Festival Fever

What a ride it's been so far! We've been swept along on a tide of great readings, workshops, talks and films over the past five days here at the Cheltenham Poetry Festival and now we're almost at the half way point. The weather - beautifully spring-like to start us off - has turned decidedly chilly and wet again but it's certainly not dampening any enthusiasm here.

Highlights for me so far have been Matt Black's "The Way I Remember It" workshop, Martin Lytton (especially his reading of his narrative poem "Magdalen"), Linda Black (whose family-based poems are both amusing and poignant) and the wonderful Rhian Edwards. If you haven't been lucky enough to hear Rhian, make sure you do soon; her readings have been described as getting you "in the emotional gut" and Sunday's definitely got me in mine. I also really enjoyed the Festival Players presentation of "The Bard Of Avon: A Celebration Of Shakespeare"; two of my Picaresque colleagues, Kathy Alderman and Frankie March, were reading with Robin Gilbert and Peter Wyton, and their selection included several of my favourite sonnets and monologues.

So much still to come - the Festival runs until next Sunday, May 15th. All the details are on line, so do check us out - we'd love to welcome you here!

Lesley Ingram with her collection "Scumbled" -
"My images are like dreams, but not all are dreams are good ..."