 Hello and welcome to senior moment. My name is David refson. I am your host for the show Senior moment is about seniors and for seniors. I am very pleased to have as my guest today Margaret Lloyd Margaret is a a poet a painter an artist Does work on slate and we're gonna talk about some of that later. So I want to welcome you to the show Thank you. Okay So tell me about you kind of early sort of life in history About you being born where you were and how your connection with Wales as a overarching part of your life. Yes. I Was born in Liverpool England because my father was a minister in a Welsh Presbyterian Church in England in England but both of my parents were Welsh my father from the north my mother from the south and Liverpool was often thought of as the capital of north Wales because there were so many Welsh people there and The church he was a minister of had 750 people in at the time, which was huge full of Welsh people. He preached in Welsh every Sunday amazing, you know, four-part harmony when they sang hymns, so I was born there and One sort of side thing I like to tell people about is that the church faced penny lane So that later on, you know, when I fell in love with the Beatles. I there was that association as well, but I Was too when we emigrated to the States from Liverpool What I understand your folks are from there, but it seems like you just have an incredible Involvement with well, yes, yes Yeah, well what the reason that we emigrated to the state is that he was called to be the minister of a Welsh Presbyterian Church in central New York State and So we were supposed to only stay for five years, but I know obviously we ended up living here And at that point central New York State was a hub of Welsh Cultural life because so many Welsh people had emigrated in the 19th century to that part of New York because of farming I think largely so I grew up in this church that had was a largely a Welsh congregation there and I Welsh was a language of my home. Well, it's just my first language you speak it and I speak Welsh I speak largely conversational Welsh. I wouldn't claim I wouldn't understand a lecture or a sermon, but day-to-day conversational Welsh I'm pretty good at and My mother died a few years ago at the age of 97 and I spoke Welsh with her every day on the phone Which is of a great pleasure keeping up the language in that way Over the years we went back to Wales all my relatives are in Wales When we came over on the St. Mary's ocean liner was my father my mother my older brother Gareth and Me and then there were two more children born over here my two younger brothers But all my other relatives are in Wales my grandparents my aunts my uncles my cousins well some in England some in New Zealand and Australia, but largely in Wales. So They would visit us in Utica, New York, and we would visit them and So there was always a deep deep connection with Wales and my mother I think always longed for Wales I think my father was a bit more independent, but there's this Welsh word called here Ice which is hard to translate, but it means longing and it's often used You know longing for your old for the old country and she thought that way. Is it my understanding that your lineage goes back? Yes, yes, it's traced back to the 11th century. I have a cousin who's There's a librarian being very interested in family trees and so he's a source of great information Around that so it's yes very old family in Wales the Lloyds in in Welsh. It would be sweet Which means pale or gray and the anglicized version is Lloyd So I have a cousin whose name is Reynacht Llewyd got to get that double L sound in and yeah, it's a very old family Wow quite interesting on both sides really, but I know I know more about my father's side of the family And you you mentioned you go back there quite often every summer now. Yeah, I we couldn't when we had Two young children meeting to go back all the time, but now we go back every summer and My husband is a Welsh medievalist So he's published books over there and does work over there and two years ago I published my fourth book a book of poems over there it won a grant from the Welsh Books Council and Got published which was thrilling to me because all my other books were published in the States and so to have one Published in Wales who just felt like the country was really Opening up its arms to me Very interesting to say the least so tell me about your early writing how you got involved Just writing in general we'll talk about poetry in a minute, but I know that's a nice day for you But yeah, that could start if you just yeah, you know, I have a clipping from the Utica Observer Dispatch With a photograph of my father and me when we had just come to the country I was two years old sitting on his lap and what was he reading to me in the Child's Garden of Verses? Robert Louis Stevenson, so you know, I like I look at that and I think okay lots of children are read poetry But I think maybe was the beginning, you know the love of rhythm and rhyme poetry, so Literature was very important in my family Books in every room People read My father was a great preacher words are really important I remember him walking back and forth in the living room memorizing his sermons I mean so there was always a sense that the words were really important And so I read a lot and I wrote as a child and there was this and I we lived in the manse Which is the minister's home and there