Words for a summer's warmth

Summer's warmth

words to hold a meadow

Whispers in the Grass, part 3

The summer rolls on, mixing rain with sudden warmth and hot days. The chances to simply sit and enjoy the season feel unpredictable. Grab them when you can!  Maybe we all need “emergency picnic” supplies sat in a box by the door so that on a sudden whim we can drop everything and dash off to stop….

 And when you are out there, take some inspiration from our Whispers in the Grass poets and scribble thoughts and feelings onto a postcard

Two “Fib” poems follow. These collect words and images along the Fibonacci sequence*. For poems, we look for lines with growing numbers of syllables: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 and so on….read them out loud

Grass,

Grass,


SInging,


Whispering,

Whispering meadow,

Grasses, insects, birds, butterflies,

Sweet vernal, meadow foxtail, Yorkshire fog, quaking, rye

Hay bales safely in the barn, stacked away from winter harm, sun compressed to cattle barm

(Andy Collins)

Driving down to Under Whitle

(Sheena Barnes)

Slither,

Crunch,

Eyes right,

A gorgeous

Muddle of roses,

Hollyhocks, daisies, peonies

And honeysuckle, clematis, fennel and roses

Further down the fruit appears, raspberries and pears, peas and redcurrants summer jewels

Or perhaps, you would prefer a cinquain? Again counting syllables: this time, looking for lines with 2, 4, 6, 8 and a final 2 syllables….

Morning in Dove Valley

(Sheena Barnes)

Mist, haze,

Shifting, drifting,

At times the sun glints, peeps

Through with the blessing of light, warmth

And hope

Whispers in the Grass was a free, public event as part of the Buxton Fringe Festival, supported by Buxton Museum and Art Gallery as part of its BM125 series of events, celebrating the museum’s 125th birthday, and by Borderland Voices (BV) from Leek

And we talked, scribbled, thought, laughed, ate cake and talked some more

A lot of our BV visitors are experienced poets and needed very little to set their thoughts to paper but for others we suggested structures, starting points, inviting people to simply sit and have a go.

Other Whispers poems can be found here and here

*No, I’m not going to launch into an exposition about how the Fib sequence can be found in everything from mystery novels to architecture, to the spiral of a Nautilus’ shell and a sunflower’s seeds*…you can go and find that our for yourselves

*I will say, however, that the series starts with a 0. Difficult to write an empty line at the start of a poem. I like to think of it as a breath that opens the poems, a moment of silence before the words begin

And many thanks, as ever, to our Whispers poets. If anyone feels inspired to create their own poems and wants to share them, I won't promise to publish everything but will read and hope to publish them here. The best email is the Telling Toads one: toadwords@btinternet.com. 
Photo credits: 1,2,3 and 5 are all c G MacLellan 
Photo 4 c/o Borderland Voices and Richard Egan

Dove Valley morning

 

The best days are Bear Days!

Beardays in Buxton

Celebrating the years that something has been standing stuffed but still growling in a museum may seem a bit odd, but “The Buxton Bear” has been a feature of the Museum since its arrival 30 years ago. 

When Buxton Museum and Art Gallery redesigned its Wonders of the Peak galleries in 2017 there was much debate about “whether the bear should go?”.

not a local bear

After all, this is not a local bear (probably a North American Black Bear, maybe a Brown?). It isn’t an established part of the Collection – it was brought in to give the museum a bear in a cave as an example of the excitements of life in the Peak District a few thousand years ago (although at the time, our bears were probably larger and didn’t growl in trans-Atlantic accents). The Bear, however, is well known, well loved (by some), well loathed (by others) and well dreaded by adults who were growled at when they were (presumably) much younger. The Museum just wouldn’t be the same without The Bear rumbling away in a corner.

So, The Bear stayed.

And this year marks 30 years of growling in a corner of the Gallery. We have been celebrating! 

Over the summer, the Museum staff have been encouraging the Bear into new looks. We have seen a Boating Bear, a Wimbledon Bear, a Holiday bear, a Pride Bear.

