Jen Hadfield's Blog

 Forty-five minutes of shared, silent writing time on Zoom. Check them out at https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/jen-ha...

In pregnancy, language failed me: I hardly wrote at all. I was astonished, too, by silences I hadn't noticed before around the experiences of pregnancy and birth, and by how much I didn't know. Please join me to explore the mystery in which we become mothers, in a gentle, supportive creative writing workshop. Babies and toddlers are welcome, and if you need to step out for a long or short moment, that's all fine. This session will be recorded only with the consent of the participants and shared only within our private group. 

For mothers and expectant mothers.  Book here.

Standing Stone
maybe a compassmaybe a gnomonmaybe a signpostfor bee-eaters, swifts
Short poems can be like a meditation: helping us focus on where we're at right now, and on what's going on around us. They also make good Christmas cards!
We'll spend the afternoon reading, listening, looking and playing with words in a focussed but informal atmosphere. New and more confident poets all welcome. Bring outdoor gear for optional landscape writing.
2-5.30, Saturday 5th Decembervenue t.b.c (probably Burra)16-yrs and up, 12 max.
£20 for the afternoon

jenhadfield@btinternet.com

Tonnes of bladderwrack washed up onto my local beach after Storm Abigail, full of smithereened plastic. In 40mph winds, I struggled along to another beach to watch the waves. I found the carcass of a young swan, a seal, and an unidentified marine mammal, perhaps a porpoise. Its skin was flensed away, and the blubber beneath was a mosaic of little chips of broken plastic. It's almost impossible to get your head around how much of this stuff is out there, chugging around the gyres like a great oceanic washing machine. We've got to sort this.

The 'Dominant Species' limpets are now available to buy in my Etsy shop.

These ceramic limpet sculptures come from my exhibition 'The Dominant Species' in the Shetland Museum and Archives. Shape, thickness and density vary as the limpets are all made by hand using a thumb-pot method. Each limpet comes with a rudimentary LED light. Contact me for images of individual limpets so you can handpick your colony of glowing marine gastropods. They're keen to colonise new territory!

https://www.facebook.com/TheDominantS...

'When Scotland was alive with ideas and debate, all Labour could demonstrate was timidity and fear'. Regardless of your feelings about Salmond, it's worth watching at least the first 9 minutes of his farewell speech. Imagine, a politician whose own party aren't mortified by him. Actually, anyone who's sick of Westminster should watch or listen to the whole thing. Any of the folk who couldn't understand why Scots might even WANT to become independent should watch the whole thing.

I'm really grateful to have been appointed the 2014 Dr Gavin Wallace Fellow hosted by Moniack Mhor. All the information about the fellowship and my planned project is here, but expect some posts about flotsam and jetsam. I start in December. Can't wait.

this interactive map shows real time shipping around Shetland. You can click on the boats and see where they're headed and what they're up to. Wherever we live is the centre.

Scroll down to Shipping AIS Map

with Don Paterson, Sam Willetts and McGuire.

Mitchell Library, Wed 1st October

6-7, free.


book on 0141 287 2951 or ayewrite@glasgowlife.org.uk

With bees
it's all about heat.
Hard to find ourselves
in a damp autumn dawn
now that the circus
has moved on
the worst- 
off cramponned 
to a vertiginous
leaf, wings 
squeezed to a silver panel 
to sop up what thin warmth
they can 
running
–
on empty.
We can barely buzz
but do
what we can –
without your teaspoon
of sugar-water –
slowly rocking
our grounded weight
(so mite-laden
we look like strawberries)
from limb to limb,
grieving, really, 
the slippage
of the sun. 
–
Which is in 
itself to recollect 
our business which is 
to be us to agitate 
each stiff joint, 
gather a quorum and 
shiver together hum 
fiercer and groom 
our leavening pelts
as the late rays stoke us, 
no surplus
perhaps but enough 
to get up and among 
the dog-roses

again