Hell’s bells and buckets of bloody blood! My mother used to say and after Australia she said it every day
It used to be just Hell’s bells and buckets of blood but bloody was a word oft heard in the land of Oz you see
Hell’s bells—an apt description for news now from everywhere it would have given her conniptions were she still here
Hell, I’d even use the cuss she bequeathed me except I don’t accept religious geography and know that Hell is here on Earth and not some seven circled place beneath
Hell’s bells – the cuss abbreviated hardly reflects the place we’ve come to climate change, genocidal wars from decency and democracy we’ve deviated
Hell’s bells and buckets of blood for greater impact our world is in the toilet and that’s a fact
So still I hear my mother’s voice raised in exasperation uttering her curse of choice Hell’s bells and buckets of bloody blood!
The dual theme of my A to Z Challenge this year is the world of Commodities and Poetry Forms so the juxtaposition of these two themes may throw up some strange poems – could be a Heroic Ode to Heating Oil or will it merit a Haiku or a Haibun – whichever, I will be endeavouring to bring you interesting facts about commodities that may change the way you think about the stuff we variously depend on…
By commodity I mean certain items that are of both sufficient value/volume to be traded in special markets and are generally volatile enough to attract traders in “Futures” which are a way of hedging bets in the trading world of stocks, shares and commodities.The A to Z Challenge runs throughout April and will consist of 26 posts – there are only a couple of letters for which I couldn’t find commodities but plenty of poetry forms to carry the day! The A to Z Challenge runs throughout April and will consist of 26 posts – there are only a couple of letters for which I couldn’t find commodities but plenty of poetry forms to carry the day!
In 2022, worldwide trade in Zinc Ore was worth $14.1 billion and it was the 297th most traded product.
If you have ever looked at say, steel railings and noticed a blotchiness to the surface, you are looking at crystals of zinc applied by hot dipping the steel (Galvanising) to protect it from rust.
Zinc is an important metal that has been used since ancient times – long before the element was properly isolated and named. It is also vital to life as a trace element but can be toxic in excess. It has many uses – one third goes to galvanising steel and iron and so as a commodity, watching the demand for steel – especially in China, is a key indicator of demand. Other uses include alloying – most notably with copper to form brass, Diecasting metal parts for such things as Automobile parts, zinc oxide is used in many industries, including paint, rubber, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, plastics, inks, soaps, batteries, textiles, and electrical equipment, and Zinc sulfide is an important component in many products, including luminous paints, fluorescent lights, and x-ray screens.
You may have noticed that the trading figures at top refer to Zinc Ore rather than Zinc itself which suggests that the places that mine the ore do not necessarily wish to refine the ore into metal and in any case, as we can see from the use of zinc compounds above, metal is not always the desired form of zinc. It also suggests that the zinc content of the ore is sufficiently concentrated as to make shipping the ore financially viable. The diagrams below show the major exporters and importers of Zinc ore.
You will notice that the largest producer is Australia and the largest company mining Zinc there is Rio Tinto – in fact at one time it was known as RTZ – Rio Tinto Zinc. In recent years, Rio Tinto (you can read their history here) were embroiled in a massive scandal after they blew up an aboriginal shelter in the Juukan Gorge which had evidence of continuous use for 46,000 years – in other words – throughout the last Ice Age! Although this demolition was in order to expand an iron ore mine, it brings into sharp relief the colonial occupation of lands all over the world and the issue of who has ownership of the land and mineral rights – the native populations or the colonial occupiers. As a result of the worldwide condemnation of this act of cultural vandalism, the Western Australian government was able, just this March, to ram through bipartisan legislation further protecting aboriginal lands although as the deadline for the implementation of the act approaches, there is huge debate about the perceived draconian nature of its clauses and what impact that will have on Australia’s economy – choice, choices…
The carpet-bagging, swashbuckling, vicious age of Imperialism and Colonisation may be in the rearview mirror of the past but aboriginal/native peoples around the world are finding a voice in the present and questioning their right to own what was taken from them and where such actions are taking place in what were remote sites out of sight of the world, are now open to live scrutiny and monitoring in the modern age of satellite technology and the whole world is connected by an internet that can mobilise at an instant – so no longer are dark deeds out of sight – out of mind… If laws like those in Australia make it more difficult to exploit the environment without concern for the planet and the local environment of the extraction, then it gives us pause for thought. Of course, some native peoples may be delighted to benefit from resource extraction, but more commonly, those people’s attitude to the environment is one of stewardship and we could learn from their wisdom. We also have to be careful that if a battle for the benefit of the environment is won in one place where vocal stewards succeed in making their voice heard, the environment of some other, less visible part of the world does not suffer instead – we live in a global village and there is no place to shit with impunity – as the effects of global warming are increasingly demonstrating. Unfortunately, it is still the case – as it ever was – that the resources we “need” often come from the Third World and so it is doubly unfair that they are the ones suffering the most from Climate Change. If Zinc could only be found beneath New York, how different do you imagine the extraction process would be?
