Recently I had the great pleasure of being one of the poets reading for the launch for Lodestone Poets at Waterstones on Tottenham Court Road. It was a packed house as rightly so as the poets included Tamar Yoseloff, Steve Kendall, Mina Aiddo, Glyn Maxwell, Jacqueline Saphra and Mary Jean Chan. It was the day…
Category: #PoetryFriday
Friday poetry from Jacqueline Saphra and Happy Weekend
I’ve decided it’s time to get back to regular posts about weekend poetry reading. I’ve been doing the reading but not finding the time to mention it. This weekend I’m re-reading the truly wonderful sequence of sonnets ‘A Bargain with the Light’, which was one of my favourite books of 2017 and also chosen by…
Friday poetry from Helen Ivory and Martin Figura and Happy Weekend
This weekend I’m going to be reading Martin Figura’s latest, a pamphlet with illustrations by Caroline Wright and Helen Ivory’s Waiting for Bluebeard. I really enjoyed hearing them both read at Toddington Poetry Society on Tuesday. It was worth it even though my car ended up locked into the car park over the road. These…
Friday Poetry and Happy Weekend – Ritsos, Gebbie, Jenkins and Kinsella
I’ve been reading novels recently and it has been a while since I wrote about poetry reads so I’m glad to get back to it. I have three poetry books on the go at present; Diaries of Exile by Yannis Ritsos, Memorandum poems for the fallen by Vanessa Gebbie and Marine by Alan Jenkins and John Kinsella. It’s thanks to the…
Friday Poetry from Choman Hardi – Considering the Women
Today I’ve gone back to Choman Hardi’s Considering the Women.An important book with a central sequence of poems about the Anfal genocide of the Kurds in 1988 in which over a hundred thousand people were killed. I have heard her read twice at Aldebugh and in London at the Poet’s quest for peace. There are two…
Friday Poetry from Clare Best and Butcher’s Dog
I have a couple of items of poetry reading lined up for the weekend. The first is Clare Best’s poem, Cell, which will unfold into a cell with artwork by Michaela Ridgway. I’ve been saving this up until I had enough time to read it properly. I was going to describe this as a poetry…
Friday Poetry from Matt Merritt and Happy Weekend
I had the pleasure of introducing Matt Merritt at Ouse Muse this week and hearing him read from his two collections from Nine Arches Press. I had already browsed my way through The Elephant Tests and as so often happens have gone back to the poems with even more enjoyment through having the poet’s voice…
Friday Poetry by Becky Cherriman and Happy weekend
I’ve been busy for the last couple of Fridays with poetry related activities in Aldeburgh and North Wales so haven’t had a chance to share a Friday poet recently. I’ve come back from Wales with Becky Cherriman’s glorious Empires of Clay. It is so exciting to get my hands on this book. There is sometihng about…
Friday Poetry from John McCullough and Happy Weekend
If you haven’t already bought a copy of Spacecraft by John McCullough then I would urge you to do so without delay. I’ve been reading and re-reading it since it was published in the spring but because I’ve been busy recently what with the trip to France and writing some commissioned poems that it has…
Friday Poetry from Stuart McKenzie and Happy Weekend
This Friday is the launch of the first of Laudanum’s books, featuring the work of my fellow poet, Stuart Mckenzie. It also includes poems by Joey Connolly and Philip Terry. I pre-ordered the book and have had it for several weeks. I was so pleased to see Stuart’s work in print, having becoming familiar with…