My Poetry: You

               

You rushed early into this world

eager to see what it was all about

locked your eyes on mine

and didn’t look away.

Then I knew. Knew

That it is possible for a heart to grow,

like cells building new life.

You take your time, assessing,

finding your place. Charming strangers

with your smile. Absorb the world

from my shoulder. Thank me

when I chase away the night-time

monsters. Take little imp as a compliment!

You share, without hesitation,

your treasures  -  your opinion,

and the mysteriously melted chocolate-buttons

smeared across your hands. 

If only time didn’t rush

if only it would be more sharing         

if it would

     trickle

just a little. Not a lot to ask.

(Written in the early 80's)

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Denise Howie World Famous in B.C. 

My Poetry: This Boy

This Boy 

This boy trains worms;

Chases geese, not seeing the danger;

Shakes his head that we don’t know they are only laughing.

Strides the mountain path, self-peeled stick in hand.

This boy wanders;

Digs in the rocks by the loch  

on his own and wonders what the fuss is about.

Makes dandelion-chains because no one else does.

This boy. This boy;

before he could talk, grasped my hands

and we laughed and couldn’t stop, at something

or nothing.  How can it be that someday this boy…

This boy will be a man?

(Written in the early 80's)

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Denise Howie World Famous in B.C. 

Prince Dhruva, Aged Five, Sees Eye To Eye with God

He stood in that one place

in the forest, on one leg.

Wild pigs foraged his shadow.

He stood, gown as white

as the chunam of palace walls,

like a painting of the women

who danced for the courtiers,

struck in a pose of the nautch.

As he stood in that place

in a clearing by a brook

and saw slender branches

bend beneath the kingfisher,

the child stilled his chest

until a breath spanned a day.

Through the cramp,

he saw the feeding doe start

as hoopoe dipped curved beaks.

As infant bones set,

he saw the giant Chinar tree

trap snow in outstretched arms.

Through splayed toes green shoots

spread, embracing, winding

tethering - he soared in the wake

of the crows who followed

bears for pickings, saw a beetle grasp its prey,

a tiger groom her young, finite forest on finite land.

Saw the world cupped in the palm of Krsna,

saw his own heart, and looked eye to eye with God.

And the child knew that he was blessed,

for if he followed this austerity

with celibacy, piety,

equanimity and charity, he might

perhaps, atone past-life sin.

And as the child was carried from the forest

he tried not to remember the despair

he had witnessed when he looked

into the eyes of God.

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Denise Howie World Famous in B.C. 

Nature's reading room

As a child I gravitated to reading outside. I like to think that it was because I was imaginative and adventurous but I suspect that it was more likely related to the fact that I had a plethora of younger siblings.

If you haven't sat under a weeping willow and read your favourite author - go - go do it now. (Take a flashlight if the sun's clocked-off for the day.) Not just any weeping willow mind; the tips of the branches have to sweep to the ground like a Victorian skirt, so that the little beggars (be they siblings, kids or colleagues) can't find you.

As a young teen I graduated to the sturdy upper limbs of elm and oak trees. Fields of wild flowers were good too, as long as I had a rock or a tree trunk to lean against. My friends and I had a library in a forest. We enveloped books in waterproof waxed bread-wrappers and stashed them in the cubbies created by tree roots, and met every day to read, using the mossy rocks as seats and tables. I suspect that a number of books remain hidden on that forest floor all these years later. 

You know how people tend to have their own perspective of their environment depending on their jobs or interests? On a drive through Saskatchewan, for example, an Australian rancher friend pointed out coyotes lurking in ditches, a camouflaged deer in a field and bear cubs clambering up a tree trunk. My regular drive transformed from a pleasant enough journey to a National Geographic Special because my companion was tuned into what interested him. Another buddy worked with power lines; not just poles and wires it turns out. Oh no. Much more than that. Miles and miles and miles of much more than that.  

It's the same with me. Even now the landscape around me is mapped out into reading nooks; that cosy patch of grass by the river bank, the inviting crook of a tree branch, a wooden pier dappled by sunlight.

The weeping willow is still my all-time favourite but the nearest one is three streets away and apparently they "find it a bit weird for a grown woman to camp out on our lawn," so for that particular experience I make do with my comfortable bed. The lamp casts a gentle circle of light, and except for the cat on my shoulder and the dog draped across my feet, it's almost like the real deal. Without the ants.  