was a little Bushes on the side of the house and I made a little bower in the bushes and I would crawl in there and I would read And I would write because it also felt like there was something secret and magical about it So I think I've been writing my whole life really did you Did you get published with your early writing before poetry or was it? Strictly right I did I did publish a couple of stories fiction, but I I think I'm a poet I oh, you know I came back to poetry. It's like exercise. I keep going back to yoga. It's what I That's what I do Okay, so poetry became your life's work and before we get into somebody reading I want just to read something here. I thought it kind of encapsulates you to some extent This is Margaret's book. It's called Forge light. It is a book of poetry And there's a gentleman named Jack Gilbert He's the author of collected poems and a finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize. This is what he said I've always been impressed by the consistent high quality of Margaret Lloyd's poem The matter is always substantial and always accompanied by her excellent craft She has a distinctive voice, but in addition the voice is supple The poems are nuanced beyond themselves. They create a lasting resonance They produce an oddness that works as a shadow and multiplier of something elusive and foreign under the decorum Having met with you before a little bit. I think to some extent this encapsulates You and who you are in your poetry. I really do so poetry started to become your life's work clearly has for sure and We are very honored to have you read some of your poetry So if you'd like to do some of that that would be absolutely wonderful Yes, I'll read from the book Forge light that you that you were just reading the blurb from Forge light also has paintings of mine in I want to point out And The poem I it was difficult to choose. I knew you wanted me to read a couple of poems which wants to read But I chose this poem. It's called a world wanting a voice And it's written in form tutserima, which is an italian form Usually I write in free verse, but this one is in tutserima. So I thought I would read that and one of my as with many poets, you know, one of my great subjects is is love and This but this poem Is actually more about why I wanted to write that writing was a drive deep in me And it has my children in it And that of course there was always this part of my life my everyday life And then there was my writing life the part that called me to be a poet and that's what this is about That's what this is a poem about A world wanting a voice I wore white Their winter boots were muddy But I took the children in my arms to climb the hill home because they were tired Three bodies moving together like one hymn sung slowly by a small congregation That was years ago in late spring Farmers were planting corn while the sun shone But out of the far corner of my eye the magnolia blossoms looked like snow A snow that later fell out of the sky dumb and cold absolute in its demand Blinding me on that same hill where I had struggled with the children's weight my mind intent on home A world wanting a voice Wanting hours days years the passage of time Measured by the passing of nights close to words and the shifting moon Wanting to bind hands and eyes to take away any choice and send me singing Into the snow blind and failing leaving the first world behind Beautiful thank you I hasten to add that I was not leaving my children behind But it's about the two different kinds of worlds that I was dealing with the domestic world My love for my children and then my love for poetry and wanting to Wanting to be able to express my voice In a minute. I'm going to ask you to read one other one, but I'm a little curious I know if you're writing a novel People have a particular subject or an area they want to write about they could be a mystery. It could be whatever Where do you get your inspiration from for your poetry? You've written a lot of poetry What's what's your inspiration either for this one in particular or just generally where they where does that come from? Yeah well in this particular poem I think First of all, I hasten to add that I often don't know where a poem is going when I start it You know, I'm I'm working with images I was working with form at this point too. So that also helps find the subject writing about this experience of you know Picking my children up in my arms in the winter and struggling with them because they won't walk and I have to carry them home and and Starting with that, but where is my mind really what's also going on inside of me? So in this case it was expressing a part of my life And so the inspirer if want to call it inspiration or the impetus or the beginning of the poem was there As if my life as a mother as a parent, but then where did it go? I discovered that as the poem went on it went to my life as a poet It meant to the drive to write it went to the drive to express my voice so Each poem I recently was in Pittsburgh where Jack Gilbert was born and visiting my daughter who recently moved there and I Ended up writing a poem about an experience that I'd had picking up Her partner's child from school And it just started there. I didn't really know where it was going. So it often starts with something in my life but I hasten to add the two of my books are persona poems and so The book that I'm going to read from next Are it's called