High Poetry Summer

It's been a busy poetry month, starting with the IsamBards reading from their new anthology, 'Dancing on the Bridge' (Paralalia Press) at Silver Street Poetry on the final Friday of June. This particular gig was pretty hectic as Dominic Fisher and I are both Silver Street organisers and IsamBards, and in the absence of the other two organisers, I found myself MC-ing and guest-poetting, while Dom did everything else (and guest-poetted). I'm not very good at single-tasking, let alone multi-tasking, but we managed to get through it with no major slip-ups. 

The IsamBards: Dominic Fisher, Deborah Harvey, David Johnson and Pameli Benham

    

'Dancing on the Bridge'

    

A month later, after the exertions of the previous session, I was happy to take a back seat at July's Silver Street, restricting myself to an open mic reading of a startling and beautiful poem by US poet, Andrea Gibson, who died on the 14th July and is a huge loss to the worldwide poetry community.

Another well attended event was the launch of Peter Gruffydd's collection, 'Slipping Away', published by Red Guitar Press, at Coffee#1 in Bedminster. Here is Peter, flanked by Lizzie Parker, who read in support, and Bob Walton, who made it all happen, as is so often the case when it comes to poetry in Bristol. 

I also had two solo readings during July. The first was an online reading for the Gloucestershire Poetry Society's event, Crafty Crows, organised by Jason Conway, MC-ed by Emma Clowsley, and very enjoyable. Here's the banner they made to publicise it.

The biggest event, though, was my real life reading at Verbatim in Bishop's Castle, home of the fabulous Poetry Pharmacy. On the drive up, I broke my journey in Hereford, as I last visited the Cathedral in 1973, at the age of 11, on a primary school trip, and wanted to revisit the Mappa Mundi and Chained Library, both of which made a big impression all those years ago.

When I arrived there, I discovered that an event that was part of a choir festival was due to start, but I was assured by a steward that I could still explore the building, I just had to wait for the doors to open, so I queued alongside the concert-goers for forty minutes and slipped inside.

The first thing I saw was the Audley Chapel, where there are stunning windows by one of my favourite contemporary stained glass craftsmen, Thomas Denny, commemorating the 17th century poet, Thomas Traherne. But it was the last thing too, unfortunately, as I was told very firmly by another official, that I'd been misinformed and I absolutely couldn't look around - 'the concert's being recorded by the BBC!' - and as I didn't have enough time to wait for it to finish and then explore, I left the building. 

Maybe I'll go back another time. (Best not leave it another 52 years, though.)

Ghost sign on Widemarsh Street

Then it was on up to Bishop's Castle on the Shropshire/Wales border, where the Poetry Pharmacy is situated near the top of the very steep high street. 

I was chuffed to see a Verbatim poster in the Pharmacy cafe ... 

... as well as a couple of antique road signs, which instantly hotwired the past. And elephants! There are elephants in Bishop's Castle because during WW2 several circuses moved their animals out of the cities to Bishop's Castle to avoid the air raids. I really like that this little piece of history is remembered in the town through a trail of artwork. 

Verbatim was taking place in a building at the very top of the road called The Lab, where the Poetry Pharmacy's famous poetry pills were assembled before they became wildly popular and production had to be moved to an industrial unit. It's a wonderful, accessible venue, the walls of which are hung with portraits from Clae Eastgate's marvellous series 'Painting the Poets'. 

I have to say, it was an exceptionally warm and welcoming evening, superbly MC-ed by Pat Edwards, with open mic poems of a really high standard.

Cherry Doyle

Tina Cole

I'd been a bit wobbly in the run-up to this reading. I knew it was likely to be the last time I read a chunk of poems from 'Love the Albatross' and while I'm fine with this - they do take an emotional toll on me - I also have to face the fact that nothing has changed with regard to my personal experience of estrangement during the five years it has taken to write these poems and get them out into the world, and that's a hard and painful realisation. 

