Poems in a Garden and the Graveyard Shift

One of the most enjoyable things about poetting in the summer months are the beautiful places you get to read in, such as the Polygon communal garden. This was thanks to Lizzie, the proprietor of Heron Books, who arranged an invitation for me and fellow Bristol poets, Bob Walton and Jo Eades, to share our poems there during the Clifton and Hotwells Open Gardens weekend.

The garden was reclaimed by residents from longtime neglect, overrun by brambles and bindweed, but although it now looks rather gracious, there's a wild patch and a mini-meadow. And poetry!   

The audience looks a bit sparse in this photo, but there were actually more than thirty people spread out through the garden. (We were glad of Bob's mic.)

The last poetry walk the IsamBards held before lockdown was one around Arnos Vale in March 2020. We've often mentioned it as a favourite between ourselves, but it's taken us more than four years to organise a rerun - or rather, re-amble. 

The forecast was dodgy all week, but improved the closer we got to the appointed hour, and by the time we'd parked in the street next to the top gate and wandered down to the East Lodge  through sumptuous summer overgrowth, it was fine, if a little breezy. 

One of the especially enjoyable things about poetry walks in Arnos Vale is that the poems are interspersed with information from one of the guides, in this instance Alix, an English teacher at nearby St Mary Redcliffe School. 

Our first stop was the memorial to the stillborn, who, in previous decades, had been buried without ceremony or respect and often even the knowledge of their parents. I read my pantoum 'Small Lives', which is dedicated to my late godmother, Betty, and her son, Richard, who was stillborn in Bristol in the mid-1950s and who might well be buried here at Arnos Vale. Aways an emotional one for me to get through, especially in conjunction with poems by my fellow IsamBards that remember similar losses.

Pameli reading at the Matthews' tomb

mackerel skies

After the performing was done, there was cappucino and cake in the cafe, followed by a wander back up the path to the car. 

Forsooth, shut up now poets, it's time to go, says Cwtch.

My final poetry outing for June (so far) consists of three poems from my forthcoming collection, 'Love the Albatross', newly posted on the website iamb ~ poetry seen and heard, in written form and recorded. Thanks very much to Mark Owen for including them. You can read/hear them here.

The IsamBards in the City on Shakespeare Day

One year and thirteen days after the last IsamBards in the City walk, we found ourselves at it again, on Shakespeare Day this time, and with our full complement of Bards this time too. 

This time we started at Electricity House, a Grade II listed 1930s landmark, which we always called the SWEB building when I was growing up in the 1960s and 70s, and which is now, inevitably, 'luxury student accommodation'. 

We started with an introduction from Professor Lucy English, Poetry Queen of Dragons and Joint Director of the Lyra Bristol Poetry Festival, of which our walk was one of the events, and we were off, starting with David Johnson who gave a potted poetry history of Electricity House.

Dominic conjures an Electric Fish Market

This is me reading a poem about nearby Christmas Steps.

We then wandered down the Centre to our next stopping point, the now empty plinth where the statue of notorious slaver, Edward Colston, once stood.

Pameli reading 'In the Centre of the City'

Remembering George Floyd

Cwtch enthralled by the story of what happened here before she was born

It was then time to head to our next stop, down by the statue of Neptune and the Hippodrome.

Alfie the whippet studies his paws in rapt concentration ...

... although Neptune has rather rudely turned his back

Pameli reading her poem 'Mr Matchem's House of Marvels'

Our next stop was at the head of St Augustine's Reach on the Floating Harbour, which almost has a view of the Central Library and was therefore just the right spot for a communal poem protesting the threatened and revoked and then re-threatened plan of the Mayor to sell that beautiful Arts and Crafts building (which is ours, actually) and rehouse it in the empty Debenhams building, or Joneses as it used to be, over in Broadmead.

'Or sell our Central Library / sell everything it means / but beware its darkened aisles / in the library of your dreams' 

Our penultimate stop was further along Narrow Quay, within sight of Pero's Bridge, where we remembered one of the few slaves in Bristol whose name (albeit only his slave name), birthplace and dates we know.  

I also read a poem about a little known, but grim episode in Bristol’s history concerning three Inuit captives – a man, a woman from a different tribe and her infant son – who were brought to Bristol by Captain Martin Frobisher, following his voyage to Canada in 1577. He’d planned to present them to Queen Elizabeth I but all three died before that could happen, within weeks of their arrival.

 

I was a bit disconcerted to realise we were standing right outside the room where my wedding reception was held almost 37 years ago, but then the Northerner reminded me that reading poetry in that spot was the perfect way to lay any residual ghosts and he was right.

Our final stop was nearby Queen Square, which used to be a marsh before the River Frome was diverted in the 1240s and which contains a fanciful statue of King William III dressed as a Roman Emperor and sitting on a steed, both of which points of interest were referred to in various poems.

'It was all right as these things go,' said Cwtch, 'but there was only one mention of bones and no dogs whatsoever.'

Four IsamBards

'Now is poetry where a rubbish bin once stood ... '

With apologies to Ovid. And also, I suppose, Auden, although he is wrong about poetry making nothing happen; in fact, embarrassingly so, since it's on Auden Mead in Upper Horfield, Bristol, that the poetry installation commemorating John Keats stood, with a rubbish bin sited directly in front of it.

This is how it looked when fellow-IsamBard Dominic Fisher and I scoped out our Poetry Streets of Horfield Poetry Walk almost exactly a month ago. 

Reader, we were appalled. The fragmentary poem it was impossible to read without getting a noseful of Merde De Chien No 5 is called 'This Living Hand' and was written in 1819, when Keats was 23. He'd just coughed blood into his hand and, having seen his mother and brother die of tuberculosis, knew that he was next. He died in 1821, at the age of 25. It - and Keats - deserved more respect than Bristol City Council was showing them.

So we complained. And asked other people to complain. Which they did in their hun- well, a lot of people did, from even as far away as America. And the Bristol Post got involved. And the local councillors were alerted. And although we didn't get our promised response within the 10 day deadline, yesterday I had a message from a friend who lives on the same street to say this had happened. 

And shortly afterwards, this happened.

And all we have to do now is get up a petition to get remove her and her dog.