Just a quick update… I haven’t been blogging as much lately as I am knee-deep in a job, and paid work must be paid attention to! But a few things to report:
Submissions
Those nice chaps at Prole magazine are taking a poem of mine for their April edition, which is fab news, and THANK YOU Brett and Phil for such a prompt response to submissions. The poem I sent them is not quite my usual style, and I hadn’t sent it anywhere else. If Prole hadn’t wanted it then I probably would have tried ‘Obsessed with Pipework’ and failing that ‘Morphrog’ – both of which tend to like off-the-wall stuff. Anyway, the poem is a sort of ballsy paean to Don Paterson, but I’ll probably never read it at a poetry reading, although I’d like to hear it read by someone with more balls than me!
Also delighted that next week (April 6th) my poem ‘Small Horse’ will be up on Ink, Sweat & Tears. Big thanks to Helen Ivory for that.
No other submissions news – currently waiting on:
4 poems, out for 228 days (33 weeks)
4 for 203 days (29 weeks)
5 for 148 days (21 weeks)
6 for 24 days (3 weeks)
5 for 5 days
Readings & Events
I was really looking forward to attending the National Poetry Competition prize giving gala evening tomorrow, but it’s looking like I will have to send my apologies as I have a stinking cold. Boo. Hope I get asked again, I really enjoyed it last year.
Telltale Press is moving up a gear – not only do we have our next reading coming up here in Lewes on Wednesday 15th April (where I’ll be hosting but not reading – I’m leaving that to Martin Malone, Peter Kenny, Ryan Whatley and Helen Fletcher), but we’ve also signed our latest member, Siegfried Baber, who’s launching his pamphlet in at Topping’s Bookshop in Bath on Wednesday 13th May. Whoah! Telltale in Bath – please come if you’re anywhere nearby.
We’re also about to announce our fourth member, and another pamphlet launch – which we’re all very excited about – I’ll keep you posted.
Meanwhile I’m out and about with readings in Highgate (London) on 22nd April, Brighton 30th April, Mayfield on 3rd May, Lewes on 14th June and Camberwell (London) on 22nd June. Yeehah!
There’s a black hole hovering (can a hole hover?) over the end of April and beginning of May, when I’ve been called up for jury service. Fingers crossed it’s over within that time and doesn’t drag on for months – you do hear horror stories. Then by June or July, we should be moving house, if everything goes to plan. So a busy few months. Just need to banish this cold.
Back from a couple of days away at Standen, a National Trust house in the Sussex countryside about 45 minutes from where I live. The idea was for it to be a poetry reading & writing retreat, time away from the internet, work and house moving stuff. I love visiting Standen and it was a treat to be able to stay there, even if just for a short time. I’d like to take my husband there in the summer so we can have private picnics on the lawn after the massed general public has gone home.
I got there on Monday evening and thought I ought to have a plan for how to spend my time, but it didn’t really work out that way. I got up early on the first full day, intending to write – I’d brought a selection of books with me, so I started reading, and the reading took over. I got out Don Paterson’s Landing Light and resolved to read it all the way through – even the long poems which I admit I often avoid – and make notes. This was a really good thing to do as I discovered so many connections between poems and appreciated the ordering and the shape of the collection. Too often I dip in and out of collections and probably miss much of the interesting detail. I then started doing the same with Allison McVety’s Lighthouses, but got distracted (or actually inspired, to put it more positively) by an idea for a poem.
Another book I revisited was Strong Words, edited by W N Herbert and Matthew Hollis (Bloodaxe). It’s a marvellous resource, a collection of essays by ‘modern poets on modern poetry’. I just keep coming back to it, it’s so rich and there are so many poets represented it’s a lot to take in. This time I focused on three very different viewpoints from Eavan Boland, Edwin Morgan and U A Fanthorpe.
But you can’t stay at Standen without taking a tour around the house itself, or one of the many countryside walks from the door.
Not my digs alas – the Drawing Room at StandenIs it New England? No, Olde England – view from the holiday apartment at Standen
I was lucky with the weather, so I walked down to the Weirwood Reservoir yesterday and only encountered one other person en route. But I did hear a woodpecker, enjoyed the songs of chaffinches, robins and blackbirds and caught a glimpse of two deer in the trees.