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Denise Howie World Famous in B.C.

A Gem of a Writing Job

(Originally published in 2014. )

Photo by Mary Whittaker 

Back in the 80’s with a handful of magazine stories to my pen-name I dreamed of being a newspaper journalist; not so much a reporter who is generally limited to facts, but a journalist who would cast a light on the lives of local artists and characters who were lost in the shadows of Thatcherism and MTV.

 Looking back, I have realised that dream…minus the British Press Awards… 

 Much of my current writing life is devoted to a local ‘Little Engine that Could’ The One Person Project: A small group in my hometown who harness the goodwill and skills of communities in the region to take realistic steps towards helping a community in Tanzania to become self-sustaining.  In-line with my goals I have also written articles about Okanagan writers, artists and businesses and was thrilled to be asked to provide the web content for Tourism Summerland earlier this year.

 I also had the good fortune of personally and professionally connecting with artist Karen Griggs who fashioned her passion for jewelry and love of community into an innovative award-winning business. Bead Trails is a marketing success-story that promotes Okanagan businesses and communities by providing a fun scavenger hunt where tourists and locals alike explore the Okanagan Valley in search of elegant and funky beads to create a meaningful memory bracelet.

 I look forward to writing the upcoming Bead Trail newsletters and blogs but to be honest, providing web & brochure copy, press releases and articles for Bead Trails has been a tough gig. Imagine having to spend your days visiting Okanagan wineries, galleries and artists, browsing book shops and boutiques and stopping off for a coffee and cupcake.

 But I guess that’s the price you have to pay if you want to do right by your community!

The creativity (and science) of habit

You’re struggling to finish that novel, you know you have a box-office hit hiding out in your head, there’s a poem teasing at your brain – if only you had time to write!  If truth be told, however busy we are, most of us do have the time – the problem is we don’t have the habit.

Habit; It’s the buzz-word for success. You will see the word linked with everything from exercise & diet to getting a promotion. And for good reason – habits really do rewire your brain. It generally takes around 28 days. So if you want to change something in your life or add an element to it – do it for a month.

There is a science behind the theory and the best example comes from NASA. In the early days of the space program, NASA designed an experiment to determine the physiological and psychological effects of the spatial disorientation the astronauts would experience in the weightless environment of space. The astronauts were given convex goggles, which they had to wear 24 hours a day for 30 days and nights. The goggles flipped everything in their field of vision 180 degrees, which meant they saw everything upside down.  As you can imagine, this made life extremely difficult!

But then on the 26^th day something amazing happened; one of the astronauts found that his vision had turned right-side-up again even though he was still wearing the goggles. Between days 26-30, the same thing happened for each of the remaining astronauts.Their brains had created fresh neural pathways! And of course – it took the same amount of time for their brains to re-adapt to life without the goggles.  Later NASA did the experiment again and had half the astronauts take off their goggles for just 24hrs at day 15. When they put the goggles back on it still took 25 to 30 days for their brains to adjust. So just breaking the continuity of the new habit once, put the astronauts back to square one.

Aristotle said, ‘We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.’

In The Artist’s Way, the seminal book on the subject of creativity, with a focus on establishing habits that open the creative mind, Julia Cameron says ‘The bedrock tool of a creative recovery is a daily practice called Morning Pages.’ The idea being that every morning you hand-write three pages about anything and everything that comes into your mind. The pages don't have to make sense.  You write first thing in the morning as 'You're trying to catch yourself before your ego's defenses are in place.' 

Creating a stream of consciousness every morning sets up the habit of writing and helps to clear the mind and unleash ideas.  

When Stephen King is working on a book (which is most of the time) he writes every day of the year, which he says, '…includes Christmas, the Fourth, and my birthday.'  King finishes a draft within three months but he does point out that by just writing 300 words a day we can complete a novel in a year.

It’s just a matter of getting into the habit.


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Denise Howie World Famous in B.C.

My Childhood: Fact or Fiction?

Don't decide to base your first novel on your childhood; especially if you lived in six countries and didn’t keep a journal! 