Bear Bunting - picnic

The Museum’s regular event artists have also been joining in with assorted Bearday activities. There have been bear masks, bear finger puppets, drawing big bears, making cards of small bears, bear heads. On Sunday just gone we had a Teddy Bear’s Picnic out on the Slopes in front of the Town Hall. Here between sandwiches and running around, we made bear badges and bear bunting. There were crowns for teddy bears (and cuddly zebras and pigs). There were Bearday Cards (sorry, Bear, they all went home with the children who made them!) and a general sense of ursine cheerfulness

Bear with a honey diamond*

So if you are in Buxton, please do drop into the Museum and say hallo to our Bear. She (or he? Not quite sure) is definitely one of the family.

cheerful bear mask!

Our Bear Day events were the last of the BM125 events marking the Museum's 125th Birthday

 and thanks to all all our Bear event participants and to Richard Johnson for the original bear line drawings we used for the badges!

*the bear stole a honey diamond from the snail who owned and guarded it....

From grumblebees to bumblebears

 Past lavender and thyme,

By blue borage we roam,

Following scentways through the air,

Trails to bring lost bumbles home.

"What bee would you bee?" we asked

There were big bees, and small bees. There were humblebees and fumblebees, grumblebees and stumblebees. There were thimblebees (surprisingly large) and even bumblebears – the ferocious bees with the faces of bears who guard a colony from peril.

There were party bees (very bright, with extra glitter) and armybees (well-camouflaged)

Our bees were well pleased with all that they could bee.

As part of Buxton Art Trail, Creeping Toad worked with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust in the Serpentine Community Farm. Over the BAT weekend at the start of July we talked to visitors, invited people to wander and wonder, to enjoy the delightful gardens of the farm, and talk to us about bumbles. There was bumblebee art to examine (ie art inspired by bumblebees, the bees own art is performance related and needs careful watching). There were flowers, cakes, tea and excitements to encounter

The B'bee CT marquee

Slowly, we built a wall of postcards capturing moments from a bumblebee’s world

There were lots of postcards and if your picture has not appeared here – we apologise!

And many thanks to the wodnerful Ruth Evans for the images she let us use - including the strip at the top of this post and the final image below

Echoing the sky

Echoing the sky

words from Whispers in the Grass

an event report

our venue

A couple of weeks ago, a group of cheerfully creative folks gathered in the fields and garden of te Dove Valley Centre in the Staffordshire Moorlands. In the hills around are wild moors, bleak rocky landscapes and the deep mysterious cleft of Lud’s Church. Here in the Upper Dove Valley, however, we settle into a world of the green, the growing and the buzzing and fluttering….This was a day for words, and wandering, and wondering, for drawing, scribbling, sketching and eating picnics and the partaking of cake. It was a day to simply enjoy being there, being here, at the Dove Valley Centre in the Upper Dove Valley

These hills,
Buttress the sky,
Green mounds echo the sky
Draw rain into this deep valley
Its thirst
by Mary King

Whispers in the Grass was a free, public event as part of the Buxton Fringe Festival, supported by Buxton Museum and Art Gallery as part of its BM125 series of events, celebrating the museum’s 125th birthday, and by Borderland Voices (BV) from Leek

And we talked, scribbled, thought, laughed, ate cake and talked some more

A lot of our BV visitors are experienced poets and needed very little to set their thoughts to paper but for others we suggested structures, starting points, inviting people to simply sit and have a go.


A walk into sunshine
A walk into grass
Insects hiding
Milk churns peeping
Flowers creeping
Memories to take home
by Pauline


POET C*
Whispers in the grass
Little rustles through small stems
Wind flowing freely

Performance begun
Wind playing its instruments
Grass whispers softly

poets and artists at work!

PAULINE’S TAKE ON POETRY
I am just a simple soul,
I don’t go in for complicated rigmarole.
To me a poem is something that rhymes
Although it doesn’t have to
At other times
It may just be beautiful, descriptive and uplifting.
A basic education allows for a shifting and drifting into, out of the box,
Unusual thinking, original, maybe crass
Sometimes its better than nice, precise
Taking more informed advice
I enjoy lots of things
Nature especially - yes and whispering grass.
It sounds poetic
And if it’s easy to verse
I will enjoy the experience of thinking it, crafting it, writing it, creating it,
That may not warrant a degree but it’s a first

With thanks to all our Whispering poets!
All photos c/o Borderland Voices and Richard Egan

* sorry! I didn't get a note of your names!