Things kick off this evening at The Troubadour, where Anne-Marie Fyfe has invited me to join the readers in a yellow-themed extravaganza Big Yellow Taxi. I’m planning to read a short ‘poem starting with a first line by Emily Dickinson’ which features some of my favourite things yellow (eg Doris Day’s hair). I’m looking forward to seeing Stephen Bone there too, and I know he’s famous for taking the colour theme very seriously!
In the back end of the month I’ll be reading at Poetry in the House, Shanta Acharya’s regular event at Lauderdale House in Highgate, on Wednesday 22nd April alongside some super poets including Mona Arshi and Richard Skinner.
And big thanks to Michaela Ridgway for inviting me to read at the long-running Pighog Poetry night in Brighton on Thursday 30th April. Pighog Press have been taken over by US publisher Red Hen, but the Brighton poetry nights continue. The Redroaster Cafe is a super venue and the nights are well attended, so it should be great fun.
If you’re able to get to any of the above, please come and say hello!
Today I made my first visit to the Troubadour cafe, after thinking about it for a long time – I thought I’d start by going to one of Anne-Marie Fyfe‘s Coffee House Poetry workshops, which always sound enticing. The theme was ‘bridges’, and the first irony of the day was my inability to locate Wandsworth Bridge, despite the satnav lady giving it her best shot. Thankfully I managed it second time around. I’m glad I drove – although it’s a couple of hours away from where I live, parking around the Troubadour is free and easy on a Sunday, whereas the rail service from the South coast is non-existent on Sundays, making for miserable four-hour journeys. And it was pouring with rain when I left so jumping into the car was wonderful.
Is that Hilda lurking behind the partition?
There’s something a tad intimidating about the Troubadour cafe – the door is solid and heavy so it’s as if you have to be ‘in the know’ to enter. The interior is, well, quirky. As I quietly ordered my cup of tea, wondering if I’d see anyone I knew, it was a relief to hear my name being called from out of the darkness by none other than the grande dame of Swindon Poetry, Hilda Sheehan. Brilliant – and when I uploaded my photos I realised I’d captured Hilda in shot without noticing – ha ha! Hilda introduced me to Anne-Marie and some of of the participants, many of whose names I knew – Angela Kirby, Dorothy Yamamoto, Jill Abram. There was a slight panic as Hilda and I rushed upstairs for the start of the workshop only to find ourselves in someone’s kitchen. Ooops! Luckily no-one appeared to ask what the hell we were doing there. All I can say is that the door to the gallery is right next to someone’s flat. You have been warned!
It was a well-run writing workshop – to time, with lots of reading material to get inspiration from and to take away to read properly later. Anne-Marie was a warm & supportive tutor with a toolbox of tricks, from guided writing exercises to a pack of bridge photos around which we were to invited to write just one line before moving onto the next. In the break we had time to polish up a poem to share, and although I didn’t come up with anything very original it served its purpose to get me thinking and writing. Lots of interesting stuff produced by others.
There were rather a lot of participants, although for once I wasn’t bothered by this. And I was lucky to find myself sitting between two lovely poets whose names rang a bell and who I’ve since looked up, to discover they are indeed both talented and accomplished writers: Agnieszka Studzinska and Frances Galleymore. Exciting and humbling to have been in such good company. I’ll be back.
Great night yesterday at The Bear in Camberwell for Richard Skinner’s Vanguard Readings. It’s an excellent series, basically offering a showcase to writers at all stages of their writing journey. It means you get to hear both new and seasoned authors, and sometimes poets too.
The readings are free to attend and Richard runs a smooth show, making everyone welcome and introducing audience members to one another beforehand and during the break. It’s a real skill and the effect is that newcomers quickly feel welcome, you always meet interesting people and the event never feels cliquey. Last night, for example, it was a pleasure to meet Paul Golden, a writer of Asian historical fiction, who may soon also be a neighbour. Small world!
Of the readers, the headline act Nikesh Shukla stood out for many reasons – the big ol’ welcome as he boomed onto the stage, his reading and also his performance of the promotional rap he’d done for his latest book Meatspace, and the impassioned and original plea for us to buy his book. (I wish I had – but with not enough cash on me – no, really! – and with the five copies he brought being snapped up rather quickly, I missed out).
