… for Criccieth. I’m all set for the residential course at Ty Newydd in October with Carol Ann Duffy and Gillian Clarke. So it now feels like I’m actually going. I’m reading CAD’s ‘Rapture’ and GC’s ‘Recipe for Water’ at the moment and feeling buoyed up at the statement on the Ty Newydd course description saying “there will be ample time devoted to one-to-one tutorials” – whoa. I think Arvon only offer one short tutorial during the week. So that sounds very promising. Meanwhile I’ve been looking up all the other participants and there are some very experienced poets, so I’m looking forward to a challenging and fruitful week.

On the subject of courses, I’m very grateful to Josephine Corcoran for flagging this up on Facebook – a free online course from the University of Pennsylvania on American poetry which is just what I need. I’ve signed up for it, although not sure I’ll have the time to do the written work – but even just to watch the video discussions and learn in a passive way I think will be great.