Wednesday 6th Nov
It’s nearly a week since my surgery and my eye, although somewhat cloudy and watery (which is to be expected) is healing well. I get dressed and go out for a first, tentative walk around the village where I live. The morning is grey and mild, the air still. Paths and pavements are littered with fallen leaves. It is the day after Trump‘s victory.
I had convinced myself he would lose, too easily persuaded by a confirmation bias, by the sources of information I chose. Deep in the echo chamber of social media I denied predictions I didn’t care for. I refused to listen to my son when he told me the bookies rarely lose. I wanted to believe in the power of women, of good women and good men. I wanted comfort and reassurance before and after going into hospital
I am quietly stunned, numb. I pray that he will be less effective than his rhetoric suggests and that we have less to fear than we imagine. I suspect this is just another bout of wishful thinking on my part.
I think of Kathryn, the gentle poet from Tennessee, who I shared a terrace with at the Casa Ana retreat. A woman who taught, wrote and lived poetry, who told me she could not bear to contemplate another Trump presidency. To cope, she said, she would have to shut herself off from the world, from all sources of news, from any mention or notion of him. I think of all the souls, the poets and the non-poets, the good men and women who like Kathryn are in despair today and I wish them/us hope - wherever it may be found.
Selfishly, I’m thankful for the safety and beauty of the place in which I live. For my family and friends, for the leaves underfoot, for the last yellow petals of a defiant morning primrose standing tall in the grass beside the church yard.
If you’re in need of solace, comfort or hope, then join us at Collected Books next Wednesday at 6.30pm for an evening of Poetry Readings by women.
I’m very much hoping to be there, though it still depends a bit on my eye improving. I’m sure it will be a tonic, a celebration of women poets from across the North East. It is hosted by friend and fellow poet, Forward Prize nominee, and winner of the Bridport Poetry Prize, Mary-Jane Holmes.
Thanks for reading - I am aiming now to post once a fortnight as my vision settles down and I get back to writing.
Avril x
"Let your hopes, not your hurts, shape your future." Martin Luther King, Jr.
Lovely to ‘hear’ your voice again. Take care 🦋xx
Hi Avril, glad to hear you're on the road to recovery. As I get longer in the tooth, I'm less inclined to news, politics, and social media too. One interview I saw amidst the spin, held a ring of truth. A reporter asked a group of poor people comprising both white and people of colour, why they voted Trump- are they not offended by his rhetoric and person? And they said, there is a difference between being offended and affected. We can afford the former but not the latter, and the cost of living is hell. And I was reminded along with the aforementioned, ideology is another of those things which weighs less with me these days too. Although Trump's make America great again-return to post war era- cannot be so. You'll remember America was booming because the infrastructure of most 1st world economic producing countries was left shattered after WW2. And America hit recession in the 80s, when those countries caught up. And so the Trumpian dream- is more ideology again. Poetry- a far kinder ideology. There's no power in it, but a pen and page, and the ability to shape hearts and minds. Funny how quiet beauty and wisdom outlives all above across the ages. Take Care x