Because Zinc was not fully recognised or understood in ancient times , even if it was contributing to metallurgy in instances such as Brass – and the many uses of Zinc in the modern world only followed on from 18th century developments in smelting – zinc or its compounds were discarded in earlier mining of other metals such as lead (zinc often occurs with lead and other metals) and the dumps of the past mining operations can leach zinc and cadmium into the environment polluting rivers. A little zinc may be necessary for life but too much is toxic.
Zinc is used as the anode in Zinc-Carbon batteries and its property of attracting oxidisation to itself above othe r metals, means it is used as a sacrificial anode – attach a strip of zinc to an iron rudder and the zinc will gradually erode but not the iron. There is so much to say about Zinc but we are nearing the end of the A-Z Challenge 2024 and both I, and I imagine you, dear reader, are getting saturated with reading and so if you want to know more facts about all aspects of Zinc, then Wikipedia, as ever has an excellent article…
And so to the poem of the day – the form is Zuhitsu and unlike other poetic forms originating in Japan, this is no tightly specified set of rules about syllable count, line length or even appropriate subject matter – meaning “Follow the brush…” – Zuhitu is the very opposite! Although seen as early as 1002 AD, you could be forgiven for mistaking it as very modern because it is eclectic, “composed largely of interwoven writings in prose and poetry on ideas or subjects that typically respond to the author’s surroundings” (American Academy of Poetry). It is not unlike the modern Lyric Essay an example of which is Cluadia Rankine’s ground-breaking American Lyric trilogy, Don’t Let Me Be Lonely (2004), Citizen (2014) and Just Us (2020) – you can read an extraact here. Another modern eponymous example is “Zuhitsu” by Jenny Xie. It seems appropriate that as I draw to a close my theme of Commodities, and as I reflect on the themes of imperialism, exploitation and environmental damage, this is the final poetry form I encounter…
Zinc – a Zuhitsu
I like to trace the outline of zinc crystals in the galvanised surface of metal railings – a secret of chemistry hiding in plain sight for those who know. How dull the world without that knowledge and how multi-layered my view is – like wearing Google glasses and looking upwards to see “Blue sky – an effect of atmospheric diffusion of sunlight” superimposed across the sky. Does it spoil the sky to be so emblazoned? No I turn off my knowledge at will and simply enjoy the change from blue to black and all the sunset colours in between.
We are all the children of chemistry, and physics melded together in biology and we need to know the elements that make us tick even though we hand that research off to specialists – trust them to find the answers and point us down the paths of health – learn what you can, from ancient practices like naturopathy to modern science explained in clearest terms in New Scientist – inhabit yourself through knowledge applied with wisdom.
I am growing old – sixty-nine journeys round the sun and each time my cells regenerate (I am not the man I used to be) they accumulate tiny errors like a multi-generational photocopy which in my case manifest as wrinkles, age spots – blotches of brown on the backs of my hands. A secretary’s cheeky photocopy of a breast unwisely persuaded at an office party, once copied then copied again and again would too, lose its perky perfection…
I drink an effervescent, orange flavoured glass of Vitamin C with Zinc each morning in case a deficiency of zinc might hasten my end by means of multi -faceted effects on my body and I know I should read the science and see whether it is necessary or whether I have just been seduced by the marketing but I haven’t yet – after all, I’m only human…
The dual theme of my A to Z Challenge this year is the world of Commodities and Poetry Forms so the juxtaposition of these two themes may throw up some strange poems – could be a Heroic Ode to Heating Oil or will it merit a Haiku or a Haibun – whichever, I will be endeavouring to bring you interesting facts about commodities that may change the way you think about the stuff we variously depend on…
By commodity I mean certain items that are of both sufficient value/volume to be traded in special markets and are generally volatile enough to attract traders in “Futures” which are a way of hedging bets in the trading world of stocks, shares and commodities.
The A to Z Challenge runs throughout April and will consist of 26 posts – there are only a couple of letters for which I couldn’t find commodities but plenty of poetry forms to carry the day!
