Everything is going to be all right

What a lovely, informal and intimate meeting of seven minds at the King’s Head last night!

It was an evening of many birds: sanderlings from Martin, buzzards and crows from David G, starlings and a rooster from Ama. David N read his lovely poem about slow-worms. We walked the South West Coast Path (39,000 steps) and encountered a sinister house in Prague with David G. We crossed borders and listened to an evening raga with Ama. We heard a playful New Year’s resolution, as well as many cheering or consoling poems from The Poetry Pharmacy, from Judy, and a gloriously grim account of a fictional Christmas Day from David N. We heard true stories and fables from Beth, both the Davids, and Martin. Donna read several of her late father Ewan MacPherson’s poems. Beth delighted us with a dramatic reading of Jabberwocky. Judy and David N provided thoughtful and astonishingly relevant readings from Rumi and Hafez. We talked of birthdays and foxes and slugs and honeymoons and elves and Haiku and much else besides. This post’s title is the title of a poem by Derek Mahon, read by Judy.

Recently added to the Bardwindow poetry podcast, here’s an interesting ekphrastic poem from Martin. Ama has a couple of poems in the latest Wildfire Words anthology, and a bilingual poem at One Sentence Poems.

Our next meeting will be at the King’s Head at 7pm on Monday February 6th. Unfortunately our guest poet Moira Andrew has just come out of hospital, so this will be an open-mic session. We hope to book Moira for later in the year.

In March we have Hannah Linden, in April, Deborah Harvey, in May Rachael Clyne, in June Rosie Jackson, and in September Alyson Hallett.

Good poetry is transcendent. Bad poetry is a bore. – Bill Amatneek

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Theseus and the Minotaur

• 20th October 2022

Dramatic tales of daring and darkness told by Beth Webb and woven through with music by Jenny Bliss Bennett, at The Bishop’s Palace.

Join story-teller Beth Webb and musician Jenny Bliss Bennett as you venture back to the ancient world with tales of daring, mystery and adventure.

Theseus and the Minotaur is aimed at an adult audience and is recommended for 14+.

You are welcome to bring your own refreshments to enjoy throughout the evening.Doors open: 6.30pm

Performance starts: 7.00pm (approximately 120 minutes including intermission)

You can buy tickets here. Adults £15, under 16 £10

Some (good) news at last

Hello again. I hope you’re well, and writing.

A few Wells Fountain Poets (Andrew Henon, Mo Kiziewicz, Rachael Clyne, David Niven, David Ketelby and me, Ama Bolton) have been invited to contribute to next month’s Bridgwater Quayside virtual Festival (17-19 July). Another of our members, storyteller Beth Webb, will be contributing separately. Here is a preview of Andrew’s timely and powerful video-poem. Andrew is also participating in the Somerset Film project Hello World, and I urge you to watch the interview and two of his short video-poems on their website.

We have had to cancel our April, May and June meetings and will not be meeting in July or August, but I hope to be able to re-book all the cancelled guest poets next year.

Just a quick reminder of some competitions closing soon: Wells Litfest competition closes 30th June, Penfro Festival Competition closes 1st July, Ledbury Festival competition closes 16th July and Winchester Poetry Prize closes 31st July. Many more on the Poetry Kit website.

“It is the task of a lifetime. You can never know enough, never work enough, never use the infinitives and participles oddly enough, never impede the movement harshly enough, never leave the mind quickly enough.” – Anne Carson on writing poetry

 

 

They’re felling forests while you sleep

I’ll begin with some unsolicited feedback! (Thanks for writing.)

Really lovely meeting, thank you.
Such an engaged audience … such a pleasure to hear some highly accomplished poems.
Just to say what an excellent evening it was … Loved the poems – so much talent all round –  I love the diversity … Also took to Nigel Kent and Sarah Thomson – really fascinating idea – was sceptical at first when read about it but, as so often happens, was won over completely on seeing how it is done.
It was a real pleasure and I loved hearing all of the poetic contributions – there is so much talent in your group.

Our last meeting, on February 4th, was at The Venue in South Street. There was a record turn-out (21) in spite of the recent wintry weather, which had caused a breakdown of the Venue’s central heating. We wrapped ourselves in blankets and kept reasonably warm.

