2017 was very difficult for a lot of people in my world, myself included. Over the past months I’ve occasionally felt like I was floundering in all the bad news, tragedies and crises. The thing that has helped me out of those dark spots was to make a concerted effort to seek out and focus on positive things going in the world — things are are far too often overshadowed by the bad.
WIth that thought at the very forefront of my mind I decided to make the theme for this year’s Giftmas Blog Tour ‘Shining a Light’.
By sharing our stories and raising money to help feed hungry families, my hope is that this blog tour will be a light as well.
Our fundraising goal is $522 (that’s one dollar more than we raised last year!). Because the Edmonton Food Bank can stretch every donated dollar into three meals if we reach our goal we will have contributed 1,566 meals to families this season, but we can’t do it without you.
If you are able, please donate to our fundraiser for the Edmonton Food Bank. Every dollar counts and, in addition to the warm feeling that comes with helping others, we are also offering a whack of goodies to every person who contributes. You can check out the details and claim your rewards by clicking here but those rewards include ebooks, holiday cards, stickers, Tuckerizations, handicrafts and more!
And here is the most important link in this whole blog tour:
Today I have the pleasure of hosting J.S. Watts and appearing on her blog. Please enjoy J.S.’s take on shining a light 🙂
This is the second of my two blog posts for the Giftmas Blog Tour 2017, which is raising funds for the Edmonton Food Bank (that’s Edmonton, Canada if you are reading this in the UK). The link to the fundraiser is here: https://www.canadahelps.org/en/pages/giftmas-blog-tour-2017-supports-the-edmonton-food-/
Big thanks to the generous Rhonda Parrish for hosting me and for setting up the Giftmas Blog Tour in the first place.
In my first post, I admitted to my love of shiny lights and the glittering indulgence of year-end. In this one, I thought I’d share some more thoughts about the shiny visuals of Christmas.
As a writer, I try to evoke all the five senses to bring my words to life: touch, taste, sound, smell and sight. I like to think if used correctly they can prove extremely evocative.
My last poetry collection, “Years Ago You Coloured Me”, is all about memory and things that leave their mark. I therefore spent a lot of time trying to write evocative poetry. The collection includes several winter or Christmas themed poems. Over the years, I have also written a number of other wintry or Christmas focused poems. Collectively, they have referenced all of the senses and include, “prickly soft boughs like arms”, “aromas of Christmas, / flavours of a childhood past” and a “sound like jasmine”, but when I consider them dispassionately the sense I find I’ve drawn on most is that of sight, the “festive, / kaleidoscopic lights” of the Christmas period.
If I think about my childhood Christmases, it is the glittery, colourful, nature of them that comes to mind first: the glow of firelight, Christmas tree fairy-lights shining in an otherwise darkened room, the glint of that light on tinsel and wrapped presents. It’s the lights that get me every time.
To illustrate the way the shining lights of Christmas can take me back, I thought I’d share a poem with you. It’s from “Years Ago You Coloured Me” and it is a brief look at how lights, even after Christmas is over, can transport me to a place I thought I’d lost.
Christmas Lights – Ware, January Third
I thought Christmas had gone,
faded back into mid-winter night
and the acid-burn aftershock of New Year.
But, driving through the town centre
after dark, I found the lights,
primary coloured, electric ribbon lanterns
strung along the High Street
in brazen, gaudy delight,
the exact bright shades
of the cheap paper chains
I stuck together as a child,
painstakingly licking each rainbow strip
to form a piecemeal rope of coloured dreams
strong enough to draw Old Christmas down,
bright moon balloon of kaleidoscopic glass,
loudly reflecting entire colliding spectrums,
as well as simpler echoes
of childhood’s undarkened joys.
J.S.Watts is a UK poet and novelist. Her poetry, short stories and book reviews appear in a wide variety of publications in Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the States and have been broadcast on BBC and Independent Radio.
Her poetry collections, “Cats and Other Myths” and “Years Ago You Coloured Me”, plus a multi-award nominated poetry pamphlet, “Songs of Steelyard Sue” are published by Lapwing Publications. J.S. performs her poetry all over the UK and runs workshops on both poetry and prose. She has been Poetry Reviews Editor for Open Wide Magazine and Poetry Editor for Ethereal Tales.
Her novels, “A Darker Moon”, a work of literary dark fiction, and “Witchlight”, a paranormal tale, are published by Vagabondage Press. For further details see: www.jswatts.co.uk and, of course, her Goodreads Blog: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6620930.J_S_Watts/blog
As far as I can recall, Christmas does not get a look-in in my first novel, A Darker Moon. The book is just too dark and mythic (having said that, if anyone who has read it does come across a festive reference I’ve forgotten, feel free to let me know). The timeline of my paranormal novel, Witchlight, however, cuts right across the Christmas period, so there is a whole chapter in the book dedicated to Christmas.
J.S.Watts is a British writer. Her poetry, short stories and book reviews appear in a wide variety of publications in Britain, Canada, Australia and the States including Acumen, Mslexia and Popshot and have been broadcast on BBC and Independent Radio. J.S. has been Poetry Reviews Editor for Open Wide Magazine and Poetry Editor for Ethereal Tales. Her debut poetry collection, Cats and Other Myths, is published by Lapwing Publications, as is a subsequent, multi-award nominated poetry pamphlet, Songs of Steelyard Sue. Her novels, A Darker Moon – dark literary fiction and Witchlight – paranormal with a touch of romance, are published in the US and UK by Vagabondage Press. She has a new poetry collection, Years Ago You Coloured Me, due out from Lapwing in 2016. For further details see her website: 