Jane's Writing Shed.

Here's a whimsical story for the year's end. It explains why methane gas has been found on Mars recently and the origins of a popular nursery rhyme.... Sparkle Derek was okay for a robot.  Shortly after I flopped out of a tube in the big pod on Mars,  he gave me a tag name, Sparkle.   He didn't know that my mother had already named me Farming  Today  after her favourite radio programme.  She'd lived somewhere called Earth and used to tell me about  things  called meadows.   I don’t know what happened to her after that. Derek and I used to have late night conversations.  He said I was a good listener. One night after he had shambled back to his sleeping pod,  I had a dream which mixed up all my mother’s stories  and Derek’s  odd tales.  The next morning I came to a decision  as the milking robots  sucked at our udders.  When Derek appeared to re-fill  the food hoppers,...

Meeting wild There was an instantaneous moment of recognition when the sparrow, disturbed from pecking insectivores, panicked and flew through the gap in the hedge, over the gate and straight into the crook of my arm and back out again. And as I felt the impact of nothing, weightless feather and bone, reversing on a handbrake turn, I saw what the bird saw, something to be feared, in the memory of every bird, since humans first set traps,  sharpened tools,  lit fires. Rescue from the Blue Crevasse She wondered how ice could smell like this, as she hung inside the glacier, harnessed to the end of a rope, trussed up like a spider's prey, waiting in silence for the yank on the line, curious that everything beyond the chance opening above her head felt so remote. Then through the frozen layers, muffled voices came to her and suddenly the winch jerked her upwards inch by inch. She wondered later why she'd volunteered to be lowered down, for at any mom...

I was one of 13 poets reading at the Scott's Treasures - Contemporary Poetry Showcase held at Sir Walter Scott's home at Abbotsford House on November 18. This was a very enjoyable evening event organised by Scottish Borders Council, Creative Arts Business Network and celebrated a number of objects from the collection that Scott gathered during his lifetime. Poems written specially for this event will be published in the Winter edition of The Eildon Tree freely available through libraries and other outlets in the Scottish Borders. I also went along to The Scottish Poetry Pamphlet Fair held at The National Library of Scotland on George IV Bridge, Edinburgh on Dec 10. This is always such a good pre-Christmas event and this time I left with a great haul of poetry pamphlets...  Late Quartets by David Betteridge - published by Rhizome Press Treasure in the History of Things by Katherine McMahon - published by Stewed Rhubarb plus free gift of farmform concrete poetry card...

I'm often drawn to write about space related themes, so when I read that the closest neighbours to the Antarctic research base are the astronauts on board the ISS, that was enough to get me started. This poem was inspired by text and images by Dr Alexander Kumar published in the Guardian 2 July 2014. Minus eighty degrees If humans migrate into the sea of stars, this is how it might be one day. The Eastern Antarctic Plateau is white as Mars, the world's highest, driest desert. Wintering in the research base, Concordia, there's no way back for nine months, nothing for a thousand kilometers, nothing closer than the International Space Station. As much in common with space than earth, at night no-one locks doors and the only visitors consist of hallucinogenic day-glow flashes from the Aurora Australis, the Southern Lights. Above all cold. Cold that steals your breath. Unendurable, almost.

Probably the best ten quid I've spent all year. I bought my copy of A Bird is Not a Stone in the book tent at the Edinburgh International Book Festival not really knowing what to expect. Using 'bridge' or literal translations of poems by 25 Palestinian artists, 29 Scottish poets have written new versions of these poems with the originals printed alongside. The book aims to be 'a cultural exchange, giving readers an insight into the political, social and emotional landscape of today's Palestine..', which may sound a bit academic but the poems themselves are often beautiful evocations of loss, occupation, love, children, death. Political, particular and universal. To illustrate how the poetry in this book works on several levels, here's the shortest poem, written by Liz Lochhead. 'Poverty' by Tareq Al-Karmy Bridge translation by Sandra Ernst All the Viagra in the world won't make the economy stand up. This is a wonderful book that d...

I'm picky about the poems that I really like and one of my criteria is that a poem should have a sublime quality. The dictionary definition states that sublime means 'very high quality' which doesn't begin to describe what I mean by the word. After all one person's 'high quality' is another person's gobblydegook. My definition would include transcendence, taking me somewhere beyond words, provoking images or memories which are unexpected. Some of Elizabeth Bishop's and Michael Longley's poems have that sublime quality which take my breath away. Jorie Graham's poem Sundown also knocks my socks off. Here's an excerpt, Sometimes the day                                             light winces                                                     ...