Standen is an Arts & Crafts house, designed by Philip Webb and built in the last decade of the 19th century. Every aspect of the interior – architecture, layout, furniture and furnishings – is down to him and his Arts & Crafts colleagues (Morris, Voysey et al). Now although I’m partial to a bit of William Morris wallpaper, and once even had curtains made in one of his designs, on closer inspection I think I can say for sure that I would find it hard to live with on this scale. Standen is a family home, but there’s something rather austere about it, which seems slightly odd given the amount of decoration everywhere. It’s tightly controlled. The wallpaper and textile patterns are stylised. Some of the lamps are, quite honestly, ugly. The much-admired Webb fireplaces can verge on the brutalist. There is artisanship everywhere, but not a huge amount of art. Interesting to contrast this with, say, Charleston Farmhouse with its riotous hand-painted decoration to every surface. I realise we’re talking a slightly later period, and the owners of Standen (for all their interest in building a ‘contemporary’ house) were by no means bohemian.
The Garden Room at Charleston in Sussex, home of artists Vanessa and Clive Bell and Duncan Grant from 1916
But back to my little retreat….the holiday apartment I stayed in is on the second floor, up the servants’ staircase, but nothing about it is poky. This is a grand amount of space and the walls, doors and fitted cupboards have a fine solidity about them. The bathroom is the size of a 21st century studio flat. I loved staying there – it was warm, quiet & private, I could look out on the comings and goings of workers and visitors.
I did fondly imagine I would spend time in the main house, sitting in the conservatory or the Morning Room with my notebook, as if I owned the place, taking in the vibes of the house, its history and characters. But that’s for a longer stay. Although people staying in the apartment are free to visit the house during opening hours, and I’m sure no-one would have minded if I’d settled in one of the rooms, I think I would have been a curiosity, and detracted from people’s enjoyment of the atmosphere. I’m not sure how I would answer the questions about what I was doing there, or (worse) questions about the rooms and the place itself (although I might have had fun bluffing). I think I’d also end up writing about the visitors rather than the house. As it was, I worked very well upstairs in my lovely garret.
The second day was more productive, I got into my stride and ideas popped. I rummaged through some of the MANY old poems on my computer and selected a few to revive or rework. I did try going through all the others, archiving and even *shudder* deleting some, but soon became exhausted and had to take a nap. Although I was supposed to be internet-free, I did have my phone and kept up with emails and Twitter – which actually wasn’t all bad because a story I read about via a link posted on Twitter got me into a new poem. In the evening I was going up to London for a memorial event for Dannie Abse, so I had to venture out, but I knew I’d be leaving anyway the next day, so the retreat was kind of over then anyway. This morning when I left it was raining and I could hardly see the fields or the reservoir from my window.
The final takeaways – six new poems started, four old ones revived, some good quality reading and an interesting immersion (well, dip) into Arts & Crafts style. Now to see if I have anything worth sending out…
This blog post has been some weeks in the prep – I realise my ambition to have a Regional Focus every month was a bit, well, ambitious! Anyway, here’s the second in the series (following on from the very popular Leicester Fiesta in January). In this episode I’m taking a virtual nose around that most poetic of regions, the Lake District, or more precisely the county in which it lies, known since 1972 as Cumbria. There are some tricky questions to be answered, such as – Is there more to the poetry scene than ‘those Lakers’? and Where do the present-day poets hang out? and Do waterproof trousers work?
If you’re scratching your head wondering where Cumbria is even at, here’s a clue, courtesy of our friends at Wikipedia:
If like me you grew up in an urban environment and still find the sight of lambs in fields worthy of comment “Ooh look!” then (like me) you probably love Cumbria, or even just the idea of it. All those romantic paintings of Lakeland scenes, the image of Wordsworth and his chums hiking all morning and sighing over their quills all afternoon. It is a shock to drive off the M6 not far north of Preston and suddenly feel like you’re in Switzerland. It’s so gorgeous up there you almost forgive how wet it is, because when the sun does come out – ah well, as a little taster here’s a pic I took last year when we were there for my birthday at the end of October:
But all those lakes and mountains come with a caveat – don’t even think of getting from A to B in a hurry. I speak as someone who once thought she’d take a short cut in an old car over a near-vertical pass, only to have the clutch give out. In the words of one of my correspondents, Kathleen Jones: “Cumbria is a region without a major city and the mountains and lakes make getting around the county very difficult. Because of the geography it can take two and a half hours to get from Carlisle to Barrow.” Andrew Forster of the Wordsworth Trust looks on the bright side: “The Lake District is primarily a rural area with no major cities. I think because of this people tend to travel more than they would in urban areas to support the events that do happen, and that helps develop a much more widespread sense of community.”
