Readings – Page 14 – Robin Houghton

Books/ 06/05/2013

Frogmore Press 30th birthday readings

It was an intimate affair: in the round at the New Venture Theatre in Brighton yesterday evening, the first Sunday of the Brighton Festival and an unusually sunny (if not balmy) evening, with poet friends and friends of poetry, all to celebrate the 30th birthday of the Frogmore Press.

The evening brought some thrilling reading from Michaela Ridgeway, John McCullough, Maria Jastrzębska and Frogmore founder Jeremy Page. The stage set included a seductive-looking chaise longue although only John and Maria were brave enough to test it out. John, after announcing he was going to read ‘Sleeping Hermaphrodite’ (from his fabulous – and award-winning – collection The Frost Fairs) because it was a favourite of mine, took up a Greek statue pose on the chaise to read it. (BTW This was not the position you see in the photo above – that was the next poem, ‘Small, vertical pleasures”!)

Other highlights for me: Michaela’s valediction for Hugo Chavez, all the more poignant for its plentiful Spanish expletives and the imagining of his fighting talk to the very end, Maria’s many moving poems from her recently-launched collection At The Library of Memories including ‘Grandfather Clock’, and Jeremy’s reading of ‘Nuns’ by Bob Mitchell from the Frogmore Papers’ archive, which possibly got the biggest laugh of the night.

This was one of a series of events to celebrate the Frogmore Press’s birthday – others are happening at the Poetry Cafe in London and in Folkestone, where the press was founded. Details on the Frogmore blog.

Inspiration/ 03/05/2013

Launches, celebrations, lovely poets

Three days into May and I think it’s been sunny all week – that’s about 5 or 6 days on the trot, something we haven’t had in over a year, if not two. It’s not yet warm enough to take off my ‘winter’ boots (which I now wear nine months of the year.) What on earth has happened to the weather in this country? I am starting to feel seriously SAD.

However, a few joyful happenings: I had a lovely outing to Tonbridge on Wednesday with poet friend Jo to hear Abegail Morley read at the launch of her new collection, Eva and George, from Pindrop Press. It was presented alongside a series of evocative slides featuring the artwork of George Grosz and photos from between-the-wars Berlin, and a contextual commentary between poems. There followed the longest signing queue I’ve ever seen (except perhaps at Charleston), so kudos to Abegail. I have her first collection ‘How to pour madness into a teacup’ on order and look forward to reading it. (PS Abe very kindly featured one of my poems on her blog recently The Poetry Shed …)

On Sunday the Brighton Festival will have begun and I’m mooching over to Brighton to a Frogmore Papers anniversary reading where John McCullough and Maria Jastrzębska are two of the readers, really looking forward to that…

Tonight there’s another launch in Brighton, which I can’t get to, sadly – but the super Jess Richards is at Waterstones reading from her new book Cooking with Bones – it sounds like the event’s going to be big party.

Then next Friday 10th, my VERY funny performance poet friend Iona Jette is performing her new piece, ‘The Orgasm Management Monologue‘ at the Friends Meeting House (aren’t the Quakers wonderfully liberal?) and I think I’ll be filming it for her (if the bits of equipment I need arrive in time) so I can’t laugh too hard because of risk of camera shake, or even falling over and knocking down the tripod.

On the poetry writing front, I’ve started a new ‘poem a day’ challenge which I began on May 1st, having written off my attempts in April. So let’s see where that leads – I feel like I haven’t written anything decent in weeks. But at least the sun is shining!

Inspiration/ 16/03/2013

From the Poetry Archive: Thom Gunn

I’m having a very self-indulgent morning. I was hoping to listen to an episode or two of ‘Poetry Please‘ but for some reason all the episodes from 2012 -2013 listed at the BBC iplayer site are ‘not currently available’. So then I moved onto the Poetry Archive for inspiration. I’m sorry to say I was a little bit disappointed with the Elizabeth Bishop recordings. Much as I love her work I wasn’t grabbed by her delivery of the few (quite long) poems on offer here. Perhaps I ought to learn some stamina.