Meatspace appears to be a very funny tale of online shenanigans, identity theft, dysfunctional life in the internet age… The Guardian compares it to Douglas Coupland’s Generation X. It’s hard to believe Coupland’s classic was published in 1991, a full seven years before I made may own personal discovery of the internet and was living a highly dysfunctional life in Portland, Oregon, staying up all night to chat on ICQ and frequently falling asleep at the keyboard. (It was Coupland’s Microserfs that did it for me – or did for me, whichever way you look at it, heh.)
Anyhow, Meatspace sounds like a novel I’d definitely enjoy and if you get the chance to hear Nikesh read, please grab it, he’s great fun.
Last Thursday I had the pleasure of reading at a Needlewriters event – a quarterly evening of readings, both poetry and prose, at the Needlemakers cafe in Lewes. It’s the only event of its kind I know round here, combining prose and poetry. (Disclaimer: I’m on the organising committee… although still a new girl.)
As the only poet I was slotted in between two wonderful readings by Kerry Evans and Bethan Roberts. Kerry read an extract from her award-winning novel ‘116 words per minute’, which was fast-paced and entertaining, and from Bethan we heard the opening of her latest book Mother Island, a rather creepy psychological thriller, which left me wanting to know what happened next.
It’s a warm and supportive audience at Needlewriters, and I really enjoyed my set. It’s a funny process choosing what to read. Although my pamphlet was on sale (and yes I sold a few copies, hoorah!) I only included two poems from it: ‘Ellipsis’ which tends to be popular, so I generally include it, and ‘Closure’ which I read as part of a selection of my corporate workplace-inspired poems. Apart from that, everything else was new-ish and/or unpublished in magazines. Which is one reason why I’m not posting any video or audio footage here: the other is that the quality isn’t great. We did record one poem and although the picture wasn’t sharp (I am, after all PERMANENTLY jinxed when it comes to being filmed) the audio wasn’t bad. So if/when that particular poem gets published I may share it on the blog.
Oh, and I gave my paean to Ronnie O’Sullivan a second outing and it seemed to go down well – tee hee.
Do come to a Needlewriters event if you’re ever able to. It’s run by a small team of writers on (naturally!) a shoestring. This spring sees the publication of our first anthology, with work from many of the poets, novelists, short story writers, playwrights and so forth who’ve read at Needlewriters events over the years. More about that in due course.
I always think of January as being a bit dreary, so it tends to be the time of year I make plans for things to look forward to.
Number one is a short writing retreat – I did a DIY retreat a couple of years ago and got a lot out of it – not least of all enough material to produce two decent poems. But I was a bit lonely – so this time I’ve booked 3 nights away rather than four, at a National Trust flat in Standen, an Arts & Crafts house which I’ve always loved visiting. I’ll have free range access to all the gardens and grounds while I’m there and a cosy flat in the servants quarters where I can read and write. Are you jealous yet?! That will be in March, when the days will be slightly longer and who knows, maybe warmer too.
I’ve also booked onto an afternoon workshop with Anne-Marie Fyfe on the theme of ‘a bridge too far’ in February, and this workshop offered by Poetry Swindon also looks tempting – Smart reading for smarter writing with Martin Malone – but it’s the day before and I might be tad exhausted from all the workshopping (and travelling) in one weekend.
It’s a good thing I’m going to be doing some workshopping and retreating because I’ve got a few readings coming up, and need new material! This Thursday 22nd January I’m on home turf here in Lewes for Needlewriters, then nothing else booked for a while, although Telltale Poets are planning another reading in March or April – we’ll be finalising that soon. On April 22nd I’ll be reading at Lauderdale House in London, as part of Shanta Acharya’s Poetry in the House series, which will be fab, and in May 3rd I’ll be in Mayfield for a reading during the Mayfield Fringe Festival, at the kind invitation of Sian Thomas. Later in the year, big thanks to Dawn Gorman for booking me to read at Words and Ears in Bradford on Avon on October 29th – which is actually my birthday, so we’re making a nice trip of it.
