An blog update for National Poetry Day! To celebrate, not only have I just recorded an interview with the immensely talented Tishani Doshi for Planet Poetry, but this evening I’ll be at Hastings Stanza for some poem sharing and workshopping. All very fitting. Everything’s cranking up now it’s the autumn: the publicity machine for variousRead more ⟶
Category: Workshopping
And in other writing…
Not much new to report on the poetry writing front, except for a dozen or so poems in submission (“in submission”? Should it be “under submission”? I won’t say ‘Under consideration” because that suggests the darn things are actually being read by someone, and there’s no knowing if that’s the case. Anyway I think IRead more ⟶
A holiday and a vintage submissions spreadsheet
On a holiday Just back from a short trip to the Netherlands where the weather was spectacularly mild and dry for late October. I can’t recall ever being at the seaside in just a T shirt and jeans on my birthday! And what a seaside. It was my first visit to the Netherlands (I don’tRead more ⟶
An aside from Swindon
Although I’m currently officially blogging the Poetry Swindon Festival over at Festival Chronicle, this is my own blog so I thought I’d put any personal asides on here. You know me, don’t you? On Friday morning some us were lucky enough to be in workshops with either Clare Shaw or Kim Moore. I was withRead more ⟶
Roundup | a good poetry week
Bit of a roundup post. Last Tuesday evening at West Greenwich Library I got to hear some super poems inspired by the Mary Evans Picture Library, by Sarah Westcott (who I almost didn’t recognise because her new, chic pixie haircut was different to her Twitter pic!) Lorraine Mariner, Mick Delap, Peter Wallis and others –Read more ⟶
Both sides now
A smooth drive to London yesterday for Anne-Marie Fyfe’s newest workshop, on the theme of clouds. As in ‘I wandered lonely as…’, or ‘from both sides now..’ And yes, Joni Mitchell did make an appearance, as did Debussy, Django Reinhardt, Billy Collins, Emily Dickinson, John Lennon, The Wizard of Oz and a range of SurrealistRead more ⟶
TS Eliot Prize – workshop & readings
Katy Evans-Bush‘s TS Eliot shortlist workshop is fast becoming an institution. Now in its sixth year, it’s a fine precursor to the Prize readings which take place the following day, and the prize giving itself the day after that. The format is straightforward – Katy reads the ten shortlisted books, chooses from them a numberRead more ⟶
Notes from a workshop with Andrew McMillan
As promised in my last post, here are my notes from the workshop I did on Saturday at the South Downs Poetry Festival, with Andrew McMillan. I’m including links at the end to other workshop notes, in case you find these posts useful. I was really impressed with Andrew’s workshop. It’s tricky to teach a one-off sessionRead more ⟶
Coffee-House poetry workshops with Anne-Marie Fyfe
Last weekend I was at the Troubadour in London on a Sunday afternoon for one of Anne-Marie Fyfe’s themed writing workshops. It was intense without feeling like hard work – I felt I’d been challenged and came away with a number of useful seedlings of ideas that may one day make their way into poemsRead more ⟶
Readings, talks, good poetry stuff on the horizon
Last Thursday I was at Roehampton University where I’d been invited by Principal Lecturer Louise Tondeur to talk to her Creative Writing students about Telltale Press, collaborative working, the importance of submitting work to magazines, marketing your work/yourself, that sort of thing. I get a bit scared when faced by a room of people (mostly) underRead more ⟶