Readings, and a poem on ‘The Ditty Bag’ podcast

What a lovely event it was at The Brunswick in Hove on Sunday, at the awards event for the Brighton & Hove Arts Council Poetry Competition. Jeremy Page had kindly invited me to read alongside him (he was the adjudicator) and the audience was very receptive, especially given that they were no doubt there to hear the results of the comp! One of the poems I read was ‘She offers her defence’ from The Mayday Diaries, not one I’ve ever included in a reading because it’s written in two voices and without having the poem in front of you it’s possibly a bit hard to follow. Then I had the idea of asking poet friend Jill Fricker to read it with me. I knew she would be there as she had been shortlisted for the prize. And I think our team reading went well!

Come the second half, when the results were announced we found out Jill won first prize for her poem ‘NW3’ – very exciting, and a massive co-incidence that she’d already appeared on stage in the first half. Huge congratulations to Jill. She’s actually a pretty successful poetry comper. I must ask her what the secret is.

This week I was contacted by Rebecca Leek, whose podcast The Ditty Bag is a lovely thing: she records a new episode every week, featuring five or six poems that she has chosen, sometimes on a theme. This week there’s a fair bit of water, and Rebecca included my poem ‘Before the Splicing’ which was originally published in Prole magazine. She liked the poem because of its rope-making and boat-ish references, and actually explained what ‘splicing’ is. Very helpful! The poem is a sonnet spoken by a woman having doubts (or not) ostensibly about whether the rope she’s working on will hold tight, but also whether her impending marriage will work (the sense of ‘getting spliced’). I was delighted to hear Rebecca read it.

I rarely post poems on this blog but here it is if you are interested:

Before the splicing

Once she’s cut her rope from the spool
it has a job to do: it may tie a boat to a cleat,
secure a headsail in fair wind, bind a spell
to teach her standing from her working end.
The line is her friend. She’s witnessed time
and again the trouble caused by a hockled
lay, how hard to untwist, unmake the same –
worked so many nights, twined and reeled,
shaped-shifting coiled sisal and greyed hemp,
she’s whipped up frays and braided edges.
So why does she fear the heat of the lamp
and the slipping loose of a thousand fastenings?
She will dig out the core, feed a new line through,
strong for the passing and the coming-to.

NEXT WEEK: I’m reading at Chichester Poetry: Jubilee Hall, New Park Centre, Chichester PO19 7XY on Wednesday 26th November, 7.30pm. There’s also an open mic. I’ll have copies of The Mayday Diaries for sale AND ALSO Yo-Yo, the Bounce-Back 2nd Edition (limited, numbered, handmade!) Do come if you can, and say hello!