Today is National Poetry Day. While the piece below may not qualify as such, is raw both technically and emotionally, I think it comes from the right place. It was written nearly forty years ago, a dream and a memory.
Sleep Well, David
Last night near home
I met an old friend
A distant relative
Not seen in a while
Though once we’d take a beer
On Boxing Day each year
I was hitch-hiking
To congratulate
A mutual cousin
On publication
Of a cookery/poetry book
But I stopped
To chat with my namesake
Almost perfectly
Of an age with me.
We spoke not of the past
Of boyhood birthday parties
Of pantomimes, cinemas
For a shadow lay there
More recent
Of broken marriages
Two year back
Cerebral embolism
I thought had killed him
He looked much shrunken
Shorter now than I
With glasses too
Unbalanced
One lens much thicker
Than the other
And pale
Yet seemed happy.
He showed me a new bride
Even I could see his pride
A little blonde girl
They’d bought a house
For fourteen thousand five
Short of money sure
He asked her if they’d better not
Have waited
Did she regret
She squeezed his arm
No.
He was not too interested
In our new family poet
Understandably
On this his wedding day.
Would I see his home?
Why not, my family too
We went by bus
To our Fenland
A village I didn’t know
Nor how to get
To where I had to go.
A creaky gate
We entered
A flat square field
Where nothing grew but weeds
No house
On the four acres
Just a double bed
Spread over a single
Six-foot ditch
The bride tucked in
Looked now as if
Yes she might be thinking twice
Her side at least was level
Not over the uncomfortable rut
Where her man would lay
My mum, my gran, like his
Berated him
Fourteen five
Sight unseen
For bare land
Then frantic to help
Began to weed, to hoe
He had his life ahead
Had to make something
Of the mess
I would have helped
Wanted to
But with my trousers
Creased and pressed
I wasn’t dressed
For landwork.
He smiled at me,
Wanly
Nothing more to say
Or see
I woke
My wife’s hand moved away
But she was there
How glad I was
To be alive still
Was something
Something, two years more at least
Than David had
My cousin
I met last night.
Rather than talk about writing in this month’s post, I hand the stage to a visual artist to discuss his own career and development in that field. I met Bill and his lovely wife Eileen more than twenty years ago in Charlotte, North Carolina, and am delighted that we have remained firm friends long beyond our period as workmates. I hope you find his insights as fascinating as I do.
My name is Bill Moore. I am a retired insurance executive who lives in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina with my wife of 50 years, Eileen. I started oil painting at the age of 50. I have no formal training, but needed a hobby to relieve the stress of my job. Twenty-three years later, I am doing commission paintings of wildlife and our beautiful low country. I wrote the following article to encourage others to give painting a try. It is an incredible hobby that anyone can learn. Bill Moore
“Learn to paint? – I can’t draw a straight line with a ruler!”
Every time I suggest oil painting as a hobby to a friend, this is what they say. In fact, most people believe they have no artistic ability. The reason is, they have never learned how to! If you attempt to draw a person’s face, you will likely do it exactly the way you did in grammar school. That is not because you have no talent, it’s because your skill level has never improved through learning.
Painting is a learned skill, just like driving a car. As time goes on, you quickly learn what brushes help you to create the illusion you are trying to create, how to mix paint to get the color you want, how to take a small photograph and create a large painting, etc. And that learning is the fun part! You will find the learning curve to be steep. Your third painting will be far better than your first. The detail of your paintings will improve and your own style will evolve.
In my case, I started creating art for our home, our family and friends. Start with a small canvas and simple subjects. Try to recreate a painting by a favorite artist. Do some reading. A break through moment for me was reading, “Drawing on the right side of your Brain”, by Betty Edwards. One thought in the book was an AH, AH moment. “Don’t try to paint a specific object like a tree, or a stream, paint what you see!” Breaking the process down into single strokes of color, size and juxtaposition opened the door for me and the quality of my work leapfrogged. Many of the points I make in this article are gems from Betty.
Over time, you will develop a process of how to tackle the project. For me, it starts with a photo copy and the creation of a grid on both the copy and the canvas. An old tried and true method of increasing size. Next is drawing the main subject on the canvas using the touch points of the copy subject on the grid as a guide. I’m pretty precise with the measurements because it is important to get the dimensions of the subject correct.
