Keisha Thompson writes poetry so unlike the verse we're all familiar with that it takes a little while to get your head around the miraculous things she's doing.
Rather than writing in neat stanzas her work takes on all sorts of shapes: layouts of grids with words appearing like drawings in a cartoon strip, lists divided and titled like the closing credits of a movie, Venn diagrams showing how emotions intersect and plans of the solar system which turn out to be a biography of Florence Nightingale. Her remarkable book explores language, parent/daughter relationships and includes the script of her play "The Man In The Moon". If you're a poet or you love words this is a great book to have on your shelf. Lunar by Keisha Thompson published by Crocus
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Find Your Voice describes itself as “a guided poetry journal for your heart and your art”. It’s not a book to teach you how to write, and it encourages the creation of accompanying collage art work, but it doesn’t set out to teach that either. Rather it wants to “take you on a creative journey” with the intention of guiding you towards your own writing style and, perhaps, your own illustrative style too.
Noor Unnahar has divided her book into three parts: Uncover Your Writing Stye, Discover Poetic Devices and Find Your Voice. She encourages you through inviting prompts and suggestions on how to mine your daily life for ideas. She finds ways for you to be inspired by things and opinions you hold that are uniquely yours. It’s a great little book with far more depth than its slight size would suggest. We can’t rate it highly enough! Find Your Voice by Noor Unnahar. Published by Clarkson Potter Semerwater* is one of only two natural lakes in the Yorkshire Dales. It's a gorgeous spot in little Raydale.
It has a great legend. Here it is: One day an old beggar passed through the city that now lies under the waves. He asked at every house for food and drink, from the humblest hovel to the highest palace, but was turned away. Walking out of the city he came to a shepherd’s cottage high on the hillside where he was welcomed in, given cheese, ale and backstone cakes (a kind of Dales oatcake) and a bed for the night. In the morning the beggar stood at the cottage door and looked down at the city in the valley bottom. He muttered these words: "Semerwater rise, and Semerwater sink, And swallow the town all save this house, Where they gave me food and drink.” At once waters began pouring into the valley from the surrounding hills until the city was drowned and every dwelling beneath the water, save for the shepherd’s cottage. And this is why, if you take a boat out onto Semerwater and listen in the quiet of the evening, you can hear faintly, from the beneath the water, the church bells rolling and tolling in the slow currents below the surface of the lake. *Semerwater is the subject for Watching Paint Dry in November 2022. Grow Your Own Physic Garden: Use the Power of Medicinal Plants Grounded in Science
by Elaine Perry, Valerie Laws and Nicolette Perry Grow Your Own Physic Garden is designed to inspire readers to take an alternative approach to their health, one which is rooted in the scientific study of medicinal plants. By nurturing our own gardens the writers, who include a professor of neuroscience and a pharmacognosist (a person who studies medicines derived from plants) encourage us to grow the elements of our own remedies and put them to use. The book covers a huge amount of ground. It takes plants individually and details their special features, the folklore surrounding them, the scientific evidence for their inclusion and their medicinal uses. In addition the text discusses the history of physic gardens, how to choose plants for your climate, plus tips on design, layout and labelling. In terms of plant care there are also extensive notes on pests, pruning, sourcing seeds, foraging, harvesting and staying safe while doing all of the above. And, of course, there are detailed descriptions of how to utilise the power of the plants in your garden. This book is incredibly comprehensive, covering everything you need to know to create and, more importantly, make medicinal use of, your own physic garden. Published by DPG Publishing ISBN number 978 1 9163504 0 3 www.dilstonphysicgarden.com On a hill overlooking the Vally of the River Tyne there’s a handful of acres devoted to some very special plants. Dilston is a physic garden - not a pairing of words we’re used to hearing now, but a few hundred years ago everyone would have known its meaning. It’s a botanical medicine chest.
When we visit gardens open to the public we’re accustomed to carefully curated displays chosen for height, colour and dramatic effect. Dilston is different. In what appears to be a kind of chaos, the plants are arranged by botanical and curative relationships. Everything you need for a healing balm lies close together, aromatic herbs for creating teas or infusions are grouped in neighbouring beds. And the smells! To brush through the garden is to journey through an aromatic landscape. We’ve been on a couple of courses here - Wild Medicine, Wild Food and Making Autumnal Remedies. The results sit in our kitchen: a lotion for aching joints, an infusion to warm you on cold days, cough lozenges - all made from the plants of Dilston and all grounded in serious medical research. Inspired by our experiences at Dilston, a part of the Happy House garden is now being developed as a physic garden. So far we’ve outlined a quatrefoil sequence of beds, dug the trenches for brick paths and laid down a mix of healthy topsoil and compost. By this time next year we hope to be making our own remedies at home! www.dilstonphysicgarden.com
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AuthorJosie Beszant and/or Ian Scott Massie, both artists from Masham North Yorkshire, Uk. Archives
January 2023
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