Car Mirror & Wind farm

Car Mirror & Wind farm
Originally uploaded by John Siddique

Driving above Blackshaw Head we stop at the windfarm - The sound of the turbines cutting the air, the mesmer of watching the rotations and the clairty of the air up here makes it somewhere we come to as if in a state of prayer. It's even better to come up here at night, perhaps when it is raining. The turbine towers like white spectres stretching out across the hill.

I've driven past this place before, but the night we heard about Michael Jackson's Death we came out for a late drive to break the sombre weight that had settled on our house. I guess we did like so many others, listened to his music, watched the news clips, wondered how such a beautiful looking human could distort themselves so much, and how much crap his poor innocent soul had to put up with over his life, especially his monstrous court-case a few years ago. Perhaps it was such burdens that wrote themselves in skin bleach and the cosmetic surgeons knife as he outwardly tried to create himself to deal with them.

I was in the gym in the afternoon, the looker-room talk was the usual 'no smoke without fire' rubbish. The poor man was only just dead and within minutes - this nonsense, I'm sure it was the same the world over - when did we humans loose our humanity so much to the quick quip - the twitterfacespaceemptiness humour of such darkness that it is more important to destroy than touch compassion within ourselves.

We turned off the news, stopped reading the tweets. I silenced the locker room with my own solid silence, and as the night came up we needed to get out of the house, so we took to the car and headed for the moors with the windfarm and watched the turnbine rotors turn like samurai angels, or the bladed messengers of Don Quixote.

The Art of Listening

The Art of Listening
Originally uploaded by John Siddique

Derek Jarman's Garden - Prospect Cottage

Derek Jarman's Garden - Prospect Cottage
Originally uploaded by John Siddique

GO LAKERS

Yowzer Yowzer Yowzer!!!!! well done boys, I can go home to UK a happy man – thanks for the games!!

Walking Among The Stars

What can change the world in these times?

Finishing up now in LA to return to UK next week - Just spent some time with a poetry group made up of people trying to move their lives beyond gang culture, people who perhaps just a few weeks ago wouldn't/couldn't be anywhere near each other - I just sat in as an observer, and a group member had been murdered at the weekend, so best just to sit and be invisible, but we were brought together that day by a poem by Mary Oliver which we studied, then we all wrote and shared lamentation poems, and I was invited to share too... A humbling experience... and when anyone ever asks me what the use of poetry is? tells me that the economy is everything, i can touch base with the fact that poetry goes beyond war, guns, hate, money, upbringing, fear, distrust, and so many other things to bring us home again..

Was interviewed for La Opinion – The main Spanish language newspaper in the US about the translation project I’ve set up looking at the poetry of Coral Bracho, Araceli Mancilla, Rocio Gonzalez and Natalia Toledo – four poets who you really should check out. The piece on them should appear in Poetry Review at the end of the year.

Here’s a piece on my last Open workshop at Cal State, LA which took place last week http://bit.ly/woMIn

~

BBC2 this week showed'My Life in Verse' featuring singer Cerys Matthews touring around the UK to find out more about Celtic Poetry, when she got up to Yorkshire we met up to talk about Ted Hughes, Celtic & Shamanic influences in poetry and the Ancient Kingdom of Elmet. It was mid winter and snowing hard and cold, so I'm in my silly Russian hat.  The show is on BBC iPlayer for the next 7 days so I hope you can take a look - and big love to Cerys who is just such a lovely person. Hope I don't look too daft in my hat - have a good laugh anyway. I’ll see it when I get home to UK this week and probably die of embarresment

~

I’m not a big sports viewer but last night was out Downtown to watch the Lakers Vs Magics basketball game an the screens, and I loved it. such an exciting final quarter, and i was blown away by the skill of Derek Fisher who popped up like genie twice to basically allow the Lakers to win – there was one or two people partying on the streets of LA last night – so onwards to Sunday when the Lakers could win the finals.. I hope they do, as I’ll miss it if it runs to Tuesday, as I’ll be in England.

