Quetzalcoatl

The House on the Strand by  Daphne Du Maurier Ahhh...back into my old comfy shoes of Du Maurier's writing. Her patchwork quilted hills of Cornwall are like my comfort blanket. This book came into my hands through speaking to Dr Laura Varnam on Instagram ( @lauravarnam ). I saw she was a lecturer and writing a book on Du Maurier. Ever since I read Rebecca (I picked it up at Woolton Hill Church Fete about 10 years ago) I fell in love with her gothic writing. I guess I fell for it because I had recently gone through a break up and in a new relationship as an adult. I was starting to understand about how living in the shadow of a previous partner can be soul destroying and ghostly. The older we get, the more past we have to live with.  The House on the Strand was set in a very typical Cornish backdrop for Du Maurier novel. I spent every summer in the Cornish fishing towns of Portloe, Mevagissey and more, as my Grandparents moved there when I was 4 or 5. I have a comfor...

I discovered Ocean Vuong when he won the TS Eliot prize in 2017 for his first collection of poetry, Night Sky with Exit Wounds. I used this collection in class and picked out a poem which we annotated and analysed whilst studying modern poetry. When his new novel came out, I was surprised. I naively thought that poets are poets. However, the prose writer in Vuong is naturally poetic. The blurring of forms is beginning to form. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong I recently wrote in my journal that writing is all about revealing secrets and the reader is the person to uncover them - whatever their perception is. Here, in Vuong's novel, we are thrown into the mind of a man through a confessional letter that may not even reach its sender; but it reaches us. It has to reach us; it has to reach someone. One man’s story is another woman’s discovery and vice versa. Favourite Quotes:  ‘Only the future revisits the past’ ‘Sometimes I don’t know what or who we ar...

Here marks the first three books of my summer reads 2019. The reviews seem to get longer and longer the further into the summer I go (maybe my brain starts to be more productive after being zapped of any energy with the busy GCSE preparations). So, firstly, a parent of an influential, talented pupil suggested the following novel to me last year during Parents' Evening. The following week, I gave the book to her daughter as a present and I've finally got the time to read it. This young lady in particular is an amazing writer and I hope she continues to read, write, and love the cathartic sense of writing. 1. Room by Emma Donoghue A few days in to summer holidays and the first read was already finished. I clearly wanted to indulge into a non set text novel. I whizzed through in a few days whilst I recovered from a busy summer term. I was impressed with the narrative voice and the storyline is shocking. At the beginning, it was brilliantly written from a young boy whose ...

"Quetzalcoatl is all about my ponderings within the world of maternity leave and beyond. The symbolic nature of Quetzalcoatl represents how this blog will stand for discussions on change, books that inspire me (either as a woman, a mother, or a teacher), and any other creative contemplations." Continuing on from my script above that explains the blog, Quetzalcoatl comes from the name of my first poetry collection written during my university years. I chose the name as he was an Aztec God of learning and knowledge (symbolised through a feathered serpent, right). Learning and knowledge is something I've continued to be passionate about and believe is the core of improving yourself as a human. Being an English teacher helps me to pursue this passion but underneath it all, it's all about curiosity. This curiosity can sometimes be a downfall, but selected carefully and calmly, it can be the window into new worlds of knowledge where a path in life may be revealed or a...