Announcement (2)

When one’s love of a great author nestles admiration, her creative spirit and verve on paper to a fabulous collective and ends up in a major literary body of work.

I, the poet, feel humbled by such accolade & participation to the great edifice – brainchild from friend and fellow poet, Makar at our Federation Writers (Scotland) and compagnon d’écriture, Jim Mackintosh, through time.

Together, we celebrate George Mackay Brown’s centenary through a wonderful anthology titled very aptly Beyond the Swelkie now ready to pre-order.

Happy poet and lover of literature!

vision for #nationalpoetryday

This year’s #nationalpoetryday explores the theme of “vision”.

Here is my stone to the great edifice:

Vision

The paradox of sight, where
iris turns to dust -
the sheer white beam of light lost in corners of space, where
blackness sips cold sweat out of trillions of
stars in this void of silence;
Saturn in
your spyglass,
a glimpse of ice and rocks
trapped around
a planet nobody spots at night.
Prisoners of iron,
gravity and apples as 
laws defined by one visionary great mind at
rest against a tree, here on
our home planet,
blue marble of wonders 
humanity plunders,
bleeds, 
slashes by
billions in the name of progress.
Look again through
the glass,
Saturn so far away, void of life in silence;
the blind can look away till
our world turns silent,
trapped inside
their own
fate,
empty
space on the ground.

© Nat Hall 2020

lumière

I did not know what to expect.

Extreme Light North based at my favourite headland, Sumburgh Head, and so very aptly at my favourite lighthouse, where a troupe, led by Clare Duffy, has a very precise project.

Performance art instigated at Shetland level by our Shetland Library Reading Champion, playwright & artiste extraordinaire, Jacqui Clark – in which light is celebrated in collaboration with Clare Duffy & her troupe.
On the 18th night of the eight’s month, selected reading of Compass Head were broadcasted to the world via the internet, whilst being recorded in the intimacy of the stone wall with a mic in a cranny…

On a more personal note, Sumburgh Head has a very special place in my heart. The most southerly headland from da Auld Rock, the place where I twice worked as an Assistant Warden for the RSPB in the early 2000s, a place I celebrate as a poet, and share with the rest of the world. A place associated with dreams and adventures. And when I think adventures, RLS springs to my mind like a boomerang. After all, his grandfather has left luminous prints with his family of lighthouse builders! So all in all, it felt a pretty funky night to the wildest audience! Open air poetry reading… Both ethereal and  fab fun!

Jacqui Clark & her balloon adventure

With gracious thanks to Jacqui Clark and Lucy for nurturing me at such event.

with Lucy from the Extreme Light Project, 18 August 2018

Local actors are preparing with Clare Duffy’s troupe for a very special event. There is an upcoming art performance on the 28 August at Sumburgh Head. Grab a ticket and come along.

It is truly a unique experience and Project in full osmosis 🙂

 

Sumburgh Head, 18 Aug 2016.

launched

  Inside the great temple of books, readers and authors, we found home.

That journey took time in itself. 

Launched virtually on Amazon to let it fly to readers’ hands on 30 March, as if to break a curse (that of losing my grandmother to whom Compass Head is dedicated, among two other generations of mothers) my wish to celebrate it with some very special guests took place on the twentieth day of the fifth month.

And they all answered present.

Local poet, friend & mentor when it comes to the dialect, Laureen Johnson, to whom I feel grateful to put my work in the limelight as early as 2004 inside the New Shetlander, would grace the floor; James Andrew Sinclair, with whom I read, wrote and performed over over a decade; but also a string of weavers of sounds in the names of Alan McKay, Suzanne Briggs, Lewis Hall, and – last but not least – Donald Anderson, singer songwriter & former Literature Development Officer at Shetland Arts. We share a creative story.

They are my compagnons de voyage. 

What a great night we gave the audience at the Shetland Library. A total of seventy folk came to the Hillhead. I felt overwhelmed at some stage, and so humble.

 From the back, it looked like this…

 From the side it looked like that. 

Marghie Thompson West, one of our Hillhead librarians, turned mistress of ceremony.

One by one – or in two’s, as Suzanne and Alan joined up to delight us with two classics, La mer,  and Les feuilles mortes (Jacques Prévert) or as Alan & Donald duetted with their respective guitars – we entertained with flair and grace.

That’s when time turned irrelevant (for a moment)… 

On this occasion, I wish to thank you, who came to listen to us all; you, who contributed to a fabulous celebration – our Shetland librarians, who homed it, your hospitality, smiles and joie de vivre added to your first-class service. To Margaret for a very special cake that left me breathless (on top of all other goodies you prepared with love). 

