MOOCs

A few months ago I was introduced to the wonderful world of the MOOC.  The first one I attempted was the delightful Modpo. (Modern American Poetry) Then just to show that I am serious about my career as a writer, I studied English Grammar( Crafting a more Successful Writer) and finally, and this is the one I have enjoyed the most, I did a course on Linguistics (The Miracle of Human Language) It turned out to be far from being the dry-as- dust subject that I had always considered it. This course was enthusiastically conducted by the charming Hollander, Marc Oostendorp, and I found it fascinating. I feel quite lost now it has come to an end. Why don't I start another course? I think I need to go though a period of mourning and withdrawal first. If I start another immediately I won;t be able to prevent myself from comparing it to the Human Language one and might not be able to give it the dedication and attention it deserves. These three courses are all part of the group called Coursera. I understand that there are a number of other organisations that offer free online opportunities for study, but Coursera has a very wide variety and they are all of a high standard.

Dogs

Dogs have featured largely in my life lately. I have had a very doggy weekend at the Western Cape Agility trials with Luke's Jack Russell, Beemer. I didn't run him myself. I am lucky enough to have a good friend, Yolande, who is an excellent handler, to take him round the courses. It was a very good weekend although he only managed one medal. But the overshadowing event lately was the death of my old dog, Dipstick. She was the first dog, actually the only dog, that was my very own. All my life there have been dogs in my home, but they were never really mine. When I was a child, whatever  dogs we had. attached themselves firmly to my mother. Even though my parents said they had bought them for me, they never took much notice of me. After I was married, all our dogs gave their allegiance to my husband, the Alpha male in the household,  It didn't matter that I often fed them, that I walked them and groomed them daily and was the one who took them to the vet for their check-ups and shots, he was their lord and master and I came a very poor second.

So it was that Dipstick, who came to me after Mike died, was very special. She was not demonstrative, she would greet me with a casual wave of the tail when I came home, but she always knew she was mine. She liked to be close to me. Whatever room in the house I happened to be in, she would be there too.  She would never go walkies with anyone else, even friend or family members that she knew well, unless I told her to do so, and then she would go very reluctantly.  She would walk nicely to heel with the other person, but look back often to see if I wouldn't change my mind and come too.

It is now more than ten days since she died. They happened to be very busy days, which has perhaps been a good thing. But now I am really missing her. Little, Jack Russell, Beemer seemed, at first, to be almost more affected than I was. He was off his food and rather distracted during the show last weekend, Now he seems to be back to normal, but I have been sad and depressed all week. It is only now that I can bring myself to write about my old dog. She was a great companion and we had so much fun and so many adventures together. I know  have been blessed in having had her company for so long. No other dogs we have had, have lived as long as sixteen years. She was getting rather slow, but looked good and was in good health until the day before she died. Poor old girl, she had a severe stroke and by the time I realised how bad she was and Luke came to take her to the vet, she was only semi-conscious and didn't really know what was happening.

Children and Money

I have just been reading the Tonight section of the Cape Argus. I would not waste my hard-earned (or  even my not so hard-earned) cash on this newspaper if it wasn't for the crossword puzzles. These are of a very high standard unlike the articles. The local content is written in very poor, but amazingly pretentious,  English. Take this phrase "...with her DNA strongly rooted in entertainment." Whatever does the  writer think DNA is?  Does she envisage a helix-shaped molecule somehow growing out of rhizoids which have been planted among other dancing and singing molecules and then attached or perhaps given to the  actor referred to. Reading it over I came to the conclusion that the reader is supposed to infer that the person in question comes from a family associated with TV or the theatre. No further mention is made of these relations, who may or may not be"household words." So perhaps the writer just means to say that the actor was previously involved in the entertainment industry. Am I being fussy in preferring plain English? Why do journalists have to use a long word when there is a perfectly good short one. For example "Celebritydom comes at a price."This is the first sentence in another article in the same paper.  "Celebritydom" may well be a word in some American dictionary.(It is not to be found in my copy of Chambers), but it is a very ugly one. There is no reason why "Celebrity" the abstract noun, meaning "fame" could not be used here.

Other articles, the ones which have been previously published in overseas journals, are more readable, if not particularly exciting. A whole page in the latest edition is given to the question of teaching children about money. So many of the children I know are extremely mercenary. Do they really need more instruction about money?  What the writer(Lieber of the Washington Post)  advocates is making children set aside a proportion of their pocket money for savings and for charity. Having "three jars" is how she puts it. One is for spending money, one for money to be saved for something special and one for charity.This is supposed to teach them economy and generosity. She also believes strongly that lessons about money should be given at home and parents should not expect children to learn these lessons at school.

On the face of it this seems to make sense, but in fact, is it really a good system?  Children are totally dependent on parents. Parents supply all their needs. Pocket money is a gift like a toy. It is an educational toy, of course. When they spend it they find out how to buy things in a shop and how much these things cost. Making them put some of it in a "savings' jar is a bit of a con, like pretending to give a present and then taking it away again. And teaching them at home before they learn about money at school?  Without a good grasp of Arithmetic, how can they have any idea about budgeting?
You can forget about teaching children the value of money when they are really young. When they are teenagers a clothes allowance might be a good idea. They might learn the difference between what clothes are really necessary and what are not, but this is a luxury that only really well-off parents can afford.

Actually, after bringing up five children, I have come to the conclusion that thrift is a virtue that one is born with and it can't be taught. Also I think that we live in such a commercialised world, the most difficult problem is to get children to think less  of the importance of money.. . . . .

The poems I like to read

I have downloaded the programme for the Franschhoek festival. I would like to book now, but I must wait to see what Jenny wants to do. We are going together either on the Friday or the Saturday. I think probably the Friday.  We had thought of staying over, but the cheapest place will not accept bookings for less than two nights and Jen doesn't want to stay away from home that long.

