Welcome to justthoughtsnstuff

I started posting to jtns on 20 February 2010 with just one word, 'Mosaic'. This seemed an appropriate introduction to a blog that would juxtapose fragments of memoir and life-writing. Since 1996, I'd been coming to terms with the consequences of emotional and economic abuse that had begun in childhood, and which, amongst other things, had sought to stifle self-expression. While I'd explored some aspects of my life through fiction and, to a lesser extent, journalism, it was only in 2010 that I felt confident enough to write openly about myself. I believed this was an important part of the healing process. Yet within weeks, the final scenes of my family's fifty-year nightmare started to play themselves out and the purpose of the blog became one of survival through writing. Although some posts are about my family's suffering - most explicitly, Life-Writing Talk, with Reference to Trust: A family story - the majority are about happier subjects (including, Bampton in rural west Oxfordshire, where I live, Oxford, where I work, the seasons and the countryside, walking and cycling) and I hope that these, together with their accompanying photos, are enjoyable and positive. Note: In February 2020, on jtns' tenth birthday, I stopped posting to this blog. It is now a contained work of life-writing about ten years of my life. Frank, 21 February 2020.

New blog: morethoughtsnstuff.com.

Sunday 10 May 2015

nettles, tall nettles by edward thomas, 113 cowley road, plaque, unveiling

















Nettles are looking particularly striking just now.

Puts me in mind of Edward Thomas's poem, Tall Nettles. I remember thinking, when I read it for the first time, how wonderful it was to find a poet who could write so beautifully about such an unregarded plant. I felt that Thomas was my kind of poet.

TALL NETTLES by EDWARD THOMAS

Tall nettles cover up, as they have done
These many springs, the rusty harrow, the plough
Long worn out, and the roller made of stone:
Only the elm butt tops the nettles now.

This corner of the farmyard I like most:
As well as any bloom upon a flower
I like the dust on the nettles, never lost
Except to prove the sweetness of a shower.

“Tall Nettles,” by Thomas, Edward (1878-1917). Copyright Edward Thomas, 1979, reproduced under licence from Faber and Faber Ltd. via First World War Poetry Digital Archive, accessed May 10, 2015, http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/collections/item/2951.

Looking forward to the unveiling of the plaque on 113 Cowley Road, the house Edward Thomas moved to as a non-collegiate student at Oxford University in 1897. The unveiling will take place at 2 pm next Saturday, 16th May. See: http://streetbooks.co.uk/edwardthomaseventsspringandsummer2015.html.
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