On Wednesday a package arrives at the door. I believe it's a late birthday present of cd's from my daughter Bethan. It turns out to be copies of my new book 'The Climbing Tree', a novella for teenagers who've had enough of Harry Potter wizardry and books thick as breeze-blocks.
I'm excited. It's a premature delivery and about as slim as I'd anticipated. I love the cover with its bulbous tree seen from below and line of rope running from top to bottom. Later on in the week, publishers Pont tell me the official publication date is Feb. 15th, so this is a bonus.
My young daughter, an avid fan of Jacqueline Wilson and , more recently, Michael Morpurgo, arrives home and grabs a copy, declaring 'It's mine!' My wife reads it for the first time and thinks she might appreciate it more in a few years time. My daughter thinks it looks a scrawny beast next to her current reads. It's like I've finally given her a pet, only it's turned out to be a stick insect not a nice, fluffy kitten.
The book's dedicated to 'My former pupils at Radyr Comp., Cardiff' , but maybe I should've named all of them.
I write up answers to an interview for the Pont website. 'Where did the inspiration come from?' I began writing it ten years ago ( then a play called 'Waste' ), so it's hard to remember. However, the actual tree which features as an important 'character' is still there. I can see it out of my window and it's the best around for climbing. It used to have a rope tied to one branch where kids and youths would swing. Nowadays, the area's fenced off and it's more difficult to get to, so few go out there.
It's great to touch the book and I can't imagine a world without them, though recent technology such as i-pads suggest they could disappear.
I'm delighted now that the original play, the bleaker 'Waste', was never produced. Thanks in no small part to Viv at Pont, this is more optimistic and, I hope, better for it. Also, I can't imagine how some of the special effects would've been achieved on stage, especially the 'siles', which are missile-like fireworks.
I've always been fascinated by dystopian novels since reading 'Brave New World', 'We' ( another novella),'1984' and 'The Handmaid's Tale'. However, I don't claim this book to be a wide-sweeping vision : it's more of a fragment.
In retrospect, one of my main influences was 'A Clockwork Orange' with its gang of 'droogies'. I would have liked to create a whole new vocabulary like Burgess, but give a sense of it with the 'wraps' (their drugs) and the 'fedicopters' ( police helicopters).
What will become of this novella when it's released into the wider world, I don't know. If it's truly a stick insect maybe it will be noticed moving amongst the branches of an oak and be adopted.
Just to prove my obsession with trees , here's a recent poem about another oak, this time one with a different sensibility to the climbing tree (oh no, I'm beginning to sound like Carlo/ PC!) -
ROOT RISING
Oak's root rising up
into the lawn
a bulky thigh-bone
not yet exposed
too many lopped limbs
and now it plans
to leave us
I dream
its treedom
uprooted
by its own force
hurdling the fence
branches back-and-foreing
stumbling over reed-beds
hauling itself out of muddy streams
till it reaches
a thicket of trees
where it will end its days
but daylight
you can't avoid
yellow fungus bright as blood
wax
the sun
will fire
to fever
soon the charred stub-ends
rings of age
will blacken beyond telling.
I'm excited. It's a premature delivery and about as slim as I'd anticipated. I love the cover with its bulbous tree seen from below and line of rope running from top to bottom. Later on in the week, publishers Pont tell me the official publication date is Feb. 15th, so this is a bonus.
My young daughter, an avid fan of Jacqueline Wilson and , more recently, Michael Morpurgo, arrives home and grabs a copy, declaring 'It's mine!' My wife reads it for the first time and thinks she might appreciate it more in a few years time. My daughter thinks it looks a scrawny beast next to her current reads. It's like I've finally given her a pet, only it's turned out to be a stick insect not a nice, fluffy kitten.
The book's dedicated to 'My former pupils at Radyr Comp., Cardiff' , but maybe I should've named all of them.
I write up answers to an interview for the Pont website. 'Where did the inspiration come from?' I began writing it ten years ago ( then a play called 'Waste' ), so it's hard to remember. However, the actual tree which features as an important 'character' is still there. I can see it out of my window and it's the best around for climbing. It used to have a rope tied to one branch where kids and youths would swing. Nowadays, the area's fenced off and it's more difficult to get to, so few go out there.
It's great to touch the book and I can't imagine a world without them, though recent technology such as i-pads suggest they could disappear.
I'm delighted now that the original play, the bleaker 'Waste', was never produced. Thanks in no small part to Viv at Pont, this is more optimistic and, I hope, better for it. Also, I can't imagine how some of the special effects would've been achieved on stage, especially the 'siles', which are missile-like fireworks.
I've always been fascinated by dystopian novels since reading 'Brave New World', 'We' ( another novella),'1984' and 'The Handmaid's Tale'. However, I don't claim this book to be a wide-sweeping vision : it's more of a fragment.
In retrospect, one of my main influences was 'A Clockwork Orange' with its gang of 'droogies'. I would have liked to create a whole new vocabulary like Burgess, but give a sense of it with the 'wraps' (their drugs) and the 'fedicopters' ( police helicopters).
What will become of this novella when it's released into the wider world, I don't know. If it's truly a stick insect maybe it will be noticed moving amongst the branches of an oak and be adopted.
Just to prove my obsession with trees , here's a recent poem about another oak, this time one with a different sensibility to the climbing tree (oh no, I'm beginning to sound like Carlo/ PC!) -
ROOT RISING
Oak's root rising up
into the lawn
a bulky thigh-bone
not yet exposed
too many lopped limbs
and now it plans
to leave us
I dream
its treedom
uprooted
by its own force
hurdling the fence
branches back-and-foreing
stumbling over reed-beds
hauling itself out of muddy streams
till it reaches
a thicket of trees
where it will end its days
but daylight
you can't avoid
yellow fungus bright as blood
wax
the sun
will fire
to fever
soon the charred stub-ends
rings of age
will blacken beyond telling.
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