Gardens and gardening have been a bit of a them this year. There was the Poetry School's Mixed Borders scheme, which didn't quite work out for me, and my continuing involvement with my local community roof garden. That involvement always felt rather timid and tentative to me, all tied up with my own insecurities and …
Category: London
this rose
This rose knows nothing about Paris, Raqqa, global pain. This rose is silent. It is a wordless song of colour and perfume. This rose is not aware of climate change. It blooms when it is ready. Mid November - why not? This rose grows on a rooftop in Battersea. When the garden is shut it …
not at Aldeburgh
It's the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival this weekend. Anyone who is Anybody in the Poetry World will be there. Or most of the Somebodies, anyway. I imagine. I'm not there. I'm not going. I have been to Aldeburgh - for the music festival, a couple of years ago. But the Poetry Festival clashes with my birthday, …
rounding off Mixed Borders
On Thursday evening there was a reading to celebrate the Mixed Borders scheme run earlier this year by the Poetry School in association with the Open Garden Squares Weekend. I've written previously about the scheme which, for most poets, led to a mini residency in a London park or garden in mid June. Over the …
post Poetry Book Fair stocktake
Yesterday I went to the Free Verse Poetry Book Fair and came home with: One free notebook - thank you, Poetry School! Two bookmarks Three business cards Three anthologies, including the free, chunky, Free Verse Poetry Book Fair anthology Four collections Nine free postcards Ten pamphlets, including the full set of four Telltale Press pamphlets …
High-flying Hilda
Yesterday morning I joined a small crowd on Vardens Road, SW11, for the unveiling of a Battersea Society plaque honouring Hilda Hewlett. Hilda who? Only the first British woman to gain a pilot's licence, back in 1911, aged 47. And an extremely enterprising woman, who opened a flying school in Weybridge with her French business …
immigrant is not a dirty word
I am an immigrant. Have you heard of this campaign? Have you seen the posters? What an urgent and vital voice it seems at the moment. I am an immigrant too. I was born and grew up in Australia. I lived in Melbourne until my early twenties when I decided to move to London. My …
strong stuff
Clothes can change your state of mind. Imagine you live in late Victorian times. You are in a state of extreme mental distress, and have been admitted to Bethlem Hospital. Perhaps you believe your soul has been lost, or all your organs have been removed, or some great harm is imminent. Early in your stay, …
In print again, reading again!
If you're in or near London, it would be great to see you at the South Bank Poetry issue 21 launch this Friday. The editors promise a bit of a 'coming of age' party!
Fourth of July vigil for Shaker Aamer
Yesterday, it was hot and sunny in London. Yesterday, millions of US citizens celebrated Independence Day. Yesterday, Shaker Aamer endured another day held without charge in Guantanamo Bay, denied his most basic human rights, shackled, force-fed, kept in solitary confinement; trapped in a grim Kafkaesque legal no-man's-land where he has been cleared for release for …