But, as Kim Moore puts it, “Although Barrow is only 35 miles or so from the motorway, it is a slow road with only intermittent dual carriageway. Getting to readings or workshops is always a bit of a mission.”
One result of the relative isolation of the different towns is that a good number of them have developed as vibrant centres for poetry and poetry events.
Firstly, allow me to introduce my special correspondents. As ever, I’m very grateful to them all for taking time out of their busy schedules to answer my questions in such detail. I hope I’ve effectively summarised all of their main points. Unsurprisingly, some names and events were mentioned by all.
Writer Kathleen Jones was born in Cumbria, and returned there after spells living abroad. The author of fourteen books including eight biographies, a novel and a collection of poetry, Kathleen is currently Royal Literary Fund Fellow in the Creative Writing Department at Lancaster University. “The Lake District has always been important to me as a writer,” says Kathleen, whose first poetry collection Not Saying Goodbye at Gate 21 contains many poems rooted in the landscape. She’s written two biographies centred on the literary history of the area: A Passionate Sisterhood – an account of the lives of the sisters, wives and daughters of Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey – and a biography of Cumbrian poet Norman Nicholson.
My second informant is Andrew Forster, Literature Officer at the Wordsworth Trust. “I moved to Cumbria seven years ago to take up my current post as Literature Officer at the Wordsworth Trust. It’s a particularly generous-spirited place, and I have been part of a number of poetry communities. When I took up post a number of poets came to meet and welcome me, and I had several invitations to read and join things, and I now count some of those among my closest friends.”
What Andrew didn’t tell me was that he is a widely published and award-winning poet with two full-length collections to his name. (I found this out on his website!) I should also add that all my correspondents were unstinting in their praise for what Andrew does for literature in the area.
A relatively new name on the poetry scene is Helen Fletcher, reporting for us from Carlisle. Helen’s poetry has been published in a range of journals including Brittle Star, The Frogmore Papers and The Interpreter’s House, and she used to be a costumed interpreter at Wordsworth House in Cockermouth, where there are regular informal talks on poetry and social history. “Cumbria was a superb place to come out as a poet. It is a diverse and unpretentious scene which is very welcoming of new writers.”
Finally, I couldn’t really run a feature on Cumbria without asking Kim Moore for her words of wisdom and insider knowledge. I love her blog and think it may be unique in its style and content – three parts diary, three parts showcase for other poets’ work and one part travelogue (I think Kim spends almost as much time journeying as Ian McMillan). Um, how many parts is that? Kim’s first full collection is out shortly with Seren. Her pamphlet ‘If We Could Speak Like Wolves’ was a winner in The Poetry Business Pamphlet Competition and was shortlisted for the Michael Marks Pamphlet Award and the Lakeland Book of the Year Award. Kim tells me she’s lived in Barrow for 11 years. “It does inspire my writing – although I would say it sneaks in without me noticing a lot of the time. I do like living in Barrow – I’ve found the people really friendly and the Lake District is right on the doorstep. It’s also a really cheap place to live, both renting and buying a house. The only downside is how isolated it is.”
Q1: Are there any specific towns/cities with a vibrant poetry scene?
Andrew Forster (AF): Kendal is the biggest town in the South Lakes. It has the Brewery Arts Centre. Grasmere, where the Wordsworth Trust is based, has been steadily developing as the centre for poetry in the north west.
Helen Fletcher (HF): Ulverston in the south has an annual Victorian festival and is the centre for ‘A Poem and a Pint’ poetry events. Cockermouth also has several modern poetry writing groups and a good arts venue, the Kirkgate. Keswick has an annual literary festival.
Kathleen Jones (KJ): Eden Arts Trust in Penrith has just started to put on some events at The Old Fire Station and it’s going to be interesting to see how it develops.
Kim Moore (KM): Elsewhere in Cumbria, there isn’t one particular place that has a vibrant poetry scene – it is such a large, rural county that there are a few poetry events scattered throughout the county rather than concentrated in one place.
Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal
Q2: Who are the poetry ‘movers and shakers’ ??
AF: Kim Moore is a human dynamo who seems to have more hours in her day than the rest of us. She’s on the committees of ‘A Poem and a Pint’ and Brewery Poets, and also runs an annual workshop with Jennifer Copley in Grange over Sands. (More on these below). Ann Wilson has been at the forefront of a number of spoken word projects and currently runs the Brewery’s monthly open mic night ‘Verbalise’ (See below). Angela Locke runs Mungrisedale Writers out on the west coast, and is also involved with the Maryport Literature festival which has a good poetry presence. Geraldine Green runs poetry workshops with Brantwood and at other places. Mike Barlow is actually based near Lancaster but is a frequent presence in Cumbria and runs the new Wayleave Press, beautifully produced pamphlets of quality poetry from a mix of established and emerging poets.
