March, our month of hope… some lockdown restrictions lifted in the UK, schools to reopen, vaccination roll out continues and spring gifts us sunshine and new flowers. We couldn’t help but fear the budget slightly, many of us have not saved in this crisis many of us face financial hardship, so the thought of rising taxes is a scary one. All of us are grateful to still be here.
I saw my mum for the first time in a month, with PPE and distancing of course, we also celebrated Mother’s Day in the UK this month, I was able to order my mum a very practical present from the internet (all shops shut during Lockdown) so I was grateful to be able to offer more than supermarket flowers in return of the love she gives us and the life she gave me.
I needed a month to finish my work contract and concentrate on some desk time. I created a new platform/website for Worcestershire LitFest & Fringe after we ran into major difficulties with our old server (after several full days of work on it). I also started flexing my notebook muscles as a warm up to next month’s crazy NaPoWriMo.
Week 1:
I spent most of this week rebuilding and launching a new website for Worcestershire LitFest & Fringe. Go and check out the latest news and competitions. https://worcestershirelitfestfringe.wordpress.com/
The University of Glasgow have a fantastic series called Creative Conversations, they are free to join, well attended webinars on Zoom. Interview/Reading followed by Q&A. This month I had the pleasure of listening in to Don Paterson‘s session with Carolyn Jess-Cooke.
Classes continue with Tawnya Renelle in Creative Experimental and I started ‘Hearts & Minds’ with Zelda Chappel. I continued to workshop poems with Rakaya Fetuga‘s Spoken Word group although, sadly this is the final month the CARAF centre can offer. They have done an amazing job throughout all three lockdowns offering free workshops. I continue to heal with Redwing and the team in the states. This month they released their Winter edition which included the poems I shared at the Reimagine Festival event last Autumn.
The Poets in Motion class have sent all parts of the unity poem in for editing, three members of the team have collated them into a poem for an anthology later in the year. I still can’t believe we lost Celena.
The Hive – Worcestershire Libraries have continued to provide the Poetry Bubble with Amanda Bonnick, Polly Stretton and Caz…. It is a lovely event, very laid back and a great number of audience as well as readers. I was really tired by the middle of the week, but glad I made it, as it made me feel much better.
By Thursday I was drained and slept for 4 hours when I got home from work, which meant I missed everything I had noted in the diary, but if 2019 taught me anything, it was to/ how to listen to my body. I had a hospital appointment the day before with the consultant so was not surprised by my fatigue, even that journey to and in the hospital is tough enough. Fortunately I woke in time for Arrival at Elsewhere, a Cheltenham Poetry Festival event. Read the write up here.
I finished the week with a weekend of poetry readings, workshops and groups. Love in Polyvocal Times with Judy Grahn was a great reading. Valuable. Generous.
Judy Grahn is one of the most significant poets and activists of our times, an author whose work makes an extraordinary contribution to queer studies, poetics and feminism. Grahn’s publications include Hanging on Our Bones (Arktoi Books, 2017), Love Belongs to Those Who Do the Feeling (Red Hen Press, 2008), The Judy Grahn Reader (Aunt Lute, 2014), The Queen of Swords (Beacon Press, 1990), The Queen of Wands (Crossing Press, 1982), A Simple Revolution (Aunt Lute, 2012), Blood, Bread and Roses: How Menstruation Created the World (Beacon Press, 1994), Another Mother Tongue: Gay Words, Gay Worlds (Triangle Classics, 2016), Mundane’s World (Crossing Press, 1988).
Eruptions of Inanna: Justice, Gender and Erotic Power (Nightboat, 2021) is forthcoming this year.
“All the poets I know look upon Judy Grahn with admiration and awe, convinced that she’s leagues ahead of us, superhuman in her power and insight. But the poet of these chants of grief and frustration–and hope–is human for sure, torn by the same powerlessness and disgust at prevalent social conditions as the rest of us–it’s only that she has lightning at her command–a magic of writing that illuminates, shreds darkness like confetti, and lets us see past the end of each page, past all our histories, a magic that lets us glimpse a previously unimagined future.” – Kevin Killian
I went to the poetry event for Fairtrade Connections – Community Arts Festival for Fairtrade Fortnight 2021 Clare Shaw read from her volume Flood about the devastating floods in Hebden Bridge in 2016 and Zoe Brigley Thompson and Kristian Evans read from their upcoming anthology 100 Poems to Save the Earth. It was a pleasure to watch and listen.
I finished building the website for WLF and started putting some work in on my own manuscript. I did a Haiku workshop with Anna Yin, enjoyed readings from Jill Abram, Fahad Al-Amoudi & Malika Booker at Live from The Butchery, incredible as always.
I finished the night off with readings from the Poetry Book Society 2020 Competition winners. The winners of the 2020 International Book & Pamphlet Competition as chosen by Imtiaz Dharker and Ian McMillan were:
Rosalind Easton
for her collection, Black Mascara (Waterproof)
Jill Penny
for her collection, In Your Absence
Wendy Pratt
for her collection, When I Think of My Body as a Horse
Sarah Wimbush
for her collection, The Last Dinosaur in Doncaster
It was an incredible launch, plenty of emotive poems and a great Q&A. It is a shame for the winners that it had to be virtual, but with 140 people in attendance from all over the world, their words had a far reach this evening and will linger in both heads and hearts for some time to come, I am sure.