To Marsaly Taylor for your glowing review in the Shetland Times the week before; to Jane Moncrieff from BBC Radio Shetland (Scotland) & Lawrence Tulloch (Give us a Tune, BBC Radio Shetland) for airing it on the air waves. To Aneta, for your presence, keeping me smiling & hospitality in Lerwick. 🙂 

And there is more to come. 🙂

Compass Head is travelling and reaching so many headlands. It is beautiful. Am ever so thankful to my Norway-based publishing house, Nordland Publishing, and James Andrew Murray, their second poet, for believing in my work in the very first place.

Compass Head, as part of the Songs of the North. 

fluttering [5]

I love amuse-bouche. Either at appéritif or any other time. 

Here, here, as appetite is awaken, let me offer you, dear reader, two of them, as conceived and produced by Nordland. 

And I do hope you too will find both enticing.

When asked to select snippets from Compass Head, some of my favourite lines literally jumped to mind. Here, above, two from some favourite poems you find in this first solo collection. 

fluttering [4]

If Charles Baudelaire opened his masterpiece, Les Fleurs du Mal, with an open letter with “dear reader”, he invited the world to discover his literary monument with a quill. He lived with his time.

I too write with a traditional tool – a fountain pen – and I too live with my time, that 21st century yellow button. Click on it, and it will lead you straight to Compass Head.

His invitation au voyage has remained one of my favourite poems, and catalyst for my own life journey as a woman and a poet. It has animated my heart since I discovered it back at le lycée Paul Cézanne in Aix-en-Provence whilst studying French Literature for the Baccaulauréat. Today,

I am inviting you to my 21st century invitation au voyage, through some 124 pages peppered with sand, spray, earthly elements, headlands, lighthouses, in a triad of tongues.

fluttering (1)

 

Please mark a date in your diary, Compass Head, available on Amazon, will be celebrated at the Shetland Library in Lerwick on Friday 20 May 2016.

We – the poet, our Shetland Librarians and friends – have the beginning of a plan.

More to come, as dusk slides into a starry night.

 

published

   It feels like the sunrise.

Out of the curtain of ink, Compass Head has emerged, amid birdsong, gales and tides.

Its date of publication was important to my heart – my grandfather’s birthday; and my grandmother’s change of world, 9 nine years ago. Whereas the book is dedicated to three generations of mothers, including Mamie, my grandfather also features.

As a matter of interest, and by some coincidence, 30 March is also the birthday of one of my literary heroes, Jean Giono, whose works celebrate nature & thus, his very own brand of geopoetics.

By some twist of fate, will visit Manosque tomorrow with lifelong friend & artist Isabelle Foriat to pay my tribute to the great man; and looking forward to it. 

Released and available on Amazon, “the world’s biggest bookstore”, as a close friend kindly reminded me just a few days before I migrated back to the foot of Luberon for a short spring break.

So, here it is.

Compass Head, c/o NordlandPublishing 

With gracious thanks 🙂

  

recompense

It is official since tonight: Nordland Publishing welcomed me as their third poet, following a contract agreement and a shared wish for years of fruitful collaboration. As a poet & writer, am utterly thrilled to be part of the family. Wonderful birthday present that crowned a 15-year old literary project, soon to turn into a book, entitled Compass Head.

Compass Head, this first solo collection of poetry, with elements of flash fiction, is very much a Shetland product, even though it is above all a geopoetical journey from my native Normandie to my chosen, Nordic home – where my heart beats – through time and space. As for From Shore to Shoorma/ D’un rivage à l’autre (BJP 2012), co-penned with Donna Allard, Compass Head is peppered with French and Shetland dialect. It is my privilege and orthographic signature, in the sense such journey is tainted, as a multi-lingual voice. It only feels too natural as a process. I believe Kenneth White – the father of Geopoetics – would embrace this.

It is a very exciting project am only too happy to be nurtured by Nordland Publishing, under the editorial headship of MJ Kobernus, to whom – as well as fellow blogger & author Andy Murray, who got the ball rolling – I feel indebted.

A wonderful adventure has begun, and I feel the heart of young Jim Hawkins from Treasure Island pounding inside my shirt :-).

The most wonderful feeling.

spoken

And now sample, immerse yourself into the audio form of The Nine Realms through its many voices and music.
Thank You for listening, and maybe, supporting the project.
It has felt a magical saga in the true sense.