KM: Andrew Forster at the Wordsworth Trust, Ann Wilson – Spoken Word organiser at The Brewery in Kendal and Katie Hale who works for New Writing Cumbria.
HF: I have most awareness of the North of the county. Cumbrian poet Sam Smith runs the independent international poetry magazine The Journal. Christopher Pilling, Nick Pemberton and Jacci Bulman have done a lot of work for many years locally to support other writers by organising poetry writing groups and events. There is a real wealth of talent in the county but to choose one for me it has to be Emma McGordon, whose pamphlet was published by Tall Lighthouse. I thoroughly recommend attending a live performance of her brilliant writing.
KJ:Andrew Forster at The Wordsworth Trust. The Trust really does look to the future rather than the past – Dove Cottage in Grasmere has always hosted wonderful poetry readings, importing big names like Sharon Olds and Robert Hass, and enabling people living here to see poets that normally only get a hearing in London.
Kim Moore is one of the rising stars of the Cumbrian poetry scene. She’s the reviews editor of Compass, a new poetry magazine just launched, co-edited by Andrew Forster and Lindsey Holland. This looks as though it’s going to be a good magazine to contribute to. Kim also organises workshops and residential courses.
Q3: What regular poetry events are there in the area?
KJ: The Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal has a regular workshop group and organises poetry events, usually with open mic opportunities.
HF:Verbalise is a monthly open mic night at Kendal Brewery Arts Centre. Usually the last Saturday of the month from 7.30pm. Very welcoming, run and deftly compered by Ann Wilson.
KM: ‘A Poem and a Pint’ based in Ulverston but venues change from night to night. A typical audience is anything from 20-60. I’m one of the organisers.
HF: ‘A Poem and a Pint’ hosts impressive poets at its readings, the most recent being Kei Miller. There is usually some live music too.
KM: The Wordsworth Trust holds workshops/readings throughout the year but bi-weekly readings throughout the summer. There’s always something going on at Dove Cottage in Grasmere, either workshops or readings.
AF: The Wordsworth Trust programme is undergoing some changes at the moment after losing its Arts Council funding last summer. There is another application in at the moment which we will get the results of in June, and there will still be events over the summer.
KM: Open Mic at Zefferelli’s in Ambleside – Andrew Forster and the Wordsworth Trust run the open mic.
KJ:The Words by the Water literature festival in Keswick every March has a small poetry element and has become part of the literary life of Cumbria. The Mirehouse poetry competition, run as part of the festival, is now one of the annual national prizes. The Old Fire Station, Penrith, is very new as a venue and I’ll be keeping on eye on events here, as it’s my local! One of the big events is The Winter Droving – a celebration of Penrith’s historic past as a centre for cattle and sheep drovers. There are masked processions and lanterns and music. This year there was a call for tweet poems on the subject of droving and we all contributed tweets that were chalked on boards around the route of the procession.
Winter Droving in Penrith – similarities to Lewes Bonfire, but more animals. Photo by Katie
KJ: Senhouse Roman Museum at Maryport hosts an annual literature festival that includes poetry readings and workshops and a competition.
HF: The Maryport Literary Festival – it has a fresh fringe-style feel.
KJ:Bookcase in Carlisle often hosts poetry readings and Steve and Gwenda Matthews who own the bookshop have also been involved in the setting up of a new festival ‘Borderlines’. The first one was last year, and it was a lovely festival with some fantastic events. The next, in September 2015, will have a more significant poetry element.
Interior of Bookcase in Carlisle
HF: Carlisle Cathedral supports a poet in residence and Bookcase, Castle Street, has been a long-standing host of first poetry collection launches and of readings of established poets such as Jacob Polley. Also in Carlisle, Speakeasy open-mic night meets weekly at a new venue Andalusia, Warwick Rd.
HF: I am always impressed by the numbers that attend workshops in Cumbria. The best I have attended is Jennifer Copley and Kim Moore’s workshops & residential at Kents Bank, Grange. They teach regularly and are running one again this Easter.
Q4: People (especially those outside the poetry world) tend to think that poetry + Cumbria = the Lake Poets, and that’s it really. What do you say to that?
