Composition

i will spend this weekend

pretending, not as children do,

all imagination and creativity,

but as adults do: with masks

and fear and longing and ache…

.

i will pretend i am camping

even when i really am…

because though the heart of nature

is blooming all around, in greens

and chirps and nurturing raindrops,

my body grows frail from winter

lodged in these bones, from darkness

that just can’t seem to give way

to the greater sunlight of longer days…

.

i give way to myself, and like you

i am not proud of what i see

or who i am or what i have done;

this camping is yet another

season of myself, undone

.

Last time, you said Bilbo’s front door was blue, and you said Thorin had a golden tassel on his hood, but you’ve just said that Bilbo’s front door was green, and the tassel on Thorin’s hood was silver.

- Christopher Tolkien being read The Hobbit by his father, JRR Tolkien

Christopher Tolkien more than once interrupted his father as he read chapters of The Hobbit to the Tolkien children in JRR Tolkien’s study. Their father would often let out an exasperated and resigned exclamation - but quickly strode across the room to make a note in his draft papers.

As the youngest son of beloved fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien was raised hearing fantastical tales of Bilbo Baggins and Middle-earth.

When his father died in 1973, the younger Tolkien became his literary executor. Over the next 47 years, Christopher sorted through 70 boxes of Tolkien’s unpublished work; ultimately, he compiled and edited 24 editions of poems, histories, translations and stories centered on his father’s expansive fantasy world.

Christopher’s first editing project was a tome of myths and legends from the world of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Building on a 12-volume compilation of drafts and rewrites left by his father, he published The Silmarillion in 1977.

The third son of J.R.R. and Edith Tolkien, Christopher was born in Leeds, England, on November 21, 1924. He spent his childhood in Oxford, where his father was a professor, and joined the Royal Air Force during World War II. Stationed in South Africa, he regularly corresponded with his father, who was then writing The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Tolkien often sent draft chapters to his son.

Christopher made small interventions when his father sought advice, he told the Guardian newspaper in 2009.

Referencing Samwise Gamgee, a Hobbit who accompanies Frodo Baggins on his journey, Christopher said, “[My father] wrote to me in May 1944 that he would change the name Gamgee to Goodchild ‘if I thought you would let me,’ ‘since Hobbits of that class have very Saxon names as a rule.’”

The younger Tolkien replied “that I wouldn’t at all like to see Sam Gamgee changed to Sam Goodchild; and Sam Gamgee remained.”

After the war, Christopher became a lecturer in Old and Middle English, as well as Old Icelandic, at Oxford University. He drew many of the original maps that accompanied his father’s first editions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy in the 1950s, in addition to revised maps in the 1970s editions.

Later in life, Christopher moved to France with his second wife, Baillie Tolkien. He became a French citizen and lived at the foothills of the Alps. In 2016, he received the Bodley Medal in recognition of his contributions to culture and literature.

Keep up your hobbitry in heart, and think that all stories feel like that when you are in them. You are inside a very great story!

- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 66 to Christopher Tolkien on 6 May 1944

Christopher Tolkien more than once interrupted his father as he read chapters of The Hobbit to the Tolkien children in JRR Tolkien’s study. Their father would often let out an exasperated and resigned exclamation - but quickly strode across the room to make a note in his draft papers.

As the youngest son of beloved fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien was raised hearing fantastical tales of Bilbo Baggins and Middle-earth.

When his father died in 1973, the younger Tolkien became his literary executor. Over the next 47 years, Christopher sorted through 70 boxes of Tolkien’s unpublished work; ultimately, he compiled and edited 24 editions of poems, histories, translations and stories centered on his father’s expansive fantasy world.

Christopher’s first editing project was a tome of myths and legends from the world of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Building on a 12-volume compilation of drafts and rewrites left by his father, he published The Silmarillion in 1977.

The third son of J.R.R. and Edith Tolkien, Christopher was born in Leeds, England, on November 21, 1924. He spent his childhood in Oxford, where his father was a professor, and joined the Royal Air Force during World War II. Stationed in South Africa, he regularly corresponded with his father, who was then writing The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Tolkien often sent draft chapters to his son.

Christopher made small interventions when his father sought advice, he told the Guardian newspaper in 2009.

Referencing Samwise Gamgee, a Hobbit who accompanies Frodo Baggins on his journey, Christopher said, “[My father] wrote to me in May 1944 that he would change the name Gamgee to Goodchild ‘if I thought you would let me,’ ‘since Hobbits of that class have very Saxon names as a rule.’”

The younger Tolkien replied “that I wouldn’t at all like to see Sam Gamgee changed to Sam Goodchild; and Sam Gamgee remained.”

After the war, Christopher became a lecturer in Old and Middle English, as well as Old Icelandic, at Oxford University. He drew many of the original maps that accompanied his father’s first editions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy in the 1950s, in addition to revised maps in the 1970s editions.

Later in life, Christopher moved to France with his second wife, Baillie Tolkien. He became a French citizen and lived at the foothills of the Alps. In 2016, he received the Bodley Medal in recognition of his contributions to culture and literature.

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground, And swallows calling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night, And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn, Would scarcely know that we were gone.

Wicker

messy bed

calico cat

window sill

watching

haphazard

jeans

sun streaked sleepy

late for the day

she weaves

hazy dreams

through me

love letters

French bread

blush

compact

brush

silk scarf

tomorrow

spill lazy

from her basket

jk

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