~

I Thought I'd note the music I heard yesterday as I was walking down Ocean Front Walk; thought I'd make a Venice inspired playlist for my iPod - this is what i heard...walk with me if you will by the sand, the freaky sights and the palm trees..

Beyonce - Halo
Pink Floyd - Shine on You Crazy Diamond
Led Zeppelin - Thank You
Beatles - Lucy in The Sky With Diamond
Pink Floyd - Us and Them
Lady Gaga - Poker Face
Stevie Nicks - White Winged Dove
The Doors - Love Street
Led Zeppelin - Ramble On
Fleetwood Mac – Landslide

so programme that up and you’re walking by the Pacific

How do we continue as writers & artists – Elizabeth Gilbert

Risk failure in order to be creative

What does a poet get up to in June? He Recites to The Oak Moon

‘A writer’s life and work are not a gift to mankind; they are its necessity.’ Toni Morrison’

'We must write where we stand; wherever we do stand, there is life; and an imitation of life we know, however narrow, is our only ground.’ – John Updike 
 
Borang Thungg Earthlets
Greetings from sunny Los Angeles; where I’m spending a heap of time in Venice and trying to understand Basketball as the Lakers cause great excitement as they get into the games of the final. I hope this mail finds you well and happy. It’s very interesting watching the UK news from another culture’s perspective, the US and UK seem to use the same words but the subtleties of difference in meaning and decorum are fascinating. I’ve been watching Fox News, CNN, ABC. Entertainment stories aren’t covered in the news here, they have separate channels for celeb crap,  I wish the UK news would take itself a bit more seriously and start presenting the news again, rather than speculating and only presenting ‘the emotional shot,’ asking someone whose love has been killed ‘how they feel’ is crass at best, and unprintable here if I were to say what I wanted to. Anyway there’s not much about UK on the news, but according to E! and the like it seems like Susan Boyle’s nerves story & Britney Spears’ arrival are big things. Expect a Boyle/Spears mash up some time soon then. Picture the video of them both with shaved heads and wearing boas.

Venice/Marina Del Rey is a good place to be living whilst I’m here, there is a wonderful bookshop ‘Small World Books,’ there’s the Ocean, and a great cafe called ‘The Cow’s End',’ where you’ll find me most mornings writing my journal. There’s also a very cool Yoga studio ‘Exhale,’ where I’ve been getting back to my yogic roots a bit.. both Shiva Rea & Erich Schiffmann teach there..

The British Council/Cal State LA residency is well under way now, The Launch of Recital was brilliant, and I’ve met all sorts of people, next week I'm meeting ex-gang members who have started a literary press. I've also talked to all levels of students, and am now well into my translation and film projects. I’ve also been working on the next book a bit, enjoying the American influence, and my ideas are starting to clarify as to what the book will be – A long way to go on this one, I tend to sit on books and then do big changes after a year or so..

Books I've bought this week:
jhumpa lahiri - unaccustomed earth, tu fu - selected poems, pablo neruda - the hands of day, frank bidart - watching the spring festival, toni morrison (ed.)  - burn this book, also been reading pema chodron's - the wisdom of no escape

Hope it’s great where you are.

All the best
John

Recital  - Now 33% off
If you have been thinking of buying Recital and haven’t yet – please consider now to be a good time to get one as it has just been launched as a paperback version in both UK and US. Please show it to your friends, write Amazon customer reviews, tweet, read it aloud on the streets & all that stuff.

SALT my lovely publisher has been hit hard by the 'downturn' and the loss of their ACE funding. You can help support this brilliant innovative publisher by buying a book or two. If you were to choose to buy Recital or give it as a gift to someone – that would be shiny. And now you can get 33% off Recital and all Salt books until the end of June http://bit.ly/1459Jm Use the coupon code G3SRT453 at the checkout.

There’s a great and thoughtful review of 'Recital' by Andrew Boobier at The Graft Review http://bit.ly/xBT8y

’Recital is a thoughtful and often thought-provoking collection, intelligent, clear, inquiring, humorous, some will say inspirational and - dare I say it? - 'life-affirming' (there, I said it!). It's a work that demands to be read as a whole.’

