Long time no sea

After a summer break we met again on 5 September at the Sherston Inn. We began with a reading by Clare Diprose from her pamphlet “Thinking of You”. It was lovely to hear the poems together and to get a sense of this Bridport Prize runner-up’s style – assured, economical, observant, with an instinct for the right word and a way of catching you off-guard with a haunting phrase.

We heard poems from Ewa, Ewan, Wendy, Jo, Caroline, Morag, Rachael, Jinny, David and Ama. Paul sent in a poem which was read by Ama. This post’s title is taken from Ewa’s poem about a visit to Burnham-on-Sea.

Rachael’s “Tradition” has been published in the latest issue of The Rialto, and she has been short-listed in this year’s Poetry Space competition.

Ama has a poem “Hartlake” in the new issue of Obsessed with Pipework.

Morag has a poem forthcoming in Tears in the Fence.

Jo will be reading at Tea and Chi in Glastonbury on 23 September.

Wendy will be one of the poets at Twenty Poets Perform in Bristol Central Library on 1 October as part of the Bristol Poetry Festival 2016. This is a really enjoyable event for all concerned, and entrance is free. Full festival details should be on the Poetry Can website pretty soon.

Finally, Rachael, Sara, Morag, Jinny, Jo and Ama will be giving a third performance of this year’s collaboration Second Skin at the Tears in the Fence festival fundraiser weekend at Stourpaine in Dorset this coming Saturday, 17th September –  details here. Andrew will also be reading at this event.

Latest news, hot off the press: Jo, Jinny and Rachael have all had poems accepted for the Broadsheet, which publishes once a year for SW poets. The launch is part of Exeter Poetry Festival in October.

The next meeting will be on Monday 3 October in Just Ales Micropub in Market Street (behind the bus station), 7.45 for 8pm. Real ale and local cider on tap, as well as coffee! There will be a Featured Poet and a charge of £2 which will be saved up until we have enough to pay a Guest Poet.

Other news: Poetry readings at Wells Litfest include Lemn Sisssay on 18 October. If you don’t know about him, do listen to his Desert Island Discs on the radio 4 i-player. He’s phenomenal! See the website for details.

Toppings bookshop in Bath have a programme of readings, including Carrie Etter and Claire Crowther on 1 October, Katherine Towers on 3 October, Rosie Jackson on 7 November, Alice Oswald in the nearby St Swithin’s Church on 15 November and Ruth Sharman on 16 November.

Yeovil Litfest 20-23 October.

It isn’t necessary to know where a poem is going in order to begin to write.  Writing can let you find out what you think.
– Roy Marshall

If you know exactly what you are going to say about a subject before you begin your poem, it is probably better to say that thing in prose.
– Sue Boyle

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Waterwoven at the Bristol Poetry Festival

Tomorrow!

“Upheaval is the new zeitgeist”

“Fifty” was the theme when the Fountain Poets met at the Sherston Inn last Monday with Karin in the chair. Some chose to write about the 1950s – Richard’s memories of growing up in Oxfordshire, Jinny’s scenes from a 50s childhood, Mark’s fond reminiscences of Marilyn Monroe’s 50s films. Ewan wrote about rowing as a schoolboy on the River Severn. Morag read “2015-fifty”. Karin’s poems are densely-packed with layers of meaning and metaphor – quite a challenge to take in at a single hearing! We look forward to seeing them in print. The two she read touched on the experience of turning fifty recently. From Wendy we heard a delicious story-poem about the love of a 50-year-old Romeo and his Juliet.  Ama’s poem was a response to seeing St Kilda from a distance of fifity miles.

The refugee crisis prompted other poems, including Rachael’s “Silent faces keep appearing“, Ewan’s “Places Isaac and Rebecca Knew”, Morag’s “Mull” and Ama’s “The Risk-takers“.

Jo’s poem “Machine to destroy Landays” (forthcoming in Obsessed with Pipework) refers to a subversive form of Afghan folk-poetry practiced mainly by women. To learn more, see this fascinating and heartbreaking essay by Eliza Griswold. Jo’s second poem was a product of her practice of writing a weekly poem with words taken from the current issue of “New Scientist”.

Wendy’s second poem was “I like to walk the Monarch Way”. Wendy will be reading at “Twenty Poets Perform” in the cafe area of Bristol Central Library on the afternoon of Saturday 26th September, an annual (free) event ably organised by Mark as part of the Bristol Poetry Festival.

From Caroline we had memories of a holiday in Cornwall, and a short sharp reaction to muzak. From Pamela, the heartfelt “After they’ve gone”, and by way of contrast, a wry birthday-card rhyme.

Jinny is to be congratulated on having not one but two poems in this year’s Bridport Prize short-list. Her poem in the second half, inspired by a very strange news-item, caused a sharp intake of breath, followed by applause. It was an evening of rich fare.

Another event on the afternoon of 26th September will be the prizegiving and reading of the short-list of the Bath Poetry Cafe Competition. Fountain poets present will be Ama, Rachael, Sara and Zanna. For more information go to Sue Boyle’s blog.

On Tuesday 29th September, Wells Fountain Poets’ collaborative project Waterwoven will be performed in public for the third time, with Andy reading the part previously read by Ewan. This will also be at Bristol Central Library. Rachael Clyne will also have a solo set at this event, which starts at 7.30pm. The Bristol Poetry Festival runs from 21st Sept to 8th Oct.

Swindon Poetry Festival runs from October 1st to 5th. On the evening of 3rd October Ama will be reading her poem “Winter Boat” at the Battered Moons Competition prizegiving and pamphlet-launch. Sharing a platform with Pascale Petit  Cristina Newton and Rosie Jackson! What a privilege! There are some fabulous events on at the festival – have a look at the programme.

On Sunday 11th October at 3.30 in the Bishop’s Palace (a free event) the winner of the Wells Festival of Literature Poetry Competition will be announced, with a reading of the short-listed poems. For the full programme see the Festival website. The short-list can be seen here.

I’d like to welcome and thank all the followers of this blog, many of whom I’ve not yet met, and especially David of Write Out Loud, whom three of us from Wells had the pleasure of meeting at David Caddy‘s excellent workshop in Dorset on Saturday.

Finally … our next meeting will be on Monday 5th October at the Sherston Inn starting promptly at 8pm. Ama will be in the chair and the topic (optional!) will be “Light”, the theme of National Poetry Day which celebrates its 21st birthday on October 8th.

My title this month is taken from something Rachael said on Monday … I made a note of it but I don’t remember now if it was part of a poem.

Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs. The adjective hasn’t been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place. -William Strunk and E.B. White, authors of The Elements of Style

Rain-making at Priddy

Deborah Harvey has written a post about the event she and Dearbhaile Bradley and the Waterwoven team took part in at Priddy Folk Festival. The audience was tiny but truly discerning!

Waterwoven’s next performance will be at