Spring

What a wonderful surprise to catch a few days of sunshine in London and this beautiful spring offering on Eel Brook Common. 

I managed to go to a poetry reading at the Royal Academy, based on the architectural exhibition Sensing Spaces, that's on at the moment. Called Wandering Words, it was Pop Up Poetry, a first for me, and the poets popped up all over the place. The problem was that they'd usually popped down again before I, and many others, could get to hear them. The acoustics didn't help and visitors to the exhibition were milling around chatting at the same time. The exhibition was spread between various rooms and some of the exhibits were mazes and passages, which made it even harder. I think it's a brilliant idea but I was disappointed as I'd gone especially to hear Tamar Yoseloff, Robert Peake and Helen Ivory, among others, and it was hard to find them. I'm afraid I gave up and left early.

Just before leaving Portugal, Visual Verse, http://visualverse.org/ asked me to write a poem for their March picture. It was fun to do, but my layout (postmodern apparently) didn't work on ipads/iphones so it looks a bit of a mess. Another lesson learnt ... stick to the left hand margin! I got a bit nervous when I received emails saying Tweets had gone out mentioning my name. I need to learn more about Twitter, although I love following people and it's a wonderful way to find out about poetry events, I'm ashamed to say I don't really know how to Tweet. Take a look at Visual Verse as the idea is wonderful and I'll certainly have another go next month.

This has been a busy few days and I was happy to achieve, at last, the poem I've been trying to write about the shell line at Shingle Street. (You are very lucky to get two pictures today).

It came about through as assignment with my Poetry School online course. This assignment was about Exploding Form. I chose a pantoum as it's the one form I really love and eventually, after days of fiddling around with words and formats, the poem seems to have pulled together and I'm happy with it. That is something I VERY RARELY say about my poems. I may not feel so happy after it has been critiqued.

I got back to Portugal last night with the sun in my wake, so let's hope winter has nearly gone.