Susie Wild's Blog: Wildlife, page 11

MODRON: Can Art Save the Planet?

Rae Howells has written a community article for MODRON about her involvement in the campaign to save West Cross Common and her latest poetry collection This Common Uncommon:

'I find it hard to read the news about climate change. How often I have felt small and helpless in the face of articles that seem to offer no hope, just dismal predictions and downward trends. From animal species under threat to melting glaciers, footage of terrifying wildfires or catastrophic floods. What can one person do against such huge, complex – often global – problems?

'Like most people I am hungry for practical things I can do. There are the usual culprits – reduce flights, take public transport, stop single-use plastic, eat less meat, go solar. I do my best. But an action point that has really stuck with me is this: use whatever skills you have and get involved in something local, something community-based.'The wonderful thing about this one is that it gives tangible, rewarding results. Plus you get to meet people and make new friends.'So when I became aware that a section of Clyne Common at West Cross, a well-loved green space near my home, was under threat of development I thought: this is it. Maybe I could try to make a difference.' This Common Uncommon is out now from Parthian Books and you can see Rae reading from it at the Cellar Bards, Cardigan (13th) and at Ye Olde Murenger, Newport (18th) in Wales this month.

Read the article in full on MODRON

Hot Sauce!

Lovely first editorial meeting in Cardiff today with a debut poet visiting from Mexico! He bought me hot sauce too. Gold star!

Created to Read reviews This Common Uncommon

'Can poetry protect the natural world? Can it actually change the course of events? Many poets are attempting to do just that, but it’s not often that a collection is published with a specific purpose, centred on a particular location. Rae Howells’ latest book focuses on West Cross Common, a small area of peat-based heathland on the edge of Swansea, which is currently under threat of development. But these poems do far more than protest. They celebrate the minutiae of a rare and intricate habitat, the kind of inconspicuous scrubland that many of us would normally walk past without a second glance. […] These poems fulfil the author’s aim, stated in the introduction: they ‘give voice to the unheeded – the common itself, the plants and animals that live on it’. But they also dramatize a very real and ongoing tension. This is a book that delights in the small and the inconspicuous, forging a celebratory link between us and the areas of common land that we so often take for granted.’

Many thanks to Rachel Carney / Created to Read for this wonderful review of Rae Howells’ latest poetry collection This Common Uncommon (Parthian Books)

Artists draw the line under Clyne Common development

 

Art for the Common was held on Saturday (27 July) at the Linden Christian Centre, West Cross, and included a large mural painted by the children of Llwynderw School, alongside two knitted panels by the Swansea Yarn Bombers, as well as paintings, photographs, poetry, videos and sculptures by local residents.

Poet Rae Howells, who has written a book about the common and is poet in residence at Llanelli Wetlands Centre, was one of the exhibition’s organisers.

Rae said: “We are lucky to live in West Cross so close to this wild and green corner of Clyne Common, but sadly it is under threat of development. Since we found out about the planning application, residents have been making an effort to record the amazing wildlife here. It’s extremely boggy which makes it ideal for scores of rare plants and fungi, which in turn support a huge variety of insects, and of course birds, reptiles and amphibians thrive in an ecosystem like this. 

“When I started to learn more about the common’s wildlife, I began to write poems, which then became a book – This Common Uncommon. And through the book I met so many talented residents who paint, sew, sculpt, knit, take photographs, and we decided to bring all those talented people together to create work inspired by the common. It snowballed from there!”

Read the article in full on swanseabaynews.com

Buzz Review of This Common Uncommon: 'Finely wrought, intelligent, and full of heart'

'Howells writes with sensitivity, empathy, liveliness and keen observation ... Finely wrought, intelligent, and full of heart, This Uncommon Common is an important book that speaks for nature, land, and species which, too often, we see as silent: a vital tome at a time of urgency.' – Mab Jones, Buzz Magazine

Thanks to Mab Jones and Buzz Magazine for this lovely review of Rae Howells' latest poetry collection This Common Uncommon

The Cellar Bards: Another Lovely Night

A lovely night at the Cellar Bards last night. Always a delightful audience and varied, inspiring and enjoyable open mic. I didn’t take many photos… here are some quick snaps of the journey there and back including a walk on Poppit Sands (and, not pictured, various good snacks) ... and one of Ben doing his thing! Thanks to Jackie and Dave, wonderful hosts as ever, and to Kittie for putting us up.

The Friday Poem Review: Moon Jellyfish Can Barely Swim by Ness Owen

Watch how we glow 
Karen Smith reviews Moon Jellyfish Can Barely Swim by Ness Owen (Parthian, 2023) 
“The energy that glows sublimely through Owen’s work has transformative potential… the work is rhythmical and strong, with sensitive, sensual portraits of the power of seawater… Encircled by the rugged waters of the Anglesey coast, Owen lands her poems “between lecturing and farming”. In the short interview at the back of the book, she summons the power of the writing process “to remember, or to try to understand”. In her hands, the poem-vessel drops anchor against dissolution and breakdown. Her hymn to the jellyfish launches us into waters of political unrest, merging environmental, familial, national and linguistic currents. I will remember the watery wisdom of their desultory radiance in ‘How we glow’: 
    We are braver than     we know. Even in     the smallest light     watch how we glow.”

Happy Birthday to Me...

It was my birthday yesterday and Ben took me out for a lovely sunny lunch to celebrate today. I am, I am, I am.

Book Launch: This Common Uncommon by Rae Howells

It was a wonderful launch for Rae Howell's new poetry collection This Common Uncommon (Parthian Books) at Swansea Waterstones tonight! Thanks to all who came – so lovely to see you – and congratulations Rae! If you’d like to find out more about the campaign to save West Cross Common join the Facebook group 'West Cross Common'.

London Grip Review: This Common Uncommon

Many thanks to Pat Edwards and London Grip for this wonderful review of Rae Howells' new poetry collection This Common Uncommon:

‘As we open this book we are straight away presented with a stark reminder that many things we hold dear – relationships, old buildings, institutions, and indeed wild places – can feel so ordinary, familiar, everyday, as to be easily taken for granted. Rae Howells cautions us to look, be present, fully experience these things and even fight for them, especially when suddenly their existence is threatened.[…]This is glorious nature writing redolent with colour, texture, smell. […]Many readers of this book will undoubtedly know and love this common and fear for its survival. Many, like me, will not be so familiar with it. However, I suspect we all know threatened wild spaces local to us, and share the deep concern that our need for housing may one day overtake our perhaps greater need to conserve rare and special habitat. Howells has written something worth reading, something driven by both her intense love of this place and her understanding that once such a place is lost, there is the dreadful, empty permanence about its passing:List the absences: the lost, the missing. Soon /you will not be here to notice, either. /Your eyes closed on the world and hard, like coins /& I wonder if we will have learned anything.'