More Growth

The Beginning of Autumn

Naomi Woddis — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 21:57:54 +0000

Autumn always gives me that going back to school feeling. Even though this golden prelude to the winter is more about harvesting than growth, for me it’s about new beginnings too. It seems fitting for my residency to finally finish at this time of year. It’s been a real education about both the limits and possibilities of a writing residency and I feel a more creatively confident than I did a year ago.

For my last day I had a final one to one session scheduled with Annette, whose poetry you can read here. I have seen Annette’s poetry really develop over the months I have been working with her. I was chuffed when she said ‘You know I now realise how important editing is in poetry.’ I am such a stickler for thorough editing !

After our meeting I took a walk around the garden one last time and thought about the residency, the highpoint being the Poetry Gazebo festival. I took some photographs of the falling petals and the last growth of summer. Last winter I bought a digital camera off my old friend Jacob and one of the unforeseen outcomes of my residency has been my renewed fascination with photography. In February 2011 I have an exhibition of my flower ‘portraits’ at Oval House. All in all not a bad outcome at all.

Evolution of a poem – ‘The Bench’

Naomi Woddis — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 13:16:54 +0000

I met up with Katrina Naomi at my residency yesterday and we did some freewriting together. Here’s a first draft from a suggestion of mine that we write a personification poem about something in our immediate vision.

Below I have shared the journey from this draft of the poem to the final draft.

Bench
My coat, a chapped and peeling black,
a compass scrawl scars my skin
with lover’s initials and a heart
the size of a thumbprint. Under
cold moonlight I’m a sentry
in a garden of sleeping pigeons
and fat city foxes. Today I heard
two break-ups and one marriage
proposal, spied a child finding
frog spawn for the first time,
tutted at the forlorn fag-ends
at my feet. Once I heard an owl,
his call a flying lantern of vowels,
floating up with owl-wings
in to the dust scatter of stars.
He left for thicker woods.
If only I had the feet to move
I would have told him that
his lonely beak would find an answer
just two nights later. But I’m as stuck
as the cycles of the weather. Stubborn
time rolls on; I watch its passing.

Flying Upwards

Today I heard two break-ups and one marriage
proposal, spied a child finding frog spawn
for the first time, tutted at the forlorn fag-ends
at my feet. Once I heard an owl, his call a flying
lantern of vowels, floating up with owl-wings
in to the dust scatter of stars. He left for thicker
woods. If only I had told him that his lonely beak
would find an answer just two nights later. But
I’m as stuck as the cycles of the weather.

Flying Upwards

Today I heard two break-ups
and one marriage proposal.

Once an owl, his call a flying
lantern of vowels, floated up

in to the dust scatter of stars
then left for thicker woods.

If only I had told him that his lonely
beak would find an answer just

two nights later. But I’m as stuck
as the cycles of the weather.

The Bench

Today I heard two break-ups
and one marriage proposal.

Once an owl, his call a flying
lantern of vowels, floated up

in to the dust scatter of stars
then left for thicker woods.

If only I had told him that his lonely
beak would find an answer just

two nights later. The sky leaves
its signature on the pond,

each cloud a kiss, floating
in dark water. Summer passes,

the air is still, a hush of autumn
waits, finger to its lips, as one leaf falls.

The Cherokee Trail of Tears

Naomi Woddis — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 23:07:49 +0000

Today I sat in the dappled sun of the garden and talked to Scarlett, Culpeper’s dynamic gardener who runs Urban Food Growing sessions once a week.

What exactly is urban food growing ?
Most people in London don’t have an outside space. They might only have a balcony, a walkway or a window sill. Urban food growing is all about growing in a small space. It’s about using vertical space and it’s all about empowering yourself which is all food growing is.

Can you tell me a little about your own food growing ?
I’ve been growing food for over 22 years and I’ve had an organic bio-dynamic allotment for the last 13 years. I feed myself for about 9 months of the year. I grow vegetables that are not easily available. For example I’ve been growing the Cherokee Trail of Tears. These are the beans that the Cherokee took with them on the Trail of Tears when they were forcibly removed from their land and taken to the reservations. They took all their precious possessions with them which of course meant their foodstuffs.

What is this podcast you are involved in ?
I am doing a podcast for ID magazine online. I am teaching the ID staff how to grow food at the ID office garden. It’s a courtyard space with no direct sun. There’s a high wall and I’ll be using my vertical growing expertise to teach them how to grow food.

