Poetry Promenade

Anna Saunders, Robin Gilbert, Marilyn Timms,
 Annie Ellis, Howard Timms and myself

A very pleasant afternoon on Thursday; as part of the cultural exchange between Cheltenham Poetry Festival and the Winchcombe Festival of Music and Arts, a group of us from Cheltenham took part in a "Poetry Promenade" at the Methodist Church in Winchcombe, each of us reading poems inspired by the town and the beautiful scenic area that surrounds it. We were made extremely welcome and thoroughly enjoyed our visit.

One of my own contributions was inspired by Winchcombe Hospital, a much loved local facility that closed in 2008. Like so many other small units around the country,  it was a casualty of centralisation of resources and (in my view, having spent my whole working life in health care) the misguided belief that bigger is always better.

Cottage Hospital

Listen. Between neat maisonettes with close cropped lawns

the ghosts of birth and death hover in the midnight air;

a hoarse, consumptive cough, a fretful, febrile cry

vie on the wind with carbolic stench

by the hawthorn hedge and memorial bench where 

pyjama'd patients smoked and tea leaves fed the roses.

Harsh street lights mirror the shaded lamps where nurses,

capped and cloaked, wrote notes, sipped Horlicks,

stifled yawns and watched till dawn their charges

blanketed against the chill in balcony beds

between Sister's torchlit rounds, her footsteps 

grating gravel in the shadowy grounds.

But few now recall this previous incarnation;

only the wide-eyed cat, silently stalking suburbia's streets,

scaling a wicker fence, perceives with some sixth sense

a rustle of starch and the absent beat of a long-still heart.

(Copyright Gill Garrett 2013)

Normality restored

Well, it's back to earth with a vengeance after a magic time at Ty Newydd. I didn't actually get a lot of writing done whilst there, but the week gave me the space and the opportunity to rethink various projects I'm working on, to prioritise and to do some planning. Now comes the reality - the hard work of putting all that into practice!

Despite being snowed under with work lately, my good friend and Picaresque colleague Kathy Alderman found time to make a couple of very successful appearances at the recent Cheltenham Poetry Festival and she's now very kindly agreed to guest on my blog this week. I'm a great admirer of all Kathy's writing but, perhaps because we share some of our heritage, her poem below has to be my real favourite. Thank you so much, Kathy, for letting me use it here.


Old As Hills

I remember you - just. Old as hills, still
as Snowdon with rain in your pocket,
quiet as mist, clothes a grey mountain scree,
mind crow-flown back to the land of our fathers.
Your family loved you in the time before I knew,
their best of Dadis, in those green valley days
before night came. Full of Celtic brooding he was,
a marriage aunt said and Mam was cross
but the mist was enveloping her. When you'd gone
the crows stole her voice away and left
an imposter behind. They came back for me;
once. Then I longed for you Tadcu,
to tell my tormentors, my mizzle was true
as the crows that surrounded them too. 


My writing evolved from my career as an actress and a love of language. I wrote this experimental sonnet for a creative writing degree module and it won the Canon Poets "Sonnet Or Not" competition in 2012. I had a strong childhood memory of my Grandpa Hughes and of my mother's deep love for him. At its heart, the poem is about family bonds and how we take strength from them in times of need.

Kathryn Alderman.

Never mind the rain ...

Weather apart, the week at Ty Newydd gets better and better. I spoke about the sense of privilege I feel at being here; in addition to the excellent quality of the tuition, I find I get such a lot from the other people encountered and worked with. There are eight of us on the course this time, each with our own area of interest. The personal writing projects we are pursuing are very disparate but all fascinating in their own ways. If you are free to listen to Radio 4 at 3pm this afternoon, you can hear one of our course members, Ursula Martin, discussing her project on "Ramblings".

Ursula was diagnosed with ovarian cancer five years ago and has since done an enormous amount of work raising awareness of the condition and money for research and care.To do so she has "walked Wales", completing 3718 miles in 538 days. Her routes have included Offa's Dyke Path, the Glyndwr Way, the Cambrian Way and the Rivers Conwy and Dee from source to sea. On these walks her website (onewomanwalkswales.com) informs us that she has fallen over 10 times and had 37 close encounters of the bovine kind! Now she is writing up her experiences as a book and hence is here with us for the week.

Yesterday evening has to count as a highlight of the week, with the visit of that most prolific and wide-ranging author Jan Morris as guest speaker. I had heard Jan speak before, on my visit here five years ago, but she was as interesting and entertaining as ever. What tremendous gifts, to be so blessed both as a speaker and as a writer! A thoroughly enjoyable evening.

Justin Marozzi, Jan Morris, Leusa Llewelyn, Rory Maclean

Croeso i Gymru! (Welcome to Wales)

After a busy weekend, including a lovely event reading with Penny Howarth and Carrie Etter on the penultimate evening of the Cheltenham Poetry Festival, I'm back in one of my favourite places in the world - Ty Newydd, the Welsh writers centre near Criccieth. It's my fifth visit here and I could never tire of the centre, the grounds, the fantastic surroundings; David Lloyd George (who lived in the house at the end of his life) is buried just across the lane on the banks of the River Dwyfor, there are sea views from the upstairs windows and the whole building seems to have absorbed the collective inspiration of the hundreds of
writers who have visited over the years. I always feel that it's an enormous privilege to be here.

Ty Newydd

River Dwyfor

The Goddess In Poetry

Another great day at the Festival - especially in the company of four goddesses! Or, more strictly speaking, four great poets who have written about goddesses of all complexions, from Persephone to Malala. Kathy Alderman, Louise Crossley, Jennie Farley and Frankie March held their audience spellbound at the Cafe Rouge - it was a really good event.

On a more down to earth note - I was very pleased last autumn when one of my poems was shortlisted for "Tools of the Trade", a poetry anthology that is given every year to each medical student qualifying in Scotland. The eight shortlisted poems are now up on their website at
http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poetry/tags/tools-trade-editors-selection 
I'm sure (especially in the current climate!) new junior doctors must have plenty of other things to think about, but hopefully some of the poems may help them reflect on aspects of their patient's lives from a slightly different perspective.

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 ..."