What really helped me keep a lid on it all at Verbatim is that two of my peers from my MA course in Creative Writing a few years ago had travelled considerable distances to be there - Cherry Doyle and Tina Cole. It was great to see them again and hear their poems. Also, no less than four people came up to me during the course of the evening to tell me about their own experience of estrangement, with a couple of other attendees getting in touch the following day. What's so emotionally gratifying about this is that this sort of outreach is why I wrote the poems in the first place: to make connections with other people, from both sides of the divide, and to let them know they're not wrestling the loss, stigma and shame on their own. I was glad to have palpable evidence that 'Love the Albatross' is now touching others.

Thanks to Marius Grose, Dom Fisher, Pat Edwards and Cherry Doyle for photos used in this blog.

Fifteen days of poetry in spring

It's been a wonderful couple of weeks of poetry. First, it was the Lyra Bristol poetry festival, and although work commitments prevented me from going to a few events, I did manage to attend an online workshop led by Malika Booker, and I got to see my poetry hero, Ilya Kaminsky, who was one of the headline poets, and who lived up to my sky-high expectations.

And it was a  joy to have him sign my treasured copy of 'Deaf Republic', all battered and filled with notes from when I wrote an essay on it while I was studying for my Masters degree at Manchester Writing School. 

Talking of which, I also attended a showcase featuring some of the poets I studied with a few evenings ago, albeit online. This was my view for most of the evening, but no matter, the poems sounded great.

Throughout this past winter, the IsamBards, whose swan song it is this year, have been working hard, putting together an anthology of their poems, featuring poems from poetry walks held in the centre of Bristol and its floating harbour, the Bristol Botanic Garden, and Arnos Vale Cemetery, plus further sections entitled 'Brunel' and 'Books'. And now, at last, the anthology, called 'Dancing on the bridge', is in the world.

To accompany it, we've done three recent poetry walks, the first one - as part of Lyra Bristol Poetry Festival - on Bristol's waterfront. 

An interlude - with dog - on Narrow Quay

Reading at Pero's Bridge

Part of our rapt audience, which included John Cabot 

At Mud Dock, our final stop

Eight days later, we found ourselves at Arnos Vale Cemetery for two walks, this time as part of Bristol Walk Fest.

The ram's skull I found in Evilcombe on Dartmoor, many years ago, made an appearance as Yorick's skull during one poem

Our guide for the morning walk, Janine, at George Müller's grave

I'm always touched when flowers brimg themselves to a grave

Our guide for the afternoon walk was Alix, and her and Janine's knowledgeable presence made for fascinating walks.

magpie feather

With thanks also to the butterfly, which fluttered by while Janine was talking about Psyche, the goddess of the soul, who's often depicted with butterfly wings and who's the origin of the butterfly as a symbol for the soul, and to the sparrowhawk, which made an appearance seconds after IsamBard Dominic Fisher read his poem 'Sparrow', which features one.

And of course, my collection 'Love the Albatross' has continued to make its way in the world.  In addition to the reading I did in Totnes, also during this wonderful fortnight of poetry, Nigel Kent has kindly published both a short essay, written by me, on one of its poems - 'The counsel of hares' - which can be read here, and his own highly perceptive and empathetic review on the whole collection, which can be read here. 

Finally, from the same collection, my poem 'A betrayal', which was first published in issue 4 of The Fig Tree's online journal, has made its way into the 2024 anthology of poems, published by Tim Fellows of Broken Spire Press - many thanks to him also.

Filling January with poetry

I don't do that well in winter, being encumbered with Seasonal Affective Disorder, so I try to fill it with poetry to compensate for having to take the Christmas lights down. 

This year was my third year of doing Kim Moore and Clare Shaw's January Writing Hours, which offers the discipline of an hour a day responding to poems and prompts. Sadly, I can only ever attend four per week because of fixed work commitments, but even so, after a two-year break from writing poems following the completion of my most recent collection, 'Love the Albatross', I feel I might be getting ready to start writing again, and so it was good to smell the distant whiff of poetry on the air. And it's always wonderful to encounter poets and poems you might not have come across otherwise. 