We had our first session last Thursday. They are not used to scavenging around like I do. I want to engage them to get their hands a bit dirtier !

You can find more about Scarlett, here, on her ID podcast.

A Poet’s Response

Naomi Woddis — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 21:53:32 +0000

Poet, Pauline Sewards, was so inspired by her visit to see fellow writers perform at Poetry Gazebo she wrote the following poem.

Garden

Drifts of iceberg roses scent the summer air
Poetry gazebo on a fine June day
Posses of poets primed and aware
that stories must be told the ancient way
narratives, rhythmic rapping, epic lyrics,
and rhymes resonate our own joy and pain
Words that heal like the herbal physics
grown in this garden where abundance blooms again
Today in midsummer the bees procrastinate
to pollinate in the creamy efflorescence
Photographers pick images to relate
the arc of the day back to our senses.
A smorgasbord of petals tops my wholemeal
sandwich, I take it all in. Taste, see, hear and feel.

Orange

Naomi Woddis — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 00:44:24 +0000

Orange, originally uploaded by Naomi Woddis.

I am overjoyed by the wealth of colour in the garden. Nothing pleases me more than taking a walk and seeing the changes in what’s been growing each week.

A Poem for Scarlett

Naomi Woddis — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 15:59:52 +0000

Scarlett is a close friend of mine and also a dedicated and awe-inspiring gardener and allotment owner. She runs the Urban Food Growing project once a week at the garden. I decided to construct a Found Poem for the project taking my words from ‘Square Foot Gardening’.

A Complete Garden

One of the secrets is to simplify
it. Sign up for lots of shouting
and laughing, raking, digging
and planting. A complete garden
of nothing but the crisp crunchiness
of Black-Seeded Simpson will be
everything you ever want. Treat
each vegetable as if it were an egg.
The effort’s always worthwhile,
all you need is a place with strong
sunlight and all your squares
will be filled.

Where do words go ?

Naomi Woddis — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 13:06:41 +0000

Another great one to one session with Annette at the garden. The poem below serves as a companion piece to This Poem

Where Do Words Go

when we discard them,
what shall we do
when they run out ?

Are there too many -
a glut of letters and concepts,
too many poems, too much fiction ?

Last night I heard
words echo in the dark,
and didn’t sleep much.

I dreamed
words embraced
and sustained me,
as we travelled through galaxies,
settled among the stars.

Poetry Gazebo – a summertime success !

Naomi Woddis — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 11:14:38 +0000

On Sunday we held a wonderful event at the garden – Poetry Gazebo was a mini Spoken Word and Fiction festival. The weather held out for us and performers and audience alike loved listening to great work in beautiful surroundings. You can click on the names of the artists below to find out a little more about their work.

Raymond Antrobus
Dean Atta
Dzifa Benson
Denrele
Cath Drake
Aisling Fahey
Abe Gibson
Miriam Halahmy
Sabrina Mahfouz
Karen McCarthy
Katrina Naomi
Courttia Newland
Esther Poyer
Baden Prince
Deanna Rodger
Jacqueline Saphra
Heather Taylor

We were also lucky enough to have not one but two great photographers with us on the day. These pics should give you a taste of the camaraderie felt by all of us.

One to One sessions at Culpeper

Naomi Woddis — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 13:01:30 +0000

I am now running one to one sessions with local Islington writers and members of the garden. What a treat it has been.

Annette Trickette is originally a South Londoner and is now settled in the Barnsbury area. She is non plot-holding member of Culpeper.

I have been overwhelmed by the relaxed and confident skill displayed in Annette’s poetry. Here’s her first poem for this blog and I am sure you will enjoy it.

This Poem
is not just about words
and the journeys they make
from author to library,
across seas and continents.

Words travel
and transform lives,
morph into stories, poems, ideas
reminding us of our humanity.

Words are more than words;
they are live and vibrant songs
we can all sing,
and make music with
in our different ways.

Rose

Naomi Woddis — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 23:44:31 +0000

Rose, originally uploaded by Naomi Woddis.

I had my first one to one session at the garden today. I was knocked sideways by Annette’s stunning poetry. It was such a pleasure to listen to her read. We chatted about brevity in poetry, less being more. After I walked around the garden in the welcome heat and took some photographs. It struck me how much I love taking pictures of flowers, especially close-ups. I hope that this simple close up of a freshly budded rose can echo the sentiments of less being more that Annette and I talked about.