Stanza Group Poetry Reading

We had a great turnout for our Stanza Group poetry reading at the beautiful Déjà Lu bookshop in Cascais. The weather was horrendous with lashing rain and howling winds off the Atlantic, but we had a crowded room and it was a fun event. I'm already thinking about a venue for the next one. It needs to be bigger and it would be fun to combine it with music and art ...maybe?

I was in London last week and just blown away by Holly McNish at The Cadogan Hall. She is a wonderful poet and performer and reads with tremendous charm. She doesn't need to chuck in f-words to get attention, and I find her poems are sensitive and relevant.

I was also lucky enough to go to an editing workshop with Jane Commane of Nine Arches Press. I learnt more in those two hours than I thought possible and it was very valuable to me. So now to put it all to good use!

Super super-moon

We had a wonderful moon over Sintra except my camera is getting old and was unable to do it justice. The night before, I was in Lisbon on a beautifully warm evening. The sun was setting in a bright orange sky as the moon was just starting to rise over a new work of art by Joana Vasconcelos 'Pop Galo'.

On the poetry front I'm just coming to the end of Transreading Spain with The Poetry School, and it has certainly taken me out of my comfort zone but also stimulated my interest in poetry in translation. Yesterday, just by chance, a Portuguese friend from my stanza group translated a villanelle I had written a few years ago and sent it to me. It was so much more exciting in Portuguese! I don't know what that says about my version.

Next week I'm going to London for a few days and am going to a Self-editing workshop with Jane Commane at Free Word Centre. I also have tickets for Holly McNish Verse 1 at the Cadogan Hall. I heard Holly read at The British Museum for 'Alice' and have also been listening to her on Radio 4 and have become a great fan of hers!

I am now pushing the word around about our Stanza Group reading in Cascais on December 3rd and am sorting out my choice of poems. I hope it will be as successful as the last one which was great fun and very well attended.

The Hurst

Two weeks ago today I was in the middle of a wonderful Arvon course at The Hurst. The statue was the view out my window. We had a fabulous week with a fantastic group of poets, led by Helena Nelson and Cliff Yates. I chose this week because of the tutors and I wasn't disappointed. They gave so much of their time, created wonderful tasks for us and were so positive with their feedback and humour. The group worked brilliantly together and I wanted the week to go on for ever. It felt strange coming back into the real world and I'm still feeling a bit depressed to be dealing with mundane issues like food shopping and the next car service. I even started to wonder what it must be like to live in a community as a nun, so long as I wasn't the one on supermarket duty.

I'm now back in Portugal and our next Stanza meeting is on Saturday. We are all bringing poems that we think we'd like to read at our reading on December 3rd. I want to see if any themes emerge and think about how to orchestrate the event. For some of the audience it will probably be the first reading they have ever been to ... and they may ... just may ... think they don't like or understand poetry SO we have to choose our poems well.

Meanwhile I'm on two online courses with the Poetry School. One, Transreading Spain, I'm finding very challenging and I'm not quite sure I understand the latest assignment. I'm enjoying looking at Basque, Catalan and Galician poetry and it's good to be challenged, isn't it? So back to my books.

Not at The Poetry Book Fair!

I'm really disappointed not to have made it to The Poetry Book Fair. Paper Swans Press are using one of my poems (Through a Gap in the Hedge) in their goody bag. It would have meant just one flight too many and I would have had to fly there-and-back in a space of hours. I know it's impossible to do everything but I do miss a lot of wonderful poetry events in the UK. On a brighter note, I will be at The Hurst at the end of the month for an Arvon course and am really looking forward to it.

My blog has lapsed once again over the summer. I do try to keep writing, but family take centre stage and turn the house into a holiday camp in August.

I love the autumn and starting new things. I've just started a course with The Poetry School Transreading Spain, and start another next week Secrets and Lies. I think I would be lost without The Poetry School. I hope taking on two courses at once won't be too much. I just couldn't choose between the two so I went for both. I travel less in the winter so should have more time to concentrate on assignments.

I've just been checking what poems I have out and about at the moment. There seem to be 10 looking for homes. Some have been tied up since April which I think is too long. There are a lot of competitions and submission windows this month, and as a slow writer I have to choose carefully where to send my poems. 

I won't brood on The Poetry Book Fair but might sneak a peep at Twitter to see how it's going.

