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-filled 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 warm and welcoming
experience, so 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
any bossiness whatsoever, 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, but 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.
Since I'm not sure I'll ever have the financial resources to study for a PhD, this might have been my last contact with MMU, so I'm pleased it went well. I loved studying for my MA, and having the space to write about estrangement, which is such a difficult subject, has been important to me as I negotiate 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.
