You may have noticed that there has been no podcast for the last month, and indeed there will not be one in April. This time off, after two fantastic years, has given me time to take stock, and ask my listeners if they had any suggestions on how to improve the quality and content of the podcast.

To my great relief the lovely folk who responded to my pleas for feedback were unanimous in their liking for the author interview . This is after all the main part of the twenty-five minute show, giving me [and the listener] a chance to engage with the writer concerned and ask the questions we all want to know about the writing process, about inspiration, and how writers start off in their careers.

So in my next podcast I’m hoping to have slightly fuller book reviews, a bit more news of literary events, and perhaps greater focus to the interviews.

A special thanks to all those who said that they liked me reading my own poems in the Poem of the Month slot. It’s a lovely, low-key way for me to share my writing.

And lastly congratulations to James Garside, one of those who gave me feedback on my podcast. His name was drawn out of a hat, and he will be receiving his £20 Amazon voucher soon!!

Sometimes I get a writing commission which is both thrilling and scary to do. The sense of being entrusted with writing something ‘important’, for public viewing or hearing, can both stretch one’s creativity to the utmost and bring with it huge responsibility. The fear is part of the creative process, driving one harder and harder to try to meet the needs and requirements of those who commissioned the work, and those who will receive it.

You want to do your subject justice!!

I felt all this very keenly in January of this year when I attended an evening commemorating the holocaust, at the Victoria Theatre in Halifax, to read a poem I had written for the occasion. I listened to the moving testimonies of those whose experiences of holocaust still seared sixty-five years after the event, and of those who had suffered in recent years from the deaths of the children through racism and homophobia. And all the time I listened, moved by their powerful stories, I was thinking, ’but I only made up my poem, they actually experienced all the things they are talking about’.

Let me know what you think...

Three Sonnets for Calderdale National Holocaust Day 2010

humanity, remembrance and the future

I am human, with chambers in my soul
Where love and beauty live, and also joy,
I am human, which some have tried to steal
From me, piece by piece, and to then destroy.
My lungs are ash, my skin is cracked and seared
Everything gone I thought was mine,
The storm is here and it is all I feared,
My eyes are burnt and blind with what I’ve seen.
I am in a place where God does seem to live
Where my heart and soul are not recognised,
I am in a place with no rights and no reprieve
Where nothing that I have is prized.
I am human, but some do not seem to care
That there are so many things we share.

2.

Tree roots wind tight through our ribs and spine,
Their tendrils clutch us hard and strong,
While above the ground there is not one sign,
Our voice so weak, you might not hear this song.
Sometimes a creature stirs within our skull,
And we are reminded of what we would not know
The sudden bullet-cracks, and then how full
The pit we had dug in the tousled snow,
Dying screams cut short, and when no-one came,
Companions in death, then tangled bone.
It has been so long, no-one knows our name,
As if all trace or dust of us has flown.
Remember us in what you do or say,
We who sleep nameless beneath this tree.

3.

Sometimes when rays of sunshine warm our skin,
Or when we feel love and pleasure in a friend,
We hope that such things can go on and on,
The year has just begun, it cannot end.
But winter storm clouds might still bruise the sun,
Young and green shoots be frozen and then die,
If we are ‘other’ and not like ‘everyone’,
Some can our humanity still deny.
We have learned the cold lessons of the past,
And to be free must be prepared to fight
For a growing season which will outlast,
In its promise and hope, all lies and hate.
In spring-time we must still be on our guard,
For the old frost-king might yet stab us hard.

© James Nash 2010

Sitting here in my office, looking out over a snowy garden, it feels as if this is the first time I’ve been still, and in one place, for many months. I am enjoying the temporary respite before the New Year to catch up with myself and review the year just slipping away now. 2009 was a year of big birthdays, and great parties. It was year of exciting projects, where I had to pinch myself quite often to check on whether I was awake or dreaming.

I have nearly finished the re-write of my teenage novel The Champion; after taking so long to write it, it’s so close to the end that I can’t quite believe that I’m nearly there. I have also written over sixty sonnets in the last year, with a special commission which I will be reading at Holocaust Day in Halifax for early in 2010.

Here is one which contemplates mortality, as poets and artist are inclined to do, and feels appropriate for my contemplative mood at this time of year

Foot-prints

Early morning, as I make my escape
Towel-wrapped from the bathroom shower,
Stopping briefly when I see the shape
Of my wet foot-prints on the floor.
My toes, the soles and heels of my two feet,
Like something from a children’s story book,
With perfection in the silhouette,
As if an autograph, my own true mark.
When I return I find that they have nearly gone,
Dried up and leaving just a watery tear,
To vanish later in the morning sun;
And I wonder what I’ll leave behind me here,
How light the traces I have made since birth,
Evaporating on the sun-baked earth.

© James Nash 2009

Occasionally a photograph is sent to me which reminds me of a very happy experience. Photographs can do that, can’t they?

Here I am with one of ‘my objects’ working at Teesside High School with a Year 6 class, as part of the children’s festival held there this year. It was all in all a wonderful day with terrific young people who wrote some great poems. And the bonus for me of a photograph which doesn’t make me cringe and want to hide!!

This year I feel very honoured to be judging Village-to-Village's first annual poetry competition alongside the fabulous Brian Patten.

The charity thought that an inspirational poem would be a perfect motivator to involve more people in volunteering.

All winners will be invited to read their poems on National Poetry Day in Leeds. The deadline for the competition is the 30th September and winners will be announced on a poetry evening at Seven Arts Centre in Chapel Allerton, Leeds on National Poetry Day, 8th October 2009. I will be reading for about twenty minutes, followed by an Open Mic session.

More details about the competition can be found on the Village-to-Village website.

Monies raised from the competition and poetry evening will help to support the English Club Village-to-Village runs and help the charity buy new books and open the library to the whole village of Uchira in Tanzania.

Why don’t you have a go?