Is it a crime to sup on a Sleeper Shark Genus: Somniosus microcephalus the solitary fish swimming in the dark waters beneath the Arctic ice so few and far between this shark is seldom seen but in the photographs captured the curves confirm this clearly is a shark but unlike its cousins – sleek Silvertips the Greenland Shark is no beauty it’s skin blotchy and rough…
On an exchange visit to an Icelandic ladies’ choir did I commit that crime? Our own ladies, scandalised at the first stop on our itinerary a swim in the Blue Lagoon – by naked women brazenly European walking around in the changing room were equally horrified in Reykjavik’s covered market to be offered seagull’s eggs and Rotten Shark – kæstur hákarl a national delicacy but foodie as I am I agreed to give it a go… “Best hold your nose” our host’s advice but not before I’d caught a whiff like ammonia I took a small white cube upon a toothpick and ate nose pinched it was not as bad as some wimpy celebrity chefs have claimed…
I was not told that this was Greenland Shark nor that it is now known to be the longest lived vertebrate thought perhaps to live as long as four to five hundred years one hundred and fifty before the poor creature is ready to breed imagine then it’s lonely search for a mate deep in the Arctic dark and the secret of this shark’s longevity – slow living – snail’s pace metabolism which is why, flesh full of bodily toxins the freshly caught Sleeper is poisonous but the peoples of the Arctic are not ones to waste a food opportunity and so they figured out to bury the shark for six to twelve weeks weighted to press out fluids whereby fermentation detoxifies to feed the nation it’s infamous dish at the midwinter festival þorrablót
Now that the Methuselah nature of the Greenland Shark is known it is not legal to hunt or kill this oldest of fish but fishermen’s bycatch provides sufficient specimens to feed the Icelandic appetite for Rotten Shark – so it was no crime to taste this long-lived being whatever my fellow singers said of the smell, but now that I know of what I ate, I carry the thought swimming in my imagination of this patient, slow-living denizen of the dark depths the Greenland Shark…
…turn up for the books turn the country, no – the world upside down turn the law. no,-the constitution on its head turn pawns into knights to do your bidding but turn tail and run when pictures of you and him speak truly…
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, where the various customers are celebrating the 14th birthday of the pub, Lisa or Li challenges us to write a Quadrille, the pub’s own special poetry form – a poem in exactly 44 words…
Driving home along City Road an ambulance dashes by with” blues and twos” screaming its way towards the hospital – do we all wonder whether its cargo is of death or life another human being on the way out or a baby on the brink of being born? Does anybody learn indifference to this question of “for whom the bell tolls?” The blue lights illuminate the faces and bare arms of the sex workers leaning against the old warehouse building – soon to be apartments and if they were looking for their veins right now, they wouldn’t find them but that will come later… One girl lurches across the pavement as a familiar car pulls up and as she departs, another slips into pole position, eyes peeled… A few hours earlier, or come tomorrow this street junction will belong to office workers or shopgirls some in the sanctity of hair concealing hijab with no knowledge of their having traversed the red light district of another temporal place. The patient in the ambulance will hopefully be settled in a bed recovering, or perhaps a bed beside a cot with mother and baby also recovering, and adjusting to the new place, respectively. At home I make two suppers to meet our different needs – one soft and forgiving on dentures that no longer fit well and tastebuds stripped of efficacy by smoking secondly the most creative that cooking for one can get and I remember cooking for different tastes in our early reconstructed family – one diabetic, one vegetarian two for meat and two veg, and the two of us then just wanting something interesting to eat… Now only Christmas dinner brings the whole family together and still there are different varied requirements to further complicate that logistical nightmare but catering to all is the measure of care…
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, lillian in Live, OpenLinkNight, invites us to post a poem of our choice and hopefully read it at the live session. This poem references a time when I lived in the centre of Bradford, and unwittingly (since I viewed it in the daytime) lived in an apartment adjacent to the heart of the red light district, also a busy route to the Bradford Royal Infirmary and rarely, I still traverse this road on my way home, to my present address…
Our first bedroom was a work of art where I bought my profession and my painting to bear like a Bower Bird building a nest to attract and cement a relationship with a mate. I always preferred to make my own Valentine cards Christmas and birthday offerings and even the gifts if possible and that room was my gift to you – on the ceiling a giant Chinese prawn painted paper parasol which I surprised you with on a date in London and as we walked, giddy along Oxford Street we gathered a crowd of people seeking shelter from the torrential rain the painted prawns in their element stopped from swimming off only by varnish.
The wall at the head of the bed swam with myriad shoals of tiny fishes gleaming like Neon Tetras where I over sprayed the stencil with spatters of silver and the other wall moved subtly from undersea azure to misty morning blue where an undergrowth of real plants pressed and stencilled emerged from the mist at the foot of the wall a perpetual daybreak to greet us each morning.
