Tag Archives: poetry workshop

Swindon Festival of Poetry – Is it Nearly Christmas?

11 Oct
Collectively writing

Collectively writing

Is it nearly Christmas? I wrote a seasonally related poem at Matt Holland’s ‘Poetry and Life’ workshop on Tuesday, the final day of the Swindon Festival of Poetry.

I can’t take all the blame/credit. It was a joint effort. After reading and discussing other poetic works and how they tackle life – and how ‘language can free you and bind you’ – and how poetry differs to prose (‘Poetry can mean something different to what it says,’ said poet Robert Frost and ‘prose is obliged to mean what it says’ said Matt) we collectively tried our own work. Continue reading →

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Swindon Festival of Poetry – psychogeography and sestinas

6 Oct

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Caught the aftermath of Michael Scott’s psychogeographical stroll around Swindon yesterday morning, in Swindon’s Central Library Poetry Space.

Psychogeography aims to make the everyday more interesting or to absorb and appreciate above and beyond the usual tourist attractions one would look for in an urban environment. Just the thing for Swindon, then.

Comments about the session included: “In context signs are really boring, but out of context they’re silly” and “I liked the skip” also “The Wyvern Theatre has stalactites.” Continue reading →

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Swindon Festival of Poetry – exciting, exciting!

7 Sep

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Sitting on a chair after the launch speeches and fiddling (as usual) with my camera, co-organiser of the very first Swindon Festival of Poetry, Matt Holland, gave my back a friendly rub, cracked a massive grin and said: ‘It’s exciting, exciting!’

And so it is.

A year or so after announcing to about 5 people on Facebook that Swindon is the Poetry Capital of the World, Google – no less – has now got with the programme. So if you Google search for Poetry Capital of the World, Swindon is what comes up. I kid you not. Try it for yourself. Continue reading →

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Heated debate at Swindon Poetry Sunday

13 May

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 There are many sides to that thing we call ‘poetry’.

There’s the performance poetry of the Slam!. The poetry of the nursery rhyme. The poetry of hip hop and the singer-songwriter, the folk singer, the hymn. The limerick, the nonsense poem, the psalm, the sonnet and the haiku. Poetry of strict form and poetry of tradition. The poetry of the streets and the poetry of abstract concepts.

Some people don’t call themselves poets. They label themselves spoken word performers, slammers, MCs and lyricists. Continue reading →

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Toothill Long Poem

13 May

Disappointed I didn’t get to see / hear this one.

I spoke to organiser Hilda Sheehan (as herself this time, not Domestic Cherry Mabel) in between FLIT 180 and Swindon Slam! and she was very pleased with how the world premiere of the Toothill Long Poem turned out. Continue reading →

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