As regards submissions, there’s no news to report I’m afraid. I’ve lost a bit of momentum. I’m in the doldrums with no sign of the wind getting up. So I’m focusing more on finding the time to write, and am resisting the urge to enter competitions or submit to any more mags just for the sake of getting things out there. To be honest the cupboard is bare at the moment – all my half-decent stuff is tied up and out of circulation. If you’re interested, here’s how the magazine submissions are going:
4 poems have been out for 5 days – yes! I submitted a few the other day – but other than that:
9 poems have been out for 76 days
4 poems for 131 days
4 poems for 156 days
I’ll soon be able to move a couple back into circulation which were out to competitions. It’s a slooooow process, isn’t it? But I’m heartened by reminding myself that for many fine poets three or four good poems a year was (or is) enough. Quality, not quantity 🙂 And think of the treats coming up!
Since being introduced to this annual event about 5 years ago by poet friends Julia and Charlotte, I’ve made it a fixture on my calendar. Held at the cavernous Royal Festival Hall on London’s Southbank, the T S Eliot Prize readings seem to be as much about the socialising and the catching up with other poets as they are with the poetry itself.
And why not? Us poety-types aren’t always the most social of bods. As well as the chance to say hello to so many poet friends all in one place, I love the buzzy feel of this event – standing on one of the mezzanine landings and surveying the foyer and bar area (was that Melvyn Bragg over there?) Rubbing shoulders with the poetry glitterati (poet-ati?) I love the wonderful mix of ages and styles across the audience – it would be hard to point at one one person and say “that’s a poet”. And yet they probably all are.
Unlike last year, I didn’t go to Katy Evans-Bush‘s marvellous pre-readings workshop day, in which all ten nominated collections are dipped into, mulled over and discussed in the light of Katy’s expert analysis and guidance. I was familiar with the work of some of the poets reading, but certainly not all. And not these latest collections.
This year the Poetry Book Society went gung-ho on the live tweeting, with two of the tweeters at the end of our row causing a slight fracas at the end of the first half as people in the row behind them asked to desist from tapping into their phones non-stop. I did feel for the complainants. I had a terrific view from my seat and wanted to take photos of the poets as they read, but couldn’t bring myself to do it as I know it can be distracting. And as I struggled to concentrate on Pascale Petit‘s reading with the phone action going on next to me, I resolved quite early on that the my phone was staying in the bag. Except for the empty lectern shot you see here, taken before the second half got going. Anyway, I think the live tweeters were more discreet in the second half so hopefully peace broke out.
As regards the actual readings (ahem!) there was nothing I really didn’t like, but I did enjoy very much hearing Michael Longley (warm, down to earth, compelling), Arundhathi Subramaniam (assured and commanding), Fiona Benson (charmingly nervous but read very powerfully) and David Harsent (made me want to read more of him). Sadly there were three proxy readers – while I was gutted that Hugo Williams couldn’t be there, it was good news to hear that he is apparently on the mend, and actor Jeremy Clyde gave an excellent delivery of Hugo’s poems. Here is the ‘From the dialysis ward’ sequence from his collection ‘I knew the Bride’ (Faber). But I didn’t feel justice was done to Kevin Powers’ work ‘Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting’ (Sceptre) by the reader who took his place, as he didn’t come across as being at all engaged with the material, which was a shame.
As always, Ian McMillan did a fine job of compering, picking out aspects of the various collections and pulling them into an intellectual yet entertaining ribbon of thought. Funny yet respectful. I don’t really know how he does that but it works! And who will win the £20,000 prize? Who knows!
Telltale Poets & Friends were at the Poetry Cafe last night and it was a lovely evening. I’d been a bit nervous about holding this event so soon in the New Year but it felt really good and positive – plus we had a super quality audience and no empty seats! (OK so we didn’t put ALL the seats out!)
Peter Kenny & I were joined by special guests Rhona McAdam (over from Canada), Catherine Smith (who read an extract from her pamphlet The New Cockaigne, a wonderful paean to excess and debauchery) and our new discovery Siegfried Baber who gave a very self-assured and entertaining reading. You’ll be hearing more about him.
We all sold a few books/pamphlets, which was great. And with a 7pm start, it meant many of us had some quality time in the pub afterwards, and us Lewes folks were still home by not long after midnight.
My only regret is not taking photos – what is wrong with me?? I always either forget or end up with rubbish pics I can’t use. DUH! Must do better.