I will not say that all our intimacies took place in that love nest for in those days, any room would do for us before the clouds settled down on us dampening ardour except for brilliant sunbeams occasionally breaking through that bedroom was always but our happy place beneath the prawns amongst the fishes and flowering weeds of late summer.
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Dora in Poetics invetes us to “write a poem that conjures a view (whether from our travels or everyday life, whether from desire or experience) that is colored by the emotion of the moment“
Walking back along the ledges from a fruitless fishing expedition fruitless but for the pleasure of sunshine on tons of lazy swelling clear Atlantic water shifting glassy at my feet – I encountered an otter.
Seeing me first it fled across my path and slipped into the sea I searched the swells for it and when our eyes met – it dived again. We played this game several times until I turned the tables – dropping to my knees I crawled crouched low over the serpent stone snake fashion for ten yards until carefully lifting my head I saw the otter now searching for me!
We could have played all day but the knobbly fossils of solitary corral were hard on my knees and so we parted with a final interspecies gamers salute!
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Lisa or Li in Poetics, invites us to write a poem about an intimate moment. This encounter with the “other”, a sea-otter, on the West coast of Ireland where I lived for ten years, took place on ledges of “serpent stone” fossil solitary corals, solitary corals that with horizontally across the plane of the rocks…
Bradford is this year’s City of Culture and as one of the events of the festival, this morning, in time to greet the sunset, except it dawned cloudy and cooler than of late, some 300 people assembled in the quarry next to the Cow and Calf above Ilkley and on the edge of Ilkley Moor for the start of The Bradford Progress. However, far from the popular song in the title of this piece, we were treated to Handel’s ‘Eternal Source of Light Divine performed by 27 members of Paraorchestra and a Counter-Tenor, the falsetto song commanding absolute hush. Mindful that one can’t fully appreciate or be present for live a performance whilst videoing it, I took only a short sample of the performance.
Then, the Commoners Choir took over. Based in Leeds and led by Boff Whalley, former guitarist in Chumbawumba, the Leeds punk/anarchist band catapulted to unexpected fame with their chart hit “Tubthumping“, which is not a song about drinking but the resilience of the Working Class (“He gets knocked down, but he gets up again…”). I was too taken with listening to the choir harmonies this morning to really take in the lyrics but I heard a reference to Noam Chomsky…
The choir were then going to walk across Ilkley Moor to continue with a series of performances across today and tomorrow culminating in Millenium Square, Bradford.
In other news, my friend and poetry collaborator, Melissa Lemay, who runs an online Journal called Collaborature, published an interview with me that we recorded a few weeks ago. As an experiment, she recorded our Zoom call and then had the AI integrated with Zoom, transcribe it. This worked in so far as it kept track of our separate voices, and was surprisingly accurate and yet there were many misheard words that made editing quite arduous for her and she had to refer a few passages back to me for clarification. You can read the interview here.
You told me your schoolfriends called you little frog because of your slightly bulging eyes, amiga hermana and like an amphibian, you emerged from the river into a new land without meeting those who would have called you “Wet back” and sent you whence you came which is why to me, querido, you are Amfibio for you brought me the gift of insights of one who has travelled between borders you are Alebrije – your travel has given you wings wings that brought you and your fantastic colours into my life, querida.
What Divina Providencia brought you to my door querida? What spirit guided your path, melded our destinies? You asked for work as a live-in ama de casa to support your family back in Mexico and you fulfilled a need I didn’t even know I had and our relationship became hardly that of employer and employed
Then came the Orange Chupacabrón the devil who demands all the attention consumes all the oxygen and sucks all the blood – this trickster wants to send your kind back to Mexico and elsewhere as if you are una cifra insignificante he would make you an apachurrado a hat run over by a truck but he did not reckon with me
At first you shrugged “ Ni modo…” but I was encabronada well and trulypissed-off but also I had Susto – fear down to my very soul fear for me, for you, for your family, for my country I would not see you become Un pobre infeliz and so We sealed off the entrance to the cellar concealed a new entrance behind the mirror made a safe refuge for you and others told the shop where you used to shop for us not without irony, that you had been swept up and disappeared by the orange one’s minions and I arranged for a Mexican run shop with simpática, to deliver discretely enough food for whomsoever we hid…
Now we have an underground railway – not to escape victims of the orange one but to hold them until safe houses can be found – we did not need the magic of shamans to defeat the Chupacabrón we did not need to pick poisonous Toloache or summon the Cenzontle to do battle on our behalf because, after all we are hermanas bajo la piel
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Dora in Poetics, invites us to write a poem using one or more of the poetically interpreted Spanish words in a poem by Sandra Cisneros…
Sandra Cisneros (b. 1954), in Chicago, the only daughter in a family of six brothers. In her stories and poems, she deals with the formation of Chicana identity, exploring the challenges of being caught between Mexican and Anglo-American cultures, facing the misogynist attitudes present in both these cultures, and the constant migration of her family between Mexico and the United States, “always straddling two countries but not belonging to either culture.” In “I Have No Word in English For,” Cisneros lists twenty-five Spanish words dictionary-like but non-alphabetically, yet seemingly objectively. You soon discover that each definition appropriates a keenly personal shade of meaning.
