Serendipity

I was browsing through the poetry section in a little Waterstones at the weekend (as you do) when I picked up 'A Poet's Guide To Britain' . Opening it at random I found myself looking at John Betjeman's 'Shetland 1973' (the year and place I come from) and Jen Hadfield's Blashey-Wadder. Jen Hadfield is a poet I was absolutely unaware of 3 weeks ago (because like many people I'm woefully ignorant of contemporary poetry) but who's name I've kept coming across ever since, she won the T. S. Elliot prize for poetry in 2008 and is resident in Shetland. There was a brilliant episode of The Echo Chamber on radio 4 a couple of weeks ago about Hadfield which is where I heard about her first and has got me really interested in her work - I don't always listen to it and but for the chance hearing of a dialect word on a trailer would probably have missed this episode (it's on at that time of a Sunday afternoon when I can't put off domestic chores any longer). That Shetland is a small place and she my stepmother knows her makes me feel like I've really missed a trick here.

I bought the book - I rather felt I had to. It accompanied a BBC series which I also managed to totally miss (on BBC4 I think which I do watch quite a bit of but generally find - as I am tonight - that it's a programme about mushrooms or some such) presented by Owen Sheers (who is another contemporary poet I know nothing about but who has a very impressive CV - is it just me or is there something deeply encouraging about the number of people out in the world who's job description is poet?). Anyway I'm guessing it was a really good programme, the book is certainly charming.

I've been reading a fair amount of poetry recently, mostly odds and ends found in anthologies, and specifically looking for poems which conjure strong images for me. This is the time of year that I feel particularly homesick for the north of Scotland, I miss the sea and the light, theoretically I miss the dark in the winter too but not in quite the same way, it really is enough to just read about that. Finding a poem - preferably a shortish one - that captures some element of what I miss, which can be copied down and carried around talisman fashion, and which can be mulled over in the dull corners I work in (wine doesn't appreciate direct sunlight even if wine merchants do) is not the worst way to deal with the frustration of being stuck inside on a glorious spring day.