Much to do at Much Wenlock

Victoria Field

Poetry events continue to come thick and fast. I was only able to make it for one day this year but, as always, the Much Wenlock Poetry Festival did not disappoint. This morning I was at a workshop run by the poetry therapist Victoria Field; having been on a course at Ty Newydd she had run a few years ago I knew it would be good. A quotation she used really struck a chord - that the therapeutic use of poetry should help with "healing the past, living the present, creating the future". That I shall keep very much in mind in my continuing work with older people in day and residential care.

This afternoon's workshop, entitled "Responses", was run by Gladys Mary Coles. Using poems by Mary Webb and Wilfred Owen as exemplars, we looked at the themes of remembrance, displacement, change and the human impact on the environment. Two hours is little time to get to grips with much concerted writing but I feel I certainly made a start on some work I'd like to pursue. Now - as always - it's a question of finding the time to do so!

A Stanza of Poets

I'm not sure what the collective noun is for a group of poets but I quite like "stanza"! And what a great stanza we had last week up in Cumbria. A diverse group, with very different writing styles but so interesting - and most encouraging to a fledgling like myself. Kim Moore and Jennifer Copley made excellent tutors, certainly working us hard (in fact, it felt like coming home for a rest on Friday!) but pushing forwards to get the most possible out of our five days together.

...and the sun shone on the righteous!

 We had the benefit too of a visit by two guest poets on the Wednesday evening. Carole Coates  (who was described by Peniless Press as "sharp and not to be messed with") read from "Swallowing Stones", her sequence of fictional monologues from the chilling world of Kor - quite an electrifying experience. Andrew Forster, the literature officer with the Wordsworth Trust, made good on his comment that "poetry should surprise" - I really enjoyed his work. I'm trying to resist the temptation to buy yet more poetry books but his pamphlet "Digging", so fantastically illustrated by Hugh Bryden (Roncadora Press), was a must.

Now, after a week of "Encounters" - with the landscape (see below), art, the past, the body and the dead - copious scribblings and the planting of many seeds, it's down to some work on it all here. Thank you so much, Kim and Jenny - I'm definitely signing up for next year!

Dawn over Morecambe Bay

Wandering with Wordsworth

Abbot Hall Hotel

... though his daffodils are past their best here now. But I have rarely seen the Lake District in such lovely sunny weather - long may it last! A beautiful day today at Kents Bank, just outside Grange-over-Sands, a comfortable place to stay and excellent company on the five day poetry course I've come for - two highly experienced tutors and twelve enthusiastic and very talented participants. I think I shall learn a lot this week.

Putting pen to paper

Jenny Lewis at Oxfam

Enough of listening to other people's work - time to get back to doing some of my own! But how much we learn from reading / hearing what others are writing; over the period of this year's Poetry Festival I feel I've learned a lot. Last Tuesday I heard Professor Charles Bennett from Northampton reading some of his excellent verse and was really inspired; on Saturday I was compere at the event for writers of the Worple Press and could have listened all day to their exceptionally talented and very varied poetic voices. The last event on the Festival I attended was "Taking Mesopotamia" with Jenny Lewis, in which she discussed her research into the WW1 service of the father she never knew and the poetry that grew from her findings - a fascinating story, especially at a time when I am pursuing my own family history, partly through poems.

So it's pen to paper again here, with a lot of new ideas but plenty of work still to do on outstanding projects. Next Monday I'm off to Cumbria for a four day writing course led by poet Kim Moore - I haven't met her but she comes highly recommended! Before that I really need to make some progress and tick off at least a couple of items on the "To Do" list ....

Poems, poems and more poems ......

                          

                

Hardly time to breathe between events! On Friday evening I was Event Manager for "The Quiet Compere" and her readers at Copa - a very interesting programme on "A Matter Of Life, Death and Poetry". I was especially impressed by Sarah Maxwell, Sam Gugliani and Rosie Garland - a microbiologist, an oncologist and an expert patient in other existences but fantastic poets in this context. I really enjoyed their contributions.

Yesterday was my "Dylan Thomas day". A lifelong fan, I was very much looking forward to the lecture by Professor John Goodby of Swansea University and was not disappointed. He gave a fascinating talk, concentrating very much on the substance of the poetry rather than the man (although I doubt if it's actually feasible to seperate them completely) and looking at why it has been out of academic favour for some time. In the evening Peter Read performed his very moving one man play "Dylan's Last Journey" at the Everyman - what a shame there wasn't a larger audience to share such a well-researched and written piece of theatre.

And today saw "Myth, Memory and Music" with Jennie Farley, David Clarke and Chris Hemmingway - such an enjoyable event, with poems recalling everything from the glamour and romance of the 1930s ballroom to the pop songs of the 80s and "Elvis Presley's Other Daughter"! A great way to spend a Sunday lunchtime.

David Clarke, Jennie Farley and Chris Hemmingway at Oxfam

Writing and Researching

An interesting day. This afternoon Somewhere Else, my writing group, was invited to spend some time with the author Judith Cranswick who talked us through her experience of independent publishing. It's an avenue that several of us are planning to pursue and it was very useful to hear of tried and tested approaches, the pitfalls to avoid and sources of help with the practicalities.

"Whose hair I wear I loved most dear" - mourning jewellry

I'm also much enjoying my Exeter University course "Writing Memoirs and Family History". Quite apart from the course material and the input from our tutor, Cherry Gilchrist, it's so useful to read and consider the contributions of the other students and to learn from them. At present I'm working on some research into the life of my great grandmother, Elizabeth Morgan. For a variety of reasons, she's proving a difficult customer - disappearing from the records for years on end - but I do know the colour of her hair! In fact, I have a plaited lock of it, incorporated in the reverse of this brooch, which her daughter, my grandmother, left motherless at the age of five, wore faithfully every day of her life. Researching such Victorian mourning jewellry has been fascinating; there's a large display of it at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford that's well worth visiting..

Overdosing on poetry

Can you overdose on poetry?! Not if it means a lot to you. But the next fortnight certainly sees a hefty slice in Cheltenham, with a Festival packed day after day with poetry and poets of every flavour you could wish for. The last couple of days have given a preview of what's to come and I've felt really privileged to take part.

On Wednesday evening I was reading at Francis Close Hall at the University of Gloucestershire in "The Ides Of March"; for me, something completely different! My first time performing against a background of improvised music and film. At one stage I was reading from a lectern at the head of the aisle in the university chapel when a stream of multi-coloured ping-pong balls bounced down the chancel steps and appeared around my feet! A whole new experience ....

Then yesterday saw our Picaresque debut at the Festival, a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon. We had a  wonderfully receptive audience in the intimate setting of Tailors Pub in Cambray Place and were delighted to be so well received.

When the Festival proper gets underway on Friday I shall be helping out as event manager for some of the gigs. Whilst I'm really looking forward to those, I'm especially pleased to be running poetry appreciation sessions in elderly care facilities - Cleeve Hill Nursing Home, Springbank Day Centre, Bay Tree Court independent living apartments and Nazareth House; I did an early one last week at Charlton Kings Luncheon Club. The Poetry Festival is for the whole community and it's great to think that we can take poetry to people who simply couldn't get to the formal events and to make them feel part of it.