Worldwide Trade – 893 billion U.S. dollars in 2021
Life begins with ‘mother’s milk’ – if you are lucky – if you lost your mother in childbirth or your mother is unable breast feed or is driven by outdated mores not to breastfeed – then you will likely depend on ‘formula’ milk which has been sourced from other animals – most frequently cows. If your country does not produce sufficient milk for the production of dried milk, then your formula will contain milk-powder that has been imported from some other part of the world. Powdered because it is easier and cheaper to transport than the fresh liquid. Some parts of the world are unfamiliar with fresh milk and all their milk has been processed into UHT (Utra High Temperature treatment), or else they re-constitute milk from dried powder but both this and UHT milk are not the same in terms of quality – powdered milk often lacking the fat element of fresh and UHT having an aftertaste…
If you think of milk only of a dewy glass of fresh milk straight from the fridge (and already you have made a choice between Full-fat, Semi-skimmed and Skimmed), then you are forgetting all the ‘Preserved Milk’ products – for that is what all the various yoghurts, butters and cheeses in the world are – forms of preserved milk. Preservation means treating something so that it will last longer without spoiling. For example, in rural Ireland in the 18th-19th centuries, a reasonably prosperous family might keep a milk-cow as well as grow potatoes, and in the Summer, they would churn the higher yield of milk into butter. The byproduct – buttermilk, was dunk fresh or allowed to ferment slightly and consumed with last seasons potatoes. The butter was wrapped in the leaves of the Butterbur plant which are suitably large, and then buried in the peat bog where the anaerobic and acid conditions perfectly preserved the butter. Come Winter and the family consumed new season potatoes with butter dug up from the bog. This was a surprisingly heathy diet since potatoes are very rich in vitamin C whilst milk products have a good balance of protein , fat and carbohydrate and are a very important source of essential nutrients, including calcium, riboflavin, phosphorous, vitamins A and B12, potassium, magnesium, zinc, and iodine. So the preservation of milk, by freeze drying it to a powder or turning it into a secondary product like yoghurt or cheese is a huge part of the journey of milk on the international market.
I work in a Gelato (Ice Cream) factory and as we soon upscale to much bigger capacity equipment – we face the choice of whether to stick with fresh whole-milk (meaning a tanker sized refrigerated tank on the outside of the factory) or go with powdered milk (a vast reserve of palleted powder, reconstituted with water and probably coconut oil added). Our Italian gelato consultant tells us that in taste tests, most no-one can tell the difference but that people (the ones who read the ingredients) like to see Whole Milk (in bold because it is a notifiable allergen!) Previously I had a small frozen yoghurt shop and I made my own mix of plain yoghurt, milk and sugar and I also sold Boba Tea. Boba Tea was not big in Britain back then and so it survived the 2008 Chinese dried milk scandal and is now slowly gaining traction. The real scandal was that some 54,000 babies got sick and four died due to formula made with Chinese dried milk powder contaminated with Melamine (read the full story here) but the damage to the reputation of Chinese agricultural products was enormous and the Boba Tea mixes which were largely powdered milk in particular, causing the collapse of Boba Tea shops across much of Europe though not in the UK where Boba Tea was in its infancy. This is not the sort of thing tat is supposed to happen in the world of soft commodities – as I write, it has just been announced that following the latest safety scandal regarding Boeing aircraft, in which a door plug came off one whilst in flight, the senior management have been axed because they suppressed any whistleblowing over safety concerns by workers and middle management. When the episode occurred, Boeing shares took a nosedive and the change of management will not immediately restore the value of those shares. These things happen in the world of stocks and shares and the nearest equivalent in soft commodities is a bad harvest which as we saw with Frost Futures, can even be hedged against – but a crisis of confidence due to criminality at worst, negligence at best as happened with Chinese milk – is not supposed to happen – commodities are supposed to be what those in the heady world of high finance buy to ameliorate the vicissitudes of their portfolios…
Who are the exporters of Milk and who are the great importers?
