The poem below is one I wrote for The Novelist's sixtieth birthday (you can read a version of the story behind it on her blog) and the responses she got to it there are one reason for my starting a blog of my own. I usually use some kind of structuring or text-generating device for what I write: here the rule was to take phrases that included the word 'window' from page sixty of sixty novels and simply arrange or re-arrange them, with nothing added.
SIXTY WINDOWS FOR JENNY
Tiny room whose window was never opened
Curtain for the window
On the cane chair under the window
*
Pale green even in the window
Emptying the basin out of the window
Halts by the window and gazes
*
Lay on the ground under the window, bellowing
Kneeling up to the window
An octagonal vaulted chamber with a balconied window
*
Her bed had its back to the window
Through the curtainless window day stole in
She went to the other window
*
Sitting at the table near the window, working
Opened windows into the wrong world
A gale, exploding against the window
*
Muted by awnings lowered outside the windows
A reproduction of a stained-glass-window angel
Whistling up at vague windows
*
Got up and went to the window. It was raining again.
Early light, coming through the uncurtained window
With its tiny windows looking on to the street
*
Pat wandered from the window and took up the George Moore novel
He came out through the French windows
She got up and stood at the window
*
There was moonlight in the window
There's a sharp rapping at the window
I am in the window, smoking
*
They had seen it happen from a window
Then went to the window that looked on the street below
Watching you from the apartment window
*
In my memory, at the window
The rain was still thudding against the window-pane
I think that I might open the window
*
A camera is being held to the window
Silver things in the window
From the street the windows were in darkness
*
His reflection could be seen in the front window
High up, from one of the small barred windows
His right arm through the open window
*
I put all the lamps on and opened all the windows
A huge wall broken by gaping windows loomed above
Sordid glare of shop windows, made beautiful by distance
*
A board nailed across a broken window
They opened all the windows
Sat and sewed by the window in the clear autumn afternoon
*
The room was almost in darkness, the windows quite covered
The night I stared at from my window
A castle whose windows were glittering orange squares
*
The windows, between lengths of white embossed satin
Our windows, on the second floor, overlooked the street
The butcher pulled down black window shades
*
She had been sitting in her own window
The inner courtyard on to which my window looked out
The middle one of the three windows was half way open
*
The sun filtered through the windows with remarkable subtlety
Rushed to the window, not to sail out of it
No lights behind its white painted windows
*
Has to look out of the window at the elements, at nature
Draw down the upper frame of the window
The windows were shuttered. But there was a crack.
What an interestingly structured love poem for my an author who has been my favourite for many years. A poem capturing filmic glimpses into the changing psyche of what could and so often is described (for lack of a better understanding) madness...I love it and I envy (in the most positive sense of the word) you both that you have found each other. Will now look into your work Ian...much more of the best, Jo
Posted by: jo | August 14, 2007 at 03:54 PM
What an interestingly structured love poem for my an author who has been my favourite for many years. A poem capturing filmic glimpses into the changing psyche of what could and so often is described (for lack of a better understanding) madness...I love it and I envy (in the most positive sense of the word) you both that you have found each other. Will now look into your work Ian...much more of the best, Jo
Posted by: jo | August 14, 2007 at 03:55 PM
This is both lovely and fascinating - I've tried to write about windows in the past, in a consciously "trying-to-write-about-windows" way, and failed, really. They're so... clear... and have been written about so much! This is however almost as clear as a window, and the repetition gives it an insistence (and simplicity) - well, I'll stop.
Nice one. Beautiful.
Posted by: Ms Baroque | August 14, 2007 at 09:49 PM
I thought i would share this useless information with you ! I decided to type my name into Google and see what I found and this is where I ended. You see my name is also Ian Patterson and I reside in South Africa!
Posted by: Ian | October 22, 2010 at 06:35 PM
May get some of your poems out of the library (if they have any so that I can read them in peace I am in the library at the moment. It is far too noisy in here to focus properly. Yours grumpily
Posted by: Lynne Jenkinson | March 11, 2011 at 02:35 PM