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6 Oct

amaatk123's avatarBorn Again Swindonian

Swindon Festival of Poetry 2014 – Sunday 5th October

Well. What a profound, powerful, personalised poetic jamboree that was. I’m not sure I have the words to do it justice but I’ll do what I can. I am speaking listeners of the double bill of offerings that took place today at the Museum and Art Gallery in Old Town.  In all honesty I went primarily to listen to Mike Pringle – as I know him personally from having had some involvement with the Richard Jefferies Museum over the summer. But as I had nothing special to do today and the double bill was a bargain price I figured I might as well do both and I’m very glad I did.

I can’t lie and pretend that poetry is my very favourite thing. Much like folk and country and western music there’s elements that I find interesting and affecting but overall it’s…

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Squandermania with Don Share and Barry Andrews at the Swindon Festival of Poetry

4 Oct
Don Share, editor of Chicago-based Poetry magazine, with musicians at Swindon Festival of Poetry
Event compere Sam Loveless

I guess the obvious question is: did I manically squander my evening last night? So I won’t ask that.

The music was very Cinematic Orchestra / The Free Association (David Holmes) – sinister moody-style jazz travelling from 1970s Shaft to Lemon Jelly.
And Don Share, editor of Chicago-based Poetry magazine, recited to the music.

Continue reading →

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Imagined Sons with Carrie Etter at the Swindon Festival of Poetry

4 Oct
Carrie Etter

Carrie Etter

Quite an emotional day yesterday, beginning with Robert Peake and then Carrie Etter. Not to mention the film There is Nothing in the Garden with its toy babies in toilets on day one of the Swindon Festival of Poetry.

Carrie read from her third collection, Imagined Sons. It’s a surreal package of work about ongoing life trauma / serious stuff to work through about giving her son up for adoption at the age of seventeen.

Poetry might be wonderfully cathartic to write but it’s also an invitation to talk openly about traumatic subjects. I had no compunction in talking afterwards to both Carrie and Robert about both their losses knowing that it was almost certainly okay. There isn’t the embarrassment of the unknown, of how they would like me to act, the worry of causing emotional upset – I already had a heads up on where their heads are at. Continue reading →

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The Knowledge of The Silence Teacher – Robert Peake at Swindon Festival of Poetry

3 Oct
Not sure when I’ll be strong enough to read this
Robert Peake

Robert Peake came out quietly swinging, a fist in a cotton wool glove, and delivered his knockout blow.

About three lines into his poem, Father-Son Conversation, I was sniffing and concentrating REALLY hard on getting the highlights and shadows right on the photo I’d just taken. Okay so he had caught my weakness – with an eighteen month old the hormones are still somewhat surging – so his tale of a baby boy who didn’t make it (seven years in the telling) made me weep.

Sometimes poetry makes straight for my veins and converts my blood to emotion. Continue reading →

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Surprising yourself with Cliff Yates at the Swindon Festival of Poetry

3 Oct
A certain rock star and Milo
Something not yet fully formed and may never be

I guess the most surprising thing about this poetry writing session was that I managed to write four pieces.

I wasn’t surprised about the range of poetry written by people – some wonderful, some in need of work, Cliff offering advice. We were asked: who would we like to be? Where did we visit? Who was the surprising guest? And: there is/are plenty of – what in my house? We were prompted to observe and record the surprising details to bring alive our verse.

I am always worried (but not surprised) at a smile response at my work. That says: yep, that doesn’t stir any emotion, or, sorry what were you saying? It was so boring I forgot it instantly. I could interpret it as: ‘that’s perfect as it is’. But that wouldn’t get me anywhere. Next time perhaps I’ll write something really atrocious and see what happens. Or maybe that smile is the ‘really atrocious’ response?

Neuroses aside, I am left with a question. Surprisingly for me I was reticent to talk. I looked around the room, at the quality of poets present, and felt I would waste everyone’s writing time if I asked why the poem Cliff had read to us by way of example, was actually a poem. Don’t get me wrong, I loved it, but it looked like flash fiction with really short lines. Answers on a postcard.

Props to Cliff though – prompts and space to write. Suggestions to do your own thing. Not expectations of form or the such like. And a top piece of advice for newly scribed work? Lose the last two lines.

And for anyone who’s interested, here’s one inspired by the surprising visitor. Totally true, y’all:

The Morning After

There we were
Lying around, pyjama clad
Fuggy voiced
Toxic sweat.

The phone rang. ‘Sorry I couldn’t make it last night.
Could I take you up on the offer of coffee? It’s Peter, your neighbour.
Can I come now?’
A brief pause. Sticky sweat trickles. ‘Okay.’
He asks: ‘Do you have fags?’ Continue reading →

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I rejected Harold Pinter – the Editor’s Role, Swindon festival of Poetry

3 Oct
David Caddy and Martin Malone

David Caddy and Martin Malone

Yesterday, David Eddy was discussing the Editor’s Role with fellow poetry editor, Martin Malone. It began innocently enough. Lots of helpful tips to poets, looking at improving their publication chances.

