I visited M Shed today with my cousins, Joy who lives in Thornbury and Sandra who flew over the week before last from New Jersey on a blizzard-defying visit prompted by the launch of my book, Dart. Neither had been to this comparatively new museum before, so it was quite high up their List of Places to Visit.
I like the upstairs part of the museum better than the ground floor, as it contains more about the lives of people living in this city. I have to say that as a novelist engaged in research, I need more detail than any museum could hope to include amongst their displays, but as a poet, there are plenty of telling details at M Shed that spark the imagination. For instance, I'd forgotten that we used to call the bits of surplus cooked batter which we often had scrumps; a story about Paper Sal, a newspaper vendor in the late 1800s and early 1900s, reminded me. Here she is.
Next we moved on to the exhibitions. There was one about the chocolate-making industry in Bristol, which made me feel very nostalgic (we used to get Frys misshapes very cheaply when I was a child, from someone my father knew) and one entitled Revealing Stories, about the experiences of lesbian, gay, bi and trans people living in Bristol. This second exhibition is long overdue and was by far the most interesting of the day's displays. It was good to see my friend Dru Marland's story included, as well as mention of two of my colleagues who are involved in Deafab, and two of my favourite local poets, U A Fanthorpe and her partner, Dr Rosie Bailey. There were also three pencil portraits by Malcolm Ashman of Bath Artists' Studio which made my heart jump a bit, not least because I met him on several occasions last year, when he drew a portrait of me as part of the Faces {Bath} collaboration with Bath Poetry Cafe.
In the M Shed shop I was pleased to see a poem on sale there by local poet, Miles Chambers.
And there was a moment of delight when we scanned a school photograph from the 1940s and my cousins picked out their mother, my Auntie Mavis, who died of breast cancer in 1979 when she was 48 and they were 19 and 17 years old, and who is much missed more than thirty years later. It was so good to see that she is still part of our city's story.
Following on from my previous post, this is the finished portrait by Malcolm Ashman for Faces {Bath}. Personally I think he deserves an award for services rendered in the drawing of hair.
For more of Malcolm's work, click here. I'm definitely coveting one of his landscapes ...
I've had lots of cultural nay poetickal excitement lately, including seeing a wonderfully tragicomic production of Chekhov's 'The Cherry Orchard' at the Tobacco Factory; a lecture at Bristol University by veteran poet Al Alvarez (quite extraordinary to hear him talking of being handed some 'light verse' by Sylvia Plath only to be confronted with 'Daddy' and 'Lady Lazarus') plus readings by Tom Raworth, Edward Lucie-Smith and John Fuller; and a trip to Words and Ears in the Cellar Bar of the Swan at Bradford-on-Avon, where I shall be the featured guest on June 21st, reading poems on the theme of 'Solstice'.
Last Saturday it was the long-awaited Bloodaxe Day, organised by the indefatigable Sue Boyle as part of the Bath Poetry Café. In the morning we had an interesting and informative lecture by Neil Astley, founder of Bloodaxe Books and editor of that fine trilogy of poetry anthologies, 'Staying Alive', 'Being Alive' and 'Being Human', on how to get our poetry published. After lunch with my lovely friend Helen - and a quick pop into Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights where the nice man at the till readily relieved me of one of my packs containing my poetry collection, 'Communion' - I had a lovely afternoon reading with my peers, again in the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution. I have to say that the quality of the poetry on offer in the Café just gets higher and higher. In the evening we were treated to a reading by Neil Astley and Sara-Jane Arbury of poems selected from 'Being Human'. I drove back to Bristol crackling with energy and inspiration.
It was over to Bath again today with my friend and fellow-poet, Pameli Benham, to visit the artists Malcolm Ashman and Ben Hughes in Bath Artists Studios in Comfortable Place. (Can't help wondering about the etymology of that pleasingly named backwater!) Our excursion was our entry into a project called Portraitswest, in which the artists will draw and exhibit portraits of local poets and the poets will respond with words, culminating (for now) in an evening of art and poetry in Bath in November. I had a great time fossicking around Malcolm and Ben's studios, asking them about their work and taking a few quick photos, and trying to sit very still and look intelligent and not too fat while they drew me. Have lots of ideas already about what to write and I'm really looking forward to getting stuck into it. To add the icing to my delicious cake of a day, staff in Bath's other equally delightful independent bookshop, Toppings, also took a copy of Communion to put on sale, and when I popped into Durdham Down Bookshop in Bristol to pick up my World Book Night books and press a pack on them, I was told - quite casually - that there was no need because they already had it in stock!
And things look set to get even better. The spring forerunner of the Bristol Poetry Festival is on, and I have tickets to see Paul Durcan, Ian Duhig, Carol Rumens, Sasha Dugdale and the marvellous Pameli Benham over the next couple of weeks, not to mention a special Olympic-themed Acoustic Night Bristol on World Book Night at which I'll be giving away my free copies of Kazuo Ishiguro's 'The Remains of the Day'. Such a stunning book! (And no, I shan't be reading poems about my burning desire to participate in Synchronised Swimming or even my ex-husband being for the high jump - rather, I shall be erring on the side of Greek gods and the Oracle and so on.)
I also have a free workshop with the wonderful Polly Moyer to look forward to, the reading of my poem, 'Kin', at the launch of Geraldine Taylor and Dru Marland's latest collaboration, 'The Secret Blackbird', and - well, just loads more lovely stuff.
Having become, in his words, 'caught up in my hair', the lovely Malcolm Ashman was planning on finishing his drawing of me this afternoon. Here's how it looks so far:
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In the M Shed shop I was pleased to see a poem on sale there by local poet, Miles Chambers. 