We welcomed guest poets Nigel Kent and Sarah Thomson, from Evesham and Bristol, whose collaborative pamphlet A Hostile Environment was published in January by the Hedgehog Press.

In the summer of 2018 the story broke of the mistreatment of members of the Windrush generation. As a consequence of the government’s attempts to reduce immigration, it transpired that British subjects had been wrongly deported and detained, lost their jobs and homes, and were denied benefits and medical treatment. This story precipitated a poetry conversation.

The result was a mini-pamphlet that punches well above its weight. In just six poems it moves from bureaucratic oppression to the suppression of weeds, to deforestation and extinction,  to the abuse of the democratic process, to a parable of insects.

In the second half, Sarah and Nigel read a second group of poems that evolved in a similar way – but beginning this time with Quantum theory! There followed a lively discussion of the process.

It was a treat to have Rosie Jackson and Dawn Gorman with us. They contributed some truly remarkable poems to the open-mic part of the evening. Ita, Maggie, Ting and Steve were valued newcomers whom I hope we’ll hear more from. Rachael and Jinny have work in the latest issue of Lighthouse, Rachael read a poem published in Riggwelter and Ama read her prizewinning poem from the Cannon Sonnet or Not Competition.

Other readers were Mervyn, Beth, Michelle, Ewa, Paul, Mark and Diana. It’s always a pleasure to hear their work.

A note from Tom Sastry: Bristol Poetry Festival 2019 starts Friday 22nd March. Details will be posted here: https://www.facebook.com/lyrabristol/

And some rather exciting news: Wells Fountain Poets are now a Poetry Society Stanza.

The next meeting, at The Venue once again, will feature local journalist Clare Blackmore, who has recently published a book of the complete works of William Catcott, the Baker Bard of Wells. She writes:

William was born in West Horrington but lived and worked as a baker in Tor Street in Wells. As he worked and pushed his bread cart around the streets of Wells and surrounding villages to sell his bread he wrote poetry based on the nature, people and social conditions that he saw in Mid Victorian Wells. I have found over 120 of his beautiful poems.

“When you feel you’ve got a line that’s pulling a lot of emotional freight with it, then you know you’ve probably started a poem.” – Harvey Shapiro

“A ringing bell at sea”

Out of the drizzly darkness last night, twelve poets gathered in Jinny’s warm and welcoming Salon des Arts. We have a tradition of reading – and sometimes discussing -other people’s poems at the first meeting of the year.

This time, though, we started with members who’d had work published, in print or on-line, since the December meeting.

Michelle read her Christmas poem Jesus is Pink, published recently at The Poetry Shed, Jinny read Boxing Day Party from Algebra of Owls, and Finding Home from Riggwelter. Rachael read She had never been good at reversing, forthcoming at Litworld, and Ama read January, which appeared in the last-ever print issue of Far-off Places.

Jo read two from The New Poetry, a hugely influential anthology published in 1962: George MacBeth’s eerily prophetic Bedtime Story, and Peter Redgrove’s The Archaeologist. David’s two readings came from The Beat Book, an anthology of writings from the Beat generation. His choices were Poem in Praise of my Husband by Diane Di Prima, and an entertaining extract from Joanne Kyger’s journal.

Andrew read The Bell, by Jay Ramsay, who sadly died just over a week ago. Many of us have fond memories of him. Andrew’s second reading was from Out of the Wreckage, by George Monbiot. In this context, Rachael reminded us of an XR funeral procession to take place on Saturday 12th January at 12 noon in Glastonbury High Street.

Jinny’s choices were School Run, by Katherine Maris, and Dear Mr Gove, by Kim Moore. Beth read Grumpy Day from The Dog at the End of the World by Helen Harvey, and Scything, from Blood Earth and Medicine by Somerset poet James Crowden.

Rachael read Wedding Night from Blow This by Anna-May Laugher,  The Ward by Louisa Campbell, and Flood as Redemption from Clare Shaw’s collection Flood.

