I haven’t forgotten my blog readers. My plans are rather awry at the moment though, so this post is a divergence from what I planned in a wintry France, to blog about in January. Since I arrived in Lusaka about 2 weeks ago, I have been reading and reading and reading. It has been an immense pleasure. Reading is not the orgiastic pleasure of eating sweet fresh mangoes straight off the tree which, I confess, were plucked and peeled for me – its more like bathing, like submerging in new and wonderful worlds -like those flying dreams of childhood or not needing to breathe underwater.
My traveling library, desk, study, workplace
My laptop, phone, kindle, and water bottle – all I need
I suppose that’s another magical experience provided by the digital age. I have a library inside my Kindle, bookcases of files on my laptop, walls of pictures – I’ve arrived on a flying carpet. When I open my laptop – it is a Tardis providing me with everything I need to think, read and to write. I’m reminded again that Zambians are so integrated into the digital universe – the hyperspeed at which Zambia has become part of the future is breathtaking though that isn’t to deny the problems of poverty that are everywhere.
Ruth Hartley’s kinetic painting of a river that will always appear to look different as rivers do in light and shade.
That’s what we believe. The world of nature is ours and we can do what we like with it. The River belongs to us. We can use it – we can waste it – we can worship it. Not one of these ways of looking at the River tells us what it means to be the River itself. We think we know of and all about the River. But not one of these methods of evaluation and study tells us the story that is the River’s own story.
Telling our stories of the River
The Great River Zambezi became the focus for a million different stories in a social media post about the Victoria Falls this month. Known by the African peoples as the Mosi-O-Tunya – the Smoke that Thunders – it was renamed by Dr David Livingstone in honour of Queen Victoria. That was Livingstone’s way of giving the River to the British Empress of India. By saying that angels in their flight must have stopped to marvel at the magnificence of the Falls, he gave the River to Christianity and missionaries. Colonial governments ignored what the River meant to Africans who thought of the River as the great Snake God – the powerful Nyami-Nyami who brought life to the people who lived by the River. Livingstone hoped, however, that his story of the River would help bring about the end of the Slave Trade even if it brought colonialism to that part of Africa.
Different stories of the River. Different visions of the River
Thomas Baines The Victoria Falls.
Did Livingstone only see the material fact of water plunging into a vast rocky chasm? Did he see angels above it? How does the transformation of the River into spray and mist and sound, make us understand the power and the spirit of the River? What stories are science? Which stories are fantastic? What stories are spiritual?
On Saturday the 30th of November, I will be taking part in the Lourdes Salon du Livre. It looks very interesting and they will be discussing self-publishing by independent authors like me! Do come and, if you can’t get to the book fair, please do read this post. I’ve cribbed an author interview from The New Statesman. I enjoy reading them and thought it was fun to pretend I’m the one being interviewed.
Here it is!
Ruth Hartley Author Interview
What’s your earliest memory?
A clipped green hedge and the terrible pain of abandonment. When my younger sister was born, I was left inside it. There may also have been a person and a house but all I remember is the hedge and misery. I was 2 years old. I was given a crayon and left to draw because my mother was busy with the new baby – that made me feel powerful. A pram in the garden and a white nanny all taller than me – that made me feel insignificant and cross.
Also, my mother, grandmother, daughters are all amazing. The world is full of heroes – ordinary amazing people. All my heroes have a sense of humour and are kind and idealist.
Rica Hodgson at my wedding in 1969
Which books last changed your thinking?
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco – an intellectual murder mystery with no outcomes – a journey through layers of meaning and learning, faith and faithlessness, literature and destroyed libraries to find understanding through misunderstanding and errors.
The Old Bridge on the Vienne River in Confolens where the ARThe Cafe is situated
The ARThe Cafe, Confolens
I had such a good weekend at the Charroux Memoir and Poetry Prize event. I met writers, poets, readers and lovers of books as well as the excellent team that organised the event. So thanks to Kate Rose, Jocelyn, and Gordon Simms and the awesome Freshly Press threesome, Maria Barry, Tracy Stewart, and Emma Gray as well as to John for driving me there – its a long way from home. It all took place in the small town of Confolens in the Charente and the venue was the ARThe Tea Room and Art Cafe on the banks of the Vienne River. The food was good and the company interesting. We exchanged books and stories, bought and sold books and talked and talked.
The Freshly Press Team, Tracy, Emma, and Maria, wrestling with problems on behalf of writers who need help marketing.
Why did I go?
My stand during the event.
The reasons are complicated and many-layered. I want readers for my books and that requires validation of my books and of me as a writer. How do I manage to get that? Hard work writing. Hard work marketing. Learning as you go. And that magic ingredient – luck. Many writers enter competitions or submit work to magazines. That takes time and then there’s usually only one winner and if you aren’t even on a shortlist that is discouraging. I have, however, just published my own memoir, When I Was Bad, so the idea of writing a short memoir was both fun and a challenge. I wrote two because I became so involved with the history of my own family. The idea of a memoir poem also attracted me – I entered that competition too. To my surprise my poem was long-listed but I won no prizes but the competition was serious and the winners were all very good. Congratulations to them all. Clara Villaneuva who I’ve mentioned in previous blogs was short-listed for the memoir prize. It is interesting to read the feedback from the judges on the Charroux Lit Fest Facebook page. Feedback from Gordon Simms. and from Susie Kelly
Writers support writers
Participants, prizewinners and the Festibook team
Gordon Simms, Jocelyn Simms, Kate Rose, and Barbara Sage
I know I benefited enormously from the workshops by the Freshly Press team – and I must put into practice their excellent advice – thanks Freshly Press! I also felt that I had gained a connection with other writers and was part of a community and that really matters because writing is such a lonely way to work. When it comes down to what matters for writers it is the generosity and support that is provided by other writers and in these events that really counts. Thank you, everyone, who was there.