I also volunteered to read at a few poetry events, largely to make myself do it despite the dark and the longing to hibernate. The first of these was the launch of Di Slaney's new pamphlet, 'January conversations, with dogs', published by Valley Press. Di was looking for poets with poems about dogs to read at the launch, so I sent her a copy of 'The Good Dogs of Chernobyl', which was published in my 2019 collection, 'The Shadow Factory', and was delighted when it, and I, were chosen to take part. And although they were mostly distant, Northern, god-like poets involved, whom I 'know' from social media but have never met, I instantly felt part of a warm poetry community - it was a beautiful launch of a thoughtful, dog-accompanied collection of poems that never tip into sentimentality, skilfully illustrated by poet and artist, Jane Burn. And yes, I bought two copies, one for us and one for dog-owning, poetry-publishing friends, and if you like dogs and poems, you should too. 

                         

Mid-month and I left Bristol for the first time this year to travel to Bradford-on-Avon for the second Poetry@Roots reading at Bradford Roots Music Festival. I read at the first one last year, on the grounds that not wanting to leave my settee to drive along the frankly scary Sally-in-the-Wood in winter's dark was exactly the reason why I should do it, and it was a such a shiny experience, I jumped at the chance to do it all again. 

Organiser and compere Dawn Gorman

This year there were guest readings by Kate Noakes and Christine McFarlane, who was launching her first collection, 'Irish Elk and other Extinctions'. Dawn, who organises every event she puts on so very competently, but without the least hint of bossiness, interviewed Kate and Christine for The Poetry Place on West Wilts Radio, and also Dominic Fisher and me about the forthcoming anthology from the IsamBards, 'Dancing on the Bridge'. You can hear us here, at about 6 minutes and 25 seconds in. 

Taking to the Golden Gudgeon stage

Then, right at the end of the month, two readings within 18 hours of each other, the first a Manchester Metropolitan University Alumni Showcase, at Manchester Poetry Library, which I joined online. 

Compere Kim Moore with a bottle of beer and fellow-reader, Rachel Carney, listening to a collaborative reading on the theme of dementia by Hilary Robinson and Rachel Davies

I always find Teams and Zoom readings slightly terrifying in case a) someone rings the doorbell and the dog goes ape, or b) I suffer a technical disaster and find I can't join the reading, or the internet goes down - none of which has happened yet, though that doesn't stop me worrying. This time, there was even more jeopardy, as we're between kitchens right now, and out of camera shot, I was surrounded by tottering piles of crockery, rusting pots and pans, jars of condiments bought with the most exciting of intentions in 2018 that somehow got pushed to the back of the cupboard and never used, etc, etc. In the end, I took the precaution of shutting poor Cwtch the Collie upstairs, from where she tried to dig her way back down through the ceiling, though this wasn't audible in Manchester. As for the notification which kept popping up, telling me I had a poor network connection, I just ignored it and it was OK. 

Rachel Carney's view from the audience

Since this might have been my last contact with MMU, I'm pleased it went well. I loved studying for my MA, and having the space to write about the difficult subject of estrangement was important to me as I negotiated my experience of it. It was also exhilarating hearing the poetry some of my peers - Rachel Carney, Betty Doyle, Simon Costello, Hilary Robinson and Rachel Davis - have written.

The final reading of the month wasn't at all scary because it was on my home ground, at Silver Street Poetry and Open Mic, of which I'm one of the co-organisers. Knowing everyone there makes for a safe space in which I can be a little more frank about the circumstances behind the 'Love the Albatross' poems than I might be otherwise. And of course, people know me in return, which means I know I won't be judged. 

Action MC moment from Dominic Fisher

It means a lot to me when people who, it turns out, have experience of estrangement come up to me after a reading and tell me how much these poems have touched them. 

Finally, the last poem from 'Love the Albatross' to come home to roost did so in the pages of Indigo Dreams' The Dawntreader. A fine place for it to land. Thanks to Ronnie and Dawn for everything.