'Now is poetry where a rubbish bin once stood ... '

With apologies to Ovid. And also, I suppose, Auden, although he is wrong about poetry making nothing happen; in fact, embarrassingly so, since it's on Auden Mead in Upper Horfield, Bristol, that the poetry installation commemorating John Keats stood, with a rubbish bin sited directly in front of it.

This is how it looked when fellow-IsamBard Dominic Fisher and I scoped out our Poetry Streets of Horfield Poetry Walk almost exactly a month ago. 

Reader, we were appalled. The fragmentary poem it was impossible to read without getting a noseful of Merde De Chien No 5 is called 'This Living Hand' and was written in 1819, when Keats was 23. He'd just coughed blood into his hand and, having seen his mother and brother die of tuberculosis, knew that he was next. He died in 1821, at the age of 25. It - and Keats - deserved more respect than Bristol City Council was showing them.

So we complained. And asked other people to complain. Which they did in their hun- well, a lot of people did, from even as far away as America. And the Bristol Post got involved. And the local councillors were alerted. And although we didn't get our promised response within the 10 day deadline, yesterday I had a message from a friend who lives on the same street to say this had happened. 

And shortly afterwards, this happened.

And all we have to do now is get up a petition to get remove her and her dog. 

Travels With Mr Poetry

The big white Home Improvements van was parked slantwise, almost encroaching on the neighbouring space in Tescos car park in Thornbury, but as this was the only one available, I took a deep breath and squeezed my way in.  With that, the driver and his mate reappeared.  In my side mirror I caught a glimpse of builder's bum as he got into the driving seat.  Then he got out and accosted my partner, who was sorting poetry festival brochures in the boot.  Oh God, he's going to accuse me of scraping his van, I fretted.  

'Funny you should say that,' I heard my partner say. 'Have one of these. See you there!'

'He said "You're that bloke from the poetry festival, aren't you?" my partner said as he got back into the car. 'I said "Yes, do you like poetry?" and he kind of half glanced at his mate and said "Well, the missus does, you know. Anything coming up soon?"'

It can be a thankless task delivering brochures and very difficult to know how effective it is. I suspect electronic publicity reaches more people, like you reading this now. Although possibly not the Mayor, whom we saw emerge from a restaurant on the waterfront on Thursday lunchtime.  

'Oh, I'll definitely come along to this!' he exclaimed as we proffered our post funding cuts, Bristol City Council logo-free publicity.  

'We'll be on the lookout for you!' I cried gaily. 


Being a dark poet, my dog Ted often comes with us on brochure runs, particularly when there's the prospect of a walk involved.  Like after the drop at Weston-Super Mare library. 

So the scones in our cream tea were on the dry side. You can't have it all.  And in a fortnight that saw the finding of what is to be my new home, one of my poems making the shortlist for the Bridport Prize, the offer of publication by Indigo Dreams Publishing of my third poetry collection in 2016, and the election of a Labour Party Leader who doesn't believe in punishing the poor and the disabled for the greed of the rich, there is more than a glimmer of light.

The Romantic Poets and Bristol: A New 'Lyrical Ballads'

Since I broke my leg, I've only got out of bed - or at least off the settee - for poetry.  A marathon 12 hours yesterday at Bath Poetry Cafe's annual event, Voices In The City, was preceded the night before by a remarkable gathering of poets at @Bristol, under the auspices of the Festival of Ideas.  

Both Samuel Coleridge and William Wordsworth had links with Bristol, and so to celebrate Bristol's year as European Green Capital, 23 of the UK's most prominent poets were invited to respond to poems from Lyrical Ballads, for this reading and a two-part Radio 4 documentary.  

The evening began with a series of introductions including one from Mayor George Ferguson, who spoke about how the evening would celebrate Bristol and the richness of its urban wildlife.  He also mentioned the city's commitment to promoting and developing poetry, especially for children.   Then it was the turn of the poets, the great majority of whom had been able to travel in person, to read their particular poem, each introduced by honey-tongued Ian McMillan, who also read a poem of his own.  

