Lighting Touchpapers

Exactly a month ago, I was privileged to attend a beautiful evening of poetry in the King's Head, Wells. 

We'd gathered to celebrate the launch of Sara Butler's collection, 'Waiting for a Change'. The evening was hosted by Ama Bolton and Morag Kiziewicz, two members of the highly respected Wells Fountain Poets. Sara was a member of the group too, until ill health prevented her from continuing. It was Ama and Mo who collected Sara's poems and arranged them into this book.

Ama reading

Mo reading

I have a personal stake in this collection, because Sara was also a valued member of one of The Leaping Word’s poetry groups, and I’ve longed to hold a book of her poems in my hands for years. Now, thanks to Ama and Mo, that dream has come true. This book really is an act of love.

‘Waiting for a Change’ is available from bookshops or – if you must – Amazon: ISBN 978-1-914398-15-5.

Someone called Deborah Harvey has this to say about it:

‘A love for nature infuses these poems, though it’s never romanticised, Sara having both an eye and an ear for the dark and the all-too-human. And there’s always the laughing ‘yes’, and sexiness, and a desire for something better, which is found and made real in these poems.’

I had another enjoyable evening at a second launch, namely, the Zoom event celebrating the publication of 'High Nowhere' by Jean Atkins and 'What it Was' by Tina Cole. It was a treat to hear the poets read their very skilled and thought-provoking work. 

I also read some poems, as a pre-launch of my forthcoming collection, 'Love the Albatross', which is now at the printers and due to be published by Indigo Dreams Publishing at the end of August. Here's a preview of its cover, which has been beautifully realised by Katie Marland.

The poems in 'Love the Albatross' are about estrangement. Two of them have recently been published in journals, and can be read here and here.