a moment in the field voices from Arthurian legend And it's all voices of various characters having to do with king Arthur I speak from king Arthur Lancelot Merlin Guinevere Elaine of Astelot many different women's voices probably more women's voices than men and so You know the inspiration there was Mallory's mort Arthur which had been reading the death of Arthur And so I got inspired by that and wrote those poems starting with one poem I had no idea I was going to write a whole book of poems You did and many more. Yeah, I I have been posed upon Margaret to read another poem And I'm glad she is going to do that because your poetry is beautiful So this is a poem from this book. I was just talking about And let me see Poem is divided into sections and this poem I'm going to read about Which is the maid of Astelot See if I can find it here. Here it is There's only one poem in the section And let me tell you a little bit about who she was. She was a woman who Was in love with Lancelot But it was unrequited love. He didn't return her love because he loved Guinevere I think probably many people are acquainted with the Lancelot Guinevere King Arthur triangle And so she dies Because she's um her love isn't you know isn't returned So what's interesting about this poem it's free verse and it's written from the point of view of her When she's dead And she's floating down a river. She's going from Astelot to London to Westminster on a barge Road by an old man And she's speaking From the dead as she's floating down this river. So you have to Realize that that's what's going on here. Okay The maid of Astelot How his word come down of me That I died because I loved even as he said too much What does the image of my body mean to you? Dressed in gold cloth Lying on a barge covered with black samite My arrayed and beautiful my cold and virgin body Floating down the Thames the river of molten lead Road by an old man carrying a letter in my hand to Lancelot Nothing but a fair maid dead for love When the barge arrived a swan preened herself in high wind But my heart was a lake with no wind My body came over the dark water from Astelot to Westminster and waited for three days Death ended the argument of my love Hawking and tournaments resumed as if I had never lived But didn't I honor God since God made him and wrought every scar on his heroic body? Listen I loved him the way I loved him even before I knew his name And how do you love you who forget you are dying? Who think you are not floating every day down the cold river? What are you asked to live with and to live without? What will the letter in your hand say to the beloved you know on earth even this very day? It is clear why you're a poet it is for these little works I want to move on a little bit before our time burns out sure And I want you to talk a little For folks who don't know you are an accomplished artist a painter And we're going to talk about some of your other works in slate, but how did that get started? I've seen some of your artwork and it's really beautiful and you chose As a medium It's alluding me at the moment. It's watercolor watercolor. Thank you As a medium, which I particularly like myself. So let's talk a little bit about that Yes, well, I began painting 11 years ago I was in Colorado with some friends beautiful mountains And two of my friends were watercolor painters artists And they were trying to get me to come out and paint with them because they were going to go look at a mountain and paint And I was oh, you know, I said no no And I didn't want to you know, I saw come with you, but I'm going to hike while you paint So but when we got to the spot, they they gave me a little watercolor set and paints and and of paints and paper and brushes and I So I said, okay I removed myself from where they were because I didn't want to be totally humiliated and I looked at this mountain And it was so beautiful and I started to paint it And I became obsessed with watercolor painting that whole summer and afterwards for years And I really still am so that's how it all started and I had no idea that I You know was accomplished in any way in visual art. So that's how it began Well, I have seen some of your paintings and yes, you are accomplished in that meeting for sure The other part of your art has to do with slate. Yes And tell me a little bit about that then we're going to go into some of the works that you've done Uh also talking about some of the slate not all of it is from whales itself. Yes, so please do adjust that Yes, so about four years ago. I really got interested in working with slate as a medium for my art and Why slate you might ask well my father my parents My all my relatives on my father's side. Let's put it that way. We've been involved in the slate industry For centuries probably and my relatives on my mother's side were involved in the coal industry, which is in south wales but um Obviously, uh, but slate became the medium. I got very very attracted to my great grandfather was I'm sure a corpsman went down into the mines and my turns out my And I didn't know this until fairly recently that my grandfather was a slate engraver And of course, I've been engraving on slate. He ended up Owning two slate mines in north wales after the war get bought borrowed some money And bought some slate mines. So I've heard about slate my whole life and when I was young I remember going to wales and my two younger brothers got to go down