I’m writing on my last afternoon, certain that after I get home tomorrow, the waters of chaos will close over my head and I’ll never quite get back to this moment. What a brilliant time I’ve had here in the International Writers’ and Translators’ House. It’s been so friendly, and I’ve found Latvia and Ventspils continually fascinating.

And I’ve written around 40 poems. They mainly relate to the idea I brought with me, of a small book of poems about three admirable women travellers and writers. The three are separated in time by over 300 years. Celia Fiennes wrote her journals in around 1702-12, Penelope Chetwode’s book was published in 1963, and Georgina Harding’s in 1990. Yet they share qualities of endurance, courage, observation and self-awareness – and to each of them it was important to capture their experiences of unfamiliar landscapes and peoples in writing. 

I’ve read their work more deeply here, researched the contexts, re-imagined their experiences. I’ve broken off for bike rides along the Venta in order to think things through (and damp down panic). I’ve found three very different ways to write poems about these different women, and then written short prose pieces to hold it all together. I hope.

At the moment, it’s called ‘Like a Good Peasant, She Lived on Onions’.

Huge thanks to all at Starptautiskā Rakstnieku un tulkotāju māja, and all my co-residents, who shared ideas and food, helped me miss buses, made me laugh, fixed up film nights, and endlessly picked sticky burrs off Vatsons the house cat…