‘Nurturing’ and ‘nourishing’ were bandied about. Don’t publish in haste, not while you’re working through the strokes. Develop as a poet, don’t write the same old thing over and over. Make it strange. Don’t do creative writing courses and become a clone.

“I take poems on their own merits,” said David. Which sounded encouraging. He publishes work with the poet’s name at the end, not at the start so readers aren’t influenced by the fame of the writer.

But then the ‘Tears in the Fence’ editor dropped the bomb. “I rejected Harold Pinter,’ he said. Continue reading →

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Don Share bonds with Dog at the Swindon Festival of Poetry

2 Oct
Don Share

Don Share

After a welcome tea, hearty Lower Shaw Farm style, festival organiser Hilda Sheehan introduced her poetry hero, clutching a bag.

The contents included a mug (for copious tea) and soap. The latter wasn’t a comment on Hilda’s personal hygiene; Don Share – the bearer of the gifts – was mindful that Hilda is a long time avid listener of his podcasts, in the bath.

It was an internet romance that brought Don, editor of Poetry magazine, from Chicago to Swindon. Don, Hilda and Michael Scott bonded on Facebook over a love of band XTC in the seductive form of Swindon resident, Barry Andrews and, Don said, ‘the magic of Hilda and Michael’s generous personalities.’

“British poetry is so exciting to me,” he enthused, but it’s hard to come by the work in the States. “I want to take British work back with me and bring them to the attention of the American public.”

His first poem, Being Philosophical, was dedicated to the festival mascot, Dog.

Don is at the festival for the duration. See Squandermania, the wonderful baby born from a collaboration between Don and Barry today, 8pm at Swindon New College.

Written by Louisa Davison

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There is Nothing in the Garden at the Swindon Festival of Poetry

2 Oct
Helen Dewbery
the dress

I can see why the Swindon Festival of Poetry organiser, Hilda Sheehan, invited filmmaker Helen Dewbery and poet Chaucer Cameron to present their poetry film, There is Nothing in the Garden.

To the founding editor of Domestic Cherry and the creator of 1950s housewife persona, Mabel, There is Nothing in the Garden would seem happily all over the woman’s perspective. Continue reading →

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High Wire Act: Poems in Flight at the Swindon Festival of Poetry

2 Oct
High Wire Act
Left: Claire Dyer, Lesley Saunders, Susan Utting and festival organiser Hilda Sheehan.

Three woman poets – Claire Dyer, Susan Utting and Lesley Saunders – today gave a collaborative reading High Wire Act: Poems of Flight, a project of coming together over mutual respect of each others’ work. Sharing their work spread out on a table, they realised they had a common theme of birds and escape.

Their work ranged from the descriptive to the metaphorical, meanings deep within the verse or a story easily grasped; all beautifully read. About the first moon landing, love, the life balancing act performed by women, inspired by art, deceased mothers and the sadness of a stuffed bird. (One beleaguered male audience member commented, ‘With three woman poets I was worried it would be yucky, it wasn’t’. Perhaps he was expecting Jo Brand-style pieces about periods?)

Inspired by Lesley Saunders’ poem, A Sheep, a Duck and a Cockerel, I thought I’d pen my own piece. Lesley’s poem is about the development of flight, from those first animals who – in test dummy fashion – took to the sky in a balloon, to the casual, routine journey of flight today.

I really liked the line: ‘looking is always an act of desire.’

Lesley describes Kittenger’s record-breaking fall from the sky back in the 1960s and I remembered how fascinated I was with Felix Baumgartner’s stratospheric fall in 2012 which set new records.

Yes, perhaps the money invested in setting up Felix’s stunt could have been better used on feeding starving orphans, but here was a hero we could look up to (I know, pun) who tested the limits of the human body and psyche on our behalf. And who was a man driven, obsessed, not with being a new record holder, but just with falling that far.

For him, looking was not just an act of desire but of looking into the very heart of fear.

The Descent

He strove for years.
Loved the freedom of falling;
The atmosphere like a storm
Resistance versus mass like the friend of my friend.

Continue reading →

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Remembering Poetry Aloud at the Swindon Festival of Poetry

2 Oct
Festival organiser Hilda Sheehan and the home made lectern
Louise Crossley, saviour of anthology Domestic Cherry 4
First time poet Joe and Rene the dog
Bob, the union man

Today is National Poetry Day and the theme is ‘remember’. It’s also the start of the third Swindon Festival of Poetry.

The first event was Poetry Aloud at Swindon Central Library, where an eclectic bunch of talented poets – from first time to professional – read in an open mic format.

And – to celebrate – what better way than with a poem about the first event? (Okay a good poem would be better)

Remembering Poetry Aloud

Children bring Wilfred back to life,
David tearfully remembers his wife.
The Heavy Brigade charges to car horns
Before windows are closed with an ongoing drone
While Chaucer READS LAURIE LEE POEMS. Continue reading →

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