Tuesday 31 January 2006

Poetry in Bath and environs

What does it take to make a poetry community? I feel as though one is emerging here in the Bath area, but perhaps I feel that way because I am directly involved in a number of community poetry activities--the new Bath Spa reading series at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution on the second Thursday of each month (through June, and resuming again in the autumn), The Poetry School's first proper course offerings in Bath next academic year, my own seminar group at my home in Bradford on Avon, and the new Aloud series run by David Berridge here in BoA (in which I am "involved" as a regular attender--there have been two so far!--and reader). Then we have a Poetry Society Stanza group developing under Nikki Bennett-Willetts' direction, possibly meeting at the University of Bath in the near future.

What I miss about London poetry is the conversations I'd have with others involved in poetry in different ways, especially with my Poetry School students at the Poetry Cafe before our class on Friday nights last spring and when I'd run into other poets at readings and we'd go for a drink afterward. We would talk about new books, magazines, reading series, other poets, etc., and I loved it. I miss it.

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous4:24 pm

    Hi Carrie!

    I'm feeling guilty, because there's nothing to touch a good get together after a poetry event It gives such a buzz that we can't climb down unless we talk and talk poetry even more! (-;

    I'm just recovering from a food bug, but will be available for poetry over a pint, except the Winter Warmer has gone, but there is Marstons Pedigree now available? (-;

    But seriously, it's important to have a regular environment where poets and other writers can meet up. Bath has lost one place that did justice to that need, maybe there will be another, while Bristol has places of a sort, and Bradford on Avon, well maybe where that Winter Warmer once dwelled?

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