National Poetry Day 2018

We celebrated National Poetry Day at NHSound today with the visit of three Monmouthshire poets, Ric Hool, Ann Drysdale and Angela Platt. The discussions and their readings were complemented by songs that were all based on poems - from Fairport Convention's "To Althea, From Prison" (from Richard Lovelace's poem of 1642) to Donovan singing Edward Lear's "The Owl And The Pussycat"! An interesting and an entertaining morning, with some fantastic poetry from our guests - many thanks to them for giving their time so freely.

I'm fascinated to read of the variety of events nationwide to celebrate National Poetry Day, which takes as its theme this year "Change". One event that particularly caught my attention was Her 100 Cerdd, the Literature Wales venture that involves four poets writing 100 poems in Welsh in 24 hours. To achieve the target the four of them - Manon Awst. Caryl Bryn, Morgan Owen and Osian Owen - will each have to come up with at least one poem an hour for every hour in the day. Challenging or what?! But it's apparently been done five times before so, if you're interested to see what they produce, check out the Literature Wales blog. And if you're doing something a little less ambitious to celebrate the day - enjoy it your way!

Readings in the rain

After a busy and at times rather difficult week following a family bereavement, I was really looking forward to the Ways to Peace Festival at Tintern Abbey at the weekend. And the event itself didn't disappoint - though the weather certainly did! If you know the Abbey ruins - where, as the custodian put it, "the sky is our roof" - you'll understand why Saturday's torrential rain made for a less than ideal setting for readings and meditations.

Friday evening, however, which started the Festival off with a "music for peace" event, saw a lovely sunset and a dramatic night sky. It was tremendously atmospheric sitting in the nave listening to the sublime music of Sir Karl Jenkins "The Armed Man" sung by Cor Caerdydd and the contributions of two quite magical women on harp and violin.

And at the Saturday event, despite the awful wind and downpours, it was very inspiring and very moving to hear the many ways in which local writers - their ages ranging from 13 to well into the 90s - had interpreted the "Ways to Peace" theme. Peace between nations, peace with the environment, inner peace - poems and prose reflections took us to many places and many times. A young woman reader, a Palestinian refugee who had grown up in camps in Syria, knew only too well the effects of strife. Her peace poems in particular moved me to tears; both she and they have stayed with me and will stay with me for a long while yet.

Over the hills and far away ...

A very busy couple of weeks with little time for writing - but quite a bit for thinking and planning. At the beginning of the month I had a few days walking the next stretch of the Wales Coastal Path - this time from Swansea to Llangennith, around the fabulous Gower coastline. The weather was kind to us and we tramped over clifftops, across beaches, through woods and farmland in warm sunshine; we've now completed 156 miles of the 882 total - so there's only another 726 to go! Should keep us usefully occupied for the rest of our retirement ...

But I've always found walking immensely liberating and inspiring; getting into a steady rhythm seems to simultaneously focus my mind and to free it. So I came back with plenty of ideas and enthusiasm. And being away also gave me some time to catch up on a pile of reading I've had mounting for a while. The message on Octavo's Bookshop wall in Cardiff when I popped in there seemed particularly apt -

Coming back brought the inevitable onslaught of daily life with a vengeance but also ushered in a few welcome activities, including the resumption of our Women For Woman poetry sessions in Hereford and a fascinating lunchtime talk in Penarth by the wonderful Owen Sheers about his poetry films Pink Mist, Green Hollow and To Provide All People. My guest on Thursday morning's NHSound programme proved very interesting too - the Caldicot writer Guy Farrish. If you haven't come across "Wolf!", his modern take on the old fairy tale about the three little pigs, do get hold of a copy - it's available on Amazon and makes for very entertaining (and, in the present climate, very pertinent) reading.

Previews of things to come

On September 6th the Wye Valley Writers will be launching their new anthology at the Chepstow Library and Hub, but we had a preview of its very varied contents on "The Writer's Room" on NHSound yesterday. Four of the group's members came along to talk about their writing, about the support a group can offer, about the stories behind their work. If you didn't catch the programme, do try to get to the launch evening (7pm with light refreshments and an open mic opportunity) - it'll be well worth going.

