THE POETRY GROUP AND THE SEPTIC TANK

It's the Summer Solstice, the Longest Day, a day for poetry and magic.

For the Poetry Reading Group the brief was simple: bring in some poems about midsummer, about the solstice.

And people did: How the Lovers Found True Love After All by Marvin Bell, set to music and performed as a duet between a singer and a double bass. I brought Strawberries by Edwin Morgan, a beautiful love poem, and Summer Solstice, Batticaloa, Sri Lanka, by Marilyn Krysl:

... small crabs, the bright yellow of a crayon,

had come onto the sand. Their numbers, scattered
resembled the galactic spill and volume of the stars. ...

And there were poems by Vera Rich about midsummer in Orkney, written after a visit in the 1960s. I had never heard of her and have yet to search the archives here for her poems. But I will ...

Once I get my head out of my septic tank!

If you want to write or read, especially about the finer things in life, don't move house. Especially don't move into a new house with a new septic tank, when you have never encountered such things before. The builder says septic tanks are like death: nobody wants to talk about either!

I had to tell the poetry group that my head was elsewhere. They were full of sympathy and advice.

To start off a septic tank, 
get a bucketful from someone else's
and tip it over the sill. Then
throw in some roadkill:
dead rabbit, dead duck, dead rat, 
no matter,
though rats, it must be said, 
can be problematic ...

Well, it might be worth writing a poem about! Though I'd rather shake the similarities to friendship cakes, ginger beer plants and sour dough out of my head first.

While we're mining this scatalogical seam, I might mention that Stewart Bain, after a long absence, made a guest appearance on the Orkney Library Facebook and Twitter pages again this week, with the photo below and the caption: "Panic over. It turns out the staff on duty this morning actually found a Jobey in the book drop box ..."

It is Stewart who put Orkney Library & Archive on the cyberspace map with his Westray wit, gaining him fans from all over the world, including big name writers such as Val McDermid. 

My favourite this week was: "You have to hand it to this lass, looking alluring whilst gutting fish is something not many women could pull off. Jim Dale from the Carry On films doesn't seem one bit interested though.... "

But let me end by wishing all readers of this blog

A Very Happy Summer Solstice!

And here are some skies from my house taken the last few evenings ...

   

Val & Stewart & the Stolen Library Card

Looks like a road trip! And it was. Stewart Bain of Orkney Library took Val McDermid out in the library van for a tour of the West Mainland the day she arrived. I don't know about seizing the moment, but they were certainly grabbing what light there was in the day, so that Val could see something of Orkney before her session and before she flew off the next morning.

They went out the Orphir Road, passed Scapa Flow, then across the Brig o Waithe to Stromness. There, I believe shelter - and some refreshment - was taken in the Flattie Bar. Strictly non-alcoholic!

Scapa Flow from the Orphir Road

From there they went to the Standing Stones and Ring of Brodgar. Val was suitably impressed - if not by Stewart's driving, then at least by the Orkney countryside. She had a lie down in a darkened room before her session in the evening in Kirkwall Library!

Val McDermid's Session

Val clearly has a fan base in Orkney. There was an enthusiastic and appreciative crowd there to see her and listen to her story of how she began to write. It started of course with reading, and she credits the public library system with turning her into a writer. As a child, restricted to two fiction and two non-fiction books a week, she stole her mother's library card and told the librarians that her mother was ill and couldn't get to the library. Thus she augmented her reading to include adult titles and began her career of telling lies. A short hop then to writing fiction, Val maintained.

There was a lively Q&A then after she'd talked for a while, about the sources for some of her dark stories. Her latest book, she says, began with the experience of having her replacement metal knees set off the alarm at O'Hare airport in Chicago. She was held in a perspex box until the source of the metal was verified. Her son, around seven at the time, was made to wait outside. What if ...? Val thought. What if somebody came and took my son while I was detained by Chicago's finest in a perspex box ...? This became the central plot of her new book, The Vanishing Point. All fiction starts with What if...? she says.

