go back and read the comments it provoked (y'all were too kind!). It was especially interesting to read, PB editor, Peadar O'Donoghue's comment (“poetry is pain”) and on a more personal note it was a bit weird to see that I posted that poem on 29th May 2010... and that my Mum died on 14th May 2010! I guess I was still in shock...

Anyway, you can see some of the Dublin launch of PB3 here and the rest here (though you might want to fast-forward now and again... unless you really like watching people buy Guinness). It was funny to see our editor in the flesh, as it were (after all this time...) and I don't want to get soppy here but I so love what Peadar does with the poetry magazine format. I love that he does a CD (yay for audio... well, apart from my voice obviously...). I love that he writes “yabbadabbadoo” in the introductory 'words from the editor' (poetry editors can be soooooooo up their own seriousness...). I love the artworks he chooses and the music and the mix of poetry (though a rhyme here and there wouldn't kill you, you know...). And will I (once again) change my mind when he doesn't pick a poem of mine for one of the issues..? Will I hate his guts and want him slaughtered by bedtime? Possibly but let's not think about that right now...

So, here I am... 45 and, thus far, enjoying this (bus) ride over the hill. Next stop Boo Hewerdine at the folk club here tomorrow night.. and here's one of his many lovely songs (it matches the name of this blog too):





We get slower but maybe we get better at the same time. Well, we can hope.
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