I really enjoyed meeting Rhona and Sieg, and also poets in the audience including Tamar Yoseloff, Robert Seatter, Nancy Mattson and Mike Bartholomew-Briggs. Lovely to see Lynne Hjelmgaard there also. What a warm atmosphere. We even had an audience member all the way from Knoxville, Tennessee, who’d come across the event by chance and was on his first visit to London. Needless to say we took him under our wing and he came with us to the Cross Keys afterwards. I like to think he’ll go home with a story about the crazy night in the basement room in Covent Garden listening to poetry, followed by the full London Pub Experience.
Welcome to the first of my new series of Regional Focus pieces about the poetry scene around the UK. I suppose I could have called it ‘Down Your Way’ or some other BBC-esque ever-so-slightly patronising title. Or I could have racked my brains for something witty, wacky or non-cliched. But hey.
PS: it’s long – grab a cup of tea and a biscuit.
So. Leicestershire. Where better to start than one of England’s ancient land-locked counties? Let’s get the basics out of the way. Here’s where it is:
For the benefit of my non-British readers, or anyone who’s not sure (I feel a BBC moment coming on here!) it’s pronounced like this:
If you think that’s tricky then in 1087 it was called Laegrecastrescir. Which I’m not going to attempt to pronounce.
(I’ve been alerted to the fact that the above audio file doesn’t work for everyone – apologies if you clicked and nothing happened!)
Wikipedia says the population of the whole county is just under a million, and let me tell you, it’s seething with poetry. I asked a number of Leics poets what was going on up there. They sent back a TON of juicy information.
First of all, a bit about my special correspondents:
Jayne Stanton
Jayne is one of my virtual blogger friends who writes about her poetry life and the local scene on her blog. She’s lived in Leicestershire since 1989. Her pamphlet Beyond the Tune was published by Soundswrite in September 2014. Soundswrite is a women’s poetry workshopping and reading group that also has a small press – so far it has published three anthologies and five pamphlets. As well as attending and running workshops, Jayne is heavily involved in local projects including her most recent role as a commissioned writer for Sole2Soul, a project by University of Leicester’s Centre for New Writing, to attract visitors to Market Harborough Museum’s Faulkner boot and shoe exhibit.
DA (Davina) Prince
I first met Davina at a launch of The Rialto last year, and when we met again at the Poetry Book Fair we talked about many things including the idea of a Regional Focus series on this blog. So I have Davina to thank for the inspiration. Leicestershire-born Davina was a little coy about answering my request to ‘tell us about yourself’, but from her Poetry p f page I glean that she has had three pamphlets and two collections of poetry published, the latest being the super Common Ground from HappenStance (2014).
Roy Marshall
Roy was manning the HappenStance table at the Poetry Book Fair last year when we were introduced – always wonderful to meet poet bloggers face to face, and I’ve been enjoying Roy’s thoughtful and perceptive blog for some time now. Roy lives in a village on the south side of Leicester where he’s been since 1998, although he lived in Leicestershire as a child “so I’m familiar with the greeting ‘Aye up me duck’, although you hear this less nowadays” – shame! Roy is widely published and has a pamphlet Gopagilla (Crystal Clear, 2012) and a full collection The Sun Bathers (Shoestring Press, 2013).
Maria Taylor
Partly raised in Nottinghamshire, Maria admits “It was love that brought me back to the Midlands” – aaw! Now living in Loughborough, she balances bringing up twin 6-year old daughters with ‘poeting’ – her term for travelling around attending events, readings and so forth. Maria’s name came up again and again in my research for this piece – she’s a publisher, reviewer and poetry event promoter as well as a poet and she blogs at Commonplace. Her collection Melanchrini is published by Nine Arches Press (2012) and was shortlisted for the Michael Murphy Memorial Prize.
Charles Lauder Jnr
Charles is a native Texan who, like Maria, was brought to Leicestershire by love – to the village where his wife grew up in fact. Anglophile Charles is fascinated by English history – “like many ex-pats, I now often write about how my adopted culture compares to my native culture.” Charles has run the South Leicestershire Stanza for the last six years, and as well as being widely published he’s also Deputy Editor of The Interpreter’s House.
