Tail Feathers from Storm Ciara

I love Frome. Have I mentioned that before? I think I have. 

Last night we arrived in good time for the Frome Poetry Cafe, which is held in the Garden Cafe on Stoney Street, so I went for a wander with my fellow guest-reader, Dominic Fisher, and our partners, up Catherine Hill to the Valentine Lamp.

Sheppards Barton

The rebel in me would love to retire to Frome one day. After all, it's hardly a level walk to the shops. 

The Garden Cafe was full of people and light and poetry, which was a wonderful thing given we were still riding the tail feathers of Storm Ciara.

Crysse had chosen as the theme of the evening 'New Beginnings, Green Shoots' and it made for an uplifting, hope-filled evening to set against the dismal time we've been having lately.

And it's always good to catch up with, and listen to, poetry friends from outside Bristol. 

B Anne Adriaens

Oh, so that's what's in the briefcase in Pulp Fiction ... Moira Andrews' poems.

Kate Semple

Mike Grenville

Dominic Fisher

Photo by Dave Goodman

Photo by Dave Goodman

Snow moon and street light

Reading at the Merlin Theatre in Frome

I was lucky enough to be invited to read in Frome last week. The person doing the inviting was writer and local impresario, Crysse Morrison, and the venue was the lovely Merlin Theatre, which I'd been to several times but never as a performer. 

Even better, the theme of the evening was the nature and landscape, which, during this time of acute awareness of its fragility, is an issue that should be exercising all poets right now.

Also reading was Rose Flint, who was launching her selected poems, Mapping the Borders ... 

... Dawn Gorman, who was launching her new pamphlet, Instead, Let Us Say ... 

... Crysse Morrison herself, who was covering for a sick Rosie Jackson, and read a poem by the late Frome poet and activist, Linda Perry ... 

... and Liv Torc, who wasn't reading at all, but performing poems that included her most popular work, The Human Emergency.

Plus Frome-based photographer Julian Hight, launching his book, Britain's Ancient Forest Legacy and Lore, which will top my Christmas list this year and hopefully inform many future tree-visits. 

All photos taken by David Goodman.

Frome Festival Poetry Cafe, 10th June 2017

I love Frome. It's one of my favourite Somerset towns, and if obligation hadn't kept me closer to Bristol, I'd have loved to have moved there the year before last.  So when Crysse Morrison kindly asked me to read at the Frome Festival Poetry Cafe some months back, I said yes yes yes and thank you. 

Not that the journey was without tribulation. Having been held up for two hours on Flowers Hill in South Bristol last autumn on my way to read at Words and Ears in Bradford-on-Avon, I vowed, as we squeaked into The Swan with moments to spare, that I'd never accept an invitation to read outside Bristol on a work day again. Obviously I'd disregarded this in the my eagerness to go to Frome ... until we found ourselves sitting in traffic on the ring road for 40 minutes. Even the relatively startling sight of a muntjac nibbling on a hedge at the side of the road couldn't distract me from my gloom.  

But the M4 was remarkably clear, as was the rest of my route, apart from when an elderly denizen of B-o-A blocked a single track section of road for four minutes while I avoided eye contact and everyone behind me papped her.  Eventually she deigned to reverse.   










Once in Frome, in the garden of the Garden Cafe, everything was sunny and lovely again. The theme of the evening was 'That Adlestrop Moment' and all the poets reading in the open mic produced poems which either referred directly to, or were at least partly inspired by, Edward Thomas's poem.  The poem judged the best would win its writer the title of Frome Poet Laureate for the year. 

It turned out the guest reader is the judge in what was a simultaneously enjoyable but tricky task. There was barely a hair's breadth between so many of the best poems, and in the end I opted for honourable mentions for several poems, with Liv Torc winning a book for her beautiful poem about her baby, and B a bottle of wine and the Laureateship for her poem. I don't have the piece of paper to hand with the notes I made while I was listening to the poems so I can't give you the titles, but the winning poem was about riding pillion on a motorbike, and was memorable for all its original images playing with the neither-here-nor-thereness of the original poem. 

And my reading went well too, I was told. (It's good to be told even when you think it was probably OK.)

I was far too busy to take photos, so I've half-inched some from other people. 

Crysse Morrison with Martin Bax, taken by David Chedgy

Crysse, drawn by Frome Festival sketch artist, Ann Harrison-Broninski

Liv Torc, taken by Crysse

B reading her winning poem, sketched by Ann

Louise Green reading her brilliant glosa on Adlestrop, taken by Crysse

B and me, taken by Crysse

Ann sketching the guest reader, taken by B

Angels and Little Stars

It's disappointing when embattled local bookshops choose not to support embattled local publishers, anthologisers and illustrators.

Oh and when local churches with magnificent Jacobean chancel screens and pulpits are locked with no indication anywhere of who the keyholder might be and when the church might be open for viewing - yes, that's you, St Mary the Virgin in Croscombe, Somerset - well, that's bloody miserable.  

But it's a bad day out when there's nothing to celebrate and Monday wasn't one of them.  

Catherine Hill, Frome

Me and Ted
(photo by Dru Marland)

 

Shepton Mallet Market Cross

First primroses 

Mistletoe

St John the Baptist, Pilton

                            Mediaeval evangelists

Embroidered angel ...

... carved angels 

Starlings swarming for Glastonbury Tor

(photo by Dru Marland)

Love is Metaphysical Gravity

And so to the lovely Somerset town of Frome to deliver leaflets for the fast-approaching Bristol Spring Poetry Festival.  But first a stop off at Mells, for a  spot of obeisance at the Edwin Lutyens-designed bus stop and the tomb of poet Siegfried Sassoon.  The Burne Jones embroidery which was away being restored the last time I visited the Church of St Andrew was back in situ and looking resplendent.  

Amongst the beautiful and achingly tasteful headstones of various Horners (of Little Jack fame), Asquiths and Bonham-Carters, I noticed for the first time a couple belonging to the O'nions family.  Couldn't help smiling.  I'd much rather be earthy, multi-layered and really rather pungent Mrs Onions any day.  

In the Walled Garden there was poetic delight in this quote from a poem by Pablo Neruda: I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees

Next, a quick tour of Frome, taking in the Merlin theatre and then the town centre - always a delight, but even more so on a beautiful sunny day when disseminating news of the forthcoming poetic feast just up the road in Bristol.

Finally, a leisurely lunch in  the George Inn at Norton St Philips. Nice work if you can get it.