Buttercups and Rhizomes -- Peter Leyland
No, you can't have your ball back
Buttercups and Rhizomes: a metaphor for our internet age
This is a picture which I posted on Twitter recently and which got a number of likes – eighteen in all - which believe me isn’t that many. Some people get hundreds. The touch of heavy humour in the picture is my attempt to catch the eye of you, the reader. I must apologise, however, that this story is not about lions or even football, but an account of a thesis and a number of books that I have received from those with whom I have made a Twitter connection.
My story begins with reference to a doctoral thesis by one of those contacts about reimagining the educational curriculum, a subject close to my heart. This is a lengthy study called, Rhizomes, Assemblages and Nomad War Machines, by Kay Sidebottom. It was a challenging read and I made notes as I went along, but it contained the idea that Twitter is like a rhizome, and that things can be connected together at any point. 'Twitter,' says Kay, ‘connects disparate individuals together, sometimes seemingly randomly, but often productively’ (2021.19). I liked this idea and, although I was hitherto unfamiliar with the word rhizome, once I had discovered its botanical and philosophical meaning it struck a chord with me. I have always felt this personal need to reach out and connect with others, much I suppose like the rhizomatic buttercups do before springing forth on the surface in all their yellow glory.
Now, thanks to Kay's thesis, I had a metaphor for all the reading and writing connections that were emerging from my acquaintanceship with Twitter: The first book I received after joining in 2019 was Reading Barry MacSweeney, edited by Paul Batchelor. Paul, now Director of Creative Writing at Durham University, had mentioned Barry MacSweeney on Twitter and I had responded. In the 60s Barry was the bright star, the boy wonder of the emerging poetry scene in the North East and I had briefly shared a flat with him in Finchley. Paul told me that he had used MacSweeney’s work for his own doctoral study. During our Twitter connection I had sent Paul a memoir that I had written about Barry and his stay with four aspiring poets, me being one, while he wrote The Last Bud. I had also mentioned the visit to Keats’s house in Hampstead where Barry told me how only the paper-thin walls separated Keats and Fanny Brawne, the woman that he loved. In return Paul had sent me the book of essays on Barry that he had edited, inscribed: ‘…two admirers of Barry MacSweeney’.
The second book was by Jayne Josso, a writer of works of fiction set in Japan. I had been planning a course on Japanese Novels for an adult education class, the theme for which had been suggested by two of my students, and I had noticed on Twitter the promotion of, My Falling Down House, a novel by Jayne Josso set in Japan. I had enquired with her about the book and whether she could recommend any Japanese novels for me to read in preparation for the course. In reply I received an exhaustive list of many books by old and modern writers both in English and in Japanese translations, among them the memorable Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima, and The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka. Needless to say, I bought a copy of Jayne’s book, read it and recommended it to my students. It is the exploration of a mind in free fall and becomes an absorbing story of a young Japanese man's breakdown. It had echoes of Kobo Abe’s, The Woman of the Dunes which I went on to read later. The course itself ended just before Christmas and to my surprise I received a further copy of the book from Jayne in the post. As you might guess, I sent it out to the two students who had suggested the idea of reading Japanese Novels. Jayne later sent me her next book, Japan Stories, and I was able to join an online presentation with her reading from it.
Jayne Josso
The next book was from Marina Sofia, who interestingly enough had studied Japanese language and literature at university and who had worked with Japanese companies in her home country, Romania. Very early on in our online acquaintance I had mentioned to Marina that my wife and I had spent a summer holiday on The Danube Delta and I had received from her a wonderful video about this most beautiful part of her country. Marina is co-founder of Corylus Books, who publish ‘translated crime fiction with a social edge’. She sent me a book called Nostalgia by Mircea Cartarescu, a writer who emerged from Romania, after communism. This was a post-modernist novel with long paragraphs and no dialogue, but its 60s references, especially to The Beatles, kept me going. Marina also posts excellent reviews each month about translated books and she is very informed about crime fiction, something I share. In 2016 I self-published a book, The Detective in Fiction, about a popular adult-education course that I had taught.