I ought to add that I didn’t manage to speak to Matt Merritt or Emma Lee, although they were both on my list, but I had so much info from the others that I couldn’t cope with any more! Both Matt and Emma’s names were mentioned by my reporters, and they both write fine blogs.
It’s a Leicester Fiesta – Martin Harvey (image from http://artintodust.blogspot.co.uk/)
Q1: Are there any specific towns/cities with a vibrant poetry scene?
Maria Taylor (MT): The vast majority of events I attend are in Leicester, my closest city. I also attend events in Nottingham too. There’s a lot going on in the bigger cities, but there are also many things occurring in the smaller towns and villages. With the advent of various presses and regular events in the East Midlands, the region really does have a sense of identity on the poetry map.
DA Prince (DAP): I realise that a city/county boundary doesn’t define the area for me: I go to the Nottingham Stanza because it’s a group that reads full-length collections, and also because I hear what’s happening in Nottingham. I think we would all see ourselves as more Midlands than just ‘Leicester’ – and poets in Nottingham say they envy the range of activity in Leicester while those of us in Leicester look with longing at the range in Nottingham. The grass is always greener …
Jayne Stanton (JS): Leicester has a growing number of poetry open mic nights as well as readings and events organised by its two universities. Loughborough also has regular events, I believe. I’ve also begun to travel further afield, lately, and enjoy poetry nights out across the Midlands, in Lichfield, Burton on Trent, Coventry, Kettering and Rugby.
Q2: Who are the poetry ‘movers and shakers’ ??
Charles Lauder (CL): Jonathan & Maria Taylor, Lydia Towsey, Jane Commane, Karin Koller who runs the Soundswrite Group, Mark Goodwin, a prolific poet who describes himself as a ‘community poet’—in the past he ran a lot of workshops for children in schools and for adults in adult education centers and in prisons. In the past year, he’s put on public installations in Leicester and Cornwall.
MT: Not sure if I’m a ‘mover’ or a ‘shaker’! I try and facilitate opportunities for readings with Shindig, but I think one of the most productive (and modest!) person is Jane Commane who organises all sorts of readings. Also Lydia Towsey and Pam Thompson who do sterling work in Leicester. I should also say my husband Jonathan Taylor, otherwise he’d get upset! Seriously, he organises and hosts lots and lots of events. Jonathan and Jane combined at Shindig are a force to be reckoned with! It’s hard to answer a question like this because I don’t want to miss anyone out. To be honest it’s more like a big web of people connecting with each other. Everyone can offer something.
Lydia Towsey, ‘Girl walks into a bar’
JS: Gosh! There are so many! Maria and Jonathan Taylor, Roy Marshall, D A Prince, Matt Merritt, Mark Goodwin, Jess Green, Lydia Towsey, Pam Thompson – to name just a few…
Roy Marshall (RM): Jonathan and Maria Taylor because they are involved in organising the spoken word night Shindig (together with Nine Arches Press.) They’re also publishers (Crystal Clear Creators). Other poets who do other things include Matt Merritt, who blogs and reviews for magazines such as Magma, and all the people involved with ‘WORD’ at the Y theatre, including Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze, Pam Thompson and Lydia Towsey. And Soundswrite Press which is based here and publishes women poets.
Q3: What regular poetry events are there in your area?
CL:Shindig! is a bi-monthly open mic night at the Western Pub on Western Road in Leicester, organised by Jonathan & Maria Taylor (of Crystal Clear Creators) and Jane Commane (of Nine Arches Press). The night is divided into two halves—CCC hosts one half and Nine Arches the other—of about 10 open-micers each followed by 2 guest readers. For a Monday night, it’s a lively crowd of about 40–50 people who are very supportive and cheer everyone on. It’s mostly page poets, with some performance poets too.
MT: Obviously Shindig is my top event as I help to run it with Jane and Jonathan and I’m often a host. The Open Mic is very high calibre, we often have some really exceptional poets reading. It’s also a friendly place for newcomers as well. Main readers have included some top notch poets, such as Kim Moore, Sarah Jackson, Rory Waterman and David Morley. We also use those slots to showcase local and regional writers. This year I was really cheered that Shindig was shortlisted for a Saboteur award, up against many London based events.