Now the fun part. I start with the background with no detail other than some basic color changes. I call this stage, “getting some paint on the canvas”. Next, I’ll do the same thing with the subject matter. Then it is time to let the painting dry for a day or two. In the following sessions, I will add detail gradually until I get the painting the way I want it. (The hardest thing is knowing when to stop!). I find that I need to limit myself to 3 hours in each session or I will start to get tired and sloppy. Most paintings will take four or five sessions depending on the size and level of detail required.
Well, that is my process. Yours may be different. Every artist puts their own spin on things. How much paint to use, color pallet, canvas size, abstract or realism. It is all part of developing your own style.
But you can’t do it without taking that first step. If you stick with it, you will have a life- long hobby that is fun and rewarding. This post features a recent painting I did for charity. It is one of my favorites because it exemplifies the style I have evolved to. Creating art for gifts, charity or even for a little income is really fun. In addition, it is something you can do your whole life.
So go get some brushes, a few canvases and some paint and do what Betty says, “paint what you see”.
Good luck. If you have questions, write to me at WM992117@gmail. Com. Bill Moore
Our latest quarterly newsletter came out yesterday, featuring an ‘interview’ with me on my latest book Them Feltwell Boys. Check your junkmail or sign up to receive if you have not already done so. On the book’s separate page, apart from the options to buy you can read its first two chapters for free. Cheers!
Publication date of Them Feltwell Boys is 2 August 2023 but if anyone really can’t wait that long let me know and I’ll arrange to get you a copy. Pleased with the layout, look and feel of the book. Only paperbacks received so far but hardbacks will be coming and it will also be available electronically. All the best, David.
Here they come … Them Feltwell Boys, hot in pursuit of Them Roper Girls. It’s getting real now. I’ve just signed off on the covers of my latest novel, with publication date set for 2 August. I had more personal input on this design both in terms of providing material and ideas, which is probably why I think it’s my best one yet. And wait till you see the back cover!
Sign up to the website for chance of winning free copies (signed or not as you prefer, including postage UK only) of my latest novel. Existing subscribers to my newsletter will automatically be included in a similar draw.
His ambition was to leave a shelf of books and them Amis boys feature heavily on mine, much read over the years. RIP with Kingers, Little Keith.
Kingsley was jealous of the eight feet Robert Graves could show of his own works on his shelves in Majorca, including translations into other languages no doubt but still beyond what the younger man could aspire to achieve. He was productive, nevertheless, and must somehow have installed the writing work ethic in his son, who did well enough in terms of production.
Content of both Amises’ work has become problematic. In submitting a first three chapters of what would eventually become Them Feltwell Boys to a C21 female agent I did not realise I would be condemning the novel by placing it on a fictional shelf between Martin’s Rachel Papers and Kingsley’s One Fat Englishman. My bad lack of research, I had not even realised those books are unlikely to be found on any bookshelf at present (unless Martin’s death provokes a restocking).
I reread Kingsley’s Ending Up and Martin’s Dead Babies (or Dark Secrets if you more prissily will) within the last few months, seeming to remember a similar spirit in the two works ending in bloodbaths of oldsters and youngsters respectively. They were not as funny as I remembered, but then what is at my age?
Kingsley thought Martin should have more sentences like ‘She crossed the room and poured a cup of coffee’ in his novels; Martin thought his dad’s could usefully have lost a few such. The definitive work comparing the two writers – which is what they best were – will not come from by me, busy on my own shelf, but if I live I will certainly read it.
Here they come, in hot pursuit of Them Roper Girls. Just completing the final proofreading and cover design approval for my new novel, Them Feltwell Boys. An extract from the blurb
”
If women are so much trouble, Ray, why do you always want more than one?
Parallel narratives of a schoolboy’s developing first love affair and his career and marriage unravelling 25 years later eventually converge at a school reunion.
Ray Roden is a Fenland schoolboy in trouble with teachers and friends as well as women after his boys’ grammar merges with the girls’ high. He has already met Tina: that girl would give me some of the best moments of my life. And the worst.
”
And if anyone recognises themselves in the photo, Sutton Bridge maybe early ‘sixties, I’d be delighted to hear from you!