Reading Orlam

Introduction

For my birthday I got the Polly Jean Harvey book "Orlam". I was a little confused about it at first, but now it has revealed itself to me and I am enjoying exploring the worlds and magical mythical creatures and people that are described here.

This is my book review.

I am writing this because this book is providing me with inspiration and I would like to share what I am getting from it, and maybe you can find a book, even this one, that can inspire your own creativity.

The song is "A Noiseless Noise" the closing song from ‘I Inside the Old Year Dying’ the album that accompanies "Orlam". I found the album cover quite intriguing, I didn't initially realise that it was a twig (or according to Polly Jean a twiddick) and its shadow.

My Exploration Of Orlam

This is an example of the format of the whole book. Left-hand page in English and right-hand page in Polly Jean's Dorset dialect. I never knew that Dumbledore was Dorset for Bumble Bee, so that is a snippet for Harry Potter fans, though I am not sure many will read this piece of the book itself.

I am reading the Dorset pages but every so often I need to check to see what the Dorset word means, dumbledore in the image above is one such example.

This verse in "Birth of Ira Abel" inspired the poem below. The Nightcafe image generated also helped it along and it has had a very good response despite being dark, or maybe because it is dark.

The book is a diary throughout the year and there are poems and descriptions about people, animals, places, and unreal entities and for me, this is an actual lyrical and literary adventure.

It is giving me prompt after prompt. I don't think that was the main intention, but I hope with my writing, as well as reading the story or the poem, that people will become inspired to create their own works.

I have always loved the work of PJ Harvey and her albums are often on my player. This is the first of her books that I have read and it is an absolute revelation.

This week I picked the book up and have been reading a month a day, so expect to have completed it in twelve days or so.

I can also see it providing a few more prompts as I explore further but I think they will be darker than my usual writing, you have seen the first example of the prompt that I took from it.

Conclusion

I just wanted to show people that inspiration can come from the most unexpected sources. I am looking forward to finding out what other secrets it will reveal, and from those I hope that I can weave them into new stories and poems for your enjoyment.

I would love to hear if a book, song, or play has inspired you, and the effect it has had on you.

Thank you for reading