I started writing this book 13 years ago and I’m about three quarters of the way through. I’m not lazy, I have been published many times in the intervening years but the novel always goes on the back burner. Take a guess at what I was working on moments before I distracted myself by opening a fresh page on this blog...

I've always it called it a novel because although based in the facts of a period of my life I have had to make-up conversations and events to fill in the gaps in my memory. After all, the main character (me) is only five-years-old when the story starts! But I really should learn to call it a memoir, as all memoirs are crafted in the same way; the story is the truth of the life being described, but by necessity it cannot all be true. 

My father was in the Royal Air Force; a blessing that meant my childhood was designed for adventure. Another blessing - there are many online groups and forums dedicated to reminiscing about being a services/military child in the 60’s and 70’s so there is an eager market for memoirs such as mine. But of course, this is also a curse. I know how important those experiences are to my fellow brats (an abbreviation of the army term British Regiment Attached Traveler) so I feel it’s my responsibility to be as factually accurate as I can be.

I'm not just describing my life, I'm chronicling a way-of-life; the life of a military child in the 60's. I take comfort in the fact that all any memoirist can do is recount the way in which they interpreted (and now reinterpret) the events and dynamics around them. Even within a family, each player deciphers the same shared-experiences differently. But imagine the pressure of knowing that not only my siblings, but a generation of onetime brats are likely to be questioning my version of events! 

Many of our family photos have been lost, I'm the eldest child and my parents died whilst still in their fifties so I have little to go on. It’s my unreliable memory of the geography of the places that I lived that holds my writing up the most. Even with the advantage of the internet so much time has gone by that I’m now viewing a completely different planet. Frustratingly, old maps do not track my footsteps as the Maurader’s Map does for the characters in Harry Potter. I know that my peers will be forgiving but it will no doubt jar on a reader if I say I turned left to get to the Malay village, when in fact I could only have turned right.  But then again, their retrospective GPS could be as sketchy as mine is. Here’s hoping! 

Needless to say my second book will be an actual novel, set in space, and the main character will keep a journal that she first wrote in when she was five-years-old. Because she's a smarter cookie than I was. 

When someone stole my idea and got rich and famous (or not)

When I was 13 it took me 3 years to write a novel...okay a novella called Various Shades of Blue about a society living in a dome, which was made from carboxygememtellan  - carbon, oxygen and a miraculous unbreakable gel that could breathe. At the age of 13! I was a genius! 

This dome was the Blue Dome - you could tell a person's status by what shade of blue they were wearing, and there were reportedly distant domes of red and green and yellow.

When the movie Logan's Run came out in the mid-70's I was stunned  to see that it was in many ways the same story-line as my novella; an apparently idyllic society being told that the planet had been decimated by natural and man-made disasters and that there was no life beyond the domes. Rumours of 'The Safe City', and population control by being euthanized when you turn 30. The main characters flee the dome and risk their lives to find out the truth. 

My story ended up with the characters who had not been killed-off (sorry BFF Shelagh - I know you didn't take kindly to loosing one of them...) huddled in a cave making ten new rules, or should I say commandments that the future (and free) generations should live by to ensure that the planet never gets in to the same sorry state again. (A genius I tell you!) 

The last descriptive piece at the end of the book makes subtle reference to the gills in the character's necks - make of that what you will. 

On discovering that my story had been cruelly stolen I went through my list of suspects; my parents - no they had been the ones that alerted me to the movie and dad was still driving his seen-better-days Cortina; the three teachers who had read (and spell-checked) my masterpiece, and the aforementioned Shelagh who might still be holding a grudge. 

Luckily before court proceedings started I discovered that the movie was based on a book that had been published in 1967. Two years before I came up with the idea. This all occurred while I was living in Cyprus, which might explain why none of my beta-testers had read Logan's Run. It took years for anything to filter through; the more news-worthy or fashionable it was the longer it took. 

If someone else puts out an idea similar to yours try and console yourself with the phrase 'Great minds think alike'. No? It didn't work for me either. But it has happened throughout history; just one hour before Alexander Graham Bell registered his patent for the telephone in 1876, Elisha Gray patented his design. After years of litigation, the patent went to Bell. In 1669, the principles of differential calculus were determined by Sir Isaac Newton in England and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in Germany at about the same time. In 1992 Susie Blenkinsop wore the exact same Laura Ashley midi-skirt and identical Romanesque sandals as I was wearing, to the improv night in the upstairs bar at the Dovecot Theatre in Stockton. So believe me when I say I know your pain.   

