Various news & musings, from Mozart to Billy Ocean
A poetry reading and a concert
Just recovering from a long day yesterday, which started with a 6am train out of Eastbourne and ended with a drive home from Lewes at 10pm, followed by a glass of wine with cheese and figs in the garden and falling asleep before my head even hit the pillow. In between I did a reading at Ver Poets in St Albans (more about that in a moment) and sang in a Mozart Requiem in Lewes Town Hall with the East Sussex Community Choir with Nick conducting. That, plus approximately 5 hours 40 minutes on trains (mostly air-conditioned, hurrah!) and 1 hour 35 minutes waiting on sizzling hot train platforms.
I didn’t plan to do a poetry reading on the same day as a concert, the two being 100 miles apart. But I’m so glad it all worked out, because both events were terrific. Ver Poets are a really welcoming group, and hats off to the twenty-five or so people who came out on a very hot day to sit in a very hot room and listen to me and Mark Fiddes. Speaking of Mark, he’s a poet I’ve admired for a long time, despite the fact that he’s just a bit too successful at competitions. I wish he’d take a break and give the rest of us a chance – ha ha. I interviewed him a while back on Planet Poetry – listen to it here. Anyway, we got a preview of his new book Hotel Petroleum (Broken Sleep) hot off the press – actually the launch reading this this coming Thursday. He gave a great reading, and there was a nice Q & A/ chat in which we both chewed the cud a bit with the audience about the podcast, competitions, getting published and the like. Followed by a short (and I have to say high quality) open mic. A really receptive group, and I was delighted with my book sales. Huzzah.
Writer’s angst and house-moving angst
In the last few weeks I’ve been working up some poems and forcing myself to send some out. A few rejections already but I’m trying hard to take some of my own advice, eg be consistent and don’t give up. Anyway, it’s also nice when ‘old’ poems get a second wind, and it was fun to see a poem from The Mayday Diaries in ROSA Magazine (‘Review of Sussex Arts’), as selected by Jeremy Page (it was first published in The Frogmore Papers.)
Other projects: the Season 6 Finale of Planet Poetry is coming soon, as is The House Move – although I’m less certain about the latter. As I’ve mentioned on here before, the conveyancing process is slow, and although the troublesome link in the chain has been replaced by a newer, better-looking link, that has set the whole process back by a couple more months. Fingers crossed the chain holds under the strain. One of the things I will be sad to leave behind when we move is my poetry wall, pictured at the top of this post. It consists of poems I liked, torn out of a range of poetry magazines. Most are loosely on a garden theme. I pasted them collage-style on one internal wall of our potting shed when we had it built. I’m amazed they’ve all stayed up and apart from a little discoloration they haven’t bubbled or gone mouldy. I still enjoy pausing in there to have a read. Maybe I’ll try to photograph it very high res and have it made into wallpaper for the new place!
Call me crazy, but…
Something I’ve mentioned on the podcast I think, but not generally known, is the fact that back in the day I used to teach aerobics classes. For a living. That’s right, I think I made slightly more money than I do now from poetry. But not a lot more. Now lately I’ve been spending a lot of time in the gym, and I hear these exercise-to-music classes going on and it takes me back. But nothing appeals to me – Zumba? You must be kidding. Body Pump? It would probably kill me. I always loved step aerobics, but nobody teaches it any more. So, I had this crazy idea that maybe I could come out of retirement and teach a nice, low-impact, back-to-basics step class. I asked the lovely people at Wave Leisure, and they called my bluff and said yes. Apparently my ancient qualifications are still recognised (but for my own peace of mind I’ve taken a refresher course!) It’s going to be an old-school, step choreo class (we’re even calling it Retro Step!) using all 1970s and 80s classics. I’ve been spending many hours practising routines, learning all over again to say RIGHT when it’s my left, choosing the music … and realising how dodgy a lot of those 1980s lyrics really were (‘Get outta my dreams, get into my car’ anyone? In fact I feel a blog post about this coming on). My first class is in a couple of weeks, I’ve no idea if anyone will show up. I’m terrified to be honest, and also excited. But am I actually mad?? Ugh!
WordPress v Substack?
I seem to have settled into one blog post a month. I guess that’s enough to justify having a blog. This one has moved on quite a bit since I started, but then that was 15 years ago according to Google AI search (feels like longer!) Meanwhile, I keep accruing followers on Substack, even though I’ve never written anything there. I do follow a few Substackers, and they all seem to be prolific in their output, not to mention terrifying interesting and often erudite. Now and again I consider migrating this blog over there but it all seems like a lot of effort and I’m not sure I’d have the motivation to keep it up, Plus I get the feeling Substack is about serious journalism rather than musings, which is what I think this blog has evolved into. Feel free to weigh in if you have any thoughts on this.
