tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19780793588700345342024-02-19T09:12:55.847-08:00between plant & ghostEmma Hammondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06941120315486855793noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1978079358870034534.post-52217110829680617142020-04-02T03:41:00.001-07:002020-04-02T03:49:38.724-07:00& it was all a dream<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Imagine someone who studies dinosaurs actually meeting a dinosaur- they would love checking out its tail, teeth and feather dusters (which they have been reading about for so long- although I don’t think they actually have dusters) but they would be utterly terrified too. They know exactly what the dinosaur is capable of.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m finding it hard to write this post because I am shy of saying the words out loud. It’s Autism Awareness Week and one way to make others </span><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">aware</span><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is to not be self-conscious about telling your story. However, people like certainty- they need proof. The spectrum is so fluid that often this proves difficult. Pursuing a diagnosis has its own issues- it’s a double edged sword. </span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some feel there is no need for labels, and I understand that too, we know so little about the brain. However, the older I get the more I can see how my experience has not been typical, and I do look for explanations- I’m human. Although I have had trouble accepting that fact, and although I still am wary about defining my behaviour in any particular way, I also need to find my place. As David Byrne says </span><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘I’m just an animal looking for a home’</span><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It's getting hard to be someone but it all works out</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Once in primary school I put my hand up and asked if the teacher had watched last night’s episode of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dallas</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> as I was genuinely interested (it was the day after the one where Pamela Ewing woke up from her ‘dream’ that basically negated an entire series) and she told me to get out of her classroom. I guess it seemed cheeky but I wanted to talk about how something could all be a dream like that, it was so strange to me.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">By the time I went to secondary school I had become bolshy due to constantly being in trouble. At that age if you get named something you go with it. Autism in girls is only just beginning to be understood so my behaviour was painted as disobedience, always. The lines were blurred. As a teenager I had what I can only describe as meltdowns- huge emotional fallouts where I would cry and cry, especially if I was faced with change. I didn’t understand the rules of socialising, had no idea why people might lie or cover things up and couldn’t work out why some people- including teachers- were mean to me- it made no sense. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Meeting people, talking about myself, getting stranded at parties with no lift home, going to strange boys houses and regretting it- all of it was coloured by a loneliness that I couldn’t name. I didn’t exist in the same way that everyone else did, so none of it mattered. I had zero boundaries and constantly put myself at danger. Some of it was fun- it’s nihilism really. I’m not sure I’d be happy if my daughter did the same though.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">3.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Out along the edges, always where I burn to be</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I slip through the cracks constantly. I’ve learnt to live like this, I’m OK now- but imagine trying to do a job interview or speak seriously to another grown up. You’re very far away and make inappropriate jokes. I find talking to kids much easier, they instinctively understand where you’re coming from. Animals are fine too- they exist within time in a similar way to me, they understand ‘zones’. There are morning zones and excitement zones, but yes also danger zones. Sometimes you can find yourself walking straight into a sad zone, like a cold bit in the woods. Zones make more sense to me than time.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Family lore laughs at the fact that I couldn’t read a clock until I was 12. I have problems following rules in general, they make me physically uncomfortable. If someone gets a board game out I literally want to cry. Patterns have always been hard for me unless I’ve made the rules myself, then they are brilliant. (Some of the best art is made by people who make up their own rules [some of the worst too if we’re being honest]. You can take a rule and bend it to make it yours, then it’s not scary anymore and you are not owned by it. This is where I’m happiest). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">4.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When I was a kid I jumped off a bridge into a river as I didn’t like the catsuit I was wearing. It had white piping on it and it made me really uncomfortable- I wrote a silly <a href="https://emmahammond.blogspot.com/2013/01/blog-post.html?m=0">poem</a> about it. </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">I crave comfort. I love being at home with its deliberate zones. At the moment we are all social distancing because of coronavirus but my life really hasn’t changed all that much. I like people the way I like dinosaurs- I think they are really cool but they also take up a lot of space, the sheer scale of them can be overwhelming.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve beaten myself up unnecessarily for feeling this way, but if you say it out loud then nobody actually cares. Most people are happy for others to do whatever they like but after a lifetime of being treated as if you are </span><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">wrong</span><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in some way you become very adept at feeling as if you are wrong in some way. Perhaps a diagnosis would act as a magic key that would unlock all the secrets of the past, or give me some kind of sparkly pass that explains away my ‘wrongness’, I don’t know. I suspect there are positives I can’t even imagine. It’s probably just a matter of time.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>Emma Hammondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06941120315486855793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1978079358870034534.post-74473287144178456822019-10-31T05:55:00.002-07:002019-11-01T01:52:08.650-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Today would have been Kingsley’s 2nd birthday. If you’d have told me last year that he would no longer be with us I would have laughed at you. Kingsley was my whole world. My favourite thing was to go rambling with him. We started off in the park but progressed to the forest as he got larger. He was a big fast fluffy dog and his recall was amazing.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">When we walked we were totally in sync. It’s hard to explain to people who don’t like dogs but there was something spiritual about it. He knew where I was going before I did. Sometimes he would lead the way and I would let him take me into the undergrowth. Sometimes we got right inside bushes and into the deep grass. I let him sniff every single thing he wanted, always. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">He loved the squirrels best but never meant to catch one. I saw him slow down just before he’d get his teeth around one more than once. He wasn’t a cuddly dog but he was gentle in his core. He would sit beside you and raise his leg in the air until you stroked his tummy. Then his face would go all regal. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">He loved other dogs and always wanted to play. Sometimes they were a bit scared of him, but I called him scaredy dog because he would run away from even the little tiny ones. He did this thing where he would dodge them and his bum would go first, a bit like an articulated lorry. He loved to play with other dogs and was always friendly first. He didn’t understand when they didn’t want to play but wouldn’t bother them if they didn’t. I’d whistle and he’d skip it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kingsley made everything better. When I got him I was a bit sad and he made me go outside and get back in nature. I’d forgotten how much I needed it. I also started talking to strangers and really enjoyed it. Lots of dog owners are a bit shy around people and that suited me just fine. He was the best company and I would laugh at him constantly. He was a funny dog but never meant to be. All dogs are like that, just pure and perfect. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">He was always a bit hectic. He had this energy about him which was difficult for some people and he had a big bark. He was always a bit wary of strangers but when he was little he put up with people approaching him. He looked like a bear and kids liked to stroke him, they especially liked his big white fluffy tail. He was so good with it for so long until he became an adult. After a while I had to ask people not to touch him as he didn’t enjoy it any more.