Tuesday 24 October 2017

Poems from pictures

I've always enjoyed working from other art forms - paintings, music, photographs - and an exhibition currently on display at the National Trust's Hanbury Hall near Droitwich provided plenty of inspiration for poems when I visited last week. Local artists have a tremendous variety of work on display in the Long Gallery there; along with some other poets, I was invited by Nina Lewis, the Worcestershire Poet Laureate, to create some poems in response to it. We'll be reading a selection of the resulting poems on November 14th at Parks Cafe in Droitwich (see the poster below for details) - if you're in the area, do come along and join us, it should prove a very interesting and enjoyable session.


Wednesday 18 October 2017

The GWN at the Cheltenham Literature Festival

This year's GWN winners and runners-up

What a great evening on Sunday! This year the Gloucestershire Writers' Network event at the Cheltenham Literature Festival saw a packed venue, with a very appreciative audience supporting the winners and runners-up in the annual poetry and prose competitions and listening to fantastic readings by Lania Knight and Roy Macfarlane, our two judges. Sorry as I was to part with the Poet's Hare (who had graced my writing desk for the last twelve months), I was delighted to present him to Frances March, the winner of the poetry section with her evocative "1956 : Sheltered". And Nastasya Parker's short story, "The Maze", was a well-deserved prose winner, beautifully and poignantly exploring the "Who do we think we are?" theme of the Festival.

From the work that they both read - Lania from her novel "Three Cubic Feet" and Roy from his collection "Beginning With Your Last Breath" - it was obvious that we could not have chosen better writers to judge a competition based around perceptions of identity.  We'd presented them with no small task; we'd had a bumper crop of entries, all of a very good standard. We're immensely grateful to them for the big commitment of time that the work entailed and for the care with which they approached the task.

With Frances March














Nastasya Parker


With Lania and Roy and my GWN committee colleagues
Penny Howard, Kathryn Alderman and Judith Dijkhuisen

Friday 13 October 2017

Parting company with old friends


Today I started a job that has been on my "To Do" list for ages - but that I've been putting off and off. We have books in every room in the house (yes, every room!); if we come to downsize in the not too distant future, that library has got to be rationalised somehow. But where to start? How to choose what stays and what goes? This is not going to be achieved in a hurry ...

As I scanned the bookcases I found my whole life encapsulated there - the hardback classics I'd read in childhood, books that had belonged to my parents, all the Tolkien and C. S. Lewis stories I'd read with my children. Books I'd had as prizes at school, books given to me as presents over the years, books written and signed by friends - all there and reminding me so much of people and places important to me over the years. There were books I'd read and reread, ones that had made me laugh and ones that had seen me through difficult times - and so many that I couldn't possibly part with!

But on the first cull I have ended up with three large bags to contribute to our local Red Cross bookshop. Good to think that a worthwhile charity can benefit from them - and if I can feel that the people who buy them will get half as much enjoyment out of them as I have, I shalln't regret it.




Tuesday 3 October 2017

Leaves and lines



I always enjoy watching summer sliding into September, with the leaves beginning to turn, the subtle alteration in the light; I love to sense the change in the air when I walk the dog in the mornings. But this year circumstances got the better of me - having spent a fortnight hardly leaving house or hospital, I emerged blinking at the weekend to find autumn, my favourite season, already firmly established. A timely reminder that, whilst our lives may be on hold with personal traumas, the world moves on and life elsewhere continues.

But now there is much to look forward to, especially on the poetry front. I was interested to read in the Guardian on Saturday that Nielson Bookscan had reported a 10% year on year increase in poetry sales, and last week's National Poetry Day was a resounding success, with events not only in the usual venues but in all manner of unexpected places. Far from being a now neglected art form as it's sometimes portrayed, poetry is not just alive and well but thriving in this country.

And it certainly thrives in Gloucestershire and Wiltshire! This month sees the Swindon Poetry Festival (October 5th - 9th), the Cheltenham Literature Festival (at which I'll be introducing the Gloucestershire Writers' Network event) running from 6th - 15th, the Mere Literary Festival (at which I'll be reading two of my poems shortlisted for the Poetry Prize) from 9th - 15th and the first ever Gloucester Poetry Festival (October 26th - 29th). We're certainly spoiled for choice in this neck of the woods! All the events promise to be interesting and enjoyable so do join us at some of them if you can - there are details on all the relevant websites.