So many good end-of-year review-type blog posts in the last week or so. A few I particularly enjoyed: Anthony Wilson’s ‘Most read life-saving poems in 2013’ which gave me a chance to catch up on some I’d missed, in particular U A Fanthorpe’s Atlas and Derek Mahon’s Everything is going to be all right. JosephineRead more ⟶
Category: Poems
From first draft to publication
Something of an experiment today. I love seeing those handwritten drafts of famous poems, with the crossings out and alterations, such as this version of Wilfred Owen’s ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ at the British Library. I think it’s fascinating to see how people work on poems, and in workshops I often wonder how a particularRead more ⟶
A poem by Lynne Hjelmgaard
I first met Lynne Hjelmgaard at a Brighton Stanza meeting, and knew straight away she was a poet I wanted to hear more of and would enjoy workshopping with. Lynne has had an extraordinary, almost nomadic background – from New York via Denmark, Paris, Rome, London and the sea. The range of her experience andRead more ⟶
Kim Lasky pamphlet launch
… or rather ‘pamphlets’ launch – not only did Kim Lasky win the Iota Shots competition last year, she did a double whammy with the Poetry Business comp – now that’s just greedy!! Although, to be fair, I don’t know Kim personally but I’m told by several good friends that it couldn’t have happened toRead more ⟶
A poem by David Borrott
I think there were only three men on the course at Ty Newydd, so I don’t know how that felt for them. David Borrott consistently came up with fresh, original work, and had a deadpan delivery I particularly enjoyed. Faced with the challenge of writing a poem in which ‘lethargy’ is personified by a seaRead more ⟶
A poem by Jenny Lewis
At Ty Newydd recently I was fortunate enough to be working alongside some wonderful poets, and with their permission I’ll be featuring some of them here. The first is Jenny Lewis. I think Jenny was the most experienced of all of us, with many, many strings to her bow, and yet she wore her expertiseRead more ⟶
Something completely different – sound poetry
I was just reading this post on Rebecca Gethin’s blog and from there followed a link to Hannah Silva’s blog, which led me to watch some videos of her performing. Hannah’s amazing ‘sound poetry’ made me think again about the Magma theme ‘the music of words’ – I hope the editors are planning to includeRead more ⟶
Audio poem (an experiment)
I was inspired by Mark Hewitt’s performance of ‘expiry tbc‘ the other evening here in Lewes. It was actually a 3-person production featuring Peter Copley on live (and looped) cello, and wonderful lighting effects by Kristina Hjelm. I’d had the privilege of being in Mark’s workshopping group led by Mimi Khalvati earlier in the year,Read more ⟶
Seamus Heaney. Just my 2p-worth
What a very sad loss. I think I’d be useless as an obituary writer, as anything I’ve tried writing about the death of Seamus Heaney just sounds crass or obvious. I don’t have anything new to add to what’s been said across the blogosphere, but I enjoyed listening to this short piece on Radio 4Read more ⟶
A bit of a rave about Sam Willetts
On the train to the Poetry Review launch the other week I looked through the magazine to remind myself of the poems which I’d enjoyed on first reading, or that I remembered (not always the same thing of course). Consequently I found myself re-reading Claire Crowther, Sam Willetts and Jean Sprackland, checking their biographies inRead more ⟶