First of all, I’d just like to say a big thank you to those who’ve subscribed to my blog! It makes me feel all fuzzy inside when you click the follow button.

Secondly, I’ve now reached 8,000 words in my novel, which I’m very pleased about. This seems pitiful when Google tells me that the average novel is 60,000 exquisite words… My excuse is that I’m easily distracted, primarily by cake, thinking I have emails when I don’t, doodling pictures of sheep on my notepad and pretty much everything else in the world. So, 8,000 words deserves a nice pat on the head for me.

In other news, yesterday I was scouring the streets of Liverpool for some inspiration and came across News From Nowhere on Bold Street. This is an alternative bookstore with a vast supply of feminist, LGBT, political, social and poetry books, which left me drooling all over the place and attracting attention because I wouldn’t leave. This is an amazing place!

I was browsing/caressing the poetry shelves and came across Jo Shapcott’s Of Mutability (which I know is already famous and she is a goddess), and fell in love with it.

I’ve not been able to find my favourite online, but here is another from the collection which I find brilliant:

 

Procedure

 

This tea, this cup of tea, made of leaves,

made of the leaves of herbs and absolute

almond blossom, this tea, is the interpreter

of almond, liquid touchstone which lets us

scent its true taste at last and with a bump

in my case, takes me back to the yellow time

of trouble with bloodtests, and cellular

madness, and my presence required

on the slab for surgery, and all that mess

I don’t want to comb through here because

it seems, honestly, a trifle now that steam

and scent and strength and steep and infusion

say thank you thank you thank you for the then, and now

 

Whenever I read Shapcott’s work I find it faultless, so this collection has now been added to my wish list.