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.
Had a brilliant hour and a half this evening listening to Carol Ann Duffy reading a selection of her poetry from works spanning the last decade, accompanied by John Sampson, a virtuoso musician who played a wide variety of pipes (including, at one point, two recorders at the same time!) The event was billed as Poetry and Song: A Celebration, and it was good to hear Duffy's beautifully crafted poems interacting with the sometimes playful, sometimes elegiac playing of Sampson.
The (free - hooray!) event was to launch the brand new Bristol Poetry Institute, a venture dreamed up by the University to bring together 'scholars, students, poets and poetry-lovers across the University of Bristol and the wider community.' Bristol has a very lively and varied culture of poetry outside of the hallowed halls of academia, so it will be interesting to see how successful this outreach is. If it means more freebies like tonight, count me in!
I've long been fascinated by the way poems by different poets converse, but over the last year I've become increasingly interested in the interaction of poetry with other arts also. I was lucky enough to be able to launch my collection, Communion, with accompanying songs by maestro Reg Meuross, and more recently, one of the most enjoyable parts of last month's Bristol Poetry Festival was the encounter between Hazel Hammond's poems and Alison Wills' beautiful nocturnal photos, entitled 'The Woman Who Slept With Bones'. Still to come is the evening celebrating the collaboration between poets associated with the Bath Poetry Cafe and three portrait artists from Bath Artists' Studios, entitled Faces {Bath}, which is due to be held on November 3rd at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution.
One of the most moving parts of this evening was when Carol Ann Duffy read her recent poem about Hillsborough and the findings of the Inquiry, while John softly played Abide With Me in the background. After the event I had the opportunity for a few quick words with her, and told her how grateful I was that we had a Poet Laureate who was writing about 'the things that matter, rather than ... you know ... Prince Harry'. Then, having thought for a moment, I added that actually there were probably lots of poems in that lad, and she confided 'Yes, I've written quite a few rude ones!'
... all over the place!
The weekend before last it was off to Bath for a Poetry Café writing day on the Saturday, which was run by the indefatigable Sue Boyle with assistance from Lesley Saunders, and in the evening I helped to run the bookstall at the Acumen Poetry evening at which the winners of the competition I'd helped to judge were announced. On the Sunday, the judges were invited to lunch at Sue's lovely home in the company of Patricia Oxley, the general editor of Acumen Magazine, and her husband, poet and philosopher William Oxley, and an interesting time was had.
That would have been enough adornment for any week, but this was just the start. Monday night I read at Acoustic Night Bristol at Halo Cafe Bar, which is just about the best, friendliest and most varied open mic you can imagine.
Thursday it was off to Bradford-on-Avon to celebrate the summer solstice at Words and Ears in the cellar bar of the Swan Hotel, an open mic at which I was the guest reader. Despite the monsoon I had a wonderful evening, sold a few books and had some very kind feedback from organiser, Dawn Gorman.
Better still, while we were puddling disconsolately around town in the afternoon, we encountered a handfasting taking place on the grass outside Bradford-on-Avon Tithe Barn. It was just wonderful to watch, and I felt no need to rattle my chains, as is normally the case at weddings. I loved the invoking of Aphrodite and Ganesh, the priest summoning the Old Ones ... at which point we duly arrived. Pameli Benham and I had a sip of Buck's Fizz from the Loving Cup and gave the clearly ecstatic couple a copy of our respective poetry collections, at which they looked slightly alarmed. Maybe they thought we were Jehovah's Witnesses.
Then on Friday I read in Chipping Sodbury town hall, having come second in the Chipping Sodbury Festival poetry competition this year with 'The Poet and the Boatman'. I've been asked to judge it next year, so took the opportunity to tell those present that I shall be open to bribery.
Saturday saw me reading in Halo again, at a Ladyfest Fundraiser which also featured Rose Flint, whose work I like very much. There were some other great contributors also, including the wonderful Lou Bell, whose voice and songs I adore. And the equally wonderful Rebecca Cant, whose song Fisherwoman Blues from her Songs in the Shed session can be heard here.
This might seem like enough but I'm off to Bath again tomorrow to attend the launch of the new art exhibition, faces [Bath], with which I and lots of other local poets are collaborating.
Can't begin to say how much better my new life is than my old one. What price freedom and poetry?
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:
.jpg)
.jpg)
In the M Shed shop I was pleased to see a poem on sale there by local poet, Miles Chambers. 