And here are the places that produce milk…
And lastly – here are the top milk processing companies in the world – see if you can spot one you know…
And so to today’s poetry form and the poetry form I have chosen is Martian Poetry. The Martian Poets were a small group of poets who were reacting against the somewhat dour and sometimes pessimistic poetry of the post-war group known as The Movement which included Philip Larkin, Kingsley Amis, Donald Davie, D. J. Enright, John Wain, Elizabeth Jennings, Thom Gunn and Robert Conquest. The Martian Poets were named for a poem by Craig Raine (whom I met once) called A Martian Writes a Postcard Home. Other Martian Poets included Christopher Reid, Oliver Reynolds and John Hall Wheelock and the nature of the poetry “drew inspiration from surrealism, metaphysical poetry of John Donne, Andrew Marvell, etc., nonsense poetry of Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear, and Anglo-Saxon riddles.” My poem below is a homage to Craig Raine’s original Martian poem…
Martian Report 11011/101 Milk
Where does milk come from? I asked my host’s sprout No.2 Zoe identifying as she/her 100¹ solar rotations Tesco! She replied No silly! Cows! Mark – sprout No.1 identifying as he/him 110² solar rotations supplementary identity brother Dad! What’s a cow? Asked Zoe We will take our Martian friend to a farm this weekend and you shall see cows! Host and pod senior 11100³ solar rotations identifying as he/him supplemental identity – Father
Cows – it turns out are breast-feeders on four legs unlike the host identifying as she/her supplementary identity – Mother who walks on two legs – cows are enslaved and farms are prisons enclosures of grass which is a brush for brushing up sunlight and converting the energy so cows can make milk and – as it turns out – meat
Zoe imbibes a lot of milk she made that weird expression I cannot fathom the meaning of when the cow breast was pointed out It’s dirty! She said she ran off to look at some cow progeny that were being loaded into a transporter – diesel class/lorry Why haven’t they got breasts Zoe asked the prison superintendent They identify as he/him she was told and we don’t need them so we are selling them… Why make the cows have them then? asked Mark If the cows don’t have babies they won’t make milk for you to drink! What happens to those boys? Asked Mark They will be fattened up and go to market said the superintendent Go to market for what? asked Mark Why to be eaten! Zoe made a high-pitched noise and ran away shouting I’m never going to drink milk again or eat meat! Now look what you’ve done! Said Mother…
During the month of April this year, whilst participating in the A to Z Challenge, I was privileged to encounter the work of Misky whose blog It’s Still Life, showcases two distinct things, poetry written by Misky and illustrated using Generative Artwork created by Misky using the Midjourney AI app. So amazing were these images to someone who is in part, a visual artist, that it inspired me to make an exploration of Generative AI for myself. At the same time, AI has been hitting the headlines big time and mainly for its use in text generation and the impact it might have on jobs and since writing is another thing that I do in my day job, I was also intrigued to see whether AI might be of any use in a company such as I work for. (I am the gradually retiring General Manager of a food manufacturing company). It has been a fascinating voyage of discovery and to cap it all, lying awake at 4 o’clock this morning, I found myself listening to “The Conversation” on the BBC World Service and what should be the topic, but AI with special reference to the involvement of women. So – mind on fire, I am going to draw this series together, although I freely acknowledge I have but dipped my toe in the waters of AI and I may return to the topic in the future…
To recap the three articles I have already written:- In the first one, I tried out ChatGPT to see what it research and write about one of the topics from my A to Z and immediately encountered the phenomena of AI hallucination – the ability, in fact tendency of AI to make things up. I also “showcased” my first attempts at visual collaboration with the Midjourney bot . In the second report, I compared ChatGPT to Writesonic which produces more lengthy articles – testing them against a typical (for me) work assignment. In the third report, I looked at the most controversial assertion about AI – that AI might in the future, eliminate human beings – Terminator-style and referenced articles that thoroughly refute the need to worry about that particular outcome – go re-assure yourselves! However, there are many things about our present and future use of AI that do bear looking at and these were raised in the episode of “The Conversation” that woke me up this morning. The programme, presented by a woman, featured two women working in the field of AI, one a philosopher and one an expert in data analysis and as well as the general concerns that need addressing about AI, they highlighted the general lack of representation of women in the field of AI – only one CEO, qualifying women failing to get jobs in the industry and so on. They did however point out that one of the changes to AI itself in recent times, has been the accessibility of use – no longer do you need to have a degree in computer programming – you could make your first interaction with ChatGPT in the same time it would take you to query something on Google. Which brings me back to Misky…
Misky was not only the inspiration for my (deepish?) dive into AI, but was extremely helpful and encouraging to me at the outset, itself a reflection of how women tend to be more collaborative, good team players – a fact which the contributors to “The Conversation” suggested is a good reason for women to me more involved in AI companies, in reviewing the implications and in forming the regulation which is undoubtedly necessary around AI. A few days ago, I was delighted to meet Misky face-to-face on a Zoom call after many text interactions online and one of the things that she shared in our too-brief call, was that she had had some push-back from certain readers of her blog, about the use of AI images. I would like to talk to her more about these issues, but the participants in “The Conversation” raised the issue of how artists, whose work has been studied by AI to create new images “in the style of”, are being short-changed. You may have been wondering about the image at the top of this post – I created in Midjourney by prompting it to “imagine” Knaresborough railway viaduct “in the style of Hokusai” – a master of Japanese woodblock prints. I have used this subject as my test piece for exploring what Midjourney can do as you will see in the previous post. Now Hokusai is long dead and so the issue of compensation is hardly an issue, but another group of more recent artists might object. I am working on a spoof post – “How to Make a Body” a tale of human reproduction in the style of an Internet recipe ad although, like Misky, the writing is all my own, I wanted an illustration to fit with the tone of the piece and prompted Midjourney to “imagine” a woman in a hospital bed, holding her newborn baby and with her husband leaning in “in the style of a Ladybird book cover”. For those of you who may not be familiar with Ladybird books, they were written for children starting in the 1940’s and running until the 1980’s and they feature a distinct style of illustration.
