Ducks go a-poetting

I'd missed the original exhibition last month in the West Barn, celebrating the collaboration between the Bradford-on-Avon photography group and the Words and Ears poets, on account of having to take my mother to her triplet siblings' 80th birthday party, so it was great to get to the rerun at the Swan on Saturday, and see the artwork up close for the first time, as well as read my poem. 

Bradford was its usual glorious, green-and-gold summer self ...

... and my fellow-collaborator, Melissa Wishart, had done my poem proud. It certainly held its own amid an impressive body of work.

Much gratitude is due to Dawn Gorman and Pey Pey Oh for organising it all. 

On Sunday, it was poetry all day ... 

... as the IsamBards - that's David Johnson, Pameli Benham, Dominic Fisher and me - brought to fruition our latest project: poetry walks around the University of Bristol's Botanic Gardens. Two walks were scheduled - one in the morning, one in the afternoon - and we were blessed with goodly-sized, attentive audiences both times. 

And only the occasional spot of rain. 

Best of all, we were continually upstaged by the beautiful gardens and its inhabitants.

In fact, some of the plants were quite aggressive. These are Strelitzia, which seemed to be impersonating emus.

They even turn on poets! 

Rather more poetry-friendly were the ducks. 

Who knew they were so into it? 

The hen duck decided to join in and rebrand it a poetry waddle ... 

...

 

... until the audience clapped and she joined in with her wings. 

Back at home I gloated over the weekend's treasury of contributor copies ... 

... the beautifully compiled booklet of the Bradford-on-Avon collaboration; Dru Marland's new canal-themed anthology, Poets Afloat, in which I have a poem and about which there will surely be more anon; and the booklet of poems about the Botanic Gardens, which the University of Bristol has produced. 

Not a bad haul.

Bristol Poetry Festival so far and a visit to Wells Festival of Literature 2017

The Bristol Poetry Festival is galloping into its final week. The last seven days have seen fantastic sets from Tara Bergin, Liz Berry, Helen Ivory, Lucy English, and Lois P Jones (the winner of this year's Bristol Poetry Prize), and Martin Figura's stylish and affecting new show about love, loss and poetry, Dr Zeeman's Catastrophe Machine, which I absolutely recommend. Plus a ground-breaking fusion of BSL poetry and poetry film, including translations into sung notation (an indequate way to describe it but the best I can do), with Paul Scott, Helen Dewbury, Chaucer Cameron, Victoria Punch and Kyra Love.  And last night a beautiful, beautiful launch for the anthology of poems by contemporary Georgian women poets, 'The House with No Doors', translated by Natalia Bukia-Peters and Victoria Field, with music from the Borjghali Choir which made me want to dance up and down the aisles of St Stephen's Church. (I desisted but it was a close thing.) 

Then there was Dru Marland's launch of her latest collection, Drawn Chorus, published by Gert Macky, which took place last Monday and which was A Roaring Success. 

Here are the guest poets!



















Today it was off to Wells Festival of Literature for a bit of a change. I'd been asked to get the reception for this year's shortlisted poets in the poetry competition under way by reading my poem 'Mr Cowper's Hares', which won last year's Hilly Cansdale prize for local poets. And since it's always a pleasure to go to Wells, I was happy to oblige. 

And it all went ever so well. 

Here are a few of the City of Wells in Autumn photos such an occasion demands. 

St Cuthbert's

The view from the pub

Stained glass autumn ash with Cathedral backdrop

The ruined Great Hall of the Bishop's Palace

Stained glass from ruined French churches, post Revolution

Tudor fireplace

Fountain

Not falling into the mediaeval conduit on the way back to the car

Billboards all along the Kennet & Avon

Well, maybe not quite, but the pressure was on - 'Kin' had to have an airing on today's Poetry Please or else, as my friend Jan pointed out, Dru Marland might be done for selling copies of 'Inking Bitterns', in which it appears, under false pretences. 

In the event it was there, tucked in amongst offerings from Thomas Hardy, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Charlotte Brontë, Wislawa Szymborska, Mark Doty, John Clare et al. How very exciting - even if it took four years from when Dru made her request.   Clearly, the mills of the Beeb grind slow.  

If you missed it and would like to hear it, follow this link. It's almost exactly half way through the programme, at 15.04 minutes in.  Or wait until next Saturday, 4th June, when it will be repeated at 11.30pm. 

As mentioned above, 'Kin' is published in Dru's 2012 illustrated anthology of nature poetry, Inking Bitterns, available from Gert Macky books, and also in my 2011 collection Communion, published by Indigo Dreams.

'Kin' on Poetry Please this Sunday!

After a false start a month or so ago, when nothing happened, Dru's received an email from the Beeb to say that my poem, 'Kin', requested by her back in 2012, will DEFINITELY be on Poetry Please on Radio 4 this Sunday, from 4.30pm. That's this Sunday, 29th May. From 4.30pm. Absolutely definitely. Really.

However, I've since been informed that it  will be on the same time as the commentary on some football match at Wembley involving a team called Barnsley. And apparently this might be a problem ...

Oh well, I'm sure someone will rethink their priorities before it's too late.  

'Kin' is from my 2011 collection, 'Communion', published by Indigo Dreams Press, and also appears in Dru's illustrated anthology of wildlife poems, 'Inking Bitterns', available from Gert Macky Books. 