AF: If you’re outside the poetry world it is understandable in some ways. The Lake Poets were at the forefront of the discovery of the Lake District , and it is hard to go anywhere without their poetry in your head telling you they were there first. This is very wide of the mark though. The Trust particularly is viewed as a rite of passage for poets, with almost everyone wanting to come and read here. About ten years ago the poet and translator Chris Pilling edited a New Lakeland Poets’ anthology which went some way towards indicating the wealth of talent that’s still here and a lot of us are engaged in addressing the Lake District in a modern way in our poetry.
I’ve talked about events organisers but there are other poets here too who are quietly getting on with it. Jacob Polley (not living here anymore but still with strong links) Mary Robinson, Chris Pilling, Polly Atkin, Mark Ward to mention just a few.
KJ: The Lakeland poets have been dead for a very long time – but the tradition still lives on. There are a lot of very good, award-winning, poets living in Cumbria. Must be something in the water! The modern Lakeland poets (though not all were born here) are an impressive lot. They include Terry Jones (no relation), Kim Moore, Andrew Forster, Jacob Polley, Chris Pilling, Helen Farish, Josephine Dickinson, Paul Farley, Jennifer Copley, Geraldine Green . . . there are lots of others too.
KJ: A plea for more arts funding for large, rural areas like Cumbria. Poetry and other literary events shouldn’t be concentrated in the big cities. Newcastle, Manchester and Liverpool are a very long way from Cumbria and not an option for a night out! One thing I forgot to mention in my area is the Wordsworth Bookshop in Penrith – they are an independent bookshop and marvellous at arranging readings – they supply wine and cupcakes and always have a lovely audience. They don’t have enough money to pay, but if you’re promoting a book it’s a great venue.
Q6: And finally, any interesting factoids for us?
KJ: Cumbria wasn’t a permanent part of England until the mid 14th century – Scotland thought it ought to belong to them. It has the wettest place in England, the deepest lake and the highest mountain.
HF: Ulverston is the birthplace of Stan Laurel (of Laurel & Hardy).
PS: yes, waterproof trousers do work and in my humble opinion are a must when visiting the Lakes. I got a very cheap pair of overtrousers from Blacks and haven’t regretted it. Great for golfing in the rain too.
I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to get my lazy bod along to the Troubadour cafe for Anne-Marie-Fyfe’s Coffee House Poetry nights. I guess the journey was putting me off, but actually it was as sweet as a trip on Southern Rail could be. Trains on time. Changing at Clapham Junction. Two stops on the overground and a 5 minute trot past the scary-looking Brompton Cemetery. I left home at 5.30pm and was back by midnight.
The Troubadour…. what can I say? I already gave a flavour of it in a previous post. The downstairs room where the readings are held is an interesting L-shape, and tables and chairs were tightly packed in. Readers were called in groups of 6 in order to be ready to leap to the stage. A military operation, but handled with good humour, and people responded by (mostly) sticking to the rules – one poem, no more than 25 lines, little or no preamble. There must have been 60 or more readers in all, and an amazing range of poems to the theme of ‘yellow’. Most of those read were by the poets themselves, but we also heard work by Louis Macneice, Philip Devine and Frances Leviston among others.
Jan Heritage and I reading our poems. (Sorry for the grainy pics)
I was looked after by poet friend Jan who’s a regular, although there were several other people there I knew and it was very nice to finally meet others who I knew only by reputation, such as Mona Arshi (who I’m reading with next month at Lauderdale House, oh did I mention that already?) and Robert Peake.
The event has been going for some years now but I got no feeling of it being a clique – which has to be down to Anne-Marie’s hosting skills. She appears to know everyone’s name, (including mine, even though we’d only met once), she’s there greeting people as they come in, chatting and making introductions beforehand and in the break. Her relaxed persona rubs off on the audience, with happy results. It’s a style I’d love to emulate when I’m running events, because I’m aware I can sometimes get into the “don’t panic!” mode and the rictus grin/short temper if things aren’t going quite to plan. Must try harder!
Anne-Marie Fyfe, Stephen Bone and myself, and featuring Stephen’s yellow socks – OK, I know it’s a bit blurry, but it was dark!
If you’re a regular reader of this blog you’ll know I can get a bit irritated about event timekeeping (ahem!), but in this case, given the number of readers it was easily forgivable that it ended a teensy bit later than scheduled. Sadly I had to catch a train so missed the final few readers, the results of the Big Yellow Taxi quiz (at which I sucked big time) and the announcement of the favourite poem of the night. I was told it wasn’t always quite that busy, as the regular nights feature just a handful of headline readers. I’m already looking forward to the next one in May when the season starts up again for the summer. If you’ve ever thought of going along but haven’t yet, do so if you can, it’s well worth it.