In recent years, a series of spoof books in the Ladybird style and aimed at those who had grown up with the original series, have been vert successful, for example…
I had no idea whether Midjourney would be able to fulfil my prompt, there are lists of artists’ styles you can use with Midjourney but I hadn’t seen this one – I was not disappointed!
I am keeping my powder dry as to the final image I chose but this first set of four (Midjourney shows off by producing not one, but four attempts in under sixty seconds) – which was done to the prompt of “A new mother in a hospital bed with her husband leaning in as she holds their new baby in the style of a Ladybird Book Cover” has misunderstood my intention and the mother is holding a magazine rather than a baby – though the graphic style is very Ladybird book-like. I acknowledge that I am still only a beginner in my use of prompts with all the forms of AI I have tried so far and there is undoubtedly an “art” to getting it right which is why I said “I created in Midjourney”. Although I am a competent watercolourist, screen-printer and other forms of illustrative art, I could not produce images such as the above and certainly not in sixty seconds. So, how much of this creation is my prompt, how much is the brilliant programming behind Midjourney and how much is owed to the various artists who could produce the illustrations of the Ladybird books? I cannot begin to answer that question but it does raise an issue which needs considering in formulating regulation around the use of AI. Meanwhile, like Misky and I, jump in and have a go and get a feel for yourself of the answer to the god-like feeling of creating with an AI tool…
Much of the debate around the consequences of the rise of AI, is around its impact on jobs and the potential losses and gains. As I described in my first report, the development of computer spreadsheets swept away the lowly positions in Accountancy but opened up many more jobs at the high end of the profession and although this might be the hope for AI, that it liberates us from the menial and allows us to create new roles – roles which might be beyond the capability of AI to imagine, at present, it is not just the menial tasks that are being threatened by bots like ChatGPT, but some roles higher up in various industries. Having said that, given the tendency of AI’s to hallucinate, I wouldn’t trust an AI’s writing without an experienced human checking the output of any writing before sending it out! Also, when you are a creative individual yourself, then trying to get AIs to produce exactly what you have in mind is tricky. In my 2021 A to Z challenge, I was trying to complete a science-fiction novel and the exercise gave me enough momentum to indeed finish it a few months later. Then I set about creating a book cover for it – to feature the final denouement – a tense scene set in a space-elevator on the edge of space. I prepared the background view by Photoshopping some NASA photographs looking the length of the Red Sea towards Palestine, painted in a great river estuary as per my planet, and then superimposed some 3D elements which I drew up in AutoCAD and finally added the title and my name. You can see this below, however, I felt that the result was not quite up to the standard of artwork commissioned by big sci-fi publishers and imagined that in the unlikely event of the novel being published, an improved version of the cover would be substituted for my “sketch”.
Back to today, and naturally, I thought it would be a good test of Midjourney to see whether it could be used to produce a better version of my cover. Well, the first attempts were brilliant style-wise, but nothing like the image I wanted and many attempts followed to no avail…
My prompt read “space lift arriving at 300 miles above Earth like planet over Sahara like region array of cargo containers spread out in one layer small spaceship approaching“Midjourney couldn’t understand Space lift and I had to change lift to elevator, it couldn’t understand “array of cargo containers” but it did have all the sci-fi style I wanted. So then I decided to create a space view background without the lift and substitute it into my own cover illustration. Bingo!
Still I hanker for the crisply detailed images of the elevator that Midjourney is capable of if only I could prompt it correctly – so a work in progress… What this exercise does show, is that it is possible to use AI for the things it can do better in combination with human talent.