Four Fathers
Please vote for 'Four Fathers' in the Non Fiction Category for 'The People's Book Prize' - http://bit.ly/4EiTp

Four Fathers is a collection of stories by Tom Palmer, James Nash, Ray French & Myself which looks at stories of our fathers and then at the nature of what it means to be a father or a father figure. It would be lovely for our book to get a bit more recognition because of this prize.

A fascinating double-take on the experience of being fathered and then becoming a father - tales full of wit, pathos and insight. - Blake Morrison

you can buy 'Four Fathers'
http://bit.ly/qyM1m
or
http://www.route-online.com/all-books/four-fathers.html

Guardian Poetry Workshop
I was asked to create a Guardian Poetry Workshop, and given Recital’s newness in the world, I thought a night theme might be a good area of poetic exploration. You can find the workshop online here http://tinyurl.com/siddique It would be lovely if you had a go. As I write this The Guardian have just sent the poems they have selected though. I'll be looking at these soon and making my comments for their website.

LA Residency
I have been leading workshops with groups of students at Cal State LA, and giving 'Recital' its US launch. There are two other projects that are part of my time here; one is I’m working with the translations department to look at the work of four Mexican poets, Coral Bracho, Rocio Gonzalez, Ariceli Mancilla & Natalia Toledo. The results of which will be published in Poetry Review later in the year. I am also working with the animation department who are working up a number of pieces from Recital into short films.

Colour Me In
just a fun link where you can download a lovely drawing of yours truely by my friend Hannah Nunn and get to work with the felt tips - enjoy! http://bit.ly/xJqOI

Love and light to you, and thank you as ever for your support. 
Splundig Vur Thrigg
John

This band of Players on Venice Beach put on great shows just for the love of it, improvised music with a kind of afrobeat/reggae thing going on - miss snakehips here illustrates the groove..

Goodbye Grasshopper

the series Kung Fu had a profound influence on me as a child – perhaps some of the questions asked in it are still my questions today. Goodbye and love and light for the spirit of David Carradine. thank you for getting me to notice that the questions even existed in the first place..

Out & About in LA

US Launch of Recital

Here are some pics from the US launch and signing for my new book ‘Recital – An Almanac,’ at Cal State, LA. The place was absolutely packed, standing room only. I was beautifully introduced by Professor Lauri Ramey, and I read a 45 minute set mostly focusing on Recital, but with a handful of poems from the other books, and a sneak preview of what I’ve been working on recently. I was very pleased at the turn out, and the presence of some lovely folk from The British Council, who helped put my residency together. I just want to say thank you to all who came to the event, and also the people who came to the Masters discussion afterwards, and then out into the night with us for eats.

A Stroll at Venice Beach

 

      

what kind of poerty workshop for The Guardian?

I've been asked to write a poetry task for this month's Guardian Poetry Workshop - so right now as the May rain turns the cobbles outside a deeper shade and the sky says get some work done. I find myself looking at the bookshelf waiting for the Book Faerie to guide my hand to some leads for the idea I have in mind..

Last night we did a home town launch for Recital and what a night we had, so magical, my dear friend Katie had composed 2 pieces of music for quintet based on two of the moon poems for the book, she was joined by the Melati Quartet to play them brackeing my reading. I did a pacey set of about 30 minutes but managed to get some DH Lawrence and ee cummings in there, you know me, i love to share my reading. and then Mark Illis who also lives in Hebden read from his short story collection Tender. All this was supported wonderfull by our amazing indy bookshop The Book Case who sold the books, plied us with wine, did all the publicity and show our books off nicely in their shop. It's great authors and bookshops working together. It all took place in the lovely "Little Theatre" which overlooks the canal and the park in HB.  - This morning we were talking about maybe programming a few more events as this one went so well, Perhaps have some other authors in and put a nice bash on - just because we can..and we lov books and poetry.