RM: I think Shindig (at the Western pub) is fantastic. Always a really good set of guest poets and a good open mic. Appreciative and attentive audience.
JS: Shindig! is unmissable, in my book (in fact, the only one I’ve missed was just after my hip replacement)!
CL:Word! at the Y is the longest running spoken word event in the Midlands and is hosted by Lydia Towsey. This is held monthly on the first Tuesday of the month, with an evening of open-micers and a guest reader at the end. Most of those reading are performance poets and sometimes visuals will accompany the poets. Well-attended.
MT: I began reading at WORD! myself nearly 5 years ago now. It’s a similar format to Shindig with lots of Open Mic. I recently heard George Szirtes and Pascale Petit read there. I was asked to read as a support act to Ann and Peter Sansom in April, which was lovely. It’s a very supportive atmosphere and readers are warmly welcomed.
RM: WORD! at the Y theatre was the first place I ever read a poem aloud and has had a great mix of guest poets over the years.
JS: Word! is where I cut my teeth as a poet at the open mic, and where I still attend as often as possible.
MT: WORD! also has a sister group called Pinggg…k run by Bobba Cass…
JS:Pinggg…K! is a monthly open mic night in celebration of metrosexual verse, at Duffy’s Bar, Pocklington’s Walk. Held on the last Tuesday of the month. The format: poetry circle, followed by open mics and feature poet. A popular event with a warm welcome to all from host Bobba Cass.
JS: Also, Find the Right Words: Performance Poetry and Rap Night hosted by Jess Green, held Upstairs at the Western (pub) monthly. The format: ten open mic slots and two feature performers. (I’ve not attended this one yet, but was sorry to miss Holly McNish recently).
MT: There’s lots going on in Nottingham, of course too. While bookshops are closing elsewhere, Five Leaves Bookshop run by Ross Bradshaw has opened. Great bookshop, you can actually browse poetry books! Apart from bookselling it’s also served as a venue for launches. One for the new issue of New Walk was held there in October for instance and it attracts good audiences who are serious about poetry. Then there’s also ‘Jazz and Poetry’ which is new-ish too with strong audiences. Should mention Nottingham Writer’s Studio too who offer writing space and courses.
A festival culture is also developing, supported in the main by local universities. These include States of Independence (DMU), Literary Leicester (Uni of Leicester) and Nottingham Festival of Words (Nottingham Trent). So you get the picture…there are lots of opportunities and masses of spoken word and performance poetry too. Again, sorry if I’ve missed anything out, there’s quite a lot!
Q4: Is there any poetry heritage associated with the area – famous dead poets, or locations or industries that inspired poets or poetry of the past, etc?
MT: Larkin lived in Leicester for a time, and was of course born in Coventry, but he is more widely affiliated with Hull. If D. H. Lawrence was a stick of rock he’d have Nottingham going through him. Lord Byron’s family home is at Newstead Abbey in Nottinghamshire. When you exit Nottingham station you’re greet with a big sign which reads ‘Our Rebel Writers’ and features Byron, Lawrence and Alan Sillitoe. Joe Orton and Sue Townsend came from Leicester. Poetry aside, both cities have a real literary heritage.
dun Larkin
JS: Other famous dead poets: Loughborough-born John Cleveland (1613-1656), Leicester-born poet and leading Chartist Thomas Cooper (1805-1892), Jessie Pope (1868-1941).
CL: Leicester is renown for its hosiery & shoe industry heritage. Currently, there is a project that involves the New Writing Centre at the University of Leicester and the Market Harborough Museum called ‘Sole2Soul’ (this is the project Jayne is involved in.)
Q5: Anything else I’ve missed?
CL: Two more important annual literary events to mention are Everybody’s Reading, a two-week festival in September with city-wide events to promote literacy throughout the city, and States of Independence (the equivalent of London’s Free Verse Book Fair), run by Ross Bradshaw of Five Leaves Press in Nottingham.
DAP: I realised you didn’t mention publishing as a separate category. In the past Leicester has had a range of small poetry publishers but they have quietly disappeared. Soundswrite is the only one I can think of – but so far we’ve only published from within our own members, so that keeps us in the ‘self-limited’ category. Nottingham, by contrast, has Shoestring, Five Leaves, Candlestick (all known nationally) – and, I suspect, others.