I entered the Charroux prize for a short memoir and had enormous fun writing two short memoirs and a poem for this competition. The prize, however, went to Moira Ashley for her delightful story Encounter. The third prize to Debi Lewis for Soundtrack of the First Marriage . I was surprised and pleased to be long-listed for the poetry section. The final poetry prize went to Matt Brydon for his beautiful Crossing the Owl’s Bridge. The second prize went to Gail Anderson for her thoughtful Kintsukuroi The art of golden repair.
Ruth Hartley at her book launch at La Litote
I still think my short memoirs are unique and pretty good. They are A Use for Martyrs and Crimes and Secrets. I plan to improve them and publish when I can afford it. For this, I need an editor. For this work, the editor needs to be paid. To pay the editor and get my next books out I need to sell the books I have already written
I was flattered and thrilled to have a write-up by Kate Rose, about my poetry book The Spiral Bound Notebooks in Bonjour Limousin. One way and another this has led me and John to go to the event celebrating the competition and I’m looking forward to meeting the prizewinners and the organisers as well as the interesting Freshly Press Team too. They help writers on their journey and I need help!
Kate Rose
A writer and poet, I am the founder of the Charroux Literary festival and the Charroux Writing Prize. I host writers retreats and events at my home in the Creuse in south-west France. Contact: @katerosewriting katerosewriting@gmail.com
Kate Rose
Thank you, Kate, for agreeing to let me republish it here:-
This month I had the pleasure of interviewing Ruth Hartley. She is a novelist, poet, and artist. She has recently published her first collection of poems, The Spiral Bound Notebooks, based on poems written between 1961 and 1995. I spoke to Ruth about the formation of her poems during the ’60s.
She was born in Zimbabwe and educated in South Africa. She later she spent time in London and Cambridge, before moving to her current home in the Haute Pyrenees in south-west France.
As a student in the 1960’s Ruth was looking forward to living in a multi-racial world. It seemed that Rhodesia would go that way, but after Ian Smith took power, things changed and it headed into apartheid and a police state. At University in Cape Town Ruth and her friends were horrified at this development, not least, the rapid changes that they saw. They were liberals, communists, peace campaigners with ideals of a better more equal and peaceful Africa, and like many students of the time, found hope in the protest songs of the likes of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. She says that even as a child she sensed there would be a war of liberation one day, reflected in her poem, Africa
I have seen the rocks hard
Against the soft sky before
Sudden night descended and
Filled the hollows with
The sound of insect wings.
Acquiescent in the luminous air,
The rocks were waiting.
Hard as the rocks,
Against my heart lay fear.
During this time, she began an affair with a black man, which was a
crime under the apartheid regime, so when she discovered she was
pregnant, she fled to London to raise her child.
In her love poem HeartBird, she tells of an encounter with a lover, and used images of flowers, birds and rivers, and yet in the background is the constant darkness of the night, the fear that something will separate them, there is a sombre undertone that theirs is a fleeting moment in time.
The bird of my heart sang When you came by, though You only smiled at me as before.
I thought of a thousand things to say. How I would gather garlands of stars For you from gardens of the sky And twist the night winds Into wings of darkness To carry you home to me.
Many of the poems in her collection recall this time of unrest and confusion in South Africa. Through them Ruth captures the feel of the country, the poverty, the damage, the loss of freedom, she mixes her fear and anger at the time with images of the Africa she had grown to love. There were times when she feared for her life due to her close connection with the anti-Apartheid movement. In the first verse of her poem District Six at Midnight, she captures that fear, the emptiness of the town, the silence of anger, looking behind you for fear of being followed, checking who might be spying on you, the feeling always that she was being watched.
Under a hollow grey sky, Down streets wind-emptied Scoured and abandoned By a brief sadistic rain, I hurry. Alone.
Her concluding and most recent poem in the collection speaks of her deep-felt respect for Nelson Mandela, a man she greatly admired. In the poem Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela Madiba, she speaks of Mandela as her hero, and yet it shows how many, including her, felt he had abandoned the cause once he was imprisoned on Robben Island. She was angry with him, but the conclusion of the poem brings a light for the future, which shows us that it was the people who forgot him, not the other way around. His world vision lives on in hearts and memories.
We forgot him. We forgot all about him. We lived on only in his memory. We were dead to hope and to our ideal of freedom Then Mandela walked out and back with his Hand raised. He stood up He came out of the box Mandela Human Hero Ours
2019 has been a busy year for Ruth. In addition to her poems, she has also published a novel, The Love and Wisdom Crimes as well as a memoir, When I was Bad. She tells me she is currently working on a children’s story and is hoping to produce another poetry collection.
