The Elf of Plants

Nighttime on Still Waters

This week Vanessa from ‘The Mindful Narrowboat’ vlog got me thinking and so this week we begin to explore how our knowledge and (perhaps) attitudes to fungi are changing and leading us back to older ways of thinking about the environment and our place within it.

Journal entry:

“21st October, Thursday

A Hunter’s Moon swinging high
Across a highwayman’s sky
Of racing clouds.

The streets of Birmingham run wet
With the glittering jewels of
Brake lights and shop front signs.

Later,
A gull soars through the
Thermal canyons and valleys
Under a sky of cut sapphire.

Later still,
The Plough silently revolves over the boat
Needle sharp shards of light
At the moment, tilting north. ”

Episode Information

In this episode I read the following poems:
Emily Dickinson’s ‘The Mushroom is the elf of plants’
Sylvia Plath’s ‘Mushrooms’ ,
You can hear Sylvia Plath’s own reading of her poem here: Sylvia Plath reads ‘Mushrooms.’

I also read excerpts from:
John Clare’s (1827) from ‘October’ in The Shepherd’s Calendar
Wendell Berry’s (2017) The World-Ending Fire: Essential Wendell Berry published by Catapult.
Robin Wall Kimmerer (2020) Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants published by Penguin. It is also published in the shorter volume: The Democracy of Species also published by Penguin as part of their ‘Green Ideas’ series.

I also refer to the works of:
Suzanne Simard (2021)

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