But Thom Gunn was another matter – I haven’t read anything by him since schooldays but I’m now motivated to seek him out, having read and listened to the two poems recorded here – Moly, and Considering the Snail. Many things about both these poems really appeal to me, and I love his delivery in a british-american hybrid accent (I’m avoiding the rather sleazy word ‘transatlantic’.) Worth a listen.

Readings/ 21/02/2013

Brighton vs Forest: the result

It was hot stuff last night in the basement of the Poetry Cafe. I was just about ready to pass out in the second half and resorted to fanning myself with the folded remains of my poems.

But quite apart from the heat (maybe it was only me suffering? must be age), a good night was had by all. A good variety of readers and material, some wonderful poems, several laughs and plenty of lovely people come to listen – thank you. And most of all three cheers for Jo for introducing us Brighton lot and coralling us all. Hip hip … For me personally, it felt significant – my first reading in London.

In the photo (not sure we were all ready at that moment but I like the quirkiness of it):

Back: John Taylor, Antony Mair, Cliff Bevan, Andy Williams and John Walsh
Middle: Ruth Wiggins, Jennifer Hall, Hassan Vawda, Sonia Jarema
Front: Dave Brooks, Mike Sims, Jo Grigg and moi

Readings/ 20/02/2013

Reading at the Poetry Cafe this evening

Six of us from the Brighton Stanza are reading this evening alongside six Forest Poets (Waltham Forest) in a ‘Stanza Bonanza’. I don’t think it’s a competition, more like a friendly mingling of Stanzas. Anyway we are definitely the away team. And Paul McGrane of the Poetry Society won’t be there supporting his own Stanza (Forest) because he’ll be at the Orient. Ah! So it takes a bit of footie to find out where people’s priorities really lie!

As a special ‘thank you’ for sitting through yet another poetry night, I’m treating my long suffering husband to drinks in the bar at the top of the Gherkin beforehand. Hurrah!

So now all I need to do is decide whether to read one of my new ‘poem a day’ efforts, or whether it needs a bit of cleaning up first.

Really looking forward to hearing what my fellow Brightonians come up with, and also the Forest Poets who are all new to me. If you’re in London, do come along and give us a cheer – 7pm at the Poetry Cafe, Betterton Street.

Angst/ 25/01/2013

Needlewriters poets & that pesky CW MA

At the library of memories - Maria Jastrzebska

Wonderful evening at the Needlewriters in Lewes last night, with Maria Jastrzebska and Andrea Samuelson reading their poetry.

Both read very movingly. Maria’s new collection ‘At the Library of Memories’ is just out from Waterloo Press, and Maria gave it an intriguing introduction by saying the memories were not only hers, but those of her relatives and possibly even ours. This morning I opened the book at random and read and extraordinary poem called Telling Tales. No surprise then to read in in the credits that this particular piece was a prizewinner in the Troubadour competition a couple of years ago.

Sort-of disclosure: I have the great privilege of being in a Mimi Khalvati workshopping group with Maria (as well as a number of other very accomplished poets) and I have to say that as well as being a talented poet she is also an insightful and supportive and member of the group. Lucky moi.

I wasn’t familiar with Andrea Samuelson‘s work but it was a pleasure to meet her and hear her read from her new book ‘Cradle Song’, on the subject of the life of her Swedish great-grandmother and the similarities in their experiences.

Two poet friends let on that Andrea had done the same MA Creative Writing course just before them, and her work had been held up as a ‘model’. Ooer! I wonder if she knows?

On the subject of a Creative Writing MA, I am yet again looking at course descriptions and dreaming of applying to somewhere like Royal Holloway, commuting to London twice a week for heady tutorials with Andrew Motion or Jo Shapcott… what’s the matter with me? I haven’t got £6k in my pocket and I’m supposed to be earning money, not spending it on luxuries like this! Plus, I seem to be forgetting that there’s the small matter of applying and getting accepted.

