Mike was a quiet man who kept himself to himself. He was always asking for fresh clay for his pottery work, and could get on the teacher\u2019s nerves. And then there was the Friday evening carrying of cardboard boxes, marked fragile, to reception so they could be shipped off to Ireland. Inside the boxes were brightly-coloured, highly-glazed, houses, 3-inch figures of men, women and children, and other objects, crafted meticulously day after day in the prison pottery class.<\/p>\n
Mike didn\u2019t say much, but if persuaded he would launch into stories of dogs and cats, of poaching and performing wonders. He would bend and swoop as he warmed to his tale, and his traveller accent was loaded with emphases and intimacies, shifting in pace and volume. I asked him if he could write some down and he did.<\/p>\n
I reared him<\/em><\/p>\n myself like a mother feeds her<\/em><\/p>\n baby she puts the food in her<\/em><\/p>\n mouth and chews it then rolls<\/em><\/p>\n the food between her THUMB and<\/em><\/p>\n forefinger and place it in baby\u2019s<\/em><\/p>\n mouth well that how I REARED<\/em><\/p>\n him the reason I do this is<\/em><\/p>\n wherever I go if I get lost<\/em><\/p>\n or he would get LOST I spit on the<\/em><\/p>\n ground he SMELLS my D \u2013 N \u2013 A<\/em><\/p>\n and he will find me I used<\/em><\/p>\n to play hide and SEEK with<\/em><\/p>\n him<\/em><\/p>\n because I used to urinate on a tree and he<\/em><\/p>\n would think to himself MY MASTER<\/em><\/p>\n then I\u2019d spit<\/em><\/p>\n here ate every dive every river<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019d cross I\u2019d spit on the<\/em><\/p>\n Ground and he would know I<\/em><\/p>\n crossed that river so that\u2019s why<\/em><\/p>\n he would never be a LOST<\/em><\/p>\n dog because if I lost him I\u2019d<\/em><\/p>\n spit and urinate all the way<\/em><\/p>\n home and he would SMELL that<\/em><\/p>\n scent all the way home<\/em><\/p>\n He wanted to write about how he could use his skills to find the missing victim of Ian Brady. He was convinced they\u2019d never found the body because it was buried under a stream-bed. Mike proclaimed he could alter the course of rivers.<\/p>\n I CAN STAY DOWN 10 FEET OF<\/em><\/p>\n WATER ALL DAY ALL night.<\/em><\/p>\n I CAN GO TO A DEPTH where my<\/em><\/p>\n EARS CAN STAND SO MUCH PRESSURE<\/em><\/p>\n I CAN STAY under WATER for A<\/em><\/p>\n WEEK HYPNOTIZE fish I get BIG<\/em><\/p>\n Fright IN AN OLD CANAL I WAS<\/em><\/p>\n DOWN under WATER ABOUT 20<\/em><\/p>\n Minutes NO OXYGEN I go under<\/em><\/p>\n CAVERN big pikes I GRAB ONE<\/em><\/p>\n ME and him fight in water for<\/em><\/p>\n ABOUT TWO minutes I come up<\/em><\/p>\n Like DOLPHIN IN A PLACE CALLED<\/em><\/p>\n Gloucester 26lb 7ounce pike IN<\/em><\/p>\n MY BARE HANDS people CLAP<\/em><\/p>\n HANDS everybody TAKE photos<\/em><\/p>\n I GO DOWN again I five OR<\/em><\/p>\n Six pike really big about 40lb<\/em><\/p>\n They LOOK at me I look at<\/em><\/p>\n Them I TRY TO tickle HIM<\/em><\/p>\n HE LASH out they ALL TURN POOL<\/em><\/p>\n Very DARK I get fright because<\/em><\/p>\n 40 AND 50lb pike flying about IN<\/em><\/p>\n POOL no eat you but hit of FACE<\/em><\/p>\n Hit of BODY very dangerous I CURL<\/em><\/p>\n Up into BALL LIKE HEDGEHOG I<\/em><\/p>\n Still hunt fresh water CONGERS<\/em><\/p>\n Very very RARE DELICACY YOU SEE<\/em><\/p>\n In NO BOOKS I fight with them<\/em><\/p>\n In water I go TELL MAN WHO<\/em><\/p>\n Write BOOKS HELP ME write BOOK<\/em><\/p>\n I fight with SEA CONGER<\/em><\/p>\n AND ALSO WOLF EEL HE HISS<\/em><\/p>\n SNARL like DOG very DANGEROUS<\/em><\/p>\n I ALSO SWIM with BASKING shark<\/em><\/p>\n I RUB his belly. He like quiet<\/em><\/p>\n LAMB. I ALSO fight with DOG fish.<\/em><\/p>\n He got skin like open RAZOR<\/em><\/p>\n So I grab him BY the GILLS<\/em><\/p>\n NO FISHERMAN in the WORLD<\/em><\/p>\n Catch MANY fish AS ME I<\/em><\/p>\n CAN catch thousand A DAY big<\/em><\/p>\n Mountain trout. ME CAN catch<\/em><\/p>\n With my HANDS 3 seconds I<\/em><\/p>\n MASTER with ROD FLY WORM<\/em><\/p>\n Spinner ME MASTER. I ALSO<\/em><\/p>\n Hypnotize fish hundreds in seconds.