Quiet as apples
In class today Robin Robertson talked about being an editor and a poet, and Maggie Ferguson talked about the Orkney Islands and George MacKay Brown. He was alright, but it was her I was listening to because I’ve wanted to visit the Orkneys for years (I even have one of those strange obscure history books from the Penguin classics series on the history of the Kings of Orkney) and she just made me want to go there so much more. I haven't felt this need to go somewhere in a really long time.
Brilliant moment during class - Ms Ferguson was showing pictures of the Orkneys and said something about how she'd been taken to visit a house in Calcutta earlier today that was 300 years old, and how this was old by cal standards. She added in a very kind voice that it would be very old by a building in London too, and started talking about 5000 year old relics on the islands.
I don't think I've ever been in a room with white people and brown people before where the white people were the ones talking about how ancient and glorious their culture was before. It was joyous.
In other news: I read poetry the wrong way.
In other other news: I am aching to write. :(