The Why I Hate England and Book Burning Literary Festival

  Home   Home is The crook in your shoulder, under your right arm, where I lay my head when sleep doesn’t come. The bath, where I am on those evenings when you get in later than me,  And come through to catch up on the day.   The short, striped curtains that I draw in the morning, sleepy on the Hymer’s soft shelf, To reveal some new landscape, our next adventure from the safety of our bed on wheels.   The car, waiting at the airport pick up spot, when I come back after too long a flight and too many days away. And then the lurch to the left it makes as it comes up the pot holed road To the house, changed by new plant growth that has sprung up since I was here.   And the house, our house, built by our own hands, to grow our own family in,  from which to send them out, one by one, into the world. And welcome them back in when that world gets too tough.   Home, its struggles and its triu...

Re-member Undecided whether to take Theodor’s 4 th Plumpton/Carol/Ook-burning festival title Re member as recalling and holding useful or useless pieces of recollection and thought or to expound on getting back together with lost friends, groups or even in the John-Wayne Bobbit sense, with one’s own member. I have fudged it and gone with both. Amidst what filters and feeds to us through the portal of the media we consume it is easy to wallow mired in the awfulness of sumptuously messy, end of days apocalyptic* dread that this ghastly diet nourishes. However, reading a film review and interview on Friday, William Nicholson the playwright and director reminded me to remember, “there is a narcissism about thinking we’re in some especially bad time. This is normal. I don’t despair about politics or the disease or whatever. Things have been really, really shitty forever actually, in different ways. If you have any sense of history, you know people have frequently been saying “This is...

RE: Member by Miriam (mim) King August 2020 Standing at the doorway, …..waiting….. a coming back together, the pieces joined into a - picture, a memory. I re:member – eyes I re:member – words I re:member – textures I re:member – touch I re:member – sounds I re:member – joys I re:member – sadness I re:member – expectations I re:member – disappointments I re:member – surprises I re:member – delight I re:member – knowingness I re:member – …….being…. 1/ Re: Member – Clouds, floating in blue through the fringing of the pram hood. 2/ Re: Member – The flap, flop, whack, splat, fall – squelch, squash, then something on the table, too high up for me to see, other than newspaper wrapping up a…something and it turning, red. 3/ Re: Member – Picnic blanket army surplus, too little to yet speak words,  and falling back, rough grey sides around me- soft sky above,  sand dune below. Being swung from side to side, like a forgotten jam pot or depos...

  The Revenge of the Widow Guiliana Govini Domenica. Sunday. Once it was the most welcome and tranquil word in the Italian language – now it’s a mockery to me. Domenica, Domenica – the day when everything changed. A bright, spring morning of broken promises. Matins done, and the Vespers bells not yet singing on the hilltops of Umbria. The smell of jasmine, before, so sweet and innocent, stinks of betrayal now.  My son, Guido, coming back from the Church of St Mary of the Consolation, running into the kitchen, his curls flying, his mouth wide with happiness – I will never see him like this again. Mama! I’ve invited someone to lunch, do you mind? He’s from Rome and he’s been watching our choir. He’s very important. His name is Signor … Guiseppe Tarantino, a man says, stepping into my kitchen – the cheek of it – no man has crossed the threshold since my poor Antonio fell to the waves. Then he bows. He’s wearing a buttoned burgundy jacket and a fine hat with a black feath...

Re- Member  Dear Miss Danzglock,  Please remember to renew your membership.  Your membership number is 453879 Membership  Remember membership.  Some we are born with, some we choose, some we buy, some we gain, some we want, some we don’t.  Member of the leisure club Member of the literary group Member of the British Society of Occupational Therapists  A Cooperative housing group member Family member Member of the human race.  Remember your membership.  By Maren Danzglock     30.8.2020 maren_ska@yahoo.com

The Ook Burning Bonfire in the garden of the Stable Cottage on Novington Manor, Plumpton England 29. August 2020 The  dilapidated pig-sty  in October 2017 Stable Cottage, Novington Manor - Plumpton England The  pig-sty  in April 2019, during Construction Stable Cottage, Novington Manor - Plumpton England The  pig-sty  in April 2019 Stable Cottage, Novington Manor - Plumpton England The  garden  in October 2018 Stable Cottage, Novington Manor - Plumpton England The  garden  in October 2020 Stable Cottage, Novington Manor - Plumpton England Nick Muriel singing at the bonfire after the burning of the Ook Talisman  in the garden at Stable Cottage, Novington Manor - Plumpton England The  garden  viewed from the end of the property - April 2019 Stable Cottage, Novington Manor - Plumpton England The  garden  viewed from the end of the property -  September 2019 Stable Cottage, Novington Manor - Plumpton England

  Dear exasperated and complacent participants of the annual literary Festival in Plumpton: After ‚Why I Hate‘ in 2017 … and ‚ate England‘ in 2018, our chosen theme for this, our third year will be: DIS - MEMBER   You are invited to write a one to four page essay on this theme: The reading of the texts will occur at sundown,  on Saturday 28. September 2019. At the: Stable Cottage Nottingham Manor Plumpton Prerequisites for Publication: You must write it. You must read it. You must send it to me per email within 24 hours after the event. No pussy-footing around. Your essays will be collected and assembled into a pamphlet. Each artist who has fulfilled the requirements above will receive a copy for their effort. Bring an Ook to burn. As usual, the next day on Sunday after recovering, in an communal act of cleansing, we will string our Ooks to a wooden poll and burn them on the bonfire.  Greetings from wherever we are, Theodor and Carol Cong...