Interactive version of this blog with photos
Hello!
Friday, 2 June 2006
Lewes Garret.
This is my opening letter to you; the first blog of many. Friday, 2 June 2006 is an important day for me because it marks the launch of the Oliver's Poetry website - a window to my poetry and that of other people.
I plan to publish a new poem every week, illustrated by a photograph. Other poets will also post their poetry to reach a wider audience through the site.
So, why also write a blog? Well, I want the website to be more than a resource for those who love poetry. I would like to put that poetry into context, to paint a word-picture of a poet and his world.
This blog is my diary. In its style I have been particularly influenced by four people: Samuel Pepys, Auberon Waugh, Alan Clark and Helen Fielding.
What this quartet have in common is that in their own remarkable ways - truthful, fictional or a blend of the two - they have made diarising popular, riveting, enthralling, unputdownable reading. They made it real, even when it was not. I don't know if I shall be able to match them. Perhaps it is foolish to even try. I shall do my best.
This blog is entitled Oliver's Poetry Garret because it is part of the Oliver's Poetry website and is largely written in two garrets - one in Lewes, East Sussex, and the other in Leamington, Warwickshire, UK.
It differs from other blogs in that it - simultaneously - goes forwards and backwards in time. I shall explain. Today is ground zero, blog number zero, and the entry comprises a blog about the present (which you are currently reading) and a 'backblog' or 'flashback' which begins to tell the back-story - the first of many flashbacks to what came before.
My next posting will be a blog for 3 June 2006 and a backblog for 1 June 2006; the following one will be the blog for 4 June 2006 and backblog for 31 May 2006, and so on. Eventually the blog and backblog, although posted together, will be separated by years and tell very different stories.
I want it to be honest, thought-provoking and entertaining. That's what Oliver's Poetry Garret is all about.
Let's roll!
Forward to the past.
Friday, 2 June 2006.
Lewes Garret.
It is lunchtime and I am taking a break. On Fridays I work at home. Usually my beloved wife Francesca is out teaching and my darling daughters Chloe, who is 16, and Marina (nine) are at school, but it is currently half-term.
I closed the garret door this morning to allow me to get on with my work. My back is bad today. I slipped two discs on Easter Sunday and have been in considerable pain since. Despite performing numerous exercises, visiting a chiropractor for six weeks and swallowing a wheelbarrow load of pills, the injury is showing little sign of abating.
I hope you have come to this page through the Oliver's Poetry Home website and enjoyed the verse. Why not submit a poem of your own to the Contributed Poems section? It could be the start of something big!
Today my mind keeps wandering back to the extraordinary business involving my flatmate, John, at the Leamington Garret where I write the other half of this diary.
John turned against me this week in the most unexpected and vitriolic fashion. Despite my natural resilience, I cannot get his verbal attack out of my head. He has also said he is leaving the Leamington Garret. I hope and pray this nightmare can be sorted out.
Next Blog and Previous Flashback
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