In Conclusion…
This exploration of AI has felt like a marathon and it is just one person’s experience and I am really only at the beginning of my exploration, I’m sure I will find both text and image-generative bots to be of use in my future work and play. I urge you all to experiment for yourselves, form your own judgements (and please share your results by linking in the comments), join the debate over the regulation of AI, and explore other artists, in particular, Misky, who began this journey…
Borne up and drawn in by fast becoming friends’ web of writing prompts
Writing is a unique space for me and increasingly so. My dear departed sister encouraged me to go to a writing group in Sligo, Ireland – a place full of writers and artists and all in the shadow of the poet WB Yeats. Indeed, when I first moved there in 1995, one of my early commissions as a signwriter and, it turns out, a muralist, was to paint a mural of WB Yeats on a new secondhand bookshop – The Winding Stair – named for the title poem of one of Yeats’ books of poetry – you can see me painting it here. I had studied Yeatss at school in English (Literature) which replaces the English (Creative) of earlier school years – why do they do that? I also painted a little but didn’t want to go down the road of fine art because I perceived that artists are so often groomed by galleries encouraging them to produce more of what sells rather than following their own creative wanderings. And so I became a signwriter (painted not computer-cut vinyl) where the creative input is much smaller and constrained by a brief but, I felt, more honest and more sure as a means of making a living. Moving to Ireland gave me a new burst of creative freedom as a signwriter – especially after doing the Yeats mural although some years later, The Winding Stair closed down and the subsequent occupiers of the shop painted over my “masterwork” – a lesson in the zen of attachment to earthly achievement…
Going back to the writing group, it was such a pleasure to rediscover the joy of putting words on the blank canvas of the page – I produced a slim volume of the group’s writings including a CD of the members reading their pieces – and then I discovered blogging… By now it was 2005 and my partner and I moved back to England to see more of our growing grandchildren, and as we waited to complete our stable-to-house conversion, there was no time to make friends in the community and so blogging remained my virtual circle of friendship. I belonged to a blog -site called Mo’time run by an American living in Italy, who created Mo’time as a test bed for ideas for the larger site which was his job. Sadly, the larger site was sold and Mo’time terminated and though we made several attempts to kindle a new space – it was never the same – however I still see quite a few Mo’timers on Facebook.
Then in 2020, on April 1st – I stumbled across the A to ZX Challenge and as the pandemic was taking hold, I plunged in! Each year has been differently themed and I have encountered new fellow writers as well as old friends. This year, however, writing was even more central – my theme was on the etymology of phrases and so was like honey to writing bees and I have joined another writing group – not in the flesh, but by Zoom and our facilitator is also an A to Z-er. What has been different though, is that through the new writing friends I have made (and reviewed here on my Roadtrip) I have encountered a world of other blogging challenges, written, photographic and especially poetry. Since my writing group is prompted by poems and much of what I have written has been (Free) Verse, it was like an alignment of the planets – instead of tailing off into silence after the A to Z finished, I am being tempted and indeed succumbing to all sorts of new challenges as well as writing in my group. I created the picture at the top of this post using Midjourney – another takeaway from this year’s A to Z (thanks to Misky and Vidya) to convey the sense of both support and crazy fear of falling out of control and spending my whole time writing challenge posts! So far I have engaged with Six Degrees of Separation, the Poet’s Pub and Sadje’s WDYS (What Do You See) and in the interests of Life/Work/life balance, I think that may be enough for now – things should be a pleasure and not a pressure… And then there are two novels to get back to, one finished to first draft and the other, a more serious work, with a lot of writing to go! And I used to spend a lot of time keeping abreast of the news! And then there’s the allotment – water and weed it or lose it! And then there is my partner, children and grandchildren not to mention two and a half days at work…
Here’s the thing though, within reason, the more you do, the more you fit in because what goes is the dross, the stuff that didn’t really matter, write poetry not protest seems to be where I am right now…
P. S. I have been told that I am not great at communicating, say, enthusiastic responses, that I may even be on the spectrum, but when I write, even though I may not feel the feelings whilst in the act of writing, be it poetry, prose or fiction, when I read back emotional content, I emote with the best of them, tear up – the works. So I guess writing is my medium of expression…
Lady in Read – such a great pun – and it truly reflects Vidya’s approach to her blog – it might be described as Fusion – “Lady in Red” is a western song by Chris de Burgh and it has featured in several films and both Vidya’s avatar and blog banner show her in a red dress but in the content she goes further. For example, in this year’s A to Z (she is a veteran participant), she wrote poems about people and places from India and particularly Karnatka where she grew up. However, Vidya writes prompted by many blogging challenges including NaPoWriMo which was also running in April and rather than do two separate posts, Vidya gives us a mash-up or fusion. so in My Heart Beats for Harihar, her H post, Vidya writes a poem celebrating the town she grew up in as a Sea Shanty – the NaPoWriMo prompt! To have followed Vidya’s A to Z is to take a deep dive into Indian/Karnatka culture but served up with a fusion twist seasoned with a great deal of humour…
Vidya also explored using AI for both images to illustrate some posts and also to generate ideas for post titles and you can read about her assessment of her experiments in her Reflections Post.
