Two great days

I've had to chose carefully this year - there was so much on the Cheltenham Poetry Festival that I would like to have gone to but circumstances have meant that I could only make a very limited number of events. I obviously chose wisely though - I have so enjoyed the events that I have managed to get to. Yesterday afternoon's talk on John Betjeman (perhaps it's not fashionable to say so now, but a great favourite of mine for years) given by John Gallman - and liberally sprinkled with recordings by the poet himself - was excellent. I was then event managing the reading given by Wendy Klein and Dorothy Yamamoto entitled "Bloodlines". They are poets from very different cultural and social backgrounds but they interwove their readings beautifully and their poetry effortlessly bridged continents, reflecting the commonality of so much of our human experience.

Dorothy Yamamoto and Wendy Klein

And this evening two of my partners in crime in Picaresque, Kathryn Alderman and Frances March, were reading along with Peter Wyton, the reigning Cheltenham Poetry Slam champion. It was a wonderful evening despite Kathy having been very unwell; Jennie Farley kindly read some of Kathy's poems for her but, professional that she is, you would never have guessed from Kathy's performance that she was anything less than her usual quietly charismatic self. Hearing Kathy and Frankie read made me so aware of how fortunate I am to work with such excellent, talented poets - and how much I can learn from them.

Jennie Farley with Kathryn Alderman,
Peter Wyton and Frances March