Gillian Clarke, the National Poet of Wales, remarked that it had been a long time since she had taken an entire reading from her pocket, and indeed it was odd to see such luminaries as Makar Liz Lochead, Sir Andrew Motion, Don Paterson, Alice Oswald, John Burnside, Paul Farley, Fleur Adcock, Jean Sprackland, Ruth Padel and Sean O'Brien shuffle on and off the stage as if they were at school assembly.  As much as I was delighted by the opportunity to hear so many of our best contemporary poets, I wished the event had been divided into several throughout the year, so that the poets had a chance to introduce us to some of their other work, to give these new poems some context.  My guess is that it was done like this partly to create a one-night extravaganza and partly to facilitate recording, but after a while I began to feel slightly sick, as if I'd opened a big tin of Quality Street and eaten all the orange and strawberry creams, one after the other.

My favourite poem was Alice Oswald's elegiac description of a dead swan, which she'd passed on her daily walk for a month earlier this winter, as a counterpart to the rotting albatross strung around the neck of the Ancient Mariner.  It was a beautiful, startling piece and I am in awe of her fearless nose.

Other quibbles - no, actually, these are complaints - include the description of the evening as a celebration of Bristol and its urban wildlife.  In fact, the city was largely overlooked, and when it was mentioned, it was in reference to the natives' 'somnolence' or as being a place where its inhabitants 'slur their words like drunks'.  Of all the poets present, none were born in the city and only one lives locally.  As for Thomas Chatterton, our own Romantic poet, Wordsworth's 'marvellous boy', he was completely ignored.

Finally, that far from promoting poetry, as the Mayor claimed in his introduction, the city council has this year ceased its funding for Poetry Can, the lone poetry development agency for Bristol and the south-west, thus jeopardising not only its programmes of work with school children and resident, council tax-paying poets, but also the biannual poetry festivals and the agency's very existence.  I saw quite a few seething local poets exit the reading, their faces almost as red as Mr Ferguson's infamous trousers.  

  Bristol urban wildlife

Photo montage © Dru Marland

Walking The Chains, The Passenger Shed, Temple Meads

I went to see 'Walking the Chains'*, about the building of the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol (before I broke my leg).  Here's a review I've written about it for the local rag.  

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the 150^th anniversary celebrations of the opening of the Clifton Suspension Bridge had culminated with December’s firework extravaganza, but just over a month later, along comes this baggy and at times slightly exasperating celebration of our most famous landmark and the ‘little giant’ whose vision and drive brought it into being.

For the sentimentalist, the idea of staging ACH Smith’s play in the Passenger Shed at Temple Meads was inspired. More practically, the acoustics aren’t great and this meant it was occasionally difficult to hear what was going on.  Moreover, the way the action jumped back and forwards through time, with episodes such as the attempted suicide of Sarah Ann Henley (you know, the jilted Victorian woman whose voluminous skirts filled with air and parachuted her onto the muddy river bank) preceding the completion of the bridge, made me concerned that anyone unfamiliar with its lore and stories might be irredeemably confused.

But for all that, it’s a gutsy show, and with performers from theatre company Show of Strength, Circomedia and the Suspended Voices Choir – a cast which seemed to be of the clay of Bristol itself – you’d have to have a heart of Avon Gorge limestone not to be captivated by its exuberance.  

Perusing the list of financial supporters in the programme, I spotted a shocking omission. Sometimes it seems that Bristol has again been split in two, this time by a council that parachutes in expertise from elsewhere to promote our city’s status as Green Capital while ignoring the local talent of its citizens, and blows thousands on the nonsense of fake grass and trees in Park Street, a stone’s throw from Brandon Hill.  (Hardly very green.)  Meanwhile, Show of Strength, along with b-Creative, Bristol Ensemble and Poetry Can, have lost all their modest council funding. It took Brunel, an incomer, to bridge the great divide 150 years ago.  Now we have another, and maybe it’s time our Mayor reconsidered how best to support the arts, and the interests of those Bristolians who practise them.  

*'Walking the Chains' refers to the practice of 'interviewing' prospective maintenance workers on the bridge by making them walk its great supporting chains (without a safety-harness) to see if they had a head for heights. All other skills could be learnt.  