“Ronel Janse van Vuuren hails from sunny South Africa” says her About page, and her blog is called “Ronel the Mythmaker” subtitled Dark Fantasy Author which has intrigued me ever since I came across her blogs – you see I can’t think of South Africa without thinking of sunshine so strong it bleaches out everything, mind, body and motivation. I have to imagine Ronel in a dark, cold cellar beneath a remote house in order to conceive that anyone could write about fairies and review books from all over the world. because, too, South Africa seems at the end of the Earth, last stop before Antarctica and whilst the internet means that you can wander, virtually wherever you wish to go in the WWW, that is merely rational and I am constantly challenged by these mental disconnects when I visit Ronel’s blog. That’s just my problem, because Ronel can, and does write successful books and blog posts about dark fantasies and this year she is another A to Z participant who double-blogged. On one of her blogs – Ronel the Mythmaker she reviewed books on the theme My A-Z of Book Recommendations and Reviews 2023 (AKA my languishing TBR) in which she shows us, graphically, her to be read pile, followed by a book review of one of them that she has read. What this does, is to let us glimpse into the mind of an author of dark fantasies, which is almost as good as reading her own creations – although I still have to imagine her hiding from the sun in a dark cellar…
Ronel’s other blog was her My A-Z of Faerie 2023: and whilst this guide to all things Faerie is not my preferred area of reading, if I ever want a comprehensive guide to the subject – this is it and I have it bookmarked. I half expect Ronel to vapourise my imaginings and tell me that she writes from under a shady umbrella beside a pool in a city somewhere in S.A….
J.S. Pailly was a sometime visitor to my blog just as I was to his, and what I found was fascinating so although I dipped in and out, Planet PaillyWhere Science Meets Fiction, is bookmarked for me to read all the way through… J.S.Pailly is not a scientist, though he is a Sci-Fi writer and a cartoonist and he chose this year, to write everything you ever wanted to know about the planet Mercury! Now I think you will agree that this is pretty niche and some people might hesitate to visit that niche, but, illustrated by his own cartoons, this is a very readable blog. One of the joys of the A to Z is to pick up on other bloggers via their comments, and one who would clearly have delighted in Mr Pailly’s theme was the author of My Hubble Abode, who is a student of Astrophysics and who started blogging to write free A-level notes for herself and her fellow students but then kept going as she moved up the academic ladder. If astrophysics is not your cup of tea, then she also gives out designs for her Crocheted planets and more. What’s not to like, I also share a passion for (Tunisian) Crochet…
Carrie-Anne, in her incomparable Welcome to My Magick Theatre, gave us, not forvthe first time, a tour de force – on the history of both Iranian cities and also pioneering Iranian women – the latter in homage to the current persecution of women in that country. Iran, arguably the cradle of civilisation, has cities that have risen and fallen so many times through history it makes one giddy! And the women Carrie-Anne describes are all fascinating, not least because of the way their stories are told…
As if this Abercadarium was not enough on it’s own – Carrie-Anne did one in her second blog – Onomastics Outside the Box which was on Persian names – a possible goldmine to any expectant parents to be who want to go with something different, more ancient, perhaps, name-wise… any way, Carrie-Anne drove herself to exhaustion as she explains in her TWO Reflections posts here and here! Carrie-Anne’s posts are not to be read from A to Z and certainly not in one sitting – no they are to be savoured, like a fine wine from the cellar, when the occasion demands…
It is late, and I have work in the morning and besides I cannot bring myself to add another review to stand in the shadow of Carrie-Anne and so to bed…
Shilpa Gupta chose to write Flash Fiction for her A to Z and here’s the thing about flash fiction, either you enjoy a writer’s offerings or you don’t, you find consistency rather than having to search for the rare nugget, and you keep coming back because, even though the pieces may be personal to the author, the pieces resonate for you… Shilpa delivered on all these things for me. A good example was M for Arithmetic in which a father posters the narrator to practice maths homework but is completely scathing about her exam failures. If you want to see what resonated for me you will have to read the post and find my comment…
Hannelore was interrupted in the middle of April by the sad death of her grandmother who, together with her late grandfather, was the subject of her A to Z and so she bravely presented the last letters in a compendium as part of the process of moving through grieving. The early posts, together with the rest of the month’s journey, deserve our attention.