When deciding what to book for I am looking particularly at the Poetry events. This is not only because I am a poet myself and read quite a lot of poetry, but also because I want to support my fellow poets. Many of those that are reading are personal friends.

As far as the Festival goes, I am attending the events prepared to listen and  enjoy, but when it comes to reading poems and even more when I contemplate buying a book of poems, I am rather fussy. There are several kinds of poems that I don't much like. Some of these I will listen to if I really have to and will skim over when I encounter them in a journal, but some I don't want to read at all. I list those below.

1. Poems in which the meaning is very obscure.
Sometimes one has to read a poem a few times before knowing what it is about,  I am prepared to do this if the poem is worthwhile, if the words are beautiful for instance or if it has something new and important to say. But some people who write poetry seem to think that a poem should be full of ambiguities and some even seem to think intelligibility is unnecessary and that it is the reader's job to supply meaning. I was shocked to find this sentiment actually expressed by a modern, (or perhaps Post-modern,) American Poet. If the writer himself doesn't care enough about what he wants to say, to make it clear to the reader, why should the reader care about it either. If on reading the first stanza of a poem two or three times, I still don't understand it,I don't bother to read the rest of it.

2. Sermon poems.
These are poems listing or dwelling on sins. Not the poet's own sins but the sins of those around him or her. Hypocrisy and self-righteousness are favourites. Lack of care for the poor or the environment are also frequent subjects. I have never liked being lectured. A pet hate is Philip Larkin's This be the verse.

3 Confessional poems.
But not all confessional poems. There is much confessional poetry that I like very much, but some poems are just too gloomy and others are the kind of which it is said that they give "too much information." I prefer blood and guts to be in crime novels,

4. Political poems
I know I should read  more of the so-called "Struggle  Poetry" and I do think that some of the Black poets are very good, but I just don't enjoy this kind of Poem.

5.Long narrative poems.
I prefer a story, unless it is very short, to be in prose. On the other hand I am not very fond of Flash Fiction (I make an exception of Liesl Jobson's work)

Now with all this in mind I must decide what poetry sessions to book for.


   

Cleaners

I was listening to somebody holding forth on Cape Talk about cleaners and how they are not appreciated and should be paid far more."Cleaners," he said, "Are more important than other categories of employees at the university. They are essential. The university would not function without them." I do agree that cleaners are paid too little, but I disagree when he says that they are  essential. Cleaning is not a highly skilled job. Neither University staff, nor students are unable to do a bit of cleaning and in some other countries they are expected to do so. I think of my own situation. I don't like housework and it suits me to employ a domestic worker two days a week, but I don't need to. Most of the residents in the Old Age complex where I live do their cleaning themselves.and if it meant that I had to pay the equivalent of R10000 a month, I would do the same. The truth is that my charlady needs me much more than I need her.

Memoir

I haven't written anything in this blog for months. At first I was very busy with the memoir course and coming out of that, the piece I wrote about living in the Zambian Bush. "In the Bush with a Baby in a Meatsafe". At last that mini-memoir is finished. It wasn't very long but it took quite a few weeks. I am pleased with it now.  I wouldn't consider trying to get a publisher interested in it. I know a number of the people on the course do have that in mind, but what I want is just a presentable chapbook (a few chapters and some pictures) that my children and grandchildren might like to read.

Here is an extract and one of the pictures.

ARRIVAL AT MKUSHI

I don’t believe it,” I say. “Are you telling me that this is where we are going to be living for the next couple of months?”

“Actually more like eight or nine months,” my husband, cheerfully, replies. “It’s an ideal spot; near a river, so we can fetch water easily and there is lots of timber lying about so we won’t run out of firewood.”

It has been a long, dusty journey. We have driven hundreds of kilometres up the Great North Road and over several kilometres of narrow winding bush track. Now Mike and I, with our three-month-old baby, Dorothy, have reached our destination − a small clearing in middle of the Zambian bush. It seems a very long way from the nearest human habitation. I was expecting something like the accommodation one gets in the Kruger Park. Instead, I see a large, weather-beaten tent, obviously army surplus, surrounded by several hastily assembled grass huts.  This, I find, is to be our home for the whole of the dry season − from early in April, to the beginning of the rainy season in November, when we will, at last, strike camp and head back to our proper brick house in the town then known as Broken Hill.  

“But what about wild animals?” I say, looking into the surrounding bush. The grass is thick and high and the tall trees crowd in on us. I am sure I can see movement and hear rustles. “You know, lions and leopards and things?”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got a gun.”

“Yes, a little .22 rifle.”

“No, a proper gun.”

“Where did you get it?”

“I borrowed it from Dad’s cook. It’s probably illegal, so don’t tell anybody,”

“And the baby? Will she be safe? What about spiders. What about snakes? What about mosquitoes.”

“There is a meat safe for her to sleep in. They’re unloading it from the lorry now. She’ll be perfectly safe in a meat safe.”

“A meat safe? Do you expect our child to sleep in a meat safe?”

“Why not? What’s wrong with a meat safe. I was brought up in a meat safe and so was my brother. We both slept in meat safes. No creepy crawlies can get to her in a meat safe. A meat safe is the best place for a baby.” And it is. We put a little mattress and a pillow into it and she is just as happy as if it was the finest baby carriage. 

Fires on Mountain

Fire at Muizenberg

As I walked in the evening by the river,

the fire was climbing all over the mountain,

flames were dancing on top of the bushes

and smoke was rising, covering the peak.  

Then the sun, pushing through thick brown cloud,

turned to blood and its rays

fell onto the water

And the river was on fire