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Vet says that when dogs become adults their behavioural problems come into focus. I have learnt that it was nothing we did that made Kingsley change, but that it was written into his genes. It’s difficult not to blame yourself but I know why he struggled and it wasn’t us. I should have asked his breeder better questions but I so wanted to keep him. It happens all the time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">King had the best life any dog could have had. I was with him constantly, every day. He came on holiday with us, swam in lakes and we loved him so much. I didn’t like leaving him more than six hours in a row and rarely did. I’m glad we had him and wouldn’t change it, even with this heartbreak we are going through. I needed him and he needed me. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s been a month since he went to sleep and I have cried every day. I am sleeping a bit better now but I still miss him terribly. Sometimes when I come home I expect to see his paws up on the glass of the front door, barking like mad to say hello. The house is so quiet and clean but I’d give that up to have him back but happy again. He was so good with the baby, licking his feet and rushing over to see if he was OK when he cried. We had to keep him safe though.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kingsley hurt some people and me too but it doesn’t make him a bad dog. He didn’t know what he was doing, he thought it was the right thing. He was anxious and scared and acted on it- it makes sense. When I took him on his last walk he wasn’t with me, he was already gone. It was one of the worst days of my life. He was 95% perfect and his body was healthy. He trusted us and we had to take him into a little room and say goodbye. I’m sorry. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Walking with Kingsley was when I felt best. I loved being with him and watching him crash through the trees. I felt closer to the seasons and took him out in snow and rain even when I was heavily pregnant. I felt so much joy with him, it was all so simple. People say he was ‘just a dog’ but he wasn’t. He was my friend and companion, he was family. He listened to me and looked after me, he was one of a kind.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">We planted a tree for him last weekend, a Rowan tree the colour of copper like him. I put some of his ashes in the river at the end of the garden where he used to stand and bark and I told him I loved him. I am not religious but I hope he is happier now. I don’t know what it means but I feel like he’ll always be around. When I take the baby out I say ‘let’s see if we can find Kingsley’ and do the special whistle. It’s happy not sad. I think he’s just splashing about in the river somewhere. I hope so.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thank you for being my best friend <a href="https://www.instagram.com/kingsleygram_/?hl=en">Kingsley</a>.</span><br />
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Emma Hammondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06941120315486855793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1978079358870034534.post-11489602855733609362019-05-23T11:38:00.000-07:002019-05-23T11:58:57.980-07:00Shyness is nice &<span id="docs-internal-guid-4994926e-7fff-560b-e822-f63b7f9be2e3"></span><br />
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-4994926e-7fff-560b-e822-f63b7f9be2e3"><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <i>What poetry form(s) or style(s) best describes your work?</i> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">I like my poems to feel like little text adventure games, almost like you could click on any word with your eyes and get to a new place. Sometimes I accidentally write in a specific form and everyone thinks I’m doing something clever but I’m not.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I have been putting together a collection for Broken Sleep Books called ‘Valour’. It is a book about journeys, but a little tongue in cheek. It swaps between the domestic and the epic, different types of bravery and different types of expeditions. I am interested in how we recount our own stories and how we tend to put a spin on them, like the bits in X-factor where everyone has experienced a tragedy. I think I have taken those things very seriously in the past but as you get older you turn into a laughing Buddha and see that you are not your past or even really your present. You are nothing much at all, so narratives are generally useless. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I think that is the same thing that stops me being ambitious and applying for things. I like writing poems but once I’ve finished the work seems done. I have been reading about Zen Buddhism for many years and once you realise the ego is the thing that makes you unhappy you can’t unknow it. It’s a blessing and a curse, but Zen would say neither of those things exist so you can see my problem. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The biggest project I am working on is that I am six months pregnant. This is basically like writing a new poem every day. I feel like a 3D printer. Pregnancy is making me creative in unexpected ways. The world feels sharper and I am having incredible dreams. I know I have quite a few poems in me and would like to have the time to write them.</span></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">How would you use a Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowship to develop your practice? </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is no expectation of publication or performance as a result of the Fellowships. Here we would like to know how you want to grow creatively and professionally with the freedom the bursary offers and the expert support of mentors.</span></i></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I am a little shy and would like to learn how to endorse my own work with a bit more conviction. I am not very grown up about it and I feel like it has held me back. I really like the word amateur as it stems from the word ‘love’ so have strange hang-ups about being a professional anything- perhaps this is something I need to work on. There are so many things I am interested in. I love films and photography and also computer games, although I don’t play them. I would love to take the words off the page and explore new kinds of poetic expression. I spend lots of time in the forest with my dog and would love to make a small film about it. The forest is my number one place to be.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m really interested in teaching others. Not poetry workshops per se, but experimental sessions using words, visual art and music in new ways. I have long wanted to put on a night of poetry and drawing. I have devised courses that use Google maps and reviews as spaces to write, and people seem to love this. Over the last few years I have also run workshops using subjects such as the monomyth and world building as starting points for writing. Sometimes poems come from strange places and I like the idea that you can start in one weird place and end up in a completely different one. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I am a trained coach and would like to explore how to reveal the untapped creative energy that so many people have using exercises and open, honest conversation. I have run a few things like this, but it is hard when funds are limited. Most of all I want people to see poetry as an exciting fun thing that everyone can join in with. I am not comfortable with the more academic side of poetry. I understand that exclusion can be a bit of a passion killer.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>What three things do you hope to achieve as a result of your Fellowship? </i></span></span><i style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Think about what you would like to accomplish during the supported-year that would significantly help your career and craft.</i></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I would like to finish ‘Valour’ and learn how to promote it properly. It is 20 poems long so far and needs about the same again. It started off being about infertility but then I got pregnant by surprise so I have had to rejig it a bit which has changed its course. Although I am a social media manager and enjoy technology immensely I am also quite bad at talking about myself and ‘selling’ my books. I always forget to tell people where they can get a copy or just give them away, which is pretty silly. I need time to write the rest of the poems and I am well aware that I will soon be on maternity leave. This is going to reduce my income even further and also eat into my time. I can feel my next book coming to life already and I haven’t even done this one yet. I hope people like poems about babies because they are in for the ride of their lives.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If I had a little freedom from thinking about marketing strategies I am pretty sure I could create something unfettered and brilliant. