“A single walker, stepping into the
procession of language.” Seamus
Heaney
When I was a child of three an
older brother, in trying to teach me French, Spanish and Greek, introduced me
to the pleasure in the sounds of
other languages, without understanding meaning. From an early age accents and
dialects fascinated me, whether the rough burr of farmers at an Ulverston
auction market, or the lilt and fall of family-visiting Irish, Polish, Italian
and American relatives in Cleator Moor and Whitehaven, mingling with west
Cumbrian dialect and its
why-use-two-syllables-when-three-can-make-a-word-into-a-song? For example, to-o-wast, for toast, or dad’s
‘Ista-ga’in tae Gaa-ity tae blaw tha’ nowuz an’ mak’ a scuttle?’ Meaning, ‘Are
you going to the Gaiety Picture House in order to blow your nose and make a
noise? The delight in the rhythm of people’s voices is to me something that
connects us through, as Robert Pinsky notes, a ‘column of air inside the
chest’.
An intensely remembered childhood
moment is of writing my first poem after I had became mesmerised by the
wind-swaying branches of two silver birches in Bardsea Wood, feeling that if I
let go I would become part of them. Years later I discovered Robert Frost’s poem
‘Birches’ and was struck by the similarity between my experience and how Frost
described it in his poem. I, too, became “a swinger of birches.” As a child I
only dimly understood that it was a seminal moment in my life. What did the
experience mean? How could I ‘become part of the birches’? It was an experience
that propelled me into wanting to gain an insight into this kind of imaginative
encounter. It’s been an itch to be scratched, a mystery to be solved, a
‘something’ I need to address. It’s a lifelong quest and one way I felt it
could be understood was through poetry.
Mind you, I always thought you
had to be clever to write poetry and go to Oxford or Cambridge University –
poetry wasn’t for me! However, after years of working at a variety of office jobs
and encouraged by my husband Geoff, I finally plucked up confidence, took the
plunge and did a degree titled Imaginative Writing/Literature, Life and Thought
thinking ‘well, if I’m useless at poetry, surely I can write an essay!’ To my
delight I fell into poetry and came away at the age of 44 with a degree. That
was it; I was Paul on the Road to Damascus! Even more so when I went on a
life-changing writing course at Ty Newydd, titled ‘Poetry, Healing and Meaning’
co-run by Rose Flint and David Hart, where I discovered that creative writing
could be used in a therapeutic way. The light of realisation that yes THIS is
what I want to do, use poetry/creative writing to help understand each other
and our connections with the world, human and non-human, burns more fiercely
than ever.
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Geraldine
Green gained a PhD in Creative Writing Poetry and an MA Creative Writing Poetry
(Distinction) through Lancaster University; a BA Joint Hons (First) and a
Research Diploma in Ecopoetics at Liverpool John Moores University. She is a
freelance creative writing tutor, mentor, visiting lecturer at the University
of Cumbria and an associate editor of online
magazine Poetry Bay
Her
collections are The Skin and Passio Flarestack Pubications, Poems of a Mole Catcher’s Daughter
Palores Publications and The Other Side
of the Bridge by Indigo Dreams. Geraldine was a contributor to a book on
therapeutic writing titled Writing Works: A Resource Handbook
for Therapeutic Writing Workshops and Activities published by Jessica Kingsley. Her next
collection, Salt Road will be published in summer
2013, also by Indigo Dreams.
Geraldine’s poetry has been widely anthologised in
the UK, USA and Italy and translated into Greek, German and Romanian. She
frequently performs her poetry in the USA. In 2005 two of
her poems ‘Green Lizards’ and ‘Early Morning Prayer’ were highly commended by
Judge Penelope Shuttle in the Poetry on the Lake Competition, Orta Italy. She’s
a member of Lapidus UK and Lapidus North West.
You can find information on her recent collection
here:
and
find out more about her here:
Poetry pf
Enter Poetry Space Competition 2013 Just £5 per poem. First Prize £250. All placed and short listed poets will have their poems in the prizewinners' anthology.
The 2012 prize anthology will be available shortly.
Enter Poetry Space Competition 2013 Just £5 per poem. First Prize £250. All placed and short listed poets will have their poems in the prizewinners' anthology.
The 2012 prize anthology will be available shortly.