A Poem For National Poetry Day 2015

It's National Poetry Day today and the theme is light, so naturally I've chosen to post a poem about death and foxes, which has just been published in Hailing Foxes, the beguiling new anthology of illustrated poems newly published by Dru Marland of Gert Macky press.  Except that it's about light also.

 A few months after he died, a literary wake was held for Seamus Heaney in Festival Hall, London. Late that night, on the final leg of the journey home, I had an extraordinary encounter. 

Heaney’s Wake

All year 

from winter to autumn I see them 

most evenings  

on high streets, down side-roads

slipping through hedges

under the bunting of parked cars,

charcoal running stitches 

hemming the edge of dark.  In April 

vixens trail their kits 

                                       like knots 

                                                           in hankies

Come September 

   flashes of amber – intermittent –  

a youngster, trapped by headlights 

           panics on Southmead Road

                                     spins in indecision, 

     his current short-circuiting, every nerve and instinct                

                                                   scrambled

After the wake

and the long drive back,

two miles from home and my bed

the stupor in my head gives way to quick 

       anticipation  

a dog-fox on Horfield Common 

in Belisha beacon glare 

waits for me to brake, trots over the crossing 

with a twitch of his white-tipped tail. If I could

touch his fur, sparks would 

       jump and crackle  

    

my spirits kindled by this sight, 

this flaring matchstick 

       to hold against the night

©Deborah Harvey 2015

My next poetry collection, Breadcrumbs, is due to be published by Indigo Dreams in 2016. This poem isn't in it. 

Highlights of Bristol Poetry Festival 2015 (so far ... )

A review for the local paper: 

Kei Miller/Liz Berry/Fiona Benson

Hailing Foxes/ Waterwoven/Rachael Clyne                       Bristol Poetry Festival

As I write, Bristol Poetry Festival is drawing to a close following a glorious fortnight of readings at venues in and around Bristol.

From the hugely popular Bristol Poetry Slam, where the cream of the West Country’s performance poets battle it out on stage, to smaller, low-key gatherings in cafés and the back rooms of pubs, poets and lovers of poetry have been coming together to celebrate our national art-form.

The flagship event of this year’s Festival was the reading at Arnolfini by three of our best contemporary poets, Fiona Benson, Kei Miller and Liz Berry. Colin Brown, the Director of Poetry Can, the Bristol-based organisation responsible for organising the Poetry Festival said: ‘there were three essential poetry books published in 2014 and we are lucky enough to have the authors of those books here in Bristol tonight.’ Each poet was very different but equally distinct. Anglo-Scot Fiona Benson read poems that showed how hearts can be broken by language; Kei Miller made language sound like music; Liz Berry took us gently by the hand and led us to the place where poems come from, and it was both thrilling and beautiful – but you can’t describe poetry, you can only experience it. ‘That was wonderful,’ said one audience member as we emerged into the September night. ‘As soon as it started, it was like we were all together inside a miracle.’

Photo © Dru Marland

A special mention too for the event at Bristol Central Library, where local artist Dru Marland launched her latest illustrated anthology of poems, Hailing Foxes, a celebration of Bristol and its wildlife during the city’s tenure as European Green Capital 2015.  This delightful evening, which also included performances from Wells Fountain Poets and Rachael Clyne, saw many of the featured poets coming together to read their work. Hailing Foxes is available from Gert Macky Books and good independent bookshops, price £5.

 John Terry 

                                                            Pat Simmons

Dru Marland

                                                          Dominic Fisher

Wells Fountain Poets and Colin Brown

'Grwyne Fawr' - Another Poem from Inking Bitterns

This is me reading the first part of my three-part poem, 'Speaking Raven'. It was inspired by a visit to Patrishow in the Black Mountains last January, when my fellow-travellers and I saw two ravens flying high overhead.  Their conversation carried all the way down to us on the still, cold air.    



'Grwyne Fawr' was recently published in Dru Marland's illustrated anthology, 'Inking Bitterns' - a book of poems and pictures for wild places, published in association with Poetry Can, and available from Gert Macky books and good independent bookshops, price £5.  It will also appear with its constituent parts in my forthcoming collection, 'Map Reading for Beginners', which is due to be published by Indigo Dreams later this year.  

Illustration of Patrishow by Dru Marland

'Calling the Collie' - A Poem for Ne'er-Do-Well Dogs

Ted didn't mind inspiring this Christmas card, for Christmas just gone ... 

... though he thinks 2014's card is verging on defamation  ... 

... and as for this poem by the iniquitous Colin Brown, well, it's downright libellous!

'Calling the Collie' is from 'Inking Bitterns' - a book of poems and pictures for wild places, illustrated by Dru Marland - which is published in association with Poetry Can and available from Gert Macky books and good independent bookshops - in Bristol, this means Durdham Down Bookshop, Standfords, and Foyles, price £5. 

'Kin' - A Poem for Winter Dusks

This is me reading my poem about starlings roosting or murmurationing or whatever it is they do.  It's also about my extended family and our annual get-together in honour of Hilda Hill, my grandmother.  



'Kin' is from my 2012 collection 'Communion', published by Indigo Dreams Publishing, and also 'Inking Bitterns' - a book of poems and pictures for wild places, illustrated by Dru Marland.  It is published in association with Poetry Can and available from Gert Macky books and good independent bookshops.