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.

A Meander in the Malverns I : Great Malvern Priory

The Malvern Hills surge out of the Severn floodplain and dominate the skyline to the south and west of Worcester. For me, being hauled south on the M5 by the westering pull of my homing magnet, they are Almost Home But Definitely Not; a piece of the southernmost Midlands more mysterious and mystical for being so near and yet far far away.  

Time, maybe, to make a first visit. 

First, though, a quick dap around Great Malvern Priory. And before that, coffee in a convenable spot. 

The bookshop is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Probably just as well. 

The priory has a 'larger display of 15th century stained glass than any church in England', we are told. This foxed me a bit at first, on account of Fairford Church in Gloucestershire's 'only complete set of 15th century stained glass in England'. Can you get bigger than complete? 

I suppose it all comes down to the size of the respective Churches. 

The glass survived the Dissolution of the Monasteries because townspeople managed to raise the huge sum of £20 to buy the Priory from the Crown. 

It survived the Cultural Revolution that was the Civil War because it was still surrounded by forest at this time and relatively isolated. 

It survived World War II because the windows were removed and stored in zinc-lined boxes in a mine in Wales. 

It didn't always survive the depredations of ivy. 

Great Malvern's mediaeval glass is impressive, but for reasons of exuberance and imagination and picturesque demons and devils, I prefer Fairford's. 

I fell in love with the modern, millennium windows, however, which were made by Thomas Denny and installed in 2003. 

Inspired by Psalm 36 they are imbued with nature and, for me, almost pagan in feel. 

The detail is exquisite ...

... and I loved the way the design merged with the surviving mediaeval glass in the uppermost lights.

But it wasn't just about the glass. I loved the mediaeval wall tiles too ... 

... the wildly glamorous eagle lectern, seemingly feathered with leaves ...

... the rather severe-looking daughter kneeling at the feet of John and Jane Knotsford, where one might have expected a small dog or pet lion ... 

... and the choir stall and misericord carvings.

  

Outside, the hills were making their presence felt. Time to get out on them ... 

The Box of Delights: Gloucester Part I

And so to Gloucester for the next round of Roamin' Robots, at the behest of Son the Elder.  I suppose I could have returned to Bristol after dropping him at the GL1 Leisure Centre, as it's only 30 miles away, but it was a beautifully clear and sunny day and anyway, why run the risk of having to do some housework when you can jaunt?

The last time I'd been to Gloucester, as opposed to through it, was as a small child on the bus with my mother and sister.  My mum told me off for reading a book on the way because I'd get sick but I didn't.  We went to the Cathedral - my father had explained to me what fan vaulting was in advance - and the livestock market where the pigs were bleeding from having holes punched in their ears.  I came back with a model animal for my farm, which was my favourite toy.

I decided, therefore, that a return visit to the Cathedral was almost certainly long overdue, but before I even got there, there was an amuse-bouche positively smothered in childhood and tied up with a big pink bow of literary interest.  Look, the Tailor of Gloucester's House!  

Through the arch was the Cathedral, and after the dark brick of Chester, how lovely it was to set eyes on buttery West Country stone.  The main morning service was still in progress when I arrived, so I took a wander around the Cloisters.  

Now, you might well recognise these and so you should because great tranches of the Harry Potter films were shot here.  I remembered how when I was teaching a class of German high school students during my year abroad, they had scoffed to see Gloucester Cathedral described in their textbook as world-famous.  Well, it is now.  

I was particularly pleased to spot this late Morris & Co window, c1920, and the watery-themed Victorian stained glass in the lavatorium.  

Oh, but the stone!  I wonder if the monks, copying scriptures with numb fingers, took solace in the staggering beauty of it, or did they become inured? 

 

After a coffee in the Cathedral café, the Remembrance Day service was over and the godless could roam.  There was more glorious glass for a start, these windows by Thomas Denny having been installed in the South Ambulatory Chapel in 1989 to mark the 900th anniversary celebrations of the current building on this site. 

And this lovely work of art was installed in the Lady Chapel in 1992 to commemorate the Gloucestershire composer of English Church Music, Herbert Howells.  


In fact, Gloucester Cathedral is as good at commemorating the dead as Chester is at wood carving.  Here's a few of my favourite tombs and memorials.  

The tomb of Thomas Machen and his wife, Christian, who died in 1614 and 1615 respectively and who both look pretty intimidating.  They had seven sons and six daughters, and their Latin inscription reads 'It comes down to this: we die.  Death is the final boundary of things'.  

Their near neighbours and contemporaries, John Bower (d 1615) and  Anne (d 1613) had nine sons and seven daughters, so there ...   

... whilst poor Elizabeth Williams died in childbirth in 1622 at the age of 17.  Her sister, Margery Clent, fared little better, dying the following year, also in childbirth, aged 21. Both women were daughters of Miles Smith, the then Bishop of Gloucester and one of the translators of the 1611 King James Bible. 

This is Abraham Blackleech lying next to his wife, Gertrude, who erected their monument in 1639.  We know that he was a gentleman and benefactor, and also that he had smelly feet.  How?  Look at the expression on the face of that bird of prey as it realises that it's stuck there propping them up for all eternity. 

Going back further in time, there are tombs of sundry Abbots, the Cathedral having been a Benedictine Monastery up until the Dissolution of the Monasteries, a 15th century effigy of Osric who founded the first religious house on that site in 679, and this rather dashing figure in painted bog oak of  Robert Shortstockings, the rebellious eldest son of William the Conqueror who seems to have been the butt of many practical jokes and who never did manage to claim the English throne. 

This is perhaps the most beautiful and famous of ancient tombs in the Cathedral, however - namely, that of King Edward II who was murdered at Berkeley Castle in 1327.  

The guide book cites suffocation as cause of death.  I hope it was rather than the more horrific method traditionally given. 

An interesting bit of graffiti with serifs carved onto the tomb makes mention of Pearce Gaviston and Spencer [sic]. 

Two more modern memorials I loved were those of Douglas Tinling and Ivor Gurney, both in the Arts and Crafts idiom, although the latter's is a good deal later than Tinling's, who was a Canon of the Cathedral and died in 1897.    Poor Ivor, composer and poet of the Severn and the Somme, who never recovered from his experiences during the Great War.  It's fitting to remember him today, a casualty of war as much as any soldier fallen at the Somme.  

More about my jaunt to Gloucester anon.