Giving Something Back

I'm honoured to have been asked to be a trustee of the wonderful charity, Poetry Can.  It  was set up in Bristol back in the 90s, with the aim of encouraging as many people as possible living in the city, South Gloucestershire, and Bath and North-East Somerset to get involved in 'poetry activity'.  Since then Poetry Can has expanded to support the development of poetry right across the South West of England.

Poetry Can puts on the now biannual Bristol Poetry Festival in the spring and autumn, which attracts many of our most celebrated poets.  It also initiates and manages all sort of events and projects to bring poetry into the community and develop new audiences for it, and runs poetry surgeries and workshops.  It's just fab!

One of the requirements of being a trustee is to be an advocate for Poetry Can, so I am making a very modest start by posting this link to their website.

I have had the time of my life since I became involved in the poetry scene in Bristol and Bath.  I have the very strong intuition that I'm doing what I always should have been doing, and I am so grateful to the people I've met during this period who have encouraged and supported me and become dear friends in the process. Having had my collection of poetry published, I now have to find new life ambitions, and being involved in the thriving poetry scene in this area is a way for me to discover what they are.

I owe the poetry people of my home city and surrounding area and Poetry Can (almost) everything.  But there's someone else I need to thank also.  My ex-husband once claimed that it was poetry - and more specifically, my writing of it - that broke up our marriage.  I'd always thought it was his many infidelities, but poetry tells us to look at things slantwise and in giving me a space where I could express myself without coming under his control, then, yes, I believe that it did.  And now I have the chance to give something back.