Diary: December 2022

The year ended as it began; with the funeral of someone I admired, who inspired me, who at times I’d been close too and yet now feel never close enough. And both departing well before time or so it feels. Left with a sense of deep loss comforted only be the fact neither will be forgotten and love is everlasting. 

After Christmas last year it felt like covid feelings seized hold of me though the tests indicated negative, so I figure that was grief playing out. So began the year weakened nevertheless looking ahead thinking I wonder what will this year bring? 

It was an unnerving yet excited feeling; not really knowing where it was going. It felt like coming out of lockdown again even though that phase had passed all I knew is I was to carry on working on my poetry with my wonderful mentor Bethany Rivers. 

I haven’t been disappointed. I attended my first Arvon at Totleigh Barton in May with tutors Liz Berry and Fiona Benson and returned in September for a course facilitated by Karen McCarthy Woolf and Mimi Khalvati.

The year has kind of wound up working with Cath Drakes Climate of Change Challenge in November and simultaneously contributing to the Poets for the Planet COPlet campaign during COP 27. I feel I’ve re-entered the world of poetry in a meaningful way after the pandemic pause. 

Managed to attend a number of book and pamphlets launches online and in the real including those of Malika’s poetry buddies; Sundra Lawrence, Peter Raynard and Joolz Sparks who respectively brought out Warriors published by Fly on the Wall Press, Manland published by Nine Arches Press, Face the Strain published by Against the Grain Press into the world. 

This October also saw the launch of Manorism by Yomi Sode, another beautiful soul from the wide Kitchen alumni, published by Penguin and shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. So congratulations all round! 

Fairy Inkcap (Coprinellus disseminatus): also known as “trooping crumble cap”, a species of agaric fungus in the family Psathyrellaceae.

For the first half of the year I was regularly submitting and have had a dystopian visual poem Exhibit C accepted by Sustaining All Life and in the summer informed a poem of mine, Harbingers has been accepted by the Dear Politicians eco poetry anthology to be published next year. 

So it’s been a great year for my practice and poetry family and yes now, despite the sadnesses that swells within me I’m able to think, ooooh what does next year hold?

That said if I’m honest I’d say besides all this I still feel a bit like I’m leading a bit of a lockdown life, living through screens, apart from the odd foray into town or into Brixton and that has to change. There are plans afoot to take baby steps IRL!

I’m also at this point wondering if I want to continue with this blog in this form (or at all.) The jury is out on this. Perhaps loyal followers you can help with this. Would you miss the writing prompts? The writers on writing posts?  The poems from me and others? Or a better way to put it would to welcome the continuance? 

Wishing you all a happy and healthy Christmas and new year, hope you are warm and well. 

A blog post by Anne Enith Cooper 

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Diary: November 2022

This month is special as I’m continuing to participate in Cath Drakes Climate of Change Challenge and joining the Poets for the Planet COPlet campaign.

What’s a COPlet? You might ask. “A COPlet is a rhyming couplet – two lines of poetry about the environmental issues being covered at COP (or not!) that matter to you. You could write one (or more) for each day and post it on Twitter.”

This kinda thing and find everything else you need to know about COPlets here

November is always a bit of a rollercoaster emotionally with the anniversary of the departure from this world of a couple of dear friends and my dad in 2008 and the highly traumatic events that followed that leaving me with glandular fever.

I had this debilitating illness as I child of ten and when the GP told me, after receiving the blood results, I said, no that’s not possible I’ve had it before. She told me it can come back, news to me! In true yin yang fashion (I guess) November is blessed with a raft of good friends birthdays too. 

That said strong emotions like this can be destabilising for someone diagnosed with bipolar. I seem to have avoided this with my “meds;” meditation and medication and a new regime based on what I call old fashioned values; early to bed, early to rise, fresh air and exercise and regular meals. 

In fact I’ve found over the past few years no amount of “meds” can achieve any semblance of balance without the “old fashioned values.” 

And it occurs to me try to be kind to yourself and to others because you don’t know, at this time in particular, who is just hanging by a thread and in my experience meanness doesn’t just affect peoples mental health but their physical health, I am witness to this and it’s well documented here

The month concludes with a special event from the Climate of Change Challenge in which a selection of poets from across UK & Europe will join feature reader, Craig Santos Perez and read poems generated during the challenge. 

About our feature reader, Craig Santos Perez is a Professor in the English Department at the University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa, where he teaches creative writing, eco-poetry, and Pacific literature. He’s an indigenous Chamoru (Chamorro) from the Pacific Island of Guåhan (Guam), an award winning poet, editor, publisher, essayist, critic, book reviewer, artist, environmentalist and political activist. 

Craig has forged new ways to write about the climate crisis and His latest book is ‘Habitat Threshold’.

“Craig Santos Perez is a writer I seriously watch. He includes a variety of environmentally important writing, seamlessly combined with history, politics, and the familial.” –Linda Hogan, Indigenous Writer and Environmentalist

Other readers are Cath Drake, Kate Potts, Patricia Foster McKenley , Karina Fiorini , Bell Selkie Lovelock , Ness Owen , Suzanne Iuppa, Janet Harper, Clementine E Burnley, Linda Goulden, Joe Mishan, Shalini Pattabiraman, Katrina Dybzynska and myself. 

Tickets are FREE but you must register to attend here

#amwriting poems about climate all month, even in my sleep I suspect…

#amreading The Hidden Life’s of Trees by Peter Wohlleben 

A blog post by Anne Enith Cooper 

Find my bio here

Contact me here

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