CL: I think the literary scene that’s alive and thriving now in Leics is making up for lost time. So many poets who are often reading at the city’s open mic events are publishing collections & pamphlets with national publishers and making a name for themselves. Years from now when a literary history of the early twenty-first century is written, Leicester will be highlighted as a thriving cultural centre for poetry.
MT: I think it’s great that my little bit of the East Midlands has such a vibrant poetry scene. Long may it thrive!
Q6: And finally … any interesting factoids for us?
MT: I really like the folklore tale of Black Annis, a blue-faced witch who’s meant to haunt the Leicestershire countryside. According to legend she has a taste for children and lambs and resides in a cave in the Dane Hills. She probably finds things a bit tricksy these days as many of her old haunts are now built up.
Loughborough was the home of Ladybird books and also the destination of the world’s first package tour. It was organised by Thomas Cook in 1841. They came all the way from Leicester on a train. Shilling a head.
CL: Quite a few native Leicesters I know don’t like Leicester. It’s a dirty, ugly city and a lot of its obvious architecture are failed post-war creations. However, you have to look beyond that to find some very historical (medieval, Tudor, Stuart, etc., up to Victorian) treasures. Now that Richard III’s body has been discovered, that might spur an historical revival of the city. Other nice little treasures are Cardinal Wolsey’s gravesite and the church where Chaucer got married.
RM: Bradgate Park (where the young David Attenborough found his first fossil) contains the oldest rocks in the world. The Python, Graham Chapman was from Leicester as was Sue Townsend of course.
JS: Leicester’s very own ‘King beneath the car park’: Richard III. Also: Leicester hosts the largest Divali celebrations outside of India. It was also Britain’s first ‘Environment City’ and is home to the National Space Centre.
It’s lovely in Leics! (Photo from http://www.goleicestershire.com)
Phew! Huge thanks to my tireless reporters. Do you live in Leicestershire? Have we missed anything or anyone out? Please let me know in the comments.
Would you like to see your area featured in a Regional Focus? Let me know!
First of all a huge thank you to Matthew Stewart of Rogue Strands who has once again mentioned my blog in his ‘Best UK Poetry Blogs of the Year’ roundup. It’s exciting to be in there with such great company, and always very nice to know this blog is read and enjoyed. I think all bloggers have those days when you’re writing something and you suddenly think “what if no-one reads this, am I just sneezing into the ether?” or whatever.
Now we have those crazy last two weeks before Christmas which, in a musical household, tends to mean every spare moment is taken up with concerts and the myriad jobs they involve. Poetry has to take a secondary role. Having said that, tonight is a last huzzah of the year with the Brighton Stanza having a seasonal evening of readings, magazine-swapping, socialising, celebrating and commiserating. I’ve managed to delegate the compering to two fine poets with big personalities and am looking forward to hearing a wide variety of poetry styles and performances from our eclectic mix of members, Brighton-stylee.
I do sympathise. Honest.
Submissions news: no news (and not necessarily good news). But I did come across a very handy tool put together by Nathaniel Tower on his blog Juggling Writer – it’s a spreadsheet for keeping track of submissions. (The link to it is about halfway through this article.) My own submissions tracking started off very well but has gone a bit scruffy lately, and having inputted my current ‘out’ poems into Nathaniel’s nice clean version, I can see at-a-glance that I have 13 poems that have been out for 34 days, 4 for 50 days, 2 for 61 days, 4 for 89 days and 4 for a whopping 114 days.
I did recently enquire about the four poems that were submitted 114 days ago (August 16th) – a very polite enquiry of the magazine in question, asking where they might be in their reading schedule to give me some idea of how much longer before a response. I was brief, and about as friendly, humble and self-effacing as I could be within the confines of human dignity. But it didn’t surprise me not to get a reply, which in itself makes me sad.
I’m trying very hard to see it from the magazine’s point of view. I’ve read all the articles about how editors are overwhelmed, losing money and hair, besieged by poets who don’t read the magazine or the guidelines, who pester and get shirty if they’re rejected and so forth. The magazine editors I know or have met are nice people with a difficult job. I do understand and generally speaking I know you just have to wait, and when you get a ‘no’, you move on and send it elsewhere. I obey the ‘no simultaneous submissions’ rules and am prepared to tie up poems for months on end, that’s just what poets do. I rarely enquire – but when I do, I wring my hands and think and think about the wording. I try to be as considerate as possible. But I don’t think it would be unreasonable to submit elsewhere after five months if a gentle query brings no reply.