Bristol Poetry Festival 2014

So that was Bristol Poetry Festival 2014 and one of the very best I've been to so far.  It seems invidious to highlight a few moments out of so many, though in any treasury, there will always be random sparkles that catch your eye.

The Bristol Poetry Slam jam-packed. My strawberries were three relative newcomers.  Melanie Branton - a star is born!  A bit more experience and first prize will be hers for the taking.  I also hope to see more of Abi Newman and Hannah Teasdale in particular in future.  
(Above is a photo of Melanie I pinched from Poetry Slam's Facebook page.)

SIX! featured six poets with connections to the South-West: Dikra Ridha, Kate Firth, Victoria Field, Lucy Lepchani, Shagufta Iqbal and Alyson Hallett.  I knew beforehand, either from reading their work or by reputation, that each was a fine poet with her own distinctive voice; what I wasn't prepared for was the way the poems themselves interacted with each other, sharing themes, images and experiences despite a world of difference in the personal histories of each poet.  From a  moonlit walk around a quaintly named quarry to the unbearable tension of a horse race upon which a family's grocery budget for the week is riding to a discourse on Clark's shoes, I was hooked.  An especial mention here for Dikra, who wrote so simply and movingly about her family and their life in Baghdad during wartime.  The epitome of grace under (for me) unimaginable pressure.  

I was reminded of Dikra's work while listening to Mir Mahfuz Ali read his poems alongside Fleur Adcock, Robert Minhinnick and Vidyan Rabinthiran.  'Midnight, Dhaka' chronicles his experiences growing up in Bangladesh in the 1970s, from cyclone to civil war.  Much of what he describes is horrifying and yet the poems' evocative detail - indeed, their very existence and the voice in which they are read - is a celebration of human resilience and renewal.  

A very different struggle at the Tobacco Factory a week later:  Bite-Sized by Fiona Hamilton is the story, told in poetry and dance, of a mother whose daughter is hospitalised with anorexia, which was by turns harrowing, enlightening and amusing.  It was billed as 'in progress' so it will be interesting to see where Fiona takes it next.

As usual there was also a beautifully stitched and decidedly luxuriant fringe of events.  Highlights for me were the Spoke on Spike with Bob Walton, Lizzie Parker, Paul Deaton and Poetry Slam's Claire Williamson, Can Openers with one of my favourite local poets, Lloyd Fletcher, as guest, and the last ever Acoustic Night at Halo Cafe Bar, guest starring Matt Harvey and the wonderful Lou Bell.  This was a bit of a gutter, as Acoustic Night has long provided a warm welcome and empathetic ear to new poets stepping up to the mic, myself included. But as Dru Marland said, it was a fine swan song if swans have to sing. 

Then there were events with which I was involved: the IsamBards' guided poetry walks on the Suspension Bridge which were more or less fully booked in advance and exposed people who might otherwise have missed it to some fairly light-hearted poetry and the Festival itself; and my own book launch for Map Reading for Beginners, which again was well attended and had people saying nice things.  Thank you so very much if you came along, and if you didn't make it, here's a link to my special guest, Lou Bell's Soundcloud, so you can pretend you did.    

Finally, there was Claire Trévien's show, The Shipwrecked House, at the Cube last night which looked and sounded gorgeous and tasted quite definitely of salt, as a result of which I've ordered her collection of poems upon which the show was based to read at my leisure.

I have to wonder whether any of the people from Bristol City Council who decided to stop funding Poetry Can  back in the summer attended any of the above events to see for themselves the triumph that is Bristol Poetry Festival year after year, and how mistaken their decision is.  My guess is no.  Meanwhile new initiatives will be launched over the coming weeks to inform poetry lovers everywhere of how they can support Poetry Can so that the festivals, and all the other invaluable work in the fields of education and lifelong learning, can continue.  Please look out for them on the relevant Facebook pages here and here, and on the Poetry Can website.

Oh and finally finally, I'm reading more - and different - poems from Map Reading For Beginers at  Can Openers this Friday 3rd October, 12.30pm onwards, at Foyles, Bristol.  Hope to see you there.