Clare Shaw was chosen by Michelle, too. She read Love Poem from the collection Straight Ahead. Michelle’s other choice was a beautifully dark poem from Fiona Benson’s Vertigo and Ghost. I did make a note of the title, but I can’t decipher it now!

Mervyn read The Way Things Are, by the patron saint of poetry (aka Roger McGough), and Dylan Thomas’s villanelle Do not go Gentle into that Good Night – read here by the poet himself. Lydia chose Auden’s Stop all the clocks, and read it beautifully. In the second half she read Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116. It’s good to hear again the familiar poems as well as those that are new to us.

Morag was fortunate in receiving Leonard Cohen’s last collection, The Flame, as a Christmas present. She read Never gave Nobody Trouble and What is Coming, a prophetic poem from 2003.

Gillian read two poems by one of Canada’s most influential writers Alden Nowlan: It’s Good to be Here and The Social Worker’s Poem. For Nowlan, poetry was “all about people, and to hell with literature.” He deserves to be better known over here.

And I (Ama) read Dave Bonta’s How to Dance and a delightful little poem by Sarah J Sloate After Finishing an Anthology of World Poetry. You can read it in Right Hand Pointing #102.

Altogether it was a convivial, thoughtful and entertaining evening. Thank you Jinny for hosting the meeting.

Other News

Michelle’s debut pamphlet “The Dancing Boy” (Against the Grain Press) is about to be launched! Firstly at Labyrinth bookshop in Glastonbury High Street on 1st February, also in a joint launch with Rachael and Jinny, in Glastonbury, 29th March, and at the Fountain Poets’ meeting on 13th May.

Jo will be one of the poets reading at the Berkeley Square Poetry Revue in Bristol on 29th January, 8.30 – 10.30pm.

This post is quite long enough! I’ll write soon about our next meeting (Feb 4th at The Venue in Wells, with two Hedgehog Press poets).

Girl Golem

We gathered once again in Loaf Bakehouse on Monday, with Jinny as chairperson, for the Wells launch of Rachael Clyne’s new pamphlet Girl Golem. Rachael read with her usual flair. This collection of thoughtful and poignant poems about her personal and family history is salted with tender insights and peppered with with dark humour.

Rachael donated her fee to the local food-bank, and additional donations were made.

We welcomed back Gillian Booth after a long absence: her poem Day of the Red Sun was one of the highlights of the open-mic session. Another welcome visitor was Hannah Linden, who we hope will come as guest poet sometime next year. Andrew, Morag, Jinny, Wendy, Michelle, David K, Mervyn, Beth and Ama also contributed. Ama’s circular poem can be seen here.

Our next meeting will be on Monday 7th January at Jinny’s salon in Glastonbury. Bring a couple of favourite published poems, ancient or modern, to read to the rest of us. If you need directions, email amabolton(at)hotmail(dot)com. The full programme up to July can be seen here.

You have nearly two months to prepare something for this competition:

Beth is fundraising for a neighbour’s six-year-old son who needs equipment to help him communicate. Small donations are welcome, or you can take advantage of Beth’s offer:

The equipment is £2,500, but we’re trying to raise a bit extra to donate towards his school.

Any donations would be warmly welcomed, communication is so vital to Dylan and his family.

Offer 1: 

One day’s work – and if possible, I’d like to raise £150.00 (more if people are feeling generous).

For that day, I can offer editorial advice on a work of prose, manuscript editing (up to 10,000 words), creative writing teaching etc. I’m happy to discuss what might be needed.

My CV: I’ve taught creative writing for the Open College of the Arts up to university level (accredited University of Glamorgan), and I wrote their writing for children course, which they used for about 10 years. I’ve also mentored for the University of Lancaster / The British Council (Crossing Borders project) and I’ve been a literary consultant for The Literary Consultancy.

Offer 2:

To do two illustrations for a work of poetry or prose, again, at the rate of £150 per day (two illustrations are about 1 or 1.5 days’ work, depending on what is wanted.

You can see my work on my website:

My website is: Beth Webb: Author, Illustrator & Storyteller

If tomorrow I were to write the greatest poem the world has ever seen, picking up my pen the following day, the struggle would continue.  I am simply happy to write something better today than yesterday. – Michael Wells