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I need to learn time management skills and ground myself in reality a little more. I am writing this application with about an hour to go until the deadline which is absolutely ridiculous. I am so happy to have this opportunity yet dream and dream until there’s about one minute left. When I went to read at Ledbury Poetry Festival the same thing happened. I was the bad poet who hadn’t sent them the right things. I also forgot to order books for them so there were none at my reading. I don’t understand it because poetry is the thing I care most about, even though I pretend it isn’t. I would like to learn how to become a little more focused and to not feel like it’s bad to be a little ambitious. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am hoping that I don’t sound too flippant about all this, I am honestly so keen to make a change. I </span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">know</span><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> my work is really excellent and I feel as if I do it a disservice by not being serious about it. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I would like to take some courses in different subjects, painting, film-making and ornithology amongst others. I work from home and spend long periods of time on my own so it would be really good to meet new people and learn new things. I would also love to start attending more poetry events- something I used to do all the time. It would probably be a good idea to enter some competitions or submit poems to magazines, I have only done this periodically and with very little conviction, generally when I need some fast cash. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m sure people might say that I’m afraid to succeed and they may be right. The idea of competition in general brings me out in a cold sweat, even writing this application is making me a little nervous if I’m honest. How amazing though that I could make a proper career out of writing poems. It has taken me a long time but now I am in my forties and have just bought a house and feel as if I have the security to pursue my dreams for real. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">At the risk of writing one of those X-factor narratives I was talking about earlier, my life was quite difficult for quite a long time. I am in a new phase of completeness and happiness and feel as if this is exactly the right time to explore how far I can take my writing and teaching.</span></span></div>
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</span>Emma Hammondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06941120315486855793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1978079358870034534.post-43610207998118561292018-06-15T06:43:00.000-07:002018-06-23T16:45:45.756-07:00Zen and the art <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Coinciding with my learning Transcendental Meditation, the puppy has grown into an amenable good boy who wants to sit and watch as the people hurry to work. We sit on the grass and smile at the sprites that notice. The idea that we are all one- that there is one unified field- becomes stronger every time I take him out. I never knew dogs liked to sit down so much but I am very happy that they do. Often we will sit for quite a stretch simply feeling the slight breeze ruffling us up and it is very nice.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are all kinds of great things that people write about the benefits of having a dog but one thing missing is how it slows you right down and makes you see things on the tiny level. A bit like having a toddler where you are on magic time, you begin to notice the smallest corners of every greenspace.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Remembering nature from when I was also little and so invested in every season. The memories of pink sunsets over Weeley towards the reservoir and the tide-sound of the trees are now closer than before. That sports day resonance where the grass is painted white and the sky goes twice as enormous. I can feel it again- perhaps the awareness is always there but we just can’t get at it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">McGroggin runs me through the back of bushes where kids have made trails, little cathedrals of briar. There are secret worlds everywhere and lost gloves in luminous colours. The park garden is gone absolutely psychedelic. Sometimes the flowers are so bright they sort of cut you a bit, they stink! It’s brilliant. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am not sure how I ended up with a Zen dog, sometimes I wonder about the Chow in him, guarding the temples. His nose and ears are like tiny receptors, they suss it all out. He is as lazy as me- you hear about these old white men who walked tortoises in the days when appreciation was in fashion. Well, a lazy dog does the job just as well. He will take you into the smallest detail, right into the fibres of the wallpaper.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">40 minutes a day I sit with my mantra and sometimes I can feel all the other people. Often I think about breakfast or hard words but I let it happen and look onward. It’s nice to be still but what I’m aiming for is much finer creative intelligence. Making more and all the new ways of making. I like poems but there are other things. </span><span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maybe I will write a whole book about my puppy. It would be mostly for me, but that would be just fine. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>Emma Hammondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06941120315486855793noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1978079358870034534.post-10448231511224373492018-01-02T06:35:00.001-08:002018-06-23T16:47:27.548-07:00New Bear <span style="font-family: inherit;">I got a dog- it's amazing and also really hard. Puppies are grinchy. He gives you this shifty side eye thing when he's annoyed and also sort of huffs and puffs like a nurse. I haven't slept properly for a while- once or twice a night I get propelled into the wet garden to watch him wee or poo by the light of my phone. He smells sort of dusty and gross but also quite sweet, like a powdered rug. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">I am scared he is sad to death about not seeing his Mum anymore. I am too soft to close the door of his crate but I have to soon as he keeps eating the Christmas tree. He headbutts the door and sort of scrabbles to get out, I can't handle it. I am sleeping in the living room to keep him company... he is a cartoon orphan.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Kingsley is brown and also turning ginger, he has a curly tail like a piglet but fluffy. His eyes are like mouse eyes and he has ears like a cat. He looks like a bear cub and fox in one and sometimes makes squeaking noises as if everything is AWFUL. I bought him a toothbrush but I am not sure he will love it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In the garden he sniffs and bites everything, he wants to pull stuff up or down. He sits in the flower bed on his scrappy back legs like he's a bread bin and gallops back when a bird flaps past. I am enjoying being in the garden more- this morning I saw a wren. I had forgotten that things happen outside at 7.30- and so much does! Everything moves. Aeroplanes roar around like yawns and the seagulls complain like mad.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I have a puppy sling coming so I can take him out. He can't touch the floor yet but he can come round with me in his bag so I can show him the world. I can't wait to take this dog to the beach later on, or the marshes- he will go native. I do like this little dog even though he keeps trying to eat me. I think he's my friend.</span><br />
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<br />Emma Hammondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06941120315486855793noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1978079358870034534.post-55170202653477267582017-12-26T08:51:00.000-08:002017-12-26T13:23:44.178-08:00Within you without you<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tomorrow we are getting a dog, he is very fluffy like a bear and maybe a substitute for something else. I am apprehensive- a little how I was when I was about to give birth. I know this thing will smash up my life for a while. Caring for something is terrifying but also the best.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Flo will be 12 on Dog Day. She has more complex emotions now, bright as a horoscope. I am still her Mum but it’s different, we are more like companions except sometimes I talk about how I see things and help her correct course- to the best of my ability at least. I still don’t fully know what I am doing, but compassion rounds you out a little.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">My Mum was born on the same day so I will be remembering her too. She was so pleased to share a birthday with Flo- it made them the same somehow. Mum was a little preoccupied and the two of them never really spent the time they should have together, but Flo reminds me of her a lot. She marches about as if she owns the place like a wizard.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">An end and a beginning, here's the real bit that I wanted to write:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">We are coming up on 2 years trying for a baby and it’s a different world. Not many people understand- they can’t. Months and months of hope, lost hope, renewed hope- a madness really. Watching bellies blossom and shrink while you wait for the next test- one and one equals 0.