Yes, I could be bitter and think about the three wasted writing-years but I prefer to think of it as earning my writing chops. (What does that even mean?) Anyway, the novel I'm working on now is about a girl on a train - I just know it's a winner! 

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Denise Howie World Famous in B.C.

My Poetry: Point Sublime

Point Sublime

We placed her on a rock wall

Half a mile above the canyon floor

It makes a good picture:

The mile wide chasm hides

the grassy outcrop two-feet below.

The photo hangs in our hallway

You can just make out my fingertips

intruding into the frame. Ready.

She smiles from her perch,

and behind, lays the map of her life.

We didn’t see it then, at that Point.

If we had known, we would have hired

small horses, followed the path down

searched the generations of strata

mapped-out the peaks and troughs. Trekked

beyond the tourist trail.

We had thought it would just be a wide trench

deep enough to take our breath away,

a talking point with friends and wine. Straightforward.

Instead we looked down on mountains, walls

within walls. Saw the lightening scars.

The glorious shadow of a wheeling

eagle made the backs of our neck prickle.


(Written circa 2000)

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Denise Howie World Famous in B.C. 

My poetry: 1960's

1960’s

My paper dolls. My fish and chips

My Tiny Tears. My pick-up sticks

My invisible horse. My invisible friend

My den. My castle. Days without end.

Snakes and ladders. Etch-a-sketch

Sindy. Trolls. Dogs playing fetch.

My hula hoop. My magic wand

My tiddley-winks.  A stinky pond.

The Secret Seven. The Famous Five

Swallows and Amazons. The Call of the Wild.

My roller skates. My spinning top

Hopscotch. Elastics. Parachute drop

Pink school milk. Climbing trees

My fishing net. Scabs on knees

Whist. Gin Rummy. Memory games

Rosehips. Brambles. Country lanes.

Read here for my workshop on writing a similar poem.
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Denise Howie World Famous in B.C. 

My Poetry: The Cull

The Blackfoot brave chose not to take part

in the driving of the buffalo. He was young

and by definition, foolish.

Instead, when his people, the Plains people

drove the buffalo over the sandstone cliff

he chose to stand below the overhang

and watch the bodies fall. Feel the thrill

of a black bellowing waterfall.

When his people came to do the butchering

they cleared the last carcass and found

the brave, with his skull crushed in.

A hell-of-a-way to get a town named after you.

(Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump – Alberta, Canada.)

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Denise Howie World Famous in B.C. 

My Poetry: To an Egyptian Working Man

To An Egyptian Working Man

We met in Toronto.  I’m the woman

who couldn’t keep her eyes off you, stood

stock still as the crowd peeled past.

Embarrassed, I took your photograph.

My husband wandered off, used to my ways.

He’s been really good about it all.

I talk about you often, have your photo

propped on the mantel clock.

He gives me a look now and then, but doesn’t comment.

Probably feels safe, with you being

on another continent.

But something did happen…

You looked so vulnerable, vacant,

slack-mouthed and dreaming.

Dreaming of eyes? Of painted hands, of perfumes that teased

the weaver, in the workshop of the temple of the King?

They’ve placed a square of lint across your groin.

I saw the x ray, fluorescent with hunger, infection.

Learned of parasites that stole your strength.

Were you handsome once?

Did the palace women ever notice the weaver?

Or were you, even then, a guess at a man.

Spent twigs, bound with dirty cracked leather?

One floor up, your starched, ironed shroud

stands outstretched.  A mottle-brown moth.

They’ve placed three saucers by your side:

Heart of Nakht, Liver of Nakht – each a child’s fist of hollow wood –

torn from the tree where you crouched to chew bread.

Brain of Nakht – two dapple black stones – plucked from the beach,

beneath the cliffs that you sucked you dry.

Your dignity label was missing,

The one marked: Private.

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Denise Howie World Famous in B.C. 