Apachurrado. Hat run over by a truck. Heart run over by unrequited love. Estrenar. To show off what’s new gloriously. Engentada. People-overdose malaise. A estas alturas. Superb vista with age. Encabronada/o. A volatile, combustible rage. Susto. Fear that spooks the soul away. Ni modo. Wise acceptance of what fate doles. Aguante. Miraculous Mexican power to endure conquest, tragedy, politicos. Ánimo. A joyous zap of fire. Divina Providencia. Destiny with choices and spiritual interventions. Nagual. Animal twin assigned at birth. Amfibio. Person with the gift of global perspective due to living between borders. Alebrije. Amfibio with wings from geographical travel. Ombligo. Buried umbilical. Center of the universe. Toloache. Love concoction made with moonflower and menstrual blood. Tocaya/o. Name double. Automatic friend. Amiga hermana. Heart sister closer than kin. Un pobre infeliz. The walking wounded maimed by land mines of life. Un inocente. Mind askew since birth; blameless. Chupacabrón/a. Energy vampire disguised in human form. Cenzontle. Tranquillity transmitter in bird or human form. Friolenta/o. Tropical blood. Vulnerable to chills. Chípil. Melancholia due to an unborn sibling en route. Desamor. Heart bleeding like xoconostle fruit. Xoconostle. Must I explain everything for you?
I have used some of Cisneros’ words, sometimes with her poetic meaning and sometimes their literal meanings, given below.
Apachurrado – squashed, down Encabronada – pissed off (slang) angry Susto – fright Ni modo – “that’s life”, “oh well”, or “what can you do” Divina Providencia – divine providence Amfibio – amphibian Alebrije – a type of Mexican folk art sculpture, typically a brightly colored, fantastical creature made from paper-mâché or wood Toloache – literally – the plant with nodding head – Datura, a highly poisonous flower Amiga hermana – friend sister Un pobre infeliz – a poor unfortunate Chupacabrón – a legendary creature, or cryptid, in the folklore of parts of the Americas. The name comes from the animal’s purported vampirism. Cenzontle – the mockingbird, a bird known for its ability to mimic the songs of other birds
I also used some other Spanish phrases
Querida – Dear (one) hermanas bajo la piel – Sisters under the skin ama de casa – housekeeper una cifra insignificant – an insignificant person simpática – sympathetichermanas bajo la piel – Sisters under the skin simpática – sympathetic
I have no skills for flight, or wings to skim the waves effortlessly, like the wind itself unaided, but I have flown in man-made machines, looped the loop in a Tiger Moth, watched men practise dropping food-sacks from inside a low flying Hercules. I have circled and landed in a glider and watched kite-boarders risk life and limb lifting off from Elounda Bay where once Imperial Airways flying boats landed on their way to India. Recently I saw a replica of the Wright brothers first flyer, one which is occasionally towed up to fly, briefly, perilously and from that to the climate polluting jets that crisscross our skies with contrails, from which I have had my share of gazing with wonder at the Earth below whilst transported unimaginably far, I have most certainly flown even though I have no skills for flight…
This year my A to Z theme was to construct a memoir heading each post with a photograph of something significant from my life and tacling the memoir thematically rather than chronologically. You can find the complete list of links to the 26 posts at the end of the post.
Each time I have participated in the A to Z since my first outing in 2020, my posts have grown longer and more layered, for example, last year, I was tackling Commodities which I was afraid might be a little dry as a subject, so I decided to add a poem in an alphabetically matching poetry form. This year I was afraid that my Memoir, would not be sufficiently rivetting in itself and so I decided to lead each post with a photo of a significant object for the topic of the day. I included 10 pictures that were “Knolling” style and of course, nobody likes to be overfaced by swathes of text, and as there were several topics on some posts, that meant a lot of pictures to break it up – 169 in all! Since even my phone camera takes large pictures, each one had to be opened in Photoshop and tweaked and resized – a rod for my own back. At the time of the Theme Reveal, I only had five or six posts finished and on April 1st I had two weeks worth “in the can” but by the final weekend, I managed to complete the last 3 posts so technically, no “pantsing” it!
