Another Year

Crib figures by Lulu Lockhart

Last night trees, cribs and decorations came down, not mine as I'm not very good at putting them up in the first place. The Portuguese can be very superstitious about leaving decorations up after 12th night. Usually I don't look forward to another year but this time I'm happy to dive into 2017. Maybe it's something to do with the wonderful sunshine we've been having in Portugal or the satisfying feeling of sorting out all my 2016 poems and opening a new file called 'New Poems 2017'. I wonder what will be in there by the end of the year.

I have no real resolutions except I've started Jo Bell's 52 project https://fiftytwopoetry.wordpress.com/ and will try to write a poem a week for as long as possible. I didn't let myself look at the first exercise until January 1st and I'm not looking ahead. I think it's more fun to be unprepared and it certainly makes the writing more spontaneous. The same way that I enjoy the picture prompts by Visual Verse and the one hour window to write a poem in - http://visualverse.org/

My reading is so random that I'm going to make a list on this blog of the books I read. I'm interested to keep track of how much I read. Looking at my shelves and my Kindle it's a lot but I have a terrible habit of dipping in and out of about 4 different poetry books at the same time. Maybe it's okay for poetry so not such a bad thing.

I've been checking out Poetry Festivals and wondering if I can fit any of them into my travel plans. I think I'd like to go to Ledbury as it looks wonderful and also back to Aldeburgh. I missed it last year and really regretted it. If I lived in the UK I would go to them all!

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.