Geopark Poetry Map, NaPoWriMo and More

I have had quite the hiatus from the blog. Initially, I told my Zoom group I was going to take time out in March to write. But actually, life, the universe and everything had other objectives. No worries, I am well. And just a little miffed that some doctor is opining that those who have not had Covid-19 so far have no friends. I certainly have friends – I just know how to interact by socially distanced means and have kept face-to-face interactions rationed. Well, until March anyway. And I am still fine. Just very busy. Also keeping track of those who did get felled by the illness this past month. Moral and spiritual support is a vital ingredient to all truly meaningful friendships. And March has been an intense month on both the macro and micro levels.

So, not a lot of writing done except for some haiku and a speech on UNESCO World Poetry Day when we launched the digital Cuilcagh Lakelands Geopark Poetry Map. It was fifteen months in the making and the pandemic offered many challenges but the project is done! You can read and listen to the poems here. Scroll down the Communities page and you will find the link to the Poetry Map. https://cuilcaghlakelands.org/discover-explore/communities/

You can hear how the project grew and developed over that fifteen months in the video of the launch at Cavan Burren Park (yes, we did it outdoors, sheltered but open at two sides to ventilation; nothing, but nothing was going to stop us getting this project launched!) You can also listen to some poets reading their work at the launch in the video..

On the foot of the March 21st UNESCO World Poetry I conducted some haiku walks in the UNESCP Global Geopark with adults and school children.

For some of those kids it was the first school outing in two years. The Fermanagh primary pupils did nature art with Geopark colleague Julie Armstrong, while the older children wrote haiku poems inspired by the sights seen and touched. They got to run fingers over multi-millenial aged rock art, mosses, lichens, liverwort and lung wort. (The proliferation of the latter near where we live is an indication of our clean air quality, which other doctors reckon might have accounted for our ducking the virus. Also, we have lots of trees. And we garden so our Vit D levels might be good from exposure to sunlight year round. We do SO have friends!) The children were out and about in the fresh air for two hours before heading back to school for the afternoon classroom sessions.

And as to that question – and from which side you look at this glacial erratic, you get many opinions. Some see a snake’s head. Others see a cat, but not necessarily the domestic variety. Still others see a frog. Here’s the haiku I wrote with the Tattygar Primary School P5 class.

Limestone tortoise crawls

Slowly – for eternity

Across old sea floor

Bee Smith, 29th March 2022

For the first time in five years I am not doing the write a poem a day challenge for NaPoWriMo. I highly recommend this exercise, but though it feels a bit weird not to participate, it also feels right. It is an intensely busy, as well as an intense time for our planet. There is plenty needs doing in the garden. Also, sometimes you need to let things fester a while before you face the page. The rapid response with a daily poem feels somehow…ill-conceived…for 2022. Certainly this time needs poetry, but it feels, to me at least, that a time of consideration is needed at the inception. A week of playing around with a phrase from the ginko on 19th March wound up as the refrain in a much longer poem written yesterday.

But don’t let that stop you from writing a poem a day this April! Work away!

I am very much enjoying the resumed Zoom creative writing group of about eight women who get together to free-write on themed topics each Saturday afternoon Irish time (though it is 10am for the participants Zooming in from Ottawa and Rhode Island.) The Irish group is also cross-border, with women tuning in from Fermanagh, Leitrim and Cavan. This group has really bonded and feels a very precious part of my life.

See! I do have friends! I just see them on Zoom a lot of the time still.