Quick round-up of poetry & other happenings

Another month gone and we were expecting to have a date for our house move by now, but no… the ‘party’ at the bottom of the chain is causing a problem, and the rest of us just have to wait. Unless someone loses their nerve in the meantime and the whole chain fails. Oh, the joys of house buying in England.

But plenty of positives. (Not least of all still being able to enjoy our garden in the glorious weather.) By the way, the image above is of two day-old cygnets with their parent on a nest on the River Itchen, spotted on a walk when we were in Winchester at the weekend. You can’t get more positive than that!

Oh yes, poetry etc

Two things. Firstly, the ‘Guide to Getting your Poetry Published’ is out in the world (literally: orders from Canada, Singapore, Sweden, France, India …) so that’s one big project finished. And thank you to Thomas Ovans for his review of the book on London Grip.

Secondly, I’m now setting myself a ‘poem a day’ challenge to get some work in the bag. OK, it hasn’t been every day exactly, but I’ve made a good start, and I’m back on it once I’ve written this post. Writing went out the window for a few days while our little choir the Lewes Singers were in Winchester singing the weekend services. Turned out the cathedral was the only cool place in town, in fact I got really cold a couple of times while it was over 30 degrees outside! I also met up with a friend for a visit to Jane Austen’s house in Chawton. Although I’ve been there before, it’s still a lovely place to revisit, very atmospheric and quite moving to be reminded of Jane’s short and somewhat unlucky life.

Coming up

Next month I’ll be reading at Ver Poets in St Albans with Mark Fiddes: Saturday 27th June, 11am at St Albans Library. Please come if you’re in the area! Both Mark and I will be hotfooting it back south after the reading. I’m singing in a Mozart Requiem in Lewes Town Hall that evening. (Come to that too!!)  PS: artwork by me!

Later in the year I’ll be involved with the Alfriston Poetry Bee event (no firm details yet but it will be in October.)

Before then I’ve got the lovely job of typesetting a pamphlet for poet friend Judith Shaw. Judith has been the Poet-in-Residence for the Cuckmere Pilgrim Path this last year, and the pamphlet will be launched in the summer when her residency comes to an end. Judith is a fine poet and having seen/heard some of the poems in this collection I can tell you it will be something very special.

Podcast

A couple of weeks ago Peter Kenny and I launched a new episode of Planet Poetry, this time featuring poet and children’s author Mara Bergman. It’s already proving to be a popular episode. Our next interviewee will be Will Harris, in the last new episode of this season. But there will be at least one, maybe two archive interviews released over the summer. Scaling back the number of new shows this season while keeping the poddy going has suited both Peter and myself, in that we’ve both had the time and energy to work on other projects.

Recent reading

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke (I think I fell for the hype!),  Why We Drive by Matthew Crawford (loved this), and I’m currently reading The Great Good Places by Margaret Drabble (saw her recently at the Charleston Festival and I really enjoyed her memoir from some time ago The Pattern In the Carpet) and Literary Devices by Amy Jones, which I picked up in P&G Wells, Winchester’s oldest bookshop (possibly!)  I must also give a shout out to Becky Tuch’s excellent Lit Mag News. The ongoing discussions there about AI and the recent ‘Grantagate’ episode (Google it if you’re not familiar with this debacle) are fascinating. Becky’s Substack is definitely worth a paid subscription imho.