Launches here and there

 A lovely evening on Saturday saw a really good turnout for the launch of the two pamphlets whose authors had won the Cheltenham Poetry Festival Frosted Fire First Pamphlets competition last year. I had heard David Lukens reading with the Brokenborough Poets a few years ago and was very taken by his work then, but I hadn't come across Lee Potts before. One Brief Wave and A Drought Will Follow will definitely be on my reading list now. And I was delighted that my ex-Somewhere Else colleague, Iris Anne Lewis, was shortlisted for this year's award.

Also published this week, but in the States, was Voices of the Grieving Heart, an anthology edited by Mike Bernhardt, in which I have two poems. Nearly 30 years ago Mike turned to poetry after the sudden death of his young wife and a first edition of this book came out in 1994. The universal experience of loss and bereavement seen over the last twelve months however prompted him to bring out this second edition; in it 83 contributors speak movingly of many different manifestations of grief and healing in poetry, essays and images. All the profits from the sale of the book will go to the Institute of Poetic Medicine which does such tremendous work in promoting the therapeutic use of poetry in some very diverse settings. 

Looking forward

Time seems to have taken on some strange characteristics in lockdown - sometimes crawling, sometimes flying, then disappearing without a trace. Suddenly it's Easter, Spring has sprung (or at least it had yesterday, though today it may have changed its mind ....). But seeing the first bluebells in the woods yesterday certainly brought a sense of better things to come.

Over the last few weeks I've taken part in several interesting workshops and a couple of on-line launches (an especially enjoyable one last night with my Women Aloud colleague Belinda Rimmer, whose pamphlet with Stroud Poets has just been published). But I'm now itching to get back to face to face events! A year on Zoom has certainly kept us all in touch but nothing beats actually being at a reading, feeling the energy, the creativity engendered in a workshop. And I'd dearly love to resurrect a couple of projects currently sitting on the back burner - parked there pro tem until various archives reopen and I can finish the requisite research.

But a couple of new projects are emerging too, about which I'm quite excited. One involves the setting up of a new local radio station, writing and commissioning broadcastable material for a variety of programmes. I've always enjoyed radio work and really look forward to the challenges that venture will bring. Another centres on a possible collaboration with two other life writers and could be very productive. The writing life is certainly never a boring one!