Talk me out of it, someone!

Readings/ 17/01/2013

Ten Voice Stanza tonight…

It’s been a few months in the planning, so Jo and I are hoping we’ve thought of everything – ha ha!

If you’re in the area, do come along to Ten Voice Stanza – doors 7.30, starting at 8pm, ten members of Brighton Poetry Stanza reading their work, plus open mic opportunities. It’s at the Redroaster Coffee House on St James’s St in Brighton, an established poetry venue and very friendly.

Other members of the group who aren’t reading (there isn’t time for more than ten) will be helping out on the door, selling pamphlets etc, so it’s been a real team effort. I do hope we get a good turnout – I have a feeling it may be packed. Hope so! It will give everyone a buzz.

At the T S Eliot prize readings on Sunday Jacob Polley said ‘the last poetry reading I gave I was on between the choir singers and the cake raffle’. Poetry audiences are nearly always small. So the prospect of an audience is a fine thing (although 2,000 people in the Festival Hall might make one a tad wobbly). Fingers crossed!

Books/ 10/01/2013

T S Eliot shortlisted poetry collections – reviews

I confess haven’t read all the collections shortlisted for this year’s T S Eliot Prize. But I’ve trawled for informative reviews of each, in order to at least have an idea and also in anticipation of hearing all the poets read on Sunday evening at the Festival Hall. So here we go.

Sean Borodale Bee Journal (Jonathan Cape) (Bees seem to be a hot topic at the moment. Does their essential yet potentially doomed role in the ecosystem give them extra poetic power?) Giles Pitts’ review in Varsity makes me think I would enjoy this collection.

‘10th February: Dismantling the Comb’, for example, is a deeply moving account of bereavement, the poet shining light into the comb’s cells in a fruitless search for life: ‘It’s like the grain of a moon, a spoon-back of pale no one, / just the pail of an egg’s dry opal empty of hunger’.

Gillian Clarke Ice (Carcanet) – Stevie Davies in the Independent calls it ‘partly pastoral elegy, partly georgic’ and offers this assessment.

In 1947, news of the ice-girl’s end aroused in the prescient young Gillian a sense of “her china inkwell emptied of its words,/ the groove for her pen like a shallow grave”.

Julia Copus The World’s Two Smallest Humans (Faber & Faber) – reviewed in the Guardian by Kate Kellaway, who calls it a ‘remarkable collection’. She focuses in particular on the poem ‘Ghost’ which is printed in full at the end of the review, noting that the poet “avoids the first person and keeps a tight rein on emotion.”

SImon Armitage The Death of King Arthur (Faber & Faber) – a gallant Kate Kellaway tackles this tome despiteadmitting initial reluctance (“When I studied Anglo-Saxon at university, I remember complaining that whenever I wasn’t sure of a word, it turned out to mean “spear”.”) She concedes, however, that Armitage “has a miraculous ability to make the past fresh, moving and urgent, not allowing legend to create distance.” Personally I’m not sure how much I’d relish all those bloody battles, but perhaps I need to keep an open mind – if I’ve got the stomach for Julia Copus’s IVF poems then I can face anything. (For some reason, poems about pregnancy and childbirth make me queasy.)

Paul Farley The Dark Film (Picador) – despite Nicholas Pierpan’s excoriating review in Tower Poetry (is this the guy who critiqued my work both times I submitted stuff for the Poetry Society’s ‘Prescription’ service? I recognise the style!) I am interested to read this collection, if only to see if there’s more to it than Pierpan fancies. (For example, ‘Saturday Irons’ he dismisses with “Are the final two lines tongue-in-cheek, or just bathetic? I honestly can’t tell; they don’t work either way.”)

