Stage Fright

Yesterday I did a Voice Day with Susan White who is a drama teacher and voice coach. It was a revelation to me; she taught us with great humour, how to breathe, relax, shout and, above all, read aloud with confidence, putting colour into even the driest piece of text. I can make Credit Derivatives sound like a rose garden! I'm going to arrange a one-to-one session with her as it helped me enormously with my confidence for reading poetry. By the end of the day we were all enjoying reading to the others and we had improved beyond recognition. Thank you Susan!

Aldeburgh Poetry Festival

Just discovered I've got all the tickets I ordered for the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival. I'm going to sharpen my pencil to get ready for workshops and readings and put on my running shoes, as I'm going to lots of events in different venues all over Aldeburgh...can't wait. I'll write all about it...
Meanwhile the house is in chaos as I get ready for the start of my MA on October 10th and for my first poetry workshop on October 6th. I have 12 people coming to the workshop which I'm happy with. I'm looking forward to being able to talk poetry with other writers. Meanwhile I'm off to the UK for a drama workshop and I've sneaked in a writers' workshop at Kettle's Yard in Cambridge where I'm going for a few days to stay with my son and family to help with their new baby.

Sonnets

I'm interested in trying to write a crown of sonnets. As I like to write in free verse I wonder if I'll have to call it a crown of 14 liners instead. I'm going to research whether a sonnet really, absolutely, has to rhyme. I've just ordered Tony Harrison's Selected Poems to see if his School of Eloquence sequence of sonnets can give me some answers. That Amazon one click is lethal!

Letters

Had a productive meeting last night with one of my creative writing groups. A member had written a fascinating poem that she'd written using a collection of letters from a friend who was sailing the high seas. It filled me with ideas about some of the letters I have going back to my teenage years. With email, such valuable resources are vanishing.

I have 100's of my mother's poetry books, all of them stuffed with notes and messages. I'd like to research them for a poem but they will take a lot of sorting out, especially as the books are in London and I'm in Portugal. I have visions of Keats twinned with a note such as buy sausages...not very poetic!

Casa Das Historias

This morning I gave myself a treat and went to the Paula Rego museum in Cascais...I go there a lot and I always find it inspirational. Paula's work always stirs up my imagination in the way that Selima Hill's poems stir up my language. I know I'm lucky to have it so nearby and also that it's completely free!

Lists

I've been looking at list poems and trying to write one as wishes granted to a new baby... from a fairy godmother, but, being winter-aconite, there has to be a twist. Must avoid the homespun at all costs!

Twitter

I haven't tweeted yet but am following some great websites such as The Poetry School, Arvon, The Poetry Society and Magma. It's fantastic to get such up-to-the-minute news especially as I feel a bit cut off here in Portugal.
There seems to be a bit of a buzz about my poetry workshops starting in October. Quite a lot of surprise from people who never knew I wrote. I suppose I could be considered as a closet poet. The reactions make me laugh 'You write poetry!'  Followed by raised eyebrow (one only), and a rearrangement of limbs.