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Talking about it is forbidden. If you do then it makes people a bit blinky. Friends say strange things about adoption and tell you stories about a friend of a friend of a friend. People tell you to relax. They say it will happen any day now or maybe it wasn’t meant to be, as if any of us are in control. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is still an astounding amount of superstition tied up with the female reproductive system. There are cures and potions and mindsets and spells. But the bottom line is biology. Infertility is really common but it is chaotic and people don’t like that. People also think things like IVF are simple, like going to the dentist. They’re not.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">We are getting a dog, it is somewhat of a solution. No one will buy us a card- I don’t care! I love babies but I don’t always want to be around them. I love small children but sometimes it hurts- that’s the truth. Pregnancy announcements are difficult but after a day or two it’s OK again. Happiness is a choice and we choose it. Family is an elastic category, every child is a miracle, I know this now more than ever.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Caring for things is the best. Trying to get outside of yourself and the boxes we put things in. Outside of myself is not even different from within- it’s all one thing. I can be a mother to everyone, there is so much love to go around. It’s a question of what we choose to focus on- staying at the centre of the universe hurts people. Next year I want to try to understand what my friends are experiencing so I don’t say shortsighted things. I don’t want to fix your problem, I just want to feel it with you. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">When <a href="http://emmahammond.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/kinsley-is-coming-home-puppy-but-also_18.html">Kingsley</a> comes home I will become a puppy for a while. The plan is to sleep next to him until he knows where he belongs. Physical and mental proximity... </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">a resolution.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>Emma Hammondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06941120315486855793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1978079358870034534.post-86236176020202893772016-12-19T03:05:00.000-08:002016-12-19T13:14:47.572-08:00Thoughts on turning 40<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The things I know so far are mostly related to birth and death. Everything else remains sketchy at best. Birth and death are the things that have had the most profound and genuine effect on me, changing me entirely. After the birth of my daughter I never thought things would get tipped upside down in the same way ever again. I was a new human holding a new human. None of my clothes fit. I wasn’t a punk anymore but I was more punk than I had ever been. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">What could be more dramatic than feeling a mouth feed from your body? We spend hours watching science fiction and fantasy and all in one day it becomes a fact of your life, a tiny wriggling thing that lives off you, that needs your words and face to become a person. The shock of it was worse than electric. The shock was- I exist in this way. Even beyond all I’ve ever learnt and nothingness. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">So when my Mum died I remembered, yes we do exist. Because she disappeared so I am pretty certain she was here- I do not think she was a magic trick. Since then I have felt death quite strongly, in everything that I do. These words will stay on this page but the fingers that typed them will soon never type a word again. There are songs that I love that I will hear for the last time, a finite number of kisses. I don’t mind.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mum’s exit was as dramatic as her entrance- it bent time. It took us all out of our bodies and showed us ourselves as we are. Love forced us to focus, to see clearly that we are simply a strange kind of fighting light. I am 40 tomorrow and just as having a child made me older and younger, so I’ll continue. Real love.</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGfgq4IXx1FS6qRmFaZPyfaJ-1OAuRoZZdvtU37DraChNKh1PdgnicFAxRknHVMiUXnci-MlPugrFMVFGQQqqi-5tcSuNZXBeTtjqUzjzg5rgeuzJ3UcJk4FLXHvsJQTKpcO6vTPJAIH4/s1600/CShoNzWXAAAhTKH.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGfgq4IXx1FS6qRmFaZPyfaJ-1OAuRoZZdvtU37DraChNKh1PdgnicFAxRknHVMiUXnci-MlPugrFMVFGQQqqi-5tcSuNZXBeTtjqUzjzg5rgeuzJ3UcJk4FLXHvsJQTKpcO6vTPJAIH4/s400/CShoNzWXAAAhTKH.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mum</td></tr>
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Emma Hammondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06941120315486855793noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1978079358870034534.post-88392473529424802192015-12-30T09:38:00.000-08:002015-12-30T09:55:20.251-08:00Many A Weary Foot<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This year has been pretty horrible for so many people that I know. Perhaps it is because we are getting older and more fallible, or maybe 2015 had some kind of bad juju attached to it, I don’t know. One thing is for sure though- it was pretty much the worst.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">I wanted to write to express my admiration for those friends that had a terrible time- you know who you are. The fact that you all coped as well as you did, while continuing to jump the hurdles of everyday life is incredible to me. The way you are all still laughing at the end of it is even more impressive.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">On the internet there is a lot of stuff written about how awful the Human race is. It’s true. But what is also true is how kind, clever and intuitive we can also be. So many people have been kind to me this year.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am not a popstar and this is not an awards ceremony, but I would like to thank my boyfriend Dan above all. He sat through hours of upset and planned a three week trip to Japan, which was instrumental in shaking me out of myself. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Which is the key really- looking outside of ourselves and our own problems. Whenever I’m around someone who is really unhappy I see that they are blinkered to those around them. Grief is interesting in this respect- I am not sure I understood it until it happened to me- the same way that having a child changes you.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cynicism is easy because so many people are blinkered in that way, but it’s not their fault, it is just pain. Always be kind and keep your eyes open.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have decided that 2016 will be better for everyone. More witchcraft I know, but perhaps we are all tough enough to punch through wood etc now. I hope so.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>Emma Hammondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06941120315486855793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1978079358870034534.post-53009028779152022362015-10-08T02:10:00.000-07:002017-12-26T08:52:57.942-08:00National Noetry<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Poetry isn't dead / actually it is.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">From a comms perspective </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">its a v effective marketing...</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Ah, I hadn't finished.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Poetry, it seems to me,</span></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">(from a comms perspective) is</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">like putting a wild animal in a zoo </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">in the interests of conservation.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">All those eager poetry apostles </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">trying too hard to make a case,</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">a minor flurry in a niche field.</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Damn... I keep doing that.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-style: italic; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-style: italic; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hilarious haikus on Twitter-</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">occasionally writing in a notepad, </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">soulless and oblivious </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">to the beauty of the world.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Am I thick or is everyone else </span></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">confused too? </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It bored me stiff.