Swift Diaries
Swifts in Leeds
This last week I talked more about swifts than I saw them. This was due, in part, because I attended a conference at the University of Leeds (‘Poetry’s Environments’) where I performed a ‘prototype’ of what eventually might turn out to be my next book: a mixture of poetry and prose ‘reflections’ focusing on the Crookes swifts. I had the best time at this gathering. I listened to and conversed with some of the most creatively and imaginatively minded poets and academics. I was buoyed by hearing about all these writers’ multifaceted engagements with the world.
When I talked to one of my fellow delegates and told her about my swift poetry, she explained to me that birds used to nest under the eaves of her house (in Leeds), they used to come back every year, but one spring they didn't return. Nothing had changed. She hadn’t ‘fixed’ the roof or altered the environmental conditions - it’s just that the swifts decided themselves they didn’t want to nest under the roof of her home anymore.
While I was at the conference I got to thinking about how increasingly tough it was for writers to find work or develop projects where they collaborated with communities, groups - where writing and reading was an integral part of the outreach. I made a list of some of my previous job titles: prison writer in residence, Literature Development Officer (working in libraries and with a wider community of practitioners promoting writing and reading in Leicestershire), teaching creative writing in adult education settings — and wondered how many of these employment opportunities still existed. You could add to this list teaching creative writing in a university. Each month I hear about the closure of BAs and MAs - it’s not only creative writing degrees that are being targeted, universities are closing down whole English Departments too. I hope the PhD students I saw discussing their work in the panels over the course of those two days continue to explore what drives and excites them with the support of our creative institutions.
It’s rained for long periods of this week. Whichever part of Yorkshire I’ve been in, it has been wet and cold. There have been moments of sunshine, where some heat has settled, but mostly the weather has been wearisome in its drabness. The swifts - if I have seen them at all - make cameo appearances, glimpsed between rooftops, skimming in ones and twos across sky before they vanish again. Last night, I stood outside the front door for five minutes to see if I could spot a bird. High up, a swift was ‘writing its name’. By the time it had dropped to rooftops level another swift had joined it, trembling at speed in big circles. On Monday afternoon (on my way to Manchester to pick up my son and all his belongings from university) I wasn’t expecting to see any swift action. But there, in relatively slow-time, was a swift flying over our street - bending sunlight. It was flying with purpose, attentive to every ‘layer’ of air it explored. I watched it curve and shoot above me for some time, its locus being no more than the area of a couple of streets. Then it came to the nest, slowed and perched for only a second, if that, just below the guttering and passed on the parcel of food it had been gathering. The bird gave up, passed on a bit of itself then dropped and shot along the middle of our street, as low as a hedge, head-height, before banking up again to regain the sky. I went back to my work, fixing the roof box on the car.
I’m on my travels for a while with the family. We’ve been planning this holiday for quite a while (it’s a bit of an epic one). If I see anything of interest on the journey (including swifts) I’ll write a note or two. I’ll post an article again on my return in July. Thanks for reading Swift Diaries — I hope the skies are warmer and fuller on my return.
In the intermission, some adverts:
If you’re interested in writers talking about their creative practice, how they write, what they are influenced by, I interview poets for The Two-Way Poetry Podcast. There are three series of programmes, which you can find here:
https://twowaypoetry.podbean.com/
You can find out more about my poetry collections through the Longbarrow Press website: https://longbarrowpress.com/current-publications/chris-jones/
Or for a different view, check out my website: https://www.chris-jones.org.uk/
7th June
It feels kind of fitting that on this, World Swift Day, I’ve seen no swifts. The sky is a grey wash. Rain joins the ceremonies late afternoon/early evening. It is cold outside.
8th June
A swift see-saws in tight circles around the house, like the needle of a sowing machine with cloth running through it. It breaks off from these low loops to swerve across the road, disappearing over roofs for about ten seconds before wavering back again. I watch it perch for a second below the guttering, delivering its package of food before it dips and scoots even lower along the length of our road.
9th June
I’m just back from Leeds, walking up the road at dusk. Overhead, I can see a swift aiming for the nest. Because I’m watching the other way around - looking uphill at its homing trajectory, the whole flight looks different. I can now see the kink in its flight as it skims above the telephone wires, that little adjustment before it enters the nest.
10th June
I’m back in Leeds to perform a first read-through of a selection of swift poems that I’ve been writing for the last three years. I intersperse diary entries between the poems for context, for different rhythms and textures. A listener comes up to me afterwards to say how my hand shaped ‘flights’ when I was describing the birds’ flybys. I don’t quite know what to think about my ‘moving with thought.’
11th June
I walk up from the station in the rain. The rain has scrubbed all swift activity from the bank of sky. When I finally reach my road in the drizzle, at 7.30pm it already feels like nighttime. I look up again an hour later and the sky is even darker, colder and there are no birds in sight, let alone swifts.
12th June
The late show. I haven’t seen a swift all day. I step out at 9.20pm to see if I can catch a flight. High up, I glimpse a swift signing its name. It comes nearer the house and lower - then another swift comes into view. Two swifts in the whole of the sky. I turn back inside.
13th June
I haven’t heard the nest for a week or two now: swifts singing out from the bricks. In the bathroom, you wouldn’t know you were sharing a space with birds just above you. Once or twice, I’ve heard a ‘shuffling’ or ‘rolling’ sound over the years. What do they make of our ablutions, our voices, our music?