I have a couple of readings coming up to share with you - one on Zoom and one live.
7pm - 8pm 25th May
The first reading is on Zoom at Finding the Words organized by Explore York Libraries and Archives. I will be reading alongside Bethany Rivers and Emma Storr.
I will be the headline reader at Reading's Poetry Cafe, 21 South Street, Reading, RG1 4QU. The event is run by the Reading Stanza. In addition to my reading there will be am open mic. Tickets are available here: https://whatsonreading.com/venues/south-street/whats-on/poets-cafe-2023 or on the door. They cost £5, £4 for open mics.
I thought I'd bring you up-to-date with what I have been doing and what is coming up. In these pandemic days I have been busy performing poems from my collection Owl Unbound online.
The video above of my poem The Gypsies in the Room is one which featured in the Dialect - Supporting Rural Writers Women's Day events
Most recently I read at the Gloucestershire Poetry Society's Crafty Crows alongside the wonderful Adam Horovitz. GPS have now posted a film of the event (shared above) on their Youtube channel. My reading starts at 24.18.
I also took part in Raised Voices, the GPS's International Women's Day event, which they have also posted on their channel. The event featured 16 Gloucestershire poets, including Angela France, Sharon Larkin, Maria Stadnicka, Tish Camp, and Belinda Rimmer. But mostly I have been enjoying reading at Open Mics at a wide variety of poetry events which have taken me to the Netherlands, Scotland, Wales and all places in between.
I was delighted to take part in Damien Donnelly's excellent poetry podcast Eat the Storms
Readings Coming Up
12th May at 7pm at the Evesham Festival of Words I will be reading poems on the theme of Home and Away alongside Anna Saunders and Ben Ray.
16th June at 7.30 at Fenspeak, I will be reading a personal selection of my poems
7th July at 7pm at the Wirral Festival of Firsts I will be reading with Anna Saunders (again) and Simon Griffiths on the theme of The Wild and the Urban.
In my last blog post I talked about the impact of COVID and mentioned that I had been attending a number of online poetry events, usually via Zoom. It looks as though my collection will have to be launched online. so I need to understand what works and doesn't. My diary is now full of online poetry events - on some evenings I have as many as three events to choose from and on weekends I could be all day on Zoom overdosing on poetry.
We all thought this would be a temporary phenomenon, but a lot of people have been enjoying poetry online and realising that the internet allow syou to go to poetry events all over the world. I suspect that even when the live events restart (which may be a long way off) the online poetry scene will continue.
Okay there are downsides, but online poetry events do allow you to go round the world, to hear poets you would never hear otherwise and even to read at open mics there. Importantly online poetry allows people who cannot access in-the-flesh events because of where they live or because of disability to access a world they would be excluded from. Somewhere out there is a poet or poetry event organizer who sees the potential of this brave new digital world, who sees a new path for poetry.
I thought I might share with you some of the online poetry event organisers whose work I have enjoyed. I know there are some I have missed out and there are loads more I don't know about. Please add any you know of in the comments or email them to me and I will add them to this post.
Poetry Magazines
A number of poetry magazines are having online launches including Poetry London, Poetry Ireland, Butcher's Dog, Poetry Review, and Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal.