</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Why can't that person just say </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">what they mean? </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I quite like it</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">I wish I had time to decipher </span></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">what they're going on about, </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">leg cocked with one arse cheek </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">perched on the edge of a desk.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">It means very little to me.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That's why you're a Poet.</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I like poetry but am a bit of an idiot.</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Eating dough in a polythene bag.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">In times of crisis, people are </span></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">unable to think in long-form.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Diminished and finished-</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">JUST AWFUL. Who made it up?</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Like Joni Mitchell, the second </span></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">worst teacher I ever had. Twitter </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">will be fun though, the lyrics to </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Alanis Morissette's </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ironic, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">a squid.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rain on your wedding day-</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">a free ride when you've already...</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">the good advice that you... </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Who would've thought.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">'Hey kids...song lyrics are </span></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">poetry too’. Overall you've got </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">something here. I just wish </span></span></div>
<span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">my typing fingers would behave.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 10.08px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Written using Facebook comments replying to the question </i></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i style="line-height: 10.08px;">'what does National Poetry Day mean?'</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>Emma Hammondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06941120315486855793noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1978079358870034534.post-70640827375695028442015-05-21T06:24:00.000-07:002015-05-21T08:47:13.840-07:00Dream House<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My Mum died a few months ago and I am still trying to make sense of it- she was a whirlwind and one of the most complicated people I have ever met, but her aliveness was very apparent, she was sort of robust and angry and had an appreciation for the absurd that meant talking to her could elicit all kinds of strange emotions. That all of that has disappeared is confusing to say the least. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yesterday I watched Grayson Perry’s Dream House and it made me cry like a big baby. The story behind the project is all about the trajectory of a fictional Essex woman’s life, whose <a href="http://www.channel4.com/programmes/grayson-perrys-dream-house">house</a>, incidentally, is 10 minutes drive away from where my Mum lived in real life. The owner of the dream house </span><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Julie </span><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">was inspired by the life of ordinary Essex women, who have battled through failed relationships, infidelity and childbirth.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Grayson could pretty much be talking about my Mum, </span><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maggie</span><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- a nurse who gave her life to other people, often with little in return. The inside of Julie’s house is decorated with tapestries depicting moments of her life- she was an outgoing, colourful girl who had her heart broken and eventually died by getting run over by a pizza delivery bike in Colchester, the town I went to school and college in and where my daughter was born. </span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Having only very recently cleared out my Mum’s house, bagging up her clothes, throwing away most of her belongings and finding photographs of her life that I have never seen before, the idea of biography and how it relates to personal space are very much in my mind. Watching Dream House had a real effect on me, it is a shrine that has been built to the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">resilience of women, reminiscent of the Taj Mahal </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 22.0799999237061px; white-space: pre-wrap;">in both style and intent</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Grayson Perry has said that he has a difficult relationship with his mother, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t. He built the house to try and fix this, as if Julie was the woman he wishes his mother had been. At the time of her death Julie was happy, having found love with the man who, in the story, was the one to build her the house. It is ornate and beautiful, decorated with tiles that have a kind of Sheela na gig figure on them. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Whether my own Mum was happy at the end is an unknown to me, she seemed to be- but as I say, she was a very complex lady. What I do know is that she had an ordinary life, with highs and lows. Her capacity for love and joy was enormous, although she didn’t always connect with that part of herself. Perhaps that is the best that anyone can hope for- a good life is full of curiosity, wherever that takes you.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">As I have said about a million times since my Mum died- the death seems like the easy part. Personally, my grief has centred around whether her life was lived in the right context, whether she was happy and if she made good choices. Sometimes things happened that weren’t her choice, but she did her best at trying to understand- because she was a human being. Also, she was never boring, which is very important- Mum never ever lost her sense of humour.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Within grief comes the urge for a narrative, I have been trying to write and rewrite in my mind exactly what has happened- throughout Mum’s life and mine. In some strange way this house has become part of that story, and seems almost to have been built for me. In the background is the Estuary near to where my Mum grew up, and also close to where we had her funeral.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Grayson Perry said that he had built his house for all the women from Essex, to celebrate their struggles, and this touched me enormously. It seems to me that it is a space for acceptance and reconciliation, which is the ultimate goal of grief I think. I have some way to go with all that, I am still sad and confused but I know that things will get better, because I am surrounded by love, and that is the real answer to everything.</span><br />
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Emma Hammondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06941120315486855793noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1978079358870034534.post-11470087469569695992014-12-26T04:06:00.001-08:002014-12-26T07:02:04.735-08:00The Eternal Round<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In December 2004 I was living in a converted cotton factory on Shacklewell Lane. I was drunk mostly and when I wasn’t drunk I was working in a job that I hated beyond measure, doing market research for an IT magazine that no one wanted. I was drunk, unable to change my situation, dissatisfied and aimless- with a vague notion that I was a bit like someone from a F. Scott Fitzgerald novel yet much less interesting. Quite frankly, I was bored- the kind of gnawing boredom that permeates everything. I would cry when I watched musicals and on one particularly terrible comedown felt like killing myself while watching an aeroplane fly through the dawn.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Modern malaise. So what? The Tsunami passed me by the same way September 11th did, I had no grip on the world around me. I saw the images and they went through me, I couldn’t connect with it- depression is a different kind of horror. Living in a permanent state of crisis makes it hard to be empathetic, my immediate life was far enough away. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> It was in this state that I was watching TV one morning, and saw a programme that was asking different religious leaders what meaning the Tsunami had, how could we make sense of it? They started with some Bishop talking about how we can see it as an opportunity to love each other more, to help out neighbours in times of hardship. Another guy came on to talk about perspective. One by one these big shots came on, telling us how to feel. I watched with one eye, the other in my cornflakes, until one particular man spoke. He was a Buddhist and when the presenter asked him the question he just said:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> ‘None. The events are entirely meaningless.’