#NationalPoetryDay: writing Golden Shovel poems about freedom (updated with added Patience Agbabi poem)
New poetry writing resources for National Poetry Day using The Golden Shovel form and exploring Freedom
Nottingham Poetry Festival starts tonight
Over the next ten days Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature will be chock-full of diverse poets and lively poetry events to entice all sorts of poetry listeners, performers, readers and writers. Nottingham … Continue reading
Roy Fisher 1930- 2017
It was Roy Fisher’s funeral in Macclesfield this afternoon. I was very sorry not to be able to attend and wanted to mark the occasion in some way.
Poetic and Academic identities
Just published in Writing in Practice http://bit.ly/2lOoprj
Our article, Poet-Academics and Academic-Poets: Writing identities, practices and experiences within the Academy.
Gwendolyn Brooks & the Golden Shovel
The Golden Shovel Anthology: New poems honoring Gwendolyn Brooks, edited by Peter Kahn, Ravi Shankar and Patricia Smith, has just been published by The University of Arkansas Press. The idea behind this … Continue reading
Poet honoured on Waitangi Day: Selina Tusitala Marsh, Honorary Literary Fellow
Inspiring poet Selina Tusitala Marsh made an NZ Honorary Literary Fellow
Prize-winning Arboretum Shapes
I can finally share with you my prize-winning poem Arboretum Shapes. (It won first prize in the Nottingham Green Spaces poetry competition) Hope you enjoy the poem and congratulations to … Continue reading
New Poems
I am delighted to have poems in the Autumn 2016 issues of Raceme and Brittlestar – two beautifully produced poetry magazines that need new readers and, most importantly, subscribers. Both … Continue reading
Matthew Welton’s The Number Poems
After hearing Nottingham’s Matthew Welton give an exuberant performance of poems from his new Carcanet collection on National Poetry Day last month I knew that this book had to be my next poetry read.
Furious Answers and other new poems
I took part in the Ekphrastic Review’s 20 poem challenge last month. My poem ‘Furious Answers’ was written in response to the painting The Answer is No by Kay Sage (USA), 1958.
Highly commended
We are delighted that our Bloomsbury publication Making Poetry Happen has been awarded Highly Commended in the UKLA Academic Book Award (after being shortlisted back in January 2016). The awards ceremony takes place this weekend (9th July) at UKLA conference in Bristol. I would like to thank all of our many contributors to Making Poetry Happen for their wonderful chapters and evident commitment to making poetry happen in so many varied contexts.
Star Trek, Drafting & Pat Barker
We went to hear novelist Pat Barker speak on Thursday. She was in fine conversation with Sharon Monteith at Nottingham Playhouse in a benefit for Nottingham Unesco City of … Continue reading
Rain Won’t
Last week I made a new poetry discovery which is always a thrilling thing: the poem ‘Rain Won’t’ by Kenji Miyazawa, one of Japan’s foremost 20th century poets. Miyazawa’s last … Continue reading
Taking new poems for a swim
New poems never really come alive until they have been taken out for a swim and I’ve heard someone laugh at them or groan or even applaud.
Finding & Keeping Poetry: The Harold Rosen Lecture, NATE Annual Conference 2016
‘Finding and Keeping Poetry’ is the title for the Harold Rosen Lecture I will be giving in June. The keynote is part of the 50 Years after Dartmouth research symposium at … Continue reading
I Know This City
I know that Yates’s Wine Lodge
(where the Australian wine liquor is like no other)
is still Yates’s
even though the Friends’ Trio no longer plays here.
Pamphlet for Friday is A Quire of Paper by Maura Dooley- a Smith/Doorstop collection of poems originating from her residency at Jane Austen’s home in Chawton. I love the way she captures snatches of Austen family stories and their everyday lives (whether it be making pancakes, patchwork or salve for sunburn) but also the feelings of paying visitors, including casual day trippers and Austen devotees paying homage to ‘my sister, Jane’. Dooley delicately evokes the spirit of the place and its inhabitants in poems which are amusing and tender in turn.
Maura Dooley’s A Quire of Paper captures the spirit of Jane Austen’s Chawton home.
