It's hard to imagine a more picturesque setting for a poetry reading than the Old English Garden in Battersea Park. Here, on Saturday and Sunday afternoon, I read some of my garden themed poems as part of Thrive's Chelsea Fringe Festival week of events. The weather was kind to me, with warm sunshine breaking through …
Category: reading
Melbourne, Berlin, London, Coventry & Beirut
Poetry can take you to many places. On Wednesday night we travelled to all these cities without leaving the discomfort of the Poetry Café's infamous orange plastic chairs. I was one of four invited readers at South Bank Poetry magazine's First Wednesday event, along with Norbert Hirschhorn, Peter Raynard and Amy McAllister. The time allotted …
Continue reading Melbourne, Berlin, London, Coventry & Beirut
baths, bananas, bluebells
If you ever doubted the variety of erotic expression, take a peek inside The Emma Press's Mildly Erotic Verse anthology. The expanded second edition was launched on Wednesday night upstairs at the Betsey Trotwood. Outside, it was pretty nippy. Inside, the gaggle of poets and poetry lovers was soon casting aside coats and basking in …
rhythm and balance
or balance and rhythm. Two key elements in any good piece of writing. And thinking about time, how I use it, how to structure it, I realise this is what I'm aiming for: rhythm and balance. I'm resistant to timetables. The word 'routine' gives me the horrors. But balance and rhythm — yes, these feel …
January poetry jamboree
Poets, it seems, don't hibernate. The first couple of weeks of 2016 have been jam-packed with poetry events and I've managed to squeeze in a few, despite a visit from the sinusitis fairy. My personal poetry fest kicked off before the new year, with two poems published in Ol' Chanty online. The issue also includes …
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, …
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 …
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!
devouring Barracuda
The book: Barracuda by Christos Tsiolkas Start time: Thursday 14th May approximately 11 p.m. Finish time: Sunday 24th May approximately 8:45 a.m. Number of pages: 513 This is fast for me. I'd wanted to read this for a while but it looked like a chunky novel and not one I could easily carry around with …
Notes on the Poetry of B.S. Johnson
On Wednesday evening we attended a free event at the Poetry Library discussing and celebrating the poetry of B.S. Johnson, who is better known for his experimental novels such as The Unfortunates. I'd prepared for the event by reading the selection of Johnson's poetry published in Penguin Modern Poets 25 (1975) - an old secondhand …
Hilaire 