Tag: john field

Books/

Where my poetry pocket money has been going

poetry london

June 3rd and I think I’ve already blown my poetry pocket money for this month.

First of all I’ve subscribed to Poetry London which I’ve been meaning to do for ages, and I asked to start with the Spring 13 issue, which has resulted in both Spring and Summer issues arriving within days of each other. A feast!

Today I was reading John Field’s brilliant review of Ben Parker’s first pamphlet ‘The Escape Artists‘ from tall-lighthouse, and couldn’t resist buying it, being only £4. You can’t even buy a glass of wine for that in London. (By the way, if you haven’t already, do read Adele Ward’s impassioned blog posts about how we MUST buy directly from small publishers.)

Then today I entered the Mslexia poetry comp for the first time, having told myself I needed to enter some competitions this year, but only big ones otherwise it gets horribly expensive. And yes, I have also entered the Bridport – well, a gal’s gotta try! I did have a go at the Mslexia Pamphlet comp last year, but more for the experience of trying to put a pamphlet together than any thoughts of glory – there was none, anyway.

Maybe I’m feeling a bit more confident at the moment having had some good news recently, but nothing I’m able to blab about here, at least for the time being – sorry!

My blog’s seen a flurry of new readers after the lovely Abegail Morley linked to Poetgal from her own blog, The Poetry Shed.  If you haven’t read her powerful collection “How to pour madness into a teacup’ I can certainly recommend it, I found myself reading it in one sitting.

Inspiration/

Three great blogs – poetry

It’s always nice to get those ‘congratulations, another blogger is following your blog’ emails from WordPress, and even nicer when you check them out and discover a real gem of a blog you’d not come across before. That’s how I found John Field’s excellent blog Poor Rude Lines – “I’m just another reader, rather like you, curled up in bed with a book or two.”

It made me think it would be fun to have a regular feature where I could share interesting blogs with you. I expect you’ll already know at least some of them, but who knows, maybe not. Blogrolls are great, but a proper introduction is even better – I’m hoping you may reciprocate and tell me about other fab blogs that I’m missing. Anyway, three is my favourite number, so I may as well call it ‘Three great blogs…’

Let’s start with poetry, and indeed with Poor Rude Lines.  Like Josephine Corcoran I tend to err towards blogs about poetry rather than blogs where an individual posts his or her poetry, although I quite like a mix of the two.

Poor Rude Lines
Poor Rude Lines – John Field

The first thing I love about Poor Rude Lines is that stunning masthead – go on, name all the poets depicted – and John’s use of photos to break up the text and enhance the reading experience. I was immediately drawn into his review of Fiona Moore’s The Only Reason for Time and quickly realised this is a marvellous reviews site, as well as much else. Check out the archives. John also appears to be a high quality Tweeter – worth following.

Cliff Yates
Cliff Yates – Poet, Writer, Teacher

I’m suitably embarrassed to admit I’ve only recently come across Cliff Yates. What can I say? This poetry world is a big ‘un, and I’m but a lowly ant picking my way across its vast acreage. How Cliff finds the time to blog I don’t know, he’s clearly a busy working poet and tutor and his ‘about’ page is inspirational. There’s a comprehensive blogroll, lots of resources for teaching poetry, useful links, details about Cliff’s books, workshops and other activities and yes, some of his poems too. The site is built on WordPress and has a workman-like visual theme, but for me it oozes generosity, warmth and down-to-earth-ness.

Another Lost Shark
Another Lost Shark – Graham Nunn

Established Australian poet Graham Nunn’s blog is Another Lost Shark, which is also the title of his publishing imprint. Graham’s blog documents his many collaborative poetry projects, most recently haiku walks and experiments with other Japanese poetic forms. I loved this post about how famous poems are being pasted on the side of garbage trucks during the Sydney Writers’ Festival (going on at the moment). Watch the video short, it’s brilliant. Cue a couple of workers in their hi-vis jackets taking a break from rubbish collection: “What are you reading, Barry?” “I’ve always been partial to a bit of Lord Tennyson…”