Week 2
I managed to catch most of Kirstin Innes Creative Conversations, from the University of Glasgow. A good start to International Women’s Day. After an eye test I celebrated my eyesight not worsening (for the second year running), by watching 4 fantastic Cardiff poets, two whom I know and two who were new to me, love my ear discovering new-to-me poets. I managed to catch Jinny Fisher and Katrina Naomi at Cafe Writers, before calling it a night.
Sadly, we lost another writer and great teacher last month, Celena Diana Bumpus. I started her Poets in Motion course back in Spring 2020 -Lockdown 1. I was due to be a guest in her new writing series rolled out 2021 alongside the plethora of classes this superwoman fuelled writer offered! She was always busy helping others. A memorial has been organised for April where we will gather to celebrate the blessing of knowing her. The poets on my course have all managed to reunite and are sharing messages and updates. Especially those who are based in the Riverside area, USA. This week there was news of an article published Sunday 7th. The headline of which was taken from one of her social media feeds as a message to us all; ‘Live long enough to become a metaphor.’
I received a couple of invites to guest read, one of which is an international reading. Last year I did a lot with the Walt Whitman Birthplace. In the summer I submitted several of coronavirus poems for an anthology, Corona, which was being produced in collaboration with Walt Whitman Birthplace Association, edited by Gayl Teller (Nassau County Poet Laureate 2009-11 & Walt Whitman Birthplace 2016 Poet of the Year.) I was delighted when I heard that they were publishing a couple of my poems and in April I shall share one at the launch.
I did three wonderful workshops this week, the first was postponed from February – Lines in the Sand workshop, which was great fun. A poetry workshop with James Davies as part of the New Words Festival and a workshop with Rebecca Morgan Frank which was fantastic.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching Robert Seatter’s reading at Poets Cafe on Friday night and managed to wake up early enough to make it back to Perth Poetry Club (all practise for early morning Recoil 12 anthology launch on the 27th).
And I was able to see mum (socially distanced) for Mother’s Day too.
Week 3
This was a week filled with tutorials to put the finishing touches to the competition pages for the Worcestershire LitFest website, readings and writing. I am still busy working on a couple of projects and look forward to April/May when I can commit more time to these.
I missed some events noted in the diary due to sleep. My body is currently suffering a lot and I am hoping next week will bring a slower pace (a couple of weeks off for Easter will help and heal). I haven’t been on a walk this year at all! I have walked but only to get somewhere. Appointments at the Drs, opticians, pharmacy collections or across car parks and forecourts – all great lockdown (not locked down/working) highlights. I cannot wait to get back to nature and see how busy it has been for the past 3.5 months!
Over the next fortnight I managed to miss Kim Addonizio three times, thank goodness I caught her at Cheltenham Poetry Festival. Highlights include Goldsmiths with Michael Rosen (who suffered badly from Covid) and has written a book called ‘Many Different Kinds of Love’. I went to the Resilience as a Poet Panel, postponed from February. It was a valuable hour. I finally made it back to Sheffield Libraries and a creative writing workshop on Home. And watched the PBS book launch for Michael Schmidt and saw Joy Harjo as part of the Emory Libraries programme.
Week 4
It was our final week with Zelda Chappel and her wonderful, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED classes/workshops. I thoroughly enjoyed this group and now need to put the work in to mould the scaffolded poems from March.
Mass Poetry has been a joy, the main festival happens in May (13th-16th) but this month they ran a series of 3 workshops around water. This week I attended What the Waters Have Made Us with Eleni Sikelianos and Lucía Hinojosa. It was fantastic, fun and worth staying up late for.
Tamworth Literature Festival and Manchester Literature Festival started this week. Tamworth runs for a few days and Manchester for a couple of weeks. I really enjoyed Mancs. Lit Fest in 2020 and have booked onto a couple of my favourite poets. This week was Roger Robinson, a generous and insightful event. This man is incredible. If you have not discovered him, please do.
I performed at the Open Mic Night at the Tamworth Poetry Festival.
The weekend saw the launch of Recoil 12 Anthology. Coral Carter (Mulla Mulla Press) has been producing these anthologies featuring a selection of head liners from Perth Poetry Club for 12 years. The 10th anniversary edition was a huge collection but generally the year denotes the number of poets. It was an honour to be selected for this 12th edition anthology and I am in LOVE with the cover.
The back of The Moon is decorated throughout the year and at one point featured this Zebra print – I remember it. Another joy was the poem came from my 2018 Perth writing (which after bad health/other projects) I am only just getting around to writing. I haven’t submitted many poems from it yet, but all sent have found homes. Which bodes well for this body of work.
It was an early start 5:50 A.M but worth every minute to be part of this celebratory event.
Saturday night saw the last of the CARAF centre Spoken Word Workshops with Rakaya Fetuga too. The group is a mix of experienced and new writers and it has been a real joy. We have decided to continue meeting and workshopping together even though the project – which ran for a year, throughout all 3 UK Lockdowns has come to an end.
The month was finished off with a Book Launch, Worcester 42 and some readings. Chaucer Cameron & Cheryl Moskowitz launched their new pamphlets on Sunday afternoon. A wonderful event attended by over 125 people. It was lovely to see many poets I know.
Against the Grain Press present In an Ideal World I’d Not Be Murdered by Chaucer Cameron and Maternal Impression by Cheryl Moskowitz
In addition to readings from Chaucer and Cheryl we have guest readers Lucy English and Isabelle Baafi. Read my write up of this remarkable event here.
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