Last Exit to Trowvegas

I didn't get to the Kennet and Avon Christmas Floating Market in Bradford-on-Avon this year because Son the Younger was moving back to Bristol and needed someone to help him drive his stuff down from Rugby - that someone being me - so I always had in mind that I'd have to pop over to wherever Dru Marland was moored on the canal to pick up a few Christmas cards for me and the Friend-formally-known-as-'Er-over-the-Road. 

As it was, the printers got themselves a bit overwhelmed with work and Dru didn't manage to pick them up in time anyway, which was a shame, but it did mean there were definitely enough left for me to collect in a rendezvous with her on Bradford-on-Avon wharf. And what a beautiful card it is. I absolutely love it. 

Bradford was looking gracious, as usual, even though closer scrutiny of the picture below reveals autumn leaves, Christmas lights and early flowering cherries in blossom, which is a bit confusing and possibly slightly alarming. 

I was also in the locality for a Stanza open mic session run by Josephine Corcoran in Trowbridge, which is known by locals as Trowvegas and is the somewhat down-at-heel bigger cousin of Bradford. 

I really like it, and its 'rich industrial heritage', as they say.

The open mic was held in Bridge House, which is an Arts Centre next to the railway station. I was very taken with the venue, though I had to concentrate very hard on the poetry so as not to be completely mesmerised by the patchwork windows, of which at least two designs were familiar from my childhood home and subsequent places I've lived in. Luckily for me, the poets were good and very welcoming. 

By the time I walked back to the car, parts of Trowbridge were looking a little scary, or at the very least haunted, so I skedaddled back to the bright lights of Bristol in the embers of the day, which is about four o'clock right now ... 

... to warm my chilly fingers on this beautiful fox embellishing the cover of the latest anthology in aid of the League Against Cruel Sports to be produced by my publishers, Ronnie Goodyer and Dawn Bauling of Indigo Dreams Publishing. I'm so very proud to have two poems in it. 

For the Silent - an anthology of poems in aid of the League Against Cruel Sports

Yes, foxes can be a pest on farms, and sometimes their numbers need to be controlled, but I've never been able to imagine my way into the mindset of someone who would hunt animals to the point of exhaustion, and then kill them and call it 'sport'.

Nor can my publishers, Ronnie Goodyer and Dawn Bauling of Indigo Dreams, and to spread the word (literally), they have produced this beautiful anthology of poems, For the Silent, proceeds from the sale of which go to the League Against Cruel Sports.

I'm delighted to have a poem in it, rubbing its humble shoulders with poems by Mary Oliver, Simon Armitage, Thomas Hardy, Margaret Atwood, Pascale Petit, Liz Berry, Seamus Heaney, Alison Brackenbury, Siegfried Sassoon, John Clare, Ted Hughes and many more.

If you have a heart and a soul, this book is for you. It costs £10 + p&p and is available from the Indigo Dreams website. (Buying directly from Ronnie and Dawn will maximise funds for the League.)