</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">These words changed my life. And it wasn’t so much the content, because I’d read all that- we all do, when we’re 15. It was the way he said it, and the contrast between the other answers and his. It was the calm in his voice, the lack of posturing and his matter of factness that got me. The events are entirely meaningless. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I started going to the Buddhist Centre in Holloway Road to do a course on Buddhism and to take part in group meditation. It was OK, not my thing really- a lot of the people there were pretty annoying if I’m honest, but it was a shift. I learned about the Eternal Round and saw my situation more clearly that I had before. I slowly gave up drinking and started to look for people who didn’t rely on booze to become who they thought they were. A few years before I had made a song with a friend that I thought was pure and good so I went to a payphone and called him, with the wind rustling the trees.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Well I hadn’t seen Danny for a long time but we decided to try and make some more songs. He was getting better too and this common ground was a tenet for us as well as a difficulty, but what came out of the story was beautiful Flora. Our daughter made me a nicer person, more real and connected than ever before. Flo and I have lived together for nearly nine years and she has taught me how love works, that I don’t live in a film or a book but in my own meaningless life- which is so much more interesting than either of those could ever be. </span><br />
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</span>Emma Hammondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06941120315486855793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1978079358870034534.post-35443819057196091342014-09-15T07:04:00.000-07:002015-09-21T05:56:11.069-07:00Next Gen Thread Memes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I made these after reading a very snarky Facebook thread about the <a href="http://poetrybooks.co.uk/projects/51/">Next Generation Poets</a>. All those commenting were poets themselves and not at all bitter in <i>any</i> way. </div>
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<br />Emma Hammondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06941120315486855793noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1978079358870034534.post-10934402428396251682014-09-04T16:11:00.000-07:002014-09-04T16:23:25.197-07:00women and their secrets<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">i found this picture of me breastfeeding in the hospital- such a strange time. i think this was probably the loneliest i've ever been. no one tells you how difficult it's going to be. well, anyway- i think this picture is art actually- for lots of reasons. look how hard i'm trying. i didn't know what was happening- i was entirely out of my body. people think sad stories are unacceptable in some way- perhaps it has to do with pulling your socks up, or not taking things too seriously. i don't know, drama right. but this was a sad story. and that's not to say that happiness didn't come from it. but all i really remember is how alone i felt, in all of it. women and their secrets.</span></div>
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<br />Emma Hammondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06941120315486855793noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1978079358870034534.post-77700997765208691652014-08-10T14:36:00.000-07:002014-08-10T14:41:16.028-07:00An Important Moment In Sand Writing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Emma Hammondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06941120315486855793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1978079358870034534.post-26016412615792517112014-06-19T13:47:00.003-07:002014-06-19T13:47:31.898-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Emma Hammondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06941120315486855793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1978079358870034534.post-53406498443234725392014-06-19T13:43:00.000-07:002014-06-19T13:48:39.912-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Emma Hammondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06941120315486855793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1978079358870034534.post-71851608738452126112014-05-13T01:05:00.002-07:002014-05-13T01:08:44.333-07:00Next Generation Poets 20141. Emma Hammond<br />
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20. Emma HammondEmma Hammondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06941120315486855793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1978079358870034534.post-54800081265656696942014-03-27T14:18:00.000-07:002014-09-04T16:25:26.313-07:00under the skin<b id="docs-internal-guid-b9328ecb-056a-8aa7-2366-a145a0480383" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">jonathan glazer said that he did not intend for his film </span><span style="font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">under the skin</span><span style="line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to be a gender experience but a human one and i can absolutely see what he means. however i came out feeling that overall this is a film about women- to the point where i actually felt quite hurt by it.</span></span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">this is not a bad thing though. the theme was hugely subtle- a little like a girl’s experience of misogyny itself. the film mirrored this feeling perfectly. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">the man on the motorbike is the patriarch. he is the one who finds the alien a body in the first place (a dead prostitute?), he monitors her throughout the film- she appears to be working for him, using her sexuality to attract men, against men- and literally capturing them through desire. </span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">she is stealing men for him, he is in charge. it is a woman’s </span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">job</span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to be desirable.</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">men are painted as easy to deceive, or in thrall to women- the man on the beach goes back into the waves to save his drowning wife, losing his own life in the process. scarlett johansson’s character is an </span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">alien</span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, she is a predator and devoid of emotion, she literally empties men.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">it is only when she becomes more human that the man on the motorbike becomes menacing toward her. being real instantly makes her fallible.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">she can no longer empty men, she has no power because she has seen herself, she has inspected herself in mirrors. although she had no maternal feelings for the child on the beach, she feels for the man with the deformed face- who in some way becomes the child, wandering exposed in the grass.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">she tries sensuality, first through food- which she can’t bear. she is ‘safe’ when she meets the man at the bus stop yet safety still leads to sex. the sex scene is perfect- what does she see by the light of the lamp? having a vagina, or not having a vagina- both things are construed as horrific.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">so she runs away, we see her curled up in the tree tops- cosy. she is woken by a rapist, who pursues her through the woods. it’s like watching a deer getting run down- her clothes are ripped and it’s a truly terrible rape scene because it unfolds exactly in the way a woman imagines a rape to. </span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the rapist rips </span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">her</span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, he literally rips her up. then as she comes out of her skin we see she has always been an alien- she is not a human. women are something else, other- black underneath. he sets her on fire and the white snow turns to ashes. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>Emma Hammondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06941120315486855793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1978079358870034534.post-69691266644271238792013-07-08T04:58:00.001-07:002013-11-26T07:04:06.624-08:00gerda and kai<div dir="ltr">
so james was a gardener but also a centaur and all other
kinds of things. you know someone is dying but it never really makes any
kind of sense.</div>
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james wanted to rewrite the snow queen with me, to turn it
into a poem that he could act. i was too young to understand why we
should have, and too caught up in myself. we were gerda and kai and didn't always trust each other. i think our hearts were hurt, but maybe that's just me trying to make it glamorous.
