WENLOCK POETRY FESTIVAL

The first words at this year's Wenlock Poetry Festival will be from Shropshire Poets - Beverley Fry, Deborah Gaudin and me.  I haven't met Deborah yet.  Looking forward to it - and to the first session on Friday 29th April 2011 in the Priory Hall, Much Wenlock at 1.00pm. 

Wenlock Well

Should be a wonderful weekend with more Poets laureate than you can shake a stick at.  Saw an article somewhere asking what the collective noun for poets laureate is.  Answers please?  Anyway, in the old days a poet laureate was in the job for life, but now it's almost a temping job.  And with Birmingham having a new one every year, well, they're practically commonplace!
Offa's Poets are on Saturday 30th April from 1.00 to 2.00 and I'll be performing River Passage with live music by Dan Phelps. It'll be the first outing for Nick Pearson's new collection, too.  Not to be missed.
On Sunday there are more poets writing about Shropshire in the shape of Paul Francis, Miriam Obrey, Nadia Kingsley and Emma Purshouse.  They're at the Priory Hall from 4.00pm.
And don't forget Barry Tench, Mark Niel, the poetry slam and Paul Evans.
The poets laureate can look after themselves - give the locals a go.  (What's a local poet anyway?)
For details http://www.wenlockpoetryfestival.org/


Much Wenlock from near Wenlock Edge



World Book Morning has broken

An early start to get to Burton-on-Trent station for around 7.45am on Thursday 3rd March, World Book Day.
Half-asleep train travellers were pleasantly surprised to find an author and two librarians giving books out on the platform at that time of the morning. Well, most of them were. Others thought there must be a catch - nobody gives stuff away these days, do they? One of the workers repairing the bridge took a copy of David Beckham's autobiography, a traveller with a bandana thought it was a great idea, but tussled with his conscience so long that his train came and he left empty-handed. A party heading for a tour of the breweries of Europe took a couple of mild comedies and a bitter satire. 'Do you want the books back?' they asked. No, for once there were no return dates on the inside covers. You could leave the books on the train, take them home or pass them on to someone else to read.
Thanks to Paul Tovell and Joan of Staffs Libraries for looking after me - and to the thoughtful station manager at Burton who thawed us out with hot tea!

CATCH THESE IF YOU CAN...

Sunday 11th July. Offa's Press will be at the last day of the Ledbury Poetry Festival. I will be performing River Passage from 2pm to 2.15pm with live backing on the piano from Dan Phelps in the Festival Common Room.
Emma Purshouse will be on from 12.15 to 12.30 and Jane Seabourne from 3.45 to 4.00. Simon Fletcher will be giving the Offa's Press Editor's talk from 10.15 to 10.45. All in the Festival Common Room, Ledbury.

Thursday 29th July. As part of the Shrewsbury Summer Season, Offa's Press will be at Theatre Severn, Shrewsbury at 7.30pm including a live performance of River Passage and great sets as always from Jane and Emma.

Saturday 28th August. Offa's Press will be performing in Bridgnorth Library, Listley Street from 4pm as part of Bridgnorth Music and Arts Festival 2010.

Thursday 2nd September. I will be at Bridgnorth Library, Listley Street from 6pm onwards to talk about my novels and to chat about more or less anything to do with reading and writing. This is also part of the Bridgnorth Music and Arts Festival 2010.

SUNNY SATURDAY AT MORVILLE

Last Sunday I did an outdoor performance of River Passage and a few of my other poems as part of a fund raising event for the next Wenlock Poetry Festival. Dan couldn't be there (see link below) to provide the piano music backing so it was down to the piano-only CD again. I was in excellent company. Gabrielle Drake read from The Morville Hours by Katherine Swift, and there were readings from Paul Henry, Rosie Bailey, Mark Niel, Kamina Banga and Imtiaz Darka - all in the lovely surroundings of the Dower House gardens at Morville, near Bridgnorth.

Loads of fresh strawberries were eaten with cream and there was fizzy pink stuff in glasses. The audience shirked in the shade of the trees and bushes while the poets strutted their stuff in the sun. Thanks to all friends for attending and to Nadia Kingsley for these photos which capture the day and the atmosphere so beautifully.

River Passage is now available as a CD with music by Dan Phelps. It's one of the first three productions from the brand new West Midlands poetry press Offa's Press.

KITES AT SWANAGE

I JUST LOVED THIS photo of Sonia trying to fly a Chinese kite at the very end of August. One of those idyllic days in Dorset, this strange summer that was supposed to be full of sunny days that somehow failed to materialise.

The kite was my present from China. It looked wonderful and caused quite a few stares, but was almost impossible to control. It took off from the packaging, an endless string of connected lantern-shapes that wanted to be off over the sea like a flock of birds. It reminded me of St Ives - those colours, the wind whipping up the white caps.

It was all so much easier in Beijing apparently. The salesmen made it look easy, but the spars turned out to be little more than strips of bamboo, the fabric was tissue paper and the string thinner than cotton.

Afterwards we bundled the tangled remains into the car boot. We'd sort it out later. But the knots were tight and tiny and the cotton intractable. Maybe it was only meant to fly once. It did its job joyfully, like the tail end of summer.

Readers' Group

A readers' group is a ruthless killing machine.

The readers' group where I work gave its verdict on Box of Tricks this week. They'd had the book for about six weeks so there'd been plenty of time to absorb it and while there's normally some gossip in the corridors of mirth about the book under consideration, this time there was none - or at least none in my hearing. The noisy members of the readers' group clammed up when they saw me approaching. Their whispers fell to silence.

What were they plotting? Had they thrown Box of Tricks across the room in anger? They preferred to wait until Thursday lunch-time before saying anything. Torture.

Well, of course they were OK about it. They liked it, they said. The characters were vivid, the plot kept them interested. Maybe they were only saying that because I was sitting there. They didn't want to hurt my artistic sensibilities. Probably they'd orchestrated their response beforehand in one of those focus groups. There might have been another meeting - to which I wasn't invited - where they'd said what they really thought.

When does a book take on its proper identity? What do I care? They told me it was OK. That's all that matters.

Thanks...

Well, I haven't been a good blogger. But today I checked and found I have some followers. So, dear blog-followers thank you for being patient. I'm humbled. As my last blog entry was in January that is super-patient.

Today I did a reading as part of Birmingham Artsfest with Mez Packer. Thanks to Mez, too, for a good chat and great advice and for mentioning me on her blog on http://www.mezpacker.co.uk/

You must read her novel, Among Thieves, published by Tindal Street Press in March. Her reading from it today was brilliant.

And you can vote for my new novel, Box of Tricks during September in the fiction section of the People's book prize. It's on http://www.peoplesbookprize.com/ I have a bit of catching up to do, so every vote will count...

I'll try and be a better blogger in future.