My Poetry: Carved by Gravity

Hey Bri,

you know

that fractured piece

of de Chelly sandstone

we saw, the one

that rises

eight hundred

and eight feet

above the surrounding

landscape of

Monument Valley?

Well it's called

The Totem Pole.

Still looks like a willy to me.

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Denise Howie World Famous in B.C. 

My Poetry: South Gare

South Gare  

She looked at the man

Summed him up:

On his own,

Sunday afternoon,

Three kids...

He smiled, she smiled

Called her children from the water's edge

So he would know -

From the beginning.

His girls hauled him up.

She studied them,

Younger than her own,

She could grow to love them.

He looked again, smiled again.

They would say she was mad

Taking on his kids -

So soon.

She kept her bare left hand in view.

Could he see the thin white line

That stood between then and now?

She hugged her children,

He smiled,

Gathered-up her future in a blue-cotton

Beach towel. And left.

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Denise Howie

Own a piece of Hollywood!

I came across an exciting find while exploring the Portland Saturday Market recently: bags and accessories made from prints of 35 mm Hollywood films! The distributors are obliged to destroy the film after the movie has finished its run so Julie Lewis, founder of Deja Bags had the amazingly simple idea of asking for the films, which she cuts into strips (and thereby abides by copyright laws) and converts into unique and practical collector’s items. Lewis uses films made in the late 1980’s and onwards as they are polyester, which is more durable than the earlier acetate or celluloid film. The bags and accessories are sewn together by a women’s fair-wage cooperative in the Philippines. 


Each piece is a mix of different Hollywood movies, though some of the handbags are made exclusively from one popular feature film,such as Twilight or Slumdog Millionaire. Accessories include large tote bags, purses, clutches, belts, ties and lampshades.



Not being into accessories I chose a lampshade; the perfect way to view the film frames on a daily basis! There are 24 film frames per second in a standard feature film, so not every strip has a recognisable shot from a movie so I studied a few before choosing one that seems to be made entirely from the Nicolas Cage movie Ghost Rider – though frankly just owning any authentic Hollywood film reel is pretty thrilling, whether you can recognize a scene or not!



I don't have a lamp yet - a trip to Ikea is required, but I think you get can get the idea...    
    


The Black Hawk helicopters land in the football stadium to the dramatic music of The Ride of the Valkyries.

So - for family and friends who are reading this - my favourite Hollywood movies from the late 80's onwards are are Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Dead Poet's Society, Beetlejuice, Steel Magnolias, the Back to the Future movies, Rainman....oh dear - there are so many!  But there's only a limited supply - Julie estimates that there are  just two or three year's worth of stock left. One day soon there will only be digital movies - and unique collectibles commemorating the final years of  35mm film. 


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Denise Howie World Famous in B.C.

My Poetry: New York Directions

Illustration: Victor Kerlow

New York Directions  (1996)

Follow the twin shadow to its extremity. Slap

your feet over the sidewalk - hard. Dodge

yellow cabs, electric people, the tramp brushing the street

with the end of his scarf. Politely, steer through smiling sightseers

and buy a can and a dog - hot, from a stand with the man with an accent

from all the American movies you've ever seen. Make

like a bee for the green line of railing and hedge. Step

through the open gate. Step into the dormant chamber

buried in the chest of this city. Sit on a slatted seat in the shade

of unfamiliar trees, feel the tremble of traffic against your back.

Acknowledge the hum, the drum of the streets, beneath

the cocksure call of a Downtown pigeon.

Smile at: Sitting on the Gravestones is not permitted.

Trace mossed etching with your finger

           

                        Ce Tombeau  

        Qu'a fait eriger Mmm. Catherine Gentil

                         A In Memoire

Toss crumbs for the sparrows building nests

in the cracks of the tombs. Sigh. Step back

through the gate.

                       Then, my friend

it is up to you.

Denise Howie: World Famous in B.C. 
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The Secret World of Books

Little Eaton, Debyshire, England. 2011

When living in Auckland, New Zealand in the late 90’s I was surprised and delighted to find a copy of The Number 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency on a bench with a note attached telling me to read it and leave it somewhere for the next person to discover. I chose a shaded wall by a beach and left it with a card saying how much I’d enjoyed the book – and to pass it on by leaving it in a public place. I felt as though I was in mystery myself; who might have left the book and what type of person would find it? Would they run with the baton or read it and ditch it?