Karel Dewey and Angela Platt

Zina Pearce-Tomenius

This is the first year for many that I haven't been involved with the Gloucestershire Writers Network competition; my congratulations to the recently announced winners and runners-up, who will of course be reading at the Cheltenham Literature Festival in a few weeks time. I'm delighted to be reading at another event on the Festival, in the Holst Museum on Saturday October 6th, celebrating the composer's Planet Suite. I'm in very august company - with poets including Adam Horowitz, David Clarke and Anna Saunders - so I'm looking forward to it enormously. Tickets for the festival are on sale now. As always, there's a fantastic programme covering all aspects of literature - if only I had unlimited time and money, I know where I'd be spending ten days in October ...

Buses and bookshops

In interesting morning at NHSound last Thursday; Karenne Griffin, a writer from Pontypool, was my guest on "The Writer's Room", talking about her travel books "Bus Pass Holiday - A Short Circuit" and "Bus Pass Holiday # 2 - The Long And The Short Of It". In the peak of the holiday season it was a timely reminder that you don't have to go to far-flung places to see a different world, to meet new people, to widen your horizons. And those of us of a certain age and stage are lucky enough to be able to travel cost-free around our beautiful country! How fortunate we are. Karenne is also the author of two novels - "Beyond The Island" and "Return To The Island" - do check them out; some good holiday reading there.

I spent Sunday afternoon at Octavos Bookshop in Cardiff, relaxing in their great cafe and wine bar and listening to the Bristol poet Elizabeth Parker. The monthly readings and open mics there are well worth getting to - they're free, really welcoming and have some excellent visiting poets. Rhian Edwards will be there in November - something to really look forward to.  If you've not heard her before you can get a flavour of her work listening to her reading on YouTube; she has to be one of my favourite contemporary poets.

Shw'mae Caerdydd!

A great couple of days at the Eisteddfod in Cardiff. I've been learning Welsh (the language of my grandmothers and their forebears) for a year or so, though I'm not a natural linguist and progress has been slow. But the Eisteddfod was a great opportunity to listen and to practice, to enjoy and to play with the language; there was great encouragement for learners and being in such a vibrant, inclusive community has certainly spurred me on.

I spent hours - and a fair amount of cash - in the book tents. I was delighted to find several novels for beginners, proper adult ones; much though I enjoyed reading Fireman Sam and Spot the Dog to my children, I'd rather not have to read them in Welsh for myself now! And Thursday evening saw a tremendous concert with Pendevig - the whole evening in Welsh, no concessions for learners there, but with the music of that band no concessions are necessary!

Even the ice cream cones bore Y Draig Goch
(the Red Dragon)!

In Flanders Field

I've just come back from a fascinating four day trip to Belgium looking at the role of non-combatants (medical and nursing personnel and chaplains) in the First World War. I could certainly have done with the temperature being ten degrees cooler for standing in unshaded cemeteries and the exposed ploughed fields that had once held casualty clearing stations, but I certainly wouldn't have missed the opportunity to go to research the topic. A great deal to think about now and to follow up on for a project on which I'm just embarking.

Whilst I was away I was lent an original copy of the training manual used by the Royal Army Medical Corps at the time of the Great War. I was amazed at the breadth of subject matter covered - in fact, it didn't look that different from the syllabus I covered in my initial nurse training fifty years later! I was saddened to think though how Article 1 of the Geneva Convention - that "ambulances and military hospitals shall be acknowledged to be neutral and as such shall be protected and respected by belligerents so long as any sick or wounded may be therein" - was so blatantly disregarded by both sides (as indeed it is all too often in conflicts to this day). I visited the graves of many medical and nursing personnel killed on duty by shellfire or in air raids. A hundred years on, all of their stories still merit telling; how much we could learn if only we would listen.

On the grave of John McCrae, Canadian surgeon
and "In Flanders Field" poet