A moan about pamphlets

I love poetry pamphlets. They're like little gems of a poet's work and slip into a handbag or into a pocket in the car. I'm working on one of my own but have been advised that, like poems, I can only send to one publisher at a time. I sent my first effort into a pamphlet competition in December and the results were only announced in July. I find this too long to have work tied up. If only pamphlets were like novels and we could send them out to 20 different publishers at the same time. At the rate of one pamphlet every 7 months I'll be dead before I get one accepted. I think I have enough poems to put together two different pamphlets so at least I can have two looking for a home at the same time. With my organisational skills I could get into an almighty muddle.

This lovely package of books arrived in Sintra the other day. It was my prize from the Poetry Society for Suvaco do Cristo. I've been reading The Print Museum by Heidi Williamson and have read it twice so far as the poems are beautiful and clever. I think one of the joys of getting a parcel of books that you haven't ordered is that you get the chance to read books that maybe you would never have chosen. I am now thrilled to have discovered Heidi Williamson. I already have Jo Bell's wonderful book Kith so will give this new copy to a poetry pal. The other two books are waiting for me in the pile by my bed!

Suvaco do Cristo

Suvaco do Cristo

My poem Suvaco do Cristo (Christ's armpit) was one of the winners for the Poetry Society Members' Competition for the summer issue of Poetry News (Poetry Review). I'm delighted to have been chosen and loved writing the poem as it brought back so many memories of my years in Rio, an amazing place that will always be very special to me.

Another first, was a visit to Eel Pie Island for their open studios day. I just have to include a picture as it was such a wonderful place. I wonder what it's like to live there as I get the impression that it floods so I might have a hard time sleeping at night. I think that's just me trying not to admit that I would love to try spending time there and I'm sure it would be a great place to write.

London Open Garden Squares Weekend

I was delighted to find myself in London during the OGSW and managed to visit three gardens with resident poets. Diane Mulholland was nearby in Fulham and by fluke I arrived just as she was giving a reading. She had written some lovely poems based on her time in All Saints Fulham Vicarage Garden and on the history of the garden. 

I then jumped on a bus to Nevern Square, and again things were on my side as John Grant was due to give a reading in 15 minutes which gave me time to look around and read poems he had pinned to the trees. He had a small but appreciative audience who loved his poems and his humour.

John in his POET's T shirt

I wanted to meet Julia Bird as I think I must have clocked up more hours with The Poetry School online courses than most people. She was resident poet at Arundel & Elgin Garden in W11 near where I once lived, so I went there on Sunday afternoon. She was in a suitably

poetic bower, so camouflaged by greenery that I nearly missed her. Poems hanging from trees like wind chimes held the clue to her whereabouts.

I love the whole idea of gardens with resident poets and will certainly apply next year as I think it would be a fascinating experience.

Sissinghurst Castle

Last Friday I went to Sissinghurst Castle along with other poets included in Paper Swans Press beautiful pamphlet The Poetry of Roses. We read in the rose garden where the colours and scents were stunning. It was a privilege to be in Vita's gardens after the crowds had left. We were able to wander around and take it all in. Unfortunately the tower was shut, but I will definitely be back. I'd been wanting to visit Sissinghurst for years but never imagined it would be a poetry reading that would lead me there.

I went on up to Aldeburgh for a few days of the music festival and saw the amazing Illuminations, staged to Britten's song cycle Les Illuminations, inspired by Rimbaud's poetry. It was a wonderful spectacle, part circus part opera, and Britten's music was truly fabulous. I wouldn't have missed it for anything.

I do wonder what will happen in Aldeburgh for the weekend of the poetry festival. I'm keeping the date pencilled into my diary as I think it would be great to keep it going in some form or other and can see on Twitter that there is a movement in that direction.

...and away!

I flew back to London for a couple of days for the launch of The Chronicles of Eve at The Poetry Café where I read my poem 'Pear Shaped'. The anthology is beautiful - just look at the front cover here. I apologise for the background fabric which is not apt for this powerful collection. I read it cover-to-cover, on the way back to Portugal, and I think it's a wonderful and edgy collection of poems. Congratulations Paper Swans Press.

Home!