 Now I was on the look-out, eyes constantly scouring benches, walls and hidden nooks for more literary treasure. And what -do-you-know, there it was, that quintessential kiwi guide – The Edmonds Cookery Book, nestled in the crook of an iconic Pohutukawa tree.  Five-months of searching vindicated!  This time the book had a sticker with the name of a website where I could log my find, leave a comment and follow the book’s journey from beginning to end.

 Now there are a number of similar ventures including  BookCrossing.com which has over two million members who have ‘released’ almost ten million books into the wild in 132 countries.  In 2004 The Concise Oxford Dictionary added the noun ‘bookcrossing.’

 Villages, towns and cities around the world have embraced the idea. In 2009 the UK’s Daily Mail ran an article on a telephone-box book exchange, which was set up by a village in Somerset, England when their mobile library service was closed down. Today around 400 old telephone boxes have been purchased by parish councils, some of which have been converted into book exchanges.

Amsterdam’s Pivot Creative came up with the idea of turning ten park benches into mini-libraries by creating a red clip to secure books and magazines to them. Pivot co-founders Paula Colchero and Jose Subero hoped that the initiative would “bring people back to the simple pleasure of reading a book, sharing with others, and enjoying common spaces.”  Check it out here.

The idea isn’t new, commuters and travelers have always left newspapers and magazines on a seat or table for the next person rather than pop them in the trash can. But I do like to think of the treasure-trove of books waiting in trees and railway stations, on café tables, benches and walls, and the shadowy figures involved in the hidden-in-plain sight dead letter drops.

Let me know your book adventures!

Denise Howie: World Famous in B.C. 
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Never be at a loss for article ideas

(REPUBLISHED)

Searching for ideas for articles?  Stumped?  What if I told you that by the end of this 500 word piece you will have the ability to find a hundred or more ideas in less than an hour?

Do it now. Pick up the nearest newspaper or magazine – jot down the first heading or sentence that catches your eye. For example –  from the  front page of The Vancouver Sun (Nov 30th 2013).


“VANCOUVER -- In the first project of its kind in Canada, 12 recycled shipping containers will become social housing for women in the Downtown Eastside by next spring.”

You could write your own article on the same subject. You could also dissect the headline. Brainstorm the first word – “Vancouver” with possible articles in mind. Are there any special dates or anniversaries coming up in this coastal B.C city?  What about “the big one” any information out there regarding Vancouver’s earthquake plan? Did any interesting facts come up in the 2011 census?  Why is Dead Man’s Island so named?  Why is the Vancouver obesity rate almost half that of the rest of Canada? ‘Vancouver’ itself could take up a few pages of ideas but let’s move on.

 “…In the first project of its kind in Canada…”  Does Canada have any other firsts? I took a moment to look this up and discovered that Canada was the first country to be created through legislation. The world's first wireless message was received by G. Marconi in 1910 in St. John's, Newfoundland, and – I love this one - Canada has the world's first fully-simulated Mars base.

 “…Recycled shipping containers…”   Did ancient cultures recycle? What are the oddest things to be recycled?  What else have shipping containers been used for? Well, for starters - the world’s biggest organized market, located in the Ukraine, which is made up of alleys formed by stacked containers, and covers 170 acres. Interesting…  

 “…Social housing for women…” Why target women for social housing? Because statistics show that one in five Canadian Women live in poverty: 21% single mothers, 36% Aboriginal women, 35% visible minority women, 26% women with visible disabilities and 14% single, senior women – according to the Canadian Women’s Foundation.

 “ …Downtown Eastside…” Write about this area being Vancouver’s first settlement, or of the rise and fall of these historic neighbourhoods. What about the success stories and the hopes for the future.

 “…Spring.”  Do I really need to elaborate?  Put a spring in your step with these 5 healthy tips, 10 ways to spruce up your house this spring, spring clean and put cash in your pocket, spring clean your document folders/social media/friends list. How to cope with allergies this spring, where to holiday this spring, home maintenance tips for spring…

 At least 25 off-the-cuff ideas stemming from just one headline on the front page; finish the newspaper and you could have a life-time of diverse article topics!

Denise Howie: World Famous in B.C. 
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