Stewart interviewed Val on video for the library and drew comparisons between her career and that of Kylie Minogue! Not many people would get away with that! You can watch it here. I also interviewed Val for Radio Orkney's arts programme, Tullimentan which will air on Wednesday 19 December at 6.10 pm. If you miss it, you can catch it and previous programmes on SoundCloud.

Keep up with the various, sometimes nefarious, goings on in Orkney Library by liking the Facebook Page and following it on Twitter . You can also find the wonderful Stromness Library blog published regularly. Just click the link here. And check out the Reader in Residence's Facebook and Twitter pages.

Flat Alison

Flat Alison came to us all the way from Collinsville, Illinois, USA. She was sent to Louise by the librarian Alison Donnelly, the original for Flat Alison.

Here she is in the Orkney Archive, getting cosy with the Hudson Bay Company Bear. We thought we would highlight some of the connections between Orkney and North America. 

Many Orkney men - and a few women - sailed to the North West of Canada to become involved with the fur trade and sign up as employees of the Hudson Bay Company. There is lots of information about the connection in the archives and many artefacts in Stromness Museum. 

Facebook & Twitter

Alison Donnelly learned about Orkney Library and Archive from the Facebook and Twitter pages. Here is Flat Alison with Stewart Bain, who keeps the library in the public eye with his witty use of social media. If you click on Orkney Library and Archive's Facebook page here, you might see some more photos of Flat Alison as she gets around in Orkney. 

And if you follow the library on Twitter, you will keep up to date with what's going on.

You can also follow the Alison Miller, Reader in Residence Facebook Page and see lots more photos from Orkney Library. You can follow her on Twitter too.

Orkney and Shetland American

In previous eras, Orcadians crossed the great wide ocean to reach places on the other side of the world. Here is Flat Alison looking at a newspaper produced in Chicago Illinois in 1887. The paper was started by Magnus Flaws, who was probably a Shetlander. He helped Orcadians and Shetlanders who found themselves in difficulty in the 'New World'. You will find these newspapers in the Orkney Archive. They produce a blog too which gives fascinating information about some of the things we have in the archives. 


Fun and Games in Orkney

Flat Alison has been having a high old time since she got here, trying out some of the things Orkney is famous for. Here she is on board a Viking Longship and swimming with seals!

Here she is inspecting the herring catch! Can you see her?

















And she had a great time diving in Scapa Flow!




Famous Orkney Writers

She thought some of our most famous writers in the Orkney Room needed cheering up, so she draped them in tinsel. Do you think it worked?

Edwin Muir is smiling, but George Mackay Brown and Eric Linklater look a bit glum. Maybe when they see their photos it will make them laugh. 

What do you think?

Saint Lucy in Orkney

And she's been getting in the mood for Christmas, dressing up with a crown of light like Saint Lucy who is celebrated in Orkney on December 13 in honour of our Norwegian friends who bring the gift of a Christmas tree to Orkney every year. Lucy is the patron saint of blind people and writers. Her name comes from the Latin word 'lux' which means 'light'. 

At this time of year in Orkney, because we are so far north, the days are very short and the nights long and dark. Although celebrating St Lucy isn't an Orkney tradition, all the Scandinavian countries honour her at 'the year's midnight', in the hope that the light will come back the next year.

Flat Alison and the Children from P1

   
Here are Louise and Patsy introducing Flat Alison to some P1 children from Papdale Primary School. She stayed with them all through the story. One little girl liked her so much, she took her on the tour of the library. At the end of the tour she was missing for a short time, until Louise found her sticking to the edge of a table.

Time to Go Home

It will soon be time for Flat Alison to go home to Illinois. We hope she'll keep in touch with the children here and tell us where she is going next on her travels. Apart from Orkney, she's already been to Africa and India. She has her own Facebook Page too.

Safe home, Flat Alison! Come and see us again.