Gardens of 2019: Winterbourne Gardens

 

Remembering all the beautiful gardens I visited in the summer of 2019, when zoom was a word found mainly in comics and photography magazines.

Winterbourne House and garden is on the University of Birmingham campus in Edgbaston. There are lawns, a terrace, flower borders, a nut walk, a shady pond with a picturesque bridge, a glasshouse with carnivorous plants and a walled cottage garden (I love seeing plants against old brick walls).







  

Popular posts from this blog

Image
 My poem feels good in translation I always feel honoured when someone reads one of my poems. There are so many other things they could be reading, other things they could be doing. But for someone to translate a poem... How closely they must have studied it! How many times they must have read each line. How they must have weighed up meanings, associations, sounds and shapes. A thoughtful translation is like a love letter to a poem. And my poem is flattered. This thoughtful German translation of 'Sack of Night' was created by Lyam Bittar. You can find him  here . Nacht im Gepäck TRANSLATION BY LYAM BITTAR In diesem Beutel hier aus mondgewobenem Stoff findst du alles, das blüht, das schimmert oder seufzt das pirscht, das singt, das schwirrt sobald das Tageslicht der Dämmerung weicht Komm, halt’s Ohr an sein zuckendes Gewebe und erzähl mir, was du hörst, ist’s eine Melodie aus Tau ein Zwitschern, Rufen, Bellen, Klickern oder gar Gebrüll? Hörst du es hüpfen, pfeifen, zirpen, stöb
Read more

The Unfinished Sonnet project

Image
'Little girl holding plasticine' Image by Nenad Stojkovic  ( CC licence 2.0 ) On Tuesday 10th October 2023, some of the 16 poets who have responded to my ' Unfinished Sonnet ' challenge will be reading their finished sonnets at City Voices in Wolverhampton. A reminder of the first two and a half lines: Unfinished Sonnet by Ros Woolner She thinks she’s firm. Says Sorry, not tonight . And he thinks Cool. She just needs softening up – like plasticine. A little squeeze… (from Earth Walker , Offa’s Press 2023) Come and hear some of the unexpected responses!  There are poems that rhyme and poems that don't, poems set in bedrooms, a restaurant, a hospital ward, a music room and a courtroom. Poems in which he gets his way and poems in which she gets hers, and some in which what the two of them want or don't want is not at all what you might expect! City Voices with David Fletcher, Ros Woolner’s ‘Unfinished Sonnets’, Kuli Kohli plus Jeff Phelps who’ll be
Read more

Pruning the laurel

Image
I'm very excited that one of my gardening poems won the 2021 Poems on the Move competition run by the Guernsey Literary Festival and judged by Kate Clanchy, who said:  "Best of all, I like the unexpected: I had never read a poem about feminism and hedge trimming before, and in the end, that supplied our winner." Pruning the laurel Three points of contact with the tree, the way my mother taught me: two feet, one hand, one free to hold the saw. A smell of bay leaves now, pale sawdust on my clothes like flour, the thump as each branch hits the ground. I’m high enough to see across five gardens: wheelbarrows and washing lines, a football goal, a Wendy house. My neighbour steps outside. Where’s hubby then? he asks, his meaning clear. Things must look different from down there. I guess I seem quite small to him, my saw no bigger than a bread knife. Not sure , I say, my eyes on what I’m doing ­– one hand on the saw, three points of contact – What did you want him fo
Read more