After 6 weeks in London helping to look after my mother I have, at long last, made it back to Portugal. The weeds have thrived, the house needs painting after so much rain and there hasn't been one viewing. I went into Sintra this morning to look for a tile panel to put at the front of the house to make it look more exciting. I went at 9.00 to beat the tourists but they were already pouring out of buses and running around with selfie sticks. Anyway I met a fascinating man who can paint anything I want on tiles. He took me to his mother-in-law's beautiful courtyard garden which had some wonderful antique panels. Sadly, mine will be new, but I chose what I wanted and was even organised enough to have the measurements with me.

For the first few weeks after my mother's fall there was no time or headspace for poetry. I had to drop out of the fabulous online course I was doing with Liane Strauss with The Poetry School as I just didn't have any time. I also cancelled the course I had enrolled in with Kathryn Maris, starting in May. For the first time my poetry mind went blank which was a horrible feeling but I eventually started to do some editing and the muse returned. I entered a competition by Paper Swans Press for poems on Roses at Sissinghurst and was very excited to be highly commended which means my poem will be in their Roses pamphlet, and hopefully read (by me!) at Sissinghurst in June. I've always said I don't write about flowers or love but I also wrote three poems for Emma Press for their anthology on Love. I await the results, but surprised myself by having great fun with these themes.

Poetry Review and Magma were waiting for me on my return so I have plenty to read and I'm also sifting through my latest poems to see which might work together in a pamphlet.

My tile panel will look a little like this one

Wonderland Ekphrasis

I was lucky enough to be in London for a reading of poems written specially for the Alice exhibition at The British Library. The poems were a wonderful and diverse collection and a lot of them were very humorous. Holly McNish had me in stitches. I didn't know her work at all but have now ordered a copy of her book 'Nobody Told Me'. It was a joy to hear Mona Arshi, Robert Seatter and Amali Rodrigo, among others. I was hugely impressed by how beautifully everyone read and it was wonderful to be in London and able to catch this event. I miss this kind of thing in Portugal.

Our Stanza group is going from strength to strength and we have found a beautiful venue for our next reading. We are still investigating but it is in a lovely second hand bookshop called DejaLu in Cascais. The bookshop is run as a charity to help the professional development of young people with Down's syndrome. It would be great to be able to raise funds and/or awareness at the event. We are in the early days of this plan and probably won't think of holding the reading until after the summer.

Meanwhile, I am spending longer in London than first planned, as my poor 96 year old mother fell over and broke her hip on Mother's Day. She is very feisty and progressing well. This morning she was attempting the Times 2 Crossword, 18 hours after her anaesthetic!

Workshop

Ruth O'Callaghan gave our Stanza group a wonderful workshop day in Estoril. For some of the group it was the first time they had ever done a proper workshop and we had a lot of fun. It was a long day, with hard work, but the energy was fabulous and Ruth worked magic.

I'm really happy to have had two poems chosen for And Other Poems which will be posted on Josephine Corcoran's poetry website on March 11th. I've also had a poem chosen to be published in Paper Swans Press new anthology, so I feel very lucky.

Yesterday I had a peek at Visual Verse's picture for February and it was very inspiring so I stuck to the rules and wrote a poem in an hour ... mind you, it's a very short one and could do with some editing, anyway it's up on their website which is great. I write very slowly so this was in record time for me. I love spring, as I have lots of energy and do a lot of writing. It may not be spring in England but it's certainly come to Portugal.

Commas

I hadn't realised that I had fallen into a bad habit of using too many commas in my poems. I never used to, so it has crept up on me over the months. Luckily Helen Ivory pointed this out to me in my last assignment for her course, and, I've been going back over some of my poems to see how bad the damage is. It's not looking good!

On that note, Happy 2016, and my resolution is to 'watch those commas'. I've put a big pink Stickie on by desktop to remind me. It sits next to a Stickie with advice from Jo Bell 'make the first line interesting'.

The picture is of wind chimes made of ceramic bells for sale at the market in Lyon where we had a few days just after Christmas. They were very magical and I regret not buying any. I thought they would probably break on the way home.

I read a beautiful poem the other day on Josephine Corcoran's blog And Other Poems, by Mark Totterdell called Leaf, which has inspired me to carry on ... I didn't know his work but will search further.

Apologies for the randomness of this post. I think it's because I'm trying to gather my thoughts after Christmas and also to get some order back into my life, with a busy few weeks ahead :-)