<\/em><\/p>\n I hypnotize RABBITS ALL ANIMALS<\/em><\/p>\n ME CATCH very big trout 18lb<\/em><\/p>\n With my hands very fast WATER<\/em><\/p>\n ME try LOADS times to catch him<\/em><\/p>\n Not to EAT just to show that<\/em><\/p>\n TROUT he was very PROUD TROUT<\/em><\/p>\n He would LOOK at ME AS to say \u2013<\/em><\/p>\n I too clever for you I let him<\/em><\/p>\n Play one day I told TO MYSELF<\/em><\/p>\n He is the King of that RIVER<\/em><\/p>\n But I AM the king of ALL RIVERS<\/em><\/p>\n There\u2019s no river I have not TAMED<\/em><\/p>\n I catch him when he WAS AT<\/em><\/p>\n FULL STRENGTH. A very COLD MORNING<\/em><\/p>\n And I TOOK him FROM the water<\/em><\/p>\n And looked him straight in the EYE<\/em><\/p>\n WHO\u2019S BOSS NOW and slipped back very<\/em><\/p>\n Very gently into the GOLD RIVER<\/em><\/p>\n A SHORT STORY if A FISH COULD \u201cHEAR\u201d AS<\/em><\/p>\n GOOD AS HE COULD SEE A FISHERMAN<\/em><\/p>\n THEY WOULD NEVER BE<\/em><\/p>\n ACCEPT ME<\/em><\/p>\n I was mesmerized, feeling like I was listening to a tale of mythic heroism, Celtic shamanism here in the flesh from the oldest days, when the master of words could shuffle through time and space and fish were more than fish.<\/p>\n Poaching tales writ cosmically.<\/p>\n His masterpiece was a ceramic house, shaped like a mushroom, with figures for every window. \u201cThese are all my family, sir. And this one is my dead son. Some of them are still alive, and some are dead. He told us that he was shipping his art back to his wife in Ireland, where she was selling them, to make a few bob. \u201cWho\u2019s buying them Michael?\u201d \u201cOh, they put them on the graves, sir, and other things. All kinds of people are buying them.<\/p>\n He lived for his art.<\/p>\n DEAR SIR OR LADY<\/em><\/p>\n Yous are probably wondering why I write this note. I have never been to school until I came to prison. I\u2019ve never done pottery before. Without pottery I am a lost man. And whew, I feel like I sometimes feel, I don\u2019t voice my anger out on anybody. I get lost in pottery, everything I make is for the DEAD. The house for my two dead sons, Michael and John. My wife left me in 2002 for another man and took my other two children Kathleen and Jimmy. The whereabouts all I know is Ireland. The last I heard was my daughter went through a major operation. I phoned the hospital from Swansea prison in 2004. No forward address. My people are dying like mayflies. I only get paid \u00a36.50 a week, it costs me \u00a32.50 a minute to phone Ireland. I have been in a few hospitals. A lot of people ask me would I have my wife back. Not if you gave me the key to England on a gold plate. It is not what was done it\u2019s the way that it was done. It was like a horror film. Any day now I await the priest. He neither shows head nor tail but whew, the bad news comes it COMES FAST. My wife serpent God forgive me. I forgive but can\u2019t forget. Won\u2019t make it to Xmas and whew all the rogues come to shake my hand and say sorry for your troubles. I will tell them my troubles are now buried where yous stand. So you probably wonder why I don\u2019t talk much. I don\u2019t trust anybody, how could I? So you see why I like pottery, it\u2019s all I\u2019ve got left here and outside. Pottery is my drug. If it wasn\u2019t for the pottery I don\u2019t think I\u2019d be writing the note. Me I\u2019m like the cat, nine lives. I don\u2019t know how I made it. Thus far so good. Pottery is all I look forward to. End. Thank you. Michael C.<\/em><\/p>\n And then he left.<\/p>\n Graham Hartill 2011<\/span><\/p>\n (quotations used with permission)<\/span><\/p>\n Poet, workshop facilitator, lecturer. Born in 1952 in the English Midlands, Graham has lived in Wales most of his life since 1971. He studied at the Universities of Wales and Massachusetts, and has since given countless workshops and classes in the UK, USA and China. Co\u2013founder of LAPIDUS, the UK\u2013wide association for the promotion of creative writing in therapeutic context, Graham was also a Scottish Arts Council Writing Fellow 1990-92 and an Arts Council of Wales Writer\u2019s Bursary recipient 1993, 1999 and 2006. Selected Publications: <\/span>Ruan Ji\u2019s Island<\/span><\/em> and <\/span>(Tu Fu) in the Cities<\/span><\/em> (The Wellsweep Press, 1992); <\/span>The Lives of the Saints<\/span><\/em> (RWC Press); <\/span>Cennau\u2019s Bell<\/span><\/em> (The Collective Press, 2005);<\/span> A Winged Head<\/span><\/em> (Parthian, 2007)<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mike was a quiet man who kept himself to himself. He was always asking for fresh clay for his pottery work, and could get on the teacher\u2019s nerves. And then there was the Friday evening carrying of cardboard boxes, marked fragile, to reception so they could be shipped off to Ireland. Inside the boxes were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[27,12],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/issue27.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42xiC-cz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=779"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2258,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779\/revisions\/2258"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}