into The mine but I was not allowed to because I was female and it was bad luck for females To go down into the mines, but four years ago. I actually got to go into a disused Mine owned owned by my cousin in wales And then I just had this idea of putting my paintings together with slate so And also I just had a show called slate works in the brunette library in amherst And for that show when I was making works, I ended up engraving on slate and actually painting on the slate some of the the slate paintings on watercolor are fixed to the slate But some is actually embedded this one is an example of being embedded in the slate pick it up and let's um Let's show this let's see if I can Show this here Yeah, that's called an open book that that piece Okay, and I wanted to talk about this one too and I want you to address that one a little bit. Yeah, that's a hawk And I got the image from a medieval tile From strata florida abbey in mid wales, which is one of my favorite places And what I did was I engraved the hawk into the slate first of all and then I painted it gold And so I took something very old Which was the medieval tile and made it new by engraving it and embedding it on slate Which is also very old So the work is something about making something old new and reclamation in some way And I've seen some of your other works too and you're quite accomplished to say the least Um, I wanted to just mention briefly two things. One is what is group 18? Yeah, yeah group 18 has been very important to my life as a poet. It started in 1985 So what are we talking 30 some years ago in north hampton? um Linda greg and jim finnegan founded it and over the years many poets have come and go very accomplished writers Many books have been published jack gilbert was a really important figure and a very close friend of mine, but a mentor Of mine one of my great. I've had three great teachers. He was one of them So that's why he's pleased me so much to get that blurb from him and because because of that So it has met it in fact it met at my house last night for all that time I'm one of the old people who have been in it the longest and there are two other people in the group Douga anderson and bob coles who are also old-time members, but others joined and some of the members who were there left and came back and it's just been a very very vital group and I don't know it's amazing. It's lasted that long and we all went to rush it together a few years ago We went to scov and Where the russian writers union there? We'd been invited to go and we went there and read our poetry and the russian poets read their poetry to us We went to st. Petersburg and got to visit Anna ahmad of us. She was one of my favorite writers house Where she was imprisoned because of her political poetry and we went to where des dayeski's apartment was So we've and that just cemented us even more. So we we critique each other's work every week. That's what we do I wanted to mention before we're going to run out of time two events that are going on one on march 24th Yes, and the other one on march 31st So if you can share with us about those that would be yes um group 18 we we it's kind of a rare event where we read together as a group We do a lot of individual Readings, but on march 24th at 5 p.m We're going to be reading at 33 holly street in north hampton And what we're going to be doing is honoring three of the art partners in holly street, which is a pe eventual available potential enterprises the north hampton center for the arts which has moved there and the north hampton community television We're going to honoring that that Conglomeration by reading poems related to other art other pieces of literature paintings dance music so we'll be doing that and then I'm very excited about an upcoming performance. I'm involved in which takes place on march 31st at 4 p.m in the hubbard concert hall in cambridge new york And it's part of music from salem series and it's going to include lila brown on viola Judy gordon on piano and the actor playwright john haddon and i will be reading poetry And we're going to be interlacing music and poetry around the subject of love I think it's going to be pretty amazing. So i wanted people to know about that. Oh, absolutely We only have a minute here and I I don't know if we're going to really have time to talk about um How creative endeavors reflect your life, but it's clear to me beyond anything That you're an incredibly creative person and it obviously has been your life And everything that you do and it's really wonderful. Yes You know, I think of writing and also poetry You know also my painting As ways that I can have my life more fully That it is through Those both of those arts that I explore some of the really large subjects of life And you know, for example our mortality love Passion the suffering that goes on the world the loneliness that many of us feel Um the mystery the sacred, you know, my father was a minister. What is my relationship to god? What is the relationship to sacred those are very very large subjects and it keeps you know Keeps me going and because it's it's it's eternally interesting to me, right? Well margaret, I want to dearly thank you for being a guest on the show. Well, thank you my pleasure I also want to thank amherst media for sponsoring my show and I want to thank them for all the work they do in relation to this And I hope to see you next time on senior moment. Thank you