Jorie Graham P L A C E (Carcanet) – is this is the front-runner, having already won the Forward Prize? Here’s Sean O’Brien’s review in the Guardian. Funnily enough I only heard of Jorie Graham recently, when I asked poet friend Lynne about American poetry, in which she’s pretty much steeped. Must explore.

Kathleen Jamie – The Overhaul (Picador) – I was googling this to find a review and got sidetracked by a wonderful interview on the Scottish Review of Books. I like the sound of Kathleen Jamie, she comes across a bit like Don Paterson, all dry and matter-of-fact what’s-the-fuss-all-about. Must be a scottish thang. Anyway, here’s Maria Johnston’s review in the Guardian of what sounds like a fine collection.

Sharon Olds Stag’s Leap (Jonathan Cape) – my poet friend Charlotte lent me a copy of this to read a couple of months ago and there was something terrifyingly gripping about it – the story of a marriage break up in painful, masochistic detail. It gave me bad dreams – I suppose it played on my greatest nightmare, which would be to lose the love and fidelity of my husband. But here’s a wonderful video interview / profile on the PBS website where Sharon reads from the book and talks about her writing and her life. There’s a sympathy, acceptance and calmness about her that I nearly missed in the reading of Stag’s Leap.

Jacob Polley The Havocs (Picador) – so I click on the Guardian’s review of this collection and there’s a photo of a beekeeper – wtf! Anyway, Ben Wilkinson finds much to admire:

Tripping through assorted rhythms, sonnets, end-rhymed quatrains and the looping lines of its centrepiece, it is as formally vibrant as the luminous letters that adorn its cover….The Havocs may be an uneven collection that sometimes finds Polley treading water, but a handful of its poems are so moving and memorable you might just forgive him.

Deryn Rees-Jones Burying the Wren (Seren) – Carl Griffin in the Wales Arts Review suggests that this collection on ‘recollections and grief’ has its ‘fair share of poems that should have been buried with the wren’. Nevertheless he finds ‘ingenious images’ as well as ‘snatches of comedy and joy’ in her writing.

Mags & Blogs/ 04/01/2013

January’s off to a great start

Happy New Year!

I’m particularly upbeat about 2013 – already there are lots of positive things going on in both work and play (not sure where poetry sits on that spectrum but I’m doing my best to blue the edges, little by little.)

On New Year’s Eve I had an email from Helen Ivory to say she was accepting my poem ‘Left’ (which Mimi Khalvati had described as ‘bonkers’!) for Ink, Sweat & Tears so that should appear around March time.

And New Writing South have showed interest in a workshop proposal I sent them, which is very exciting, so more on that as it develops.

I’m looking forward to the TS Eliot prize readings at the Festival Hall on Sunday 13th. I first went to this event last year with several poet friends and really enjoyed it. Very buzzy and a brilliant opportunity to hear all ten shortlisted poets reading from their work.

Meanwhile, Brighton’s very own Ten Voice Stanza is only two weeks away – yikes! I hope we can pull in a good audience. It should be a lot of fun with a good range of poets reading, so I do hope so. You can read all about it (and RSVP) on Facebook or here for the Facebook refuseniks. If you’re anywhere near Brighton, please come (and tell all your friends!)

Readings/ 16/12/2012

Poetry reading on January 17th

The workshopping group that I go to in Brighton is holding an event, Ten Voice Stanza, on Thursday 17th January. If you are anywhere in the vicinity, please come – and tell your friends! There are ten of us reading and we each have a maximum of 8 minutes, to allow some time for open mic.

There are Stanza groups all over the country – they are affiliated to the Poetry Society, and although group members are encouraged to become PS members, it’s not obligatory. The Brighton Stanza was re-born about 3 years ago when Jo Grigg took it over, and in that time many members have established a pretty good track record of publication and success in competitions. So there will be a good variety and high standard of poetry at Ten Voice Stanza. BUT we’re all relative unknowns, so we need members, friends and friends of friends to help spread the word. Please help – thanks!

Hope to see you there…

Category: Readings