Anne Nydam is a print artist who specialises in mostly one-colour block prints and for this year’s theme she chose to show us letters from many illustrated Abercadariums to which she brought a wealth of research and commentary. I can only repeat my comment on her Reflections post “Your posts were unique amongst the A to Z Challenge this year and I not only enjoyed them whenever I visited but have bookmarked your site to return to whenever. as I have said before, having been a signwriter and a graphic artist going back to letterpress printing at school – this was right up my street…”
So there you go – a few more of my frequent commenters reviewed – eventually I will get to some of the blogs I didn’t get too in April…
This is a review of blogs who participated in the A to Z Challenge 2023 starting with those who were frequent flyers in my Comments…
Misky over on IT’S STILL LIFE, has been posting poems accompanied by AI-generated images for the A to Z. Not only has she inspired me in my return to poetry writing, but since AI is a hot topic now, the incredible images in her posts have caused me to begin my own evaluative exploration of AI – and may I say how generous Misky has been in giving me pointers as to where to begin! Having tried creating some pictures myself, using the Midjourney bot on Discord, I still cannot begin to imagine how the AI creates the pictures. I can however, imagine the processes of Misky, the poet and I urge you to go and read and look… I should add that Misky is a multiple poster, she offers a Twiglet Writing Prompt as well as participating in many other peoples’ prompt series.
An image generated by Midjourney to the prompt “a community of bloggers around the world sharing their post“
D B McNichol is a seriously productive writer of at least 32 novels on Goodreads alone and whose perspicacity was demonstrated by the fact that she gave up the whole of April to the A to Z Challenge! Having pre-prepared all of her posts in advance, she was then free to spend at least four hours a day reading other people’s blogs 35-40 0f them, and commenting on them! Her own postswere lists of Small Delights, Simple Pleasures and Significant Pleasures which challenged the reader to consider and add their own favourites. Donna had retired from a career in IT before she even started writing books and if the effort she has demonstrated on the A to Z is anything to go by, it’s no wonder she has become a successful author – Kudos!
Deborah Weber is an old friend from the A to Z Challenge and each year she has written compelling Abercadariums of great subjects – and this year she wrote from a list of obscure colour names. Not only were the posts fascinating in themselves, but Deborah wrote in a free-association way (which she talks about in her Reflections post) rather than the more usual linear delivery. To my mind, this is not only the most preferable way of writing or talking (see my post on Alastair Cooke) but the essence of why we read blogs. A blog is not a textbook and Deborah with her free association gets my vote every time! I should say that as a sometime signwriter, specialist decorator and artist, Colours are right up my street anyway…
Sadje in her Keep it Alive blog, is another multiple-strand post-er of ideas and challenges, and although her domain name says “life after 50 for women” – her challenges and advice as well as her readers, are for and of both sexes. You only have to look at her use of Categories in the banner at the top of her site to see the variety of subjects tackled by Sadje… For her theme this year, Sadje posed a series of (challenging) questions designed to stimulate her readers to do more with mind, body and spirit – use it or lose it might be her motto…
Josna in Tell me Another (story) does just that – she shares stories about a recent visit home to India from the States where she now lives. Visits home are always a poignant mix of reminiscence and comparison with the person we are now and the place where we now reside and Josna does not disappoint. You will be transported to the sights, sounds, tastes and smells of Josna’s India as well as her more personal thoughts…
Lady Lee Manilla has been someone who once followed, has been the most prodigious presence in my Jetpack (WordPress) feed! Another multiple post-er, every day, Lady Lee has shared her poems, her photos and her life with her 1,438 followers of whom I am obviously just a recent addition! Her enthusiasm for poetry – her own and others – and the warmth of her sharing, have endeared Lady Lee to me…
I will be continuing these reviews because there are many left to describe but I have been working for three hours now and my stomach is demanding breakfast…
Another iteration (you always get four) from Midjourney to the prompt “a community of bloggers around the world sharing their post” – weird and wonderful…
