Much to do at Much Wenlock

Victoria Field

Poetry events continue to come thick and fast. I was only able to make it for one day this year but, as always, the Much Wenlock Poetry Festival did not disappoint. This morning I was at a workshop run by the poetry therapist Victoria Field; having been on a course at Ty Newydd she had run a few years ago I knew it would be good. A quotation she used really struck a chord - that the therapeutic use of poetry should help with "healing the past, living the present, creating the future". That I shall keep very much in mind in my continuing work with older people in day and residential care.

This afternoon's workshop, entitled "Responses", was run by Gladys Mary Coles. Using poems by Mary Webb and Wilfred Owen as exemplars, we looked at the themes of remembrance, displacement, change and the human impact on the environment. Two hours is little time to get to grips with much concerted writing but I feel I certainly made a start on some work I'd like to pursue. Now - as always - it's a question of finding the time to do so!

A Stanza of Poets

I'm not sure what the collective noun is for a group of poets but I quite like "stanza"! And what a great stanza we had last week up in Cumbria. A diverse group, with very different writing styles but so interesting - and most encouraging to a fledgling like myself. Kim Moore and Jennifer Copley made excellent tutors, certainly working us hard (in fact, it felt like coming home for a rest on Friday!) but pushing forwards to get the most possible out of our five days together.

...and the sun shone on the righteous!

 We had the benefit too of a visit by two guest poets on the Wednesday evening. Carole Coates  (who was described by Peniless Press as "sharp and not to be messed with") read from "Swallowing Stones", her sequence of fictional monologues from the chilling world of Kor - quite an electrifying experience. Andrew Forster, the literature officer with the Wordsworth Trust, made good on his comment that "poetry should surprise" - I really enjoyed his work. I'm trying to resist the temptation to buy yet more poetry books but his pamphlet "Digging", so fantastically illustrated by Hugh Bryden (Roncadora Press), was a must.

Now, after a week of "Encounters" - with the landscape (see below), art, the past, the body and the dead - copious scribblings and the planting of many seeds, it's down to some work on it all here. Thank you so much, Kim and Jenny - I'm definitely signing up for next year!

Dawn over Morecambe Bay

Wandering with Wordsworth

Abbot Hall Hotel

... though his daffodils are past their best here now. But I have rarely seen the Lake District in such lovely sunny weather - long may it last! A beautiful day today at Kents Bank, just outside Grange-over-Sands, a comfortable place to stay and excellent company on the five day poetry course I've come for - two highly experienced tutors and twelve enthusiastic and very talented participants. I think I shall learn a lot this week.

Putting pen to paper

Jenny Lewis at Oxfam

Enough of listening to other people's work - time to get back to doing some of my own! But how much we learn from reading / hearing what others are writing; over the period of this year's Poetry Festival I feel I've learned a lot. Last Tuesday I heard Professor Charles Bennett from Northampton reading some of his excellent verse and was really inspired; on Saturday I was compere at the event for writers of the Worple Press and could have listened all day to their exceptionally talented and very varied poetic voices. The last event on the Festival I attended was "Taking Mesopotamia" with Jenny Lewis, in which she discussed her research into the WW1 service of the father she never knew and the poetry that grew from her findings - a fascinating story, especially at a time when I am pursuing my own family history, partly through poems.

So it's pen to paper again here, with a lot of new ideas but plenty of work still to do on outstanding projects. Next Monday I'm off to Cumbria for a four day writing course led by poet Kim Moore - I haven't met her but she comes highly recommended! Before that I really need to make some progress and tick off at least a couple of items on the "To Do" list ....