Readings, giving myself a talking-to and some early Spring cleaning

Actually January was pretty good overall. Not for the pelargoniums in the garden that have been reduced to a frostbitten mess. But our goldfish Brahms and Liszt have both been spotted alive and well so the cold snaps haven’t done for them yet. Also I’ve been illness-free (write it!) and the collection is coming along.

This time last week I was in London at the very characterful Club for Acts and Actors for Red Door Poets’ winter party, reading with Simon Madrell, Red Door Poets including Mary Mulholland and a host of excellent open-mic-ers. I was invited by Gillie Robic, and it was a delight to meet up with poet friends I haven’t seen in a while, including Jill Abram, Hilaire, Mary Allen, Chaucer Cameron, Helen Dewbery, Tom Cunliffe, and fellow Live Canon ‘pamphleteer’ Katie Griffiths. It’s really put me in the mood for more readings, which is lucky because I have a few lined up for later in the year when the book is out.

A few weeks ago was the Needlewriters in Lewes and it was so good to hear Clare Best and Jeremy Page read, plus meeting up with my Lewes-area poet mates. These poetry events are very cockle-warming I find, especially at this time of year when I really need to get out and beat the cold weather and dark evenings.

Luckily February always brings lovely things in this household – a birthday, a wedding anniversary and the promise of Spring in the offing. I’ve already been spring-cleaning my poetry folders, and feeling rather humbled as regards my poor submissions habit. I seem to have a reputation as a submissions queen, because of my spreadsheet. But there’s that expression ‘physician heal thyself’ (where the heck does that come from?). A number of people have accosted me recently to ask about magazine submissions, and I’ve had to admit I haven’t submitted anything much for ages. Why? I suppose it’s partly because I feel there are so many up and coming poets whose work is appearing everywhere, I’m feeling my work might be a bit ‘has been’. But I know that’s stupid really, because for all the ‘fast fashion’ that exists in the poetry world, decent writing is still appreciated. Plus, my first collection is about to launch, so this is no time to wallow in self-flagellation. I guess I’m making excuses for being a bit lazy. Having Sharon Black of  Pindrop Press critique my poems for the collection, in great detail, has given me a bit of a kick up the bum I suppose. As a result, I’ve pulled together all the poems I’ve written over the last few years that I’ve abandoned, sometimes after multiple failed submissions, others that I just lost interest in too soon, and have them now all in a  2025 folder ‘to be worked up’. There are over seventy poems or proto-poems in that folder. I picked one out randomly and (without planning to) spent a whole day playing with it. I have plenty of material to revisit!