writing – Maddie Grigg

I’ve been out of the blogging loop lately, focusing on a writing project which is going to keep me busy for the next couple of years.

However, there is lots going on in the world (earthquake, heatwave, violent death and political farce) but I’m choosing not to obsess about these subjects and am trying (not very successfully) to stop doomscrolling on Facebook and Instagram, which is a complete waste of time and just feeds massive egos and conspiracy theories and lines the pockets of the megarich.

And news websites and a constant diet of updates and cliches are leaving me cold.

The reading is going well, but not in terms of me writing reviews. I’ve had some real duds in recent months, which has been incredibly disappointing.

I had high hopes for The Calamity Club (2026), by Kathryn Stockett, the author of The Help (2009), but it wasn’t for me. I gave it two stars out of five.

I didn’t fare much better with Under Story. I devoured an earlier Chloe Benjamin novel, The Immortalists (2018), but really struggled with this new book, which comes out later in the year.

The very science-based science fiction of Under Story is sweeping in its ambition. Set in the hostile, surreal world of Antarctica, it’s essentially a love story with two central protagonists who take their time to reconnect.

It’s beautifully written but moves forward at too slow a pace for me. I gave it three stars.

Having encountered a reader’s block with new novels other people seem to adore, I had a bit of a book break and then started reading narrative nonfiction, if nothing else but to help with the current writing project, to see how it’s done when done well.

The last bit of nonfiction I read was probably The Salt Path (2018), billed as memoir, nature and travel writing and definitely not fiction. I gave up after two chapters because I liked neither the style nor the whining presence of the author, who irritated me from the start. Well, we all know how that book panned out. Maybe I am more discerning than I think.

I’ve done a bit of research and have started giving nonfiction another go. Mixed results but I completely fell in love with the Bruce Chatwin’s groundbreaking travel writing classic, In Patagonia (1977).

Similarly, The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder (2023) by David Grann is unputdownable, telling the true story of what happened when a naval vessel hit rocks off the South American coast in 1740. Piecing together the story through solid historical research and strong primary sources, Grann has produced a knockout of a book. I was hooked by it.

After failing to ‘get’ an award-winning memoir that had been recommended to me (too highbrow and about a wealthy family I didn’t care much about), I was delighted to then plunge into Great Uncle Harry: A Tale of War and Empire (2024) by Michael Palin, a writer who takes a family story and turns it into a search for answers in this compelling biography, travelogue and history book. Palin is such an empathetic and kind sort of a chap and his writing reflects his humanity.

I’m now reading two novels: A Gentleman in Moscow (2016) by Amor Towles (my day book) and the beautiful There Are Rivers In The Sky by Elif Shafak (2024), which I turn to at night because I have a back-lit Kindle so I don’t disturb Mr Grigg when he’s trying to sleep.

So, you can see I haven’t been completely idle in this ennui-inducing heatwave, which is turning us all into gibbering wrecks.

More from me later in the week, I think. In the meantime, if you have any narrative nonfiction recommendations, I’m all ears.

That’s about it.

Love, Maddie x

Years ago, I was shortlisted for a poem in the internationally-acclaimed Bridport Prize competition.

To be honest, it wasn’t very good but it was a pleasing accomplishment because poems aren’t really my thing. This is probably because, despite studying them quite closely, I find them tricky to analyse, decipher and I always get a bit flustered with the rules.

It’s silly really, because I love the poetry in many song lyrics – I’m thinking Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Ian Dury. I adore those lines in National Express by the Divine Comedy about the jolly hostess and her large behind…

Here’s one of my favourite Joni Mitchell numbers.

If that isn’t poetry, I don’t know what is.

I think perhaps it’s because I’ve studied poetry closely for a creative writing degree that it’s reinforced my natural – and lazy -resistance to anything that requires me to think rather than just imbibe through natural osmosis.

So I need to cast off the hang-ups and fear of getting it wrong and just enjoy poetry for its lyricism, rhythm, cadence and imagery. I should just go with the flow and embrace the sheer joy and beauty in hearing or reading a great poem.

So, on World Poetry Day, tell me – what are your favourite poems?

I like the Spike Milligan one about the worm:

Today I saw a little worm, wriggling on his belly. Perhaps he’d like to come inside and see what’s on the telly.

I like The Voice by Thomas Hardy. I like anything written by Christina Rossetti. I like this one by William Butler Yates:

He wishes for the cloths of heaven

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

But come to think of it, my favourite poem is Ithaka by Greek poet C P Cavafy. I saw somewhere that it was read at Jackie Kennedy’s funeral in May 1994.

Here it is read by the wonderful Sean Connery with music by Greece’s own Vangelis. Cheesy but profound.