One of the most rewarding contacts made through Twitter has been with Sam Mills and her wonderful book, The Fragments of My Father. In this she describes how she looks after her father who suffers from schizophrenia and I reviewed it for AuthorsElectric in June 2021. Anyway, having been invited by Sam to discuss her book with her and having been given a copy, I joined the book group that she had set up called CarersFirst. This is an online group of people who care for others in their lives and which meets every month on Zoom to discuss a book that someone has recommended. In August this year the group entered a competition called The Booker Prize Book Club Challenge, run by The Reading Agency, where in order to win a set of one of the Booker Prize shortlisted titles, you had to describe what was so distinctive about your group. We entered and Manda, one of our members, wrote this piece for our entry form:
“We’ve come together through two things which are being carers and sharing a love of reading. We all recognise how important self-care is and that books help you feel part of a bigger world. Which is why we choose to read diversely and share good reads with each other; as carers our own carer experiences are so different and literature helps us to share a whole range of emotions with each other. While we don’t meet in person, we’ve become close and have such an incredibly fun time discussing all things books.”
Although we didn't win, the sharing brought us even closer as a group. I read three Booker shortlisted titles supplied by my local library, and one of them, Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan, I have recommended for our next book. The group will meet to discuss it soon.
Finally, there is The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara sent to me by Nicie Panetta. Nicie lives in Boston, Maine, and writes a monthly newsletter called Frugal Chariot, 'a reader's guide to exceptional books about nature, climate and place'. It was one of those nights when I was idly scrolling through Twitter when I got into a conversation with Nicie about this poet of whom I had never actually heard let alone read. The upshot was that Nicie said she had two copies of Frank O'Hara's book of collected poems and offered to send me one. I received it and having looked at the poems decided to make Frank O'Hara my poet of choice for the next session of a small group of poetry lovers with whom I meet up regularly on Zoom.
The group began during the lockdown and we decided that every week we would all choose a poet and each read a poem from their work. We began with the poets laureate of England, Scotland and Wales which as you might imagine lasted some time - over a year in fact. We then moved on to a more random selection: recently Rabindranath Tagore, Marianne Moore, Wendell Berry and e.e.cummings come to mind. Once we have chosen a poem we email it round to the others in advance. The readings and discussion take about an hour and a half. This is from my notes of the last session:
"Today's reading of Frank O'Hara's poetry - Animals, Today, Autobiographia Literararia and The Day Lady Died were the poems chosen - was truly amazing. We discussed how the poet invites you into his life; that his poems are like pieces of art thrown against a wall; that he writes about things like kangaroos that are always with you in your head; that he is often presenting us with an unfiltered child's view of of the world; and how the one about Billie Holiday made you remember how things could happen suddenly on an ordinary day, like the assassination of President Kennedy, and how you would always remember where you were because everything just slowed down. We liked O'Hara's openness to the world and his fascination with humanity; our mood was full of humour and the exciting exchange of ideas. Poetry, I said to my friends at one point, is anything you want it to be."
These are stories of what the receipt of books through the Twitter site has meant to me. Now, returning to Kay's idea of the rhizome, I think that the Twitter site is a hugely powerful part of social media on the internet. If you treat it with respect, unlike the lion in my picture it won't bite you: we should reach out more, we should have more buttercups.
Books and a thesis gratefully received
Comments
What a great post, full of literary nourishment, introducing me to lots of authors I didn’t know. Though funnily enough I had heard of The Day Lady Died but didn’t realise it was by Frank O’Hara. On a par with Don MacLean’s brilliant American Pie which became all the more poignant when I was told it was about Buddy Holly.
I was pleased with the blog because everyone I contacted agreed to be referred to. I look forward to a time when we can all share and care for one another better.