This semester I'm teaching a Writing and Location module at work. This year, I'm notably lacking in terms of locations. This module would ordinarily involve trips to various places around the West Midlands. However, in the times of COVID-19, class trips aren't exactly safe, and therefore other measures have to be taken. Today I walked my students around the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew (after some introductory free writing to set the travel mood), and we used a bank of digital resources that were put together during lockdown, to make these gardens a more accessible landscape for those who couldn't visit. No, it wasn't the same; there's no pretending otherwise. What it was, for me at least, was an insight into how the face of nature and location writing may well change in the midst of a pandemic. In my continued mission to practice what I preach, I wrote along with my students through these new landscapes. So here are some of the fruits of an afternoon's travel. Solomon Islands - Morning chorus The leaves are bigger than my head - fanned, their hands are spread as though in anticipation of free falling birds who might swoop and lunge through these morning calls. I can almost taste the green, enveloped like a blanket around me, not that I would need one. The warmth is a paradox against home, where leaves now are falling out of season. Meanwhile here fires are still burning, and sun still very much awake. It could be snow, if we were in the right landscape for it. The blossoms belong to the gateway, though, to mark a passage of time, and I know they all fit together although I don't fully understand how - which I suppose is the point of my gaining an education here. It occurs to me, then, that perhaps this gateway is one that leads to knowledge. The following pieces were written in response to several gardens at Kew. Footage of their growth and maintenance has been made available to track their summer progress: Slow TV: Summer at Kew
Broadwalk borders
I wonder whether this is the quietest it's ever been. There are only satellite sounds - more like the ghost of something, and even though nature must have been that way, once, there is something unsettling about it here. Still, unsettling nature remains beautiful. The plants have rooted with purpose and something about their posture gives that away - upright, important. I'd name them all if I could but instead I give them fake names: Beatrice; Olivia; Edith.
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August 2023
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