This blog post was going to begin with welcoming the warmer more summery weather and the chance to get out and about but we’ve had heavy rain for the last couple of days and the temperature has dropped.
Nonetheless I have been on various writing and poetry excursions recently with more planned for June and July.
First I’d like to mention the wonderful Westbury Arts Centre in Milton Keynes and the ‘Time to Write’ sessions hosted by writer in residence, Karen Littleton. In return for a modest fee you can spend the whole of a Sunday afternoon writing in the drawing room with plentiful supplies of tea and cake. There is something magical about giving yourself permission to write and by the end of the last session I had five poems, a new poem and revisions of four others.
I was back at Westbury last Thursday for the May soiree, listening to Heart Strings and being won oer by their playing, particularly Karl Jenkins Palladio. Four of us including Karen shared our poems with an attentive audience and the evening ended with The Sofa Ensemble, who brought the house down.
I have another reading coming up on 15th June at the City Pride pub near Farringdon with Katy Evans-Bush and members of her Thursday Advanced Poetry workshop.
Meanwhile I’ve been reading Poems of the Great War a handy pocket sized book for the War and Literature readalong.