At my time of life (I’m old) and with my cognitive and physical disabilities  I was  hoping to spend the twilight years of my life gently pottering about in the garden and in my library; growing pretty flowers in the first  and reading pretty books and poetry in the second; maybe writing a whimsical, lighthearted story or two to pass the time…but …and mine is a big But I met with a few ‘obstacles to my plans.

In poetry my problem is that instead of  focussing my efforts  on doggerel and twee poetry as a balm to my aged brain and aching intellect,   I have reconnected with the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins (GMH)  and I LOVE IT!

O how I wish I could forget that I ever knew his stuff and could concentrate on Patience Strong’s guff instead but I can’t.

GMH wrote such amazing  poetry but in a style that tests the intellect and perseverance of the reader to such an extreme extent in order to understand what he is explaining that  it is not enough just to know the laws of rhyme to appreciate his work.  He deconstructed and rebuilt so many rules of rhyme, metre, language and allegory.

Reading one of his works is  like doing a jigsaw (albeit a  beautiful one!) in your mind, you must understand the shape of the pieces and their relationship to each other and the whole  picture in order to complete it.   Each word, sound, stress and image that GMH uses is he uses with an intent sometimes different from the accepted norms of poetical language and convention but by doing so he produces poetry so beautiful and sublime that it transcends almost all other poets (Yes Mr Shakespeare I’m talking that includes  you!)

If you don’t believe me then get W H Gardener’s book ‘Poems and Prose of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ and immerse yourself!

I am struggling to write my book, not because I can’t write but because I have writer’s block…well not a block as such but it  a bottleneck..I have so many ideas and thoughts assembled in my mind thaty I’ve collected through my life about how I want my story to be  that I can’t get them to come out in a sensible coherent order…

I know what I want to write, in fact I’ve written most of it in a  first draft but I can’t decide how it should be constructed and organised…

I shall soldier on…