Our Artist in Residence for October, poet clare e. potter, continues her exploration of the life of a river in her piece, Singing a Different Tune Nowadays. Throughout 2017 these artists, including clare e. potter will take a leading creative role in what Wales Arts Review publishes, centring their skills on a challenging project over the course of a month. We were inundated with applications, receiving hundreds of emails about the positions, and it was no easy task whittling down all that talent to this final eleven. Our team of six editors debated long into the night, and in the end, we decided on a collection of people who we most want to work with, and whose work excites us. We think you will be excited by them too.
Last week, I walked with my father along the Sirhowy River. We used to walk our dogs here. In the ancient St. David’s wood meters from the river, I’d camp with my friend and her shotgun, Dad went bird nesting in this same wood. My old stomping ground. His old stomping ground.
Before we get started, Dad has a phone call from one of his butties telling him they’ve won a bet on a horse. Before we get to the steps to reach the river, he’s telling me about the one donkey circus that used to come and set up where Asda’s now sprawls, and about the ‘natural elements being leached out of the earth unnaturally’ (ferric oxide, the orange slip that enters the river from the disused mines making the water ‘jaundiced,’ he says). My father never tells a story straight; he knows it’s the tributaries that make a river.
But then we descend and all sounds of Blackwood town evaporate. We are where the air is thinner and cool. He tells me about the history of the mines in the area, how the river was abused, about driving the fire engine up the narrow lane to the centuries-old riverbank cottage, Glyndwr House, and the protests to protect the wood—unfortunately, portions were cut down for the bypass.
He talked for two gorgeous hours, but here, I’ve distilled it to its funniest, most informative, most meaningful 12 minutes. My father has begun to write poetry in his sixties; he wouldn’t easily call it that, he’d call it observations that ‘I gotta get on paper.’ He shares a poem about his realisation that the river sounds different now, sings different now; as he reads, his voice and the urgency of the river are in synergy.
So many needs saying about this place, its bell pits, tram roads, our dog that drowned, and our forefathers who walked the 100 steps to and from the mines, but hey, that’s enough from me. Have a listen (preferably with headphones), this man knows how to tell a story . . .
This contribution, Singing a Different Tune Nowadays by clare e. potter is part of the Artists in Residence series.