A “Knolling” picture from Carol, Cars and Cooking
Since adding poetry had worked well last year, I added nine poems this year (C, E, J, L, M, O, P, T & V) too, as well as a few videos, one of me working in 1995 and a number of music videos. All of this seems to have worked and I attracted a number of regular readers to whom I am most grateful for their encouraging comments. In no particular order:- A shoutout to Csenge (Tarkabarka) The Multicolored Diary who was first to comment on day one and also an A to Z committee member and consummate, epic storyteller. Anne M. Bray of Pattern Recognition an old A to Z friend – everything you ever wanted to know about Fluevog Shoes… Tamara of Part-time Working Hockey Mom another old friend since 2020 who this year guides around the cities of Switzerland with her cutomary aplomb! Ronel is another Comittee member and supplied the colourful graphics for the A to Z – you can find her at Ronel the Mythmaker… Deborah A Logophile’s Ludic Musings continued her exploration of unusual and interesting words and hardly missed a post Lisa of Tao Talk, is a friend from my other habitual haunt – dVerse Poets Pub… Donna McNichol was another frequent flyer and her own offerings are at Just call me Froggi Kristin Kleage has been sharing her family history with the A to Z since 2013 at Finding Eliza… Anne E.G. Nydam is a fabulous printmaker at Black and White: Words and Pictures Holly J. of A More Positive Perspective Samantha of Balancing Act Linda Curry of The Curry Apple Orchard
And so, how was the writing itself – what did I learn from doing this year’s A to Z?
Firstly, I quickly realised how much material my life contained so that for almost any given subject, I had to be very selective about which stories I included. After writing about why I didn’t become a fine-artist or an architect, and why I haven’t been very successful as a businessman, I covered my family, my late sister Carol, my Dad, my mother Elsie and shortly after, my sister Helen and particularly in these posts, there was so much more that could have been said. I was trying to stick to those points that had a bearing on me – it was my memoir after all and not theirs – still, there could be a book rather than 26 posts! But as far as it went, I feel like I have made a memoir of sorts and I am not sure I would want to go as far as a book, even if it retained and expanded on the thematic approach rather than the chronological.
Secondly, it would be disingenuous of me to think that I have had an “ordinary” life, I am well aware of the priveleges I was fortunate to be born into, by being born into a “First” World country, to middle-class parents, parents who were both extraodinary in their different ways and who did their very best to offer my sisters and I the best opportunities they could, not least of all a trip round the world and the chance to experience life in a different country at an early age. Were there any flies in the ointment, along the way, of course there were but a life without some adversity would be a life less lived and adversity makes us stronger. Would I do things differently, some I guess, but hindsight is a fine thing…
My daily routine during April, was to start the day by checking that the scheduled post was up, read it through one more time for mistakes before going over to the Official A to Z blog to answer their daily question(s) and leave a link. Because of geography and time zones, there was usually one or two posts ahead of me, with posts from the Americas coming in much later in the day and so I sometimes had the mistaken inmpression that hardly anyone else commented there so I was very touched, when after losing the run of myself and forgetting to follow my routine, I received a comment from Barbie of Crackerberries
Andrew, this is the first time I didn’t see your name above mine on the A-Z page… I had to come see if you were here because that was so odd that you were not there, even when I went back this afternoon. Thanks for sharing the X-Rays and it’s really comical to me that the new hip bone kinda looks like a serrated knife. (ahhh the imagination of writers). Anyways, I’m glad you are here and maybe just didn’t get over to the page yet. Funny how we take people for granted. See ya tomorrow and I bet you will be first with Z post. Cheers, Barbie
It does surprise me how few of the 172 bloggers who signed up, do comment both to respond to the day’s post as well as to see this as their firsl line of promotion. My comment made, I would post a link and a photograph from the post on my Facebook which would bring in a few friends and family. I will put this post on a button at the top of my blog in the hope that future readers will find their way to my story…
Which post did I like writing best, we are asked on the A to Z blog? Frewin, Fossils and Film covered some of my favourite things but it was also fun choosing photographs and poems to showcase for Photography and Poetry – so a toss-up there…
Lastly, it has been gratifying to find that not only was I wrong to wonder if other people would find my story interesting, but it has renewed, once again, my faith in my telling of the story, in my writing. As every one of my A to Zs has been from 2020 to 2025, it has been a marathon and I am glad to have reached the finish line, somewhat exhausted, but I am hoping that, as I am told about giving birth, the memory of the pain of labour disappears (else no woman would do it again) and that at some point in the next year, another idea for A to Z 2026, will pop into my mind, though goodness knows what…
Now that all the writing is done, I am off to catch up on some of my favourite blogs and hopefully find some new ones! You can peruse the whole A to Z list and find some for yourself here.