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.
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!
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!
I must stop trying too hard with blog post titles. What’s with the ‘fest’/’feast’ thing? Stop me, somebody.
Anyway, I’m now musing on a weekend in Swindon, not a place I’ve ever had strong feelings about, I confess, but clearly a place where poets settle and are proud of. The indefatigable Hilda Sheehan and her team worked hard all weekend, and the atmosphere was one of laid-back fun and a definite hippy vibe. Workshops and readings took place at Lower Shaw Farm, which looked like the set from ‘The Darling Buds of May’ with a bit of fruit-picker-style accommodation thrown in. It’s clearly a secret place – without the help of sat-nav I found myself in estate cul-de-sac hell for some time before I found it on Friday afternoon. One attendee came by taxi and admitted the driver had never heard of it. “What happens here?” he asked nervously, as if expecting the reply “oh, cooking with cheesecloth, tantric sex and ritual sacrifice.”
Over the two days I enjoyed hearing readings from Kathryn Maris, who turned out to be none other than Maurice Riordan’s ‘willowy companion with the ombre hair’, Maurice Riordan, Alison McVety, Don Share, David Morley, Cristina Navazo-Eguía Newton and the prize winners in the Battered Moons poetry competition. I also took part in a short workshop led by Cliff Yates and a day-long masterclass with Don Share (more on this in a separate post). It was great fun to meet some people I’ve only known via this blog or social media, or just by reputation: Cliff Yates, Judi Sutherland, Alison Brackenbury to name but three, and to catch up with blogging buddy Josephine Corcoran and editor of The Interpreter’s House Martin Malone.
Don Share and backing musicians
One thing I really enjoyed about the evening readings was the music element – on Friday we were treated to Don Share reading to a musical backdrop from some fine musicians doing jazz improv. It could have been the sixties, but without the marijuana, the greasy hair or the loon pants. Then on Saturday, to complement the Battered Moons competition readings, there was a wonderful performance of flamenco guitar from a chap whose name escapes me (what a shame) and Cristina Newton mesmerised us with her dramatic and moving reading interspersed with some Romany singing. This photo doesn’t do her justice. She has a wonderful singing voice. Fire and beauty.
Cristina Newton
Although it rained on Saturday morning, in the afternoon the skies cleared and we had a wonderful walk up at the White Horse at Uffington.
On the RidgewayWith JosephineThe eye of the White HorsePoets at the White Horse
And so to Sunday, and our day with Don Share. So much great stuff came out of that, so I’m going to write a separate post with as many tips, stories and Don-isms as I managed to jot down.
A quick update before I make my way to Swindon Festival of Poetry via lunch in Newbury with my sister-in-law. The Telltale Press public launch on Wednesday evening at the Poetry Cafe was a great success – the audience was mostly friends and friends of friends of myself and Peter Kenny, so we felt right at home. And the peeps at the Poetry Cafe are so helpful and unfussy. We’ll definitely be back in the New Year. Plans are afoot!
Rishi Dastidar reading at our launch on Wednesday
Our guest readers on Wednesday were Anja Konig, all the way from Switzerland with her new pamphlet ‘Advice for an Only Child’ (Flipped Eye) hot off the press, and Rishi Dastidar, who’s part of the Complete Works II programme, launching on Monday evening at the South Bank.
Then yesterday was National Poetry Day, with an avalanche of stuff on social media and a shedload of events, none of which I actually got to, but that’s mainly because of tiredness and in anticipation of a full-on poetry fest this weekend. I don’t know if it’s just my perception, but it feels as if NPD gets more mainstream coverage than it used to. Probably just my skewed viewpoint.
Somewhere in amongst all the excitement about Forward Prize winners, Next Gen Poets, NPD readings etc was the little announcement about the Stanza Poetry Competition, which I somehow managed to, er, win. (As a reward I get to read at the AGM of the Poetry Society at Keats’ House in November. I am absurdly excited about this.) It was lovely to receive emails and messages of congratulations from fellow poets. Thank you so much. The winning poems and judges comments are here.
And now – I must pack and get myself off to sunny Swindon, where Hilda Sheehan has been Facebook updating with her particular brand of exhilarated craziness – porcelain dogs, men with megaphones, lunch poetry and all kinds of shenanigans appear to be happening. What the hell’s going on down there, Hilda? I’m coming to find out …