Do you agree? Do you ever enquire about a submission, and if so, at what point? Do you get a response?
Meanwhile, a quick plug for the next Telltale Press event at the Poetry Cafe in London on Wednesday 7th January at 7pm – please come if you’re anywhere near London. It’s FREE! On the bill are Catherine Smith, Canadian poet Rhona McAdam, Siegfreid Baber plus Peter Kenny and myself. There’s a Facebook event page, let us know if you’re coming and hope to see you there.
Last Wednesday I spent a good part of the day at Keats House in London – in the afternoon meeting with around 35 or so Stanza Reps from around the country and beyond, then the evening AGM where I’d been invited to read. Even as I write that I find it slightly unreal. But it did actually happen – I know this because although part of me thinks there are some things in my life I may have invented or imagined, in this case I do actually have photos.
Things started well. As I got to Keats House a jay flew in and landed on a bush right in front of me, which felt like a good omen. I’ve only seen a jay once before and not exactly up close. It seems just too colourful a bird to be British (and yes I know we have parakeets but they’re just arrivistes – ooh! I is that a half-rhyme?)
Paul McGrane of the Poetry Society had co-ordinated the Reps’ meeting and it was a great chance to meet up with reps I already knew such as Antony Mair (Hastings), Robert Harper (Shrewsbury), Margaret Beston (Tonbridge), Sarah Leavesley (Worcestershire) and Tessa Lang (Clapham), and others I’d never met – although many of the names were familiar.
We had short readings from some of the reps, myself included, and these were interjected through the afternoon rather than all in one go, which I thought was a great idea. There was plenty of discussion about meeting etiquette & procedure, now to put together an anthology, events and so forth. If you’re not familiar with Stanzas – they’re volunteer-run groups, under the auspices of the Poetry Society, although anyone can attend, you don’t have to be a Poetry Society member. I’m the rep for Brighton, although I live about 7 miles away in Lewes, but luckily I have a ‘loose committee’ of helpers and others who help with things like booking venues. It’s quite a lot of work, but enjoyable – even with the occasional ‘difficult’ customer.
Hurrah for the Stanza reps and the Poetry Society! A very useful and enjoyable afternoon. With half an hour or so between the Reps’ meeting and the AGM, Robert Harper and I went off to a local cafe for a coffee and a chat about his magazine Bare Fiction. It’s a beautiful-looking book and Robert’s done an amazing job building up the readership and dealing with the avalanches of submissions he gets, PLUS running a successful competition, all in its first year.
By the time my reading ‘slot’ came along I was nervous but itching to get up there. I’m looking a bit stiff in this photo – but at least my eyes are open! It wasn’t a huge audience, but it included incoming and outgoing trustees, all the key staff and many fine poets. Also reading were Suzanna Fitzpatrick (who won the Hamish Canham Prize this year) and Daljit Nagra who was great fun, and whose poem about Krishna pleasuring hundreds of new brides at the same time (which is OK apparently, because he’s a god) was very funny indeed.
It just felt like a huge privilege to be there and to have those people even give my two wee poems the time of day. And that’s not me fishing for compliments, believe it or not. I know I’m a novice poet and no number of competition successes or published poems changes that fact. I think whether I make it beyond the novice stage is entirely a matter of time and graft. But I’m learning to be patient!
During the day I even got rid of a number of pamphlets – I won’t say ‘sold’ as I left a pile on the freebies table and… well you can guess what happened!
After all the excitement I had a really lovely time unwinding in the pub with poet friend Lynne – a wise and inspirational person if ever there was one.
Then the reality of the train journey home, carriages packed to the brim with Arsenal fans and people munching smelly food – thankfully I had ‘Gravity’ to watch on my phone, which blotted out all distractions.
Of the readers, the headline act 
It’s a warm and supportive audience at Needlewriters, and I really enjoyed my set. It’s a funny process choosing what to read. Although 