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perhaps his fish and my archer got locked in a battle, but there was love in it too. james was from the woodlands just like me.
there was magic running through him and stories and dancing.</div>
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i don't think i can get sad at death anymore. we spend most
of our lives trying to lose our selves by being less terrible and death takes care of that nicely. </div>
<br />
james has turned to light, or a wisp of mist on a
morning field- you can only really laugh at the glitch. goodbye for now happy prince x<br />
<br />
<i>'Kai and Gerda sat down, holding each other by the hand; they
both had forgotten the cold empty splendor of the Snow Queen, as though
it had been a dream. The grandmother sat in the bright sunshine, and
read aloud from the Bible: "Unless ye become as little children, ye
cannot enter the kingdom of heaven."<br /><br />And Kai and Gerda looked in each other's eyes, and all at once they understood the old hymn:</i><i> </i><br />
<br />
<i>"The rose in the valley is blooming so sweet,</i><br />
<i>And angels descend there the children to greet."</i><br />
<i><br />There
sat the two grown-up persons; grown-up, and yet children; children at
least in heart; and it was summer-time; summer, glorious summer!'</i><br />
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Emma Hammondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06941120315486855793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1978079358870034534.post-8222500142146406292013-04-17T05:12:00.001-07:002013-04-17T05:12:46.432-07:001.48<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="internal-source-marker_0.773474404358954">this essay
explores the mystical implications of the cosmic portal created at
exactly 1.48 of ‘don’t stop’ by the stone roses while at the same time
trying to wed the author to the song in the same way that mark chapman
did with his favourite book (catcher in the rye) by shooting john
lennon. i cannot deny this. at the very basic level ‘don’t stop’ says
something about my soul that i cannot say myself.</span><br /><br />i
have offered up the word orgasm to describe 1.48 on occasion but today
it came to me in a startling eye-shifting moment that it is more likely
to be the actual sound of dying. a kind of grande mort, like being
sucked backwards through your (in)significant moments, or a sort of
existential hedge that attaches itself to the barnet area and scalps
you. <br /><br />is it coincidence that
‘waterfall’ (which is ‘don’t stop’ the wrong way round) is exactly the
kind of song any girl with real soul would like played at their funeral?
i don’t think so. it is 1.48 when the coffin is engulfed in flames. it
is 1.48 when the pacemaker explodes the body into a hundred different
and newly-discovered colours, disintegrating the is into the IS.<br /><br />‘there
is the news for me, useless/ now so much waste’. the song is a kind of
vehicle, first taking you towards the moment of death, and then away
from it, there is a definite membrane that needs breaking from about
1.38 onward, then from 1.48 until 1.57 god speaks an actual sentence in
music. the first (human) words start after this voice: ‘don’t stop-
isn’t it funny how you shine?’<br /><br />the
human voices come from the dark, like the red glow of faraway stars- and
the bassline is undeniably an upward stairway. this leads me to believe
that the song as a whole <i>actually takes place in space</i>. this is an irrefutable truth (the music of the spheres would absolutely
be backmasked- you cannot get away from it). 1.48 is the moment when
you exit your own body/atmosphere to become a god yourself. <br /><br />‘ease
into my heart/He must be one of us’. Moreover, the song has a kind of
insect quality to it, like a giant mechanical butterfly breaking out of a
cocoon. another coincidence? i cannot believe it. ‘to steal what she
never could own/and race from this hole she calls home’ (waterfall 0.28)<br /><br />in
conclusion, ‘don’t stop’ is a frozen piece of the universal song,
captured by mistake like a ghost in the wrong part of the cosmos. i
believe the stone roses unwittingly uncovered the voice of god while
also revealing the sound and experience of dying using a kind of reverse
magic. the lyric ‘don’t stop’ quite clearly refers to the life-source
within and without every one of us.<br /> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">in a very real sense 1.48 may actually be the number of god.</span></span>Emma Hammondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06941120315486855793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1978079358870034534.post-35072628968157806992013-03-19T10:33:00.000-07:002013-03-19T14:30:09.119-07:00Swimming with Dolphins and the Bus that Never Comes<span style="font-family: inherit;">People talk a lot about being on their death beds and regretting stuff and all that. That's OK if you're into that kind of thing but I'm not sure I like the idea much. Personally I'm hoping for a <i>really dramatic exit</i>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Imagine instead you're on an out of control train, the countryside streaming past, all the passengers screaming and running about with blood in their eyes. Will you be thinking 'maybe I should have spent less time writing blog posts about how I would like to die?'- I don't think so. Instead your heart will be pounding and your life will be rushing past you- the rubbish and all the brilliance of your <i>fully human life</i> as you disappear down the bear's throat.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is not au fait to be imperfect nowadays- there's always a billboard telling you that you're WRONG, as if life is a horribly difficult experience relieved only by running marathons and discovering a new kind of orchid or whatever. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">But not everything is funny, and it doesn't matter. We are better than a quip, small under our sunglasses and anecdotes, </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">there is so much more thinking to do.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When I'm hurtling through the air after the aeroplane has exploded I will be shouting all this into the sky; for we are swimming with dolphins and the bus that never comes- perfect from the day we are born.</span><br />
<br />
<br />Emma Hammondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06941120315486855793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1978079358870034534.post-89139178005614137972013-03-09T14:02:00.000-08:002013-03-09T16:52:28.104-08:00Acres of the Moon<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="internal-source-marker_0.11370728848327682" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Mother's
day is not for single mothers. Father's day is mostly for dads in
families and Valentines day is not on anybody’s side at all. Really a
lot of these days should be renamed </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">hole in the heart day </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">because irl that's what they are. </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">While
all the normal people eat quails eggs and heart shaped puddings with
their love-fat fingers you will most likely be cracking open cockroaches by
candlelight and wondering what kind of life this really is<span style="font-size: small;">.</span> You might
almost be tempted to think that human relations are beyond complex.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The truth is that nobody leads a conventional life apart from a handful of people who you will never hear say </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">serviette<span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">and <span style="font-size: small;">others </span>who would never think to say </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">napkin- </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">they</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">look
at the advertisements and see that mum would like light-reflecting lipstick and music albums
by handsome sociopathic singers and they are pleased because they</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">are doing things in the right order.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The road less travelled by</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">but not </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">too far</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
from the path, there is a relationship you must have, there are
relationships you must have with people who buy you tulips and gadgets
and acres of the moon, and soon you will live together and a seed will
be planted in your body which will grow into a wonderful beanstalk, with
no less than ten fingers and ok looking as well.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">But the secret<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> is that real l</span></span>ove
is better than the narrative; <span style="font-size: small;">Y<span style="font-size: small;">ou</span></span> could crush those perky tv families
with a single kiss. <span style="font-size: small;">You</span> don't have to l<span style="font-size: small;">ive <span style="font-size: small;">that way and</span></span> you are an </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">entire world</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> <span style="font-size: small;">with </span>more love inside you than a church.</span></span></span><br />
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Emma Hammondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06941120315486855793noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1978079358870034534.post-39420211689886786352013-03-04T03:55:00.000-08:002013-03-04T07:55:55.189-08:00The Big Silence<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="internal-source-marker_0.08532351780037317" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Finnish was the language I was going to learn from Linguaphone. It was Glamorous and also</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span>my
cat Sid was from Finland, he had his stuffing knocked out of him when
the maggots got in him and we had to put him in the washing machine.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> I
think I needed to discuss it with him, and also how the boys had got
him in the<span style="font-size: small;"> </span>playground one day and thrown him around until I cried a bit
but was brave and didn’t show it.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I
was going to learn Finnish, so I saved my money and one day went to the
Post Box opposite my school so I could post the Important Forms off and
get the tapes which I would listen to</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span>on my Walkman. Then I would be able to talk with Sid, about all the things, and he would</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span>listen to the things and that would be OK.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Post Box was all on it’s own on a V shaped verge and over the road was my School where</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span>somewhere behind a fence was a shed with a secret music box where a small plastic woman</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span>went
round and round. Also there was a whole hedge full of Ghosts, but I was
the only one who knew and the daddy long legs skipped around them with
this Big Silence, I never knew what it was but I did know about death.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I was in trouble. I was always in trouble. I was in Trouble because I didn’t know how to tie my </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">shoelaces
or tell the time. No one ever told me how to do those things and I
thought I was pretty stupid. Sid came<span style="font-size: small;"> </span>everywhere he was long and his
eyes were scratched from where the boys had got him, also a dog had once
bitten his ears a bit so he was all ragged but I made him clothes
that were Glamorous like his </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Arabian Nights</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> costume and he wore a Jam Pot frill as a hat and sang songs about being a <span style="font-size: small;">P</span>op <span style="font-size: small;">S</span>tar.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I
was a witch but no one knew, and there was a witch above my head but
also out in the orchard and no one knew about that one except the bats.
