Non-Stop Poetry

What a week it was! Thursday was Irish Poetry Night at The George, and in spite of the unfortunate absence of Karen Hoy, it was still a splendid evening, with excellent, impassioned readings of Tom Paulin (by Matt), Brendan Kennelly (by Alan), Vona Groarke (by me), Tom French (by Tim), and Michael Longley, Derek Mahon, and Medbh McGuckian (by Claire). We had a good turnout that increased over the evening, and The Raggle-Taggle Gypsies provided lively music at the interval and afterward. Thanks to everyone who came out for it.

Friday night was the Bath Spa Poetry Slam--students v. lecturers, and of course the students won. Sam and Emerson of Ambidextrous organised the event well, and it proceeded beautifully. A fun evening.

On the 30th I read at the Salisbury Arts Centre, and after that, she says with a sigh, a long and deserved rest!

Current Issues

Yesterday's issue of TLS carries my review of Vona Groarke's Juniper Street, and I have poems in the new issues of Stand ("The Sty," "The Separation") and Magma ("Old House, New Home").

The Separation

The diaphragm flattens and holds.
My sister, twenty-seven, offers a medal of St. Christopher.
My friend loses another earring between her floorboards.

The tongue tucks behind the teeth.
My niece, four, asks when I’ll come down from the sky.
My friend and I imagine future anthropologists, interpreting the hoard.

The feet perceive the extra miles.
My mother, fifty-eight, voices true and untrue platitudes, one and the same.
My ring knows the way to the foundation.

The hair swings because it can.
My nephew, six, says the world will go on long after he’s dead.
Someone will find the diamond and see in its clarity the colour of loss.

AND THE SENATE!

Pinch me!

WE WON THE HOUSE! WE WON THE HOUSE!

April 28, 1940

WGLT recorded my reading of this poem by Michael Donaghy for their programme, Poetry Radio, and the programme with my reading is temporarily available online if you'd like to hear it: just click here.

Bath Chronicle

A short article on my workshop at King Edward's School in early October.

Irish Poetry Night on 16 November

Come to The George on Thursday, 16 November to hear Irish poetry read by its admirers. Matt Bryden, Claire Crowther, Karen Hoy, Tim Liardet, Alan Summers, and I will read from the work of Eavan Boland, Tom French, Brendan Kennelly, Louis MacNiece, Medbh McGuckian, Tom Paulin, and other Irish poets; traditional Irish music will be played before, during, and possibly after. The George is at 67 Woolley Street, Bradford on Avon, and the reading will begin at 8 p.m.

Come one, come all!

Still A California Poet

Five years in England, and I have a poem in the newly printed Blue Arc West: An Anthology of California Poets. I feel homesick just looking at the list of contributors, such poets I used to see all the time: Ellyn Maybe, Cecilia Woloch, Elena Karina Byrne, Laurel Ann Bogen, Charles Harper Webb, S.A. Griffin, Jamie O'Halloran.... I need to get back, soak up some sun and Mexican food....

Parasol Unit reading on Halloween

Here is the official notice:

The next reading in the series at Parasol Unit takes place on Tuesday, 31 October, at 6:30 pm with Sue Hubbard and Carrie Etter.

Sue Hubbard is an award winning poet, novelist and art critic. Twice winner of the London writers´competition she was the Poetry Society´s Public Art Poet and created London´s largest poem for the IMAX at Waterloo. She has published a number of pamphelets and two acclaimed collections, Everything Begins with the Skin (Enitharmon) and Ghost Station (Salt). Her first novel Depth of Field was published by Dewi Lewis. She is the recepient of a major arts council award to support the writing of her current book. As an art critic she writes artists´catalogues and regularly for The Independent.

American expat Carrie Etter has published poems in Jacket, The Liberal, Oasis, Poetry Review, Shearsman, and TLS. On her chapbook Subterfuge for the Unrequitable (Potes & Poets, 1998), Ron Silliman remarked, "To 'register the tongue's torque,' Carrie Etter's poems show great skill and a willingness to take risks, both rare things in a 'first book.' This writing is simultaneously 'out there' and always also immediately present (in the most literal sense of 'with it'), an experience that is by turns centering and dizzying. It's quite a ride."

The third reading for the season will be on Tuesday, 28 November, 6:30 pm with Allen Fisher and Drew Milne.

The readings are organized and introduced by Barry Schwabsky. Previous readers have been Tim Atkins, Guy Bennett, Kelvin Corcoran, Linh Dinh, Mark Ford, Lee Harwood, Vincent Katz, Redell Olsen, Anthony Rudolf, Leslie Scalapino, Barry Schwabsky, John Seed, Simon Smith, Carol Szymanski, and Catherine Wagner.

Readings begin at 6:30 PM and are free to the public. Parasol Unit is located at 14 Wharf Road, London N1, near the Old Street and Angel tube stations.

Imagined Sons

is finished as of last night. I can't quite believe it. I wrote the first poem for it in 1995, but became engrossed with the manuscript as a project in February; it's occupied a great part of my consciousness since.

What does it mean for a manuscript to be finished? All the poems feel essentially done, and all demand inclusion in the manuscript. Weak poems have been weeded out. There's an order that makes sense without feeling too technical. I expect to revise and move around poems in response to feedback, but I don't anticipate drastic changes--though I'll consider anything my respondents have to say.

Matt and I went for last orders at The Dandy Lion to celebrate, and, bless him, he read the manuscript straight through while I wrote in my journal and restrained from speaking until he began.

The next stage will be to share it with a very few trusted readers for feedback while continuing to circulate the poems to magazines, which began only recently. I'll report my progress from time to time here.