The new Northern Line extension from Kennington to Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station opened this morning. I've lived in Battersea for a long time, and for most of that time I never thought the mooted tube line would arrive, so I was not going to miss this historic day. The first tube out of …
Continue reading Tube now arriving at Battersea Power Station station
I'm happy to have a poem included in a new anthology, Words of Wandsworth, edited by Emily Zinkin, and supported by Wandsworth Libraries and Heritage Service and Moishe House. The anthology includes poems, short stories, art and photography by Wandsworth residents, with each contribution featuring an aspect of the borough of Wandsworth in some way. …
June was a busy and rewarding month for me. The Wandsworth Heritage Festival, postponed from last year, kicked off at the end of May, and on the third of June Joolz Sparkes and I gave an online reading from our co-authored poetry collection London Undercurrents. We'd chosen poems that related in one way or another …
The Battersea Society would normally host a Twelfth Night supper at a local restaurant on the sixth of January. But these are not normal times. Instead, the Society's events committee invited me to give a poetry reading on Zoom at 6pm for about half an hour. I was delighted to have been asked, but also …
. . . and here it is - the advent window Luke Walker and I have created for the Nine Elms Advent Window Trail. Our window officially 'opened' at 5pm today and I'm very excited to share it. Please enjoy a virtual chocolate 🍫 in celebration. You can read more about the background to this …
The Nine Elms Advent Calendar launches today, an initiative organised by the Nine Elms Arts Ministry, following on from their inaugural Advent Window trail last year. Back then, when we could all huddle together outside sipping mulled wine and singing carols, there was a grand unveiling each evening of a new window over the 24 …
Fanfare!! Here it is, the fruit of my collaboration with the artist Stephen Graham, an A5 booklet of haiku and tanka written under lockdown. The poems draw on observations from my second-floor window of minute changes and fleeting interactions. Stephen has created a new script inspired by a book of St Cuthbert's held in the British …
When Wandsworth Heritage Service's Archivist asked if I would answer a few questions about the community garden I'm involved with, as part of a series of 'Archives at home' blog posts, I was happy to oblige. Read on to find out my favourite, and least favourite, gardening tasks... This fortnight would have been the Wandsworth …
Continue reading Archives at home, part 15 — Wandsworth Heritage Service
Recently I've been working on a collaboration, indoors looking out, with the artist Stephen Graham, and I'm delighted that some of our work has been selected for the online exhibition Covent-19 - Voicing Responses Under Lockdown. You'll be able to view the exhibition on Instagram from 8th May to 5th June. The collaboration began on the eve …
I woke up yesterday morning thinking about National Poetry Day, which is next Thursday 3rd October. I'm going to a reading the night before, but had nothing planned for the day itself, and wasn't aware of anything happening locally. And then I thought why don't I do something myself? Something that wouldn't take too much …
Hilaire 