Maybe I would tell Sid once I was fluent in Finnish, I think he would be
interested and that would be pretty good. There were lots of things I
wanted to talk about and although I was </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">obtuse </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’m pretty sure that he wouldn’t mind becaus<span style="font-size: small;">e h</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">e was not brand new<span style="font-size: small;">.</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">All
the things in Beauty and the Beast came alive, there was a candlestick
that could talk and also a clock, I think he was French. I’m sure that
Post Box was alive too- he was black</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span>and
his mouth was open but nothing ever came out and he didn’t seem as
friendly as the little teapot with the chip. In fact if you put your
hand in there with Important Forms then it was</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span>very possible your hand would get bitten off which would make tying your shoes up even more difficult.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">One
day they burned the fields around him, and the black smoke rose up and
swallowed him and the Ghosts and the little lady all to <span style="font-size: small;">n</span>othing. I stole
a handkerchief off a girl and buried it in the woods. I would have kept
it but it had her initials on in curly stitch and in the end
it didn't have much to do with me.</span></span></span><br />
<br />Emma Hammondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06941120315486855793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1978079358870034534.post-33336968006186261632013-02-28T04:57:00.000-08:002013-02-28T07:56:37.627-08:00Eat me Drink me<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The brea<span style="font-size: small;">kfast </span>crepe was a bit disappointing but that might have been the <span style="font-size: small;">M</span>odifinal. I sat in Soho <span style="font-size: small;">S</span>quare with the other builders and considered
the pigeons. People were down on pigeons but I thought they were sort of
fine<span style="font-size: small;">,</span> some of their colours are otherworldly and there's nothing wrong
with that.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There is a little house in the middle of <span style="font-size: small;">S</span>oho <span style="font-size: small;">S</span>quare that no one ever
talks about. No one knows what's inside but I do- it is where they put
all the visionaries that get out <span style="font-size: small;">o</span>f hand. Slowly they get smaller and
smaller, like <i>eat me drink me</i> but on a one way ticket. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A man in bright orange overalls was staring at me. In the olden days I
would have thought it meant he was in love with me, but now I knew
better. I think he was ruminating on the butterfly effect, and whether
if the same butterfly decided not to flap its wings at all whether the effect
would be just as dramatic.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If you don't throw a brick in a pond and there are no ripples then is the pond somehow less good? I will have to ask my <i><span style="font-size: small;">j</span>ob<span style="font-size: small;">a</span>dvisor</i>.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A pigeon looked at me. He knew my game, though he knew nothing at
all. Women click<span style="font-size: small;">-</span>clacked past me on their way to work with heads full
of spider diagrams and pie charts, maybe with a very small piece of pie
in. My coffee was cold.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Today <span style="font-size: small;">I</span> had to buy some popping candy and a map of the world. It was a
busy day so I had better get going. I smiled at the man in neon and <span style="font-size: small;">left.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> </span></span>Emma Hammondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06941120315486855793noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1978079358870034534.post-88985834287833498692013-02-26T07:03:00.000-08:002013-02-27T01:11:00.144-08:00The Yellow Tree<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span id="internal-source-marker_0.44200847715998426" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I put
on my wizard coat and sunglasses and walked quickstep to the jobcentre.
In some ways I was an oddball I knew, but in others quite normal. I had
green knitted gloves with bows on and felt ok about it. I looked a bit
apocalyptic in my head, but in real life I was just a person walking
along.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The highlight was a bright yellow tree for which I took off my glasses. My neck did a click when I looked up at it.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We
all sat on the sofas and waited. There was a drug addict getting
annoyed at the shaky hands advisor. I liked that one best, it was
something in his eyes, like a horse in fire. The addict was
full of self-pity, I felt sorry for him and hated him too. He was
shouting but nobody heard so he shuffled off back to his crappy life.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When
I heard my name I was surprised. It’s surprising when someone says your
name out loud. I gave old shaky hands my most winning smile and got out
my job search. ‘He was interesting’ I said. He went on about it for a
bit and I said stuff like ‘you don’t make the rules’ etc to help him
along. Now we were friends.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There
was a picture of him at a football match pinned on his cubicle, it made
me sad I don’t know why. I think he was disabled in some way, he had a
special keyboard with big letters on. I was keen and signed the thing
and was <span style="font-size: small;">set free.</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span></span><br />
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Go <a href="http://adventuresinworkfare.blogspot.co.uk/">here</a> for more Job Centre Adventures.Emma Hammondhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06941120315486855793noreply@blogger.com0