A 'retreat' poem

Back in the 1990s I went on a couple of Arvon courses at Moniack Mhor, near Beauly. (The name, incidentally, is from the French for 'beautiful place', possibly from its association with the old priory. The Gaelic name, which resonates with me, is A' Mhanachainn). Anyway, I found the courses very productive, and I learned a lot about writing poetry - bear in mind that my career until then had been mostly to do with librarianship and science. But they told me the cottage was also going to be used for writing retreats, under similar terms - DIY cooking, with supplied food, and BYO wine. I went on two of them, both with specific writing in mind. The first, in 1994, was the sequence which became the title sequence in my first collection - Thirteen Ways of Looking At the Highlands. The second, in the following year, was to write a long poem on Scottish botany, which resulted in the Poem card - The Flowers of Scotland - presented to the Botanical Society of Edinburgh as a celebration of their 160th birthday in 1996.

I know that when I arrived for the first week-long retreat I was struck by a catastrophic migraine attack. I had no option but to take to my bed for 36 hours. However, when I came out the other side I felt a burst of energy, and I completed the poem - 13 verses, a prologue and an epilogue - in the remaining time.

The second retreat was fine. I had no clear ideas about the poem beforehand, no structure, as I had for Thirteen Ways, and I was very relaxed. The writing went well, and I remember waking early on the Wednesday morning, opening the curtains in my room and looking out onto a sea of mist - something that happens often there. I watched as the mist burned off in the sun, revealing the stunning surroundings, and I wrote the following poem, later published in my second book, Seven Senses (Diehard). It has a freshness about it that I still like. See what you think.

Wednesday morning

Solid mist fills the valley,

opaquing all distances

from near to nearly.

Sharp-edged woods become

blotches of night

lingering on the fringes of day.

Dew prickles the face

with moist, cold explosions.

On some unseen signal

distinctness arrives, landscape-wide;

green blobs resolve to trees,

and deeper presences

announce their mountain-hood.

Long feathers of reluctant cloud

detach their bases from the heather

and manoeuvre for take-off.

Golden-green sun-spots appear,

pursuing the clouds’ tails.

The sky blues from gap-sites in the grey

until background becomes foreground

for this unpredicted day.

All this, for me? you ask.

All this, for this?

Copyright © Colin Will, 2015

A taste of fish

Way back in 1994 I was finding my voice as a poet, maybe a bit over-exuberant in my use of language, and sometimes tying myself in verbal knots as a result. But when it worked I was pleased with the outcome. With a science background, and working as a scientific librarian, I often used my scientific knowledge in poems. So if I was writing about geology, I made sure I got it right; same in biology and chemistry. At that time I used to index science books for publishers, as a wee sideline, and while many of them were geological, my principal subject, I took what was offered. I remember I had been indexing a book about hake - biology and fisheries, and I mentioned to a poet friend that I was a bit fed up with it. 'Write a poem about fish,' she said. So I did, and this is it. It was published in my first collection Thirteen Ways of Looking At the Highlands, And More (Diehard publishers, 1996, and now out of print).

A taste of fish

Husbanding volition in the dark pool,

mouthing and gill-gushing water,

tasting chemical memories

from the birthplace spring,

the home-tang of an imprinting riffle,

the hen salmon’s programmed need proceeds.

Over fear she forces the fall upward,

tail-strokes levered by pink muscles,

flinging her body in a froth-skimming arc

to slither over the lip’s slimed slabs

and flicker through the slick black surge

of the top-water, into the slack.

In a brutal balance,

body is lost to make movement,

nothing else weighs,

oils emulsify to fill yolk sacs,

bones decalcify, deform,

scales tear from spongy skin,

and, in the final finishing

of her blind and battering race,

a felt and tasted presence,

a red need beside her, under, round,

bestows a milky blessing on her generation.

Copyright © Colin Will 1996

Too easy

I don't normally write poems about writing, but this one wrote itself this morning.

Too easy

Once I wrote in language

dense as earth, full of words

gleaned from years of learning, reading,

and fancy turns hand-picked

from the poet’s holdall of tricks –

allit-, asson-, half-rhyme, and bucket-loads

of metaphor.

One critic said I was ‘showing off’

but I wasn’t. I took delight

in the possibilities of words, sounds,

ideas, special effects.

Still, the injustice stung.

I’ve pared down, am leaner,

but maybe I’ve gone too far;

too many simple gifts, too many

babies slipped through the shower’s

hair filter, too many straight lines.

What do you think? You were there.

What do you think?

Colin Will

01/01/2014