It’s funny how writing often goes together with a second passion or skill, and the ingenuity of bloggers in combining them in just one blog is often surprising and interesting. This week’s three featured blogs are to do with writing & gardening, writing & swimming, and writing & animals. OK so I’m not a greatRead more ⟶
Month: May 2013
Guest post: Dickman & Gray at the Poetry Cafe
Jo Grigg was at the Poetry cafe on Thursday for what sounds like an exciting evening! Many thanks to Jo for this guest post. London’s Poetry café on a May evening, it feels like February. Then poet Ann Gray describes ‘a pale lake pulling at the throat of May’ and I think ‘yesss’. Reading herRead more ⟶
Dear poets: publishing is a business
I’ve been emailing with a poet friend today who drew my attention to this piece in the Guardian, about Salt’s decision to stop publishing individual poetry collections and to concentrate on anthologies. I know it’s been a big topic of debate this week. But something about the way it’s been reported makes me see red.Read more ⟶
Three great blogs – poetry
It’s always nice to get those ‘congratulations, another blogger is following your blog’ emails from WordPress, and even nicer when you check them out and discover a real gem of a blog you’d not come across before. That’s how I found John Field’s excellent blog Poor Rude Lines – “I’m just another reader, rather like you,Read more ⟶
More new reading material, and some happy happenings
Some classic internet-enabled moments this week. Firstly, my post about having received a free copy of Poetry magazine was picked up by Steven Critelli who alerted Don Share, senior editor of that venerable publication, who promptly lived up to his name and tweeted it … Then one of the other participants going to the TyRead more ⟶
‘Wake’ by Alfred Lehtinen
Love this poem … by Alfred Lehtinen, a Finnish poet who stopped by my blog and whose blog I’m now following.
Unexpected bonus
In the post today came a copy of Poetry magazine, volume 202 number 1 – yes, it’s been going for over a hundred years – gawds! The reason it was an unexpected bonus is because I cannot remember where or when I ordered it. But here it is, and with such a heritage the firstRead more ⟶
Social media for writers, ‘Orgasm Management’ etc
This is not the blog post I started writing this morning – but that turned into a cod philosophical/ psychological discourse that I eventually decided wasn’t going anywhere. So I’ve saved it for another day when I might be able to better whip my thoughts into a proper shape. Instead, more of straightforward diary entry.Read more ⟶
Frogmore Press 30th birthday readings
It was an intimate affair: in the round at the New Venture Theatre in Brighton yesterday evening, the first Sunday of the Brighton Festival and an unusually sunny (if not balmy) evening, with poet friends and friends of poetry, all to celebrate the 30th birthday of the Frogmore Press. The evening brought some thrilling readingRead more ⟶
Launches, celebrations, lovely poets
Three days into May and I think it’s been sunny all week – that’s about 5 or 6 days on the trot, something we haven’t had in over a year, if not two. It’s not yet warm enough to take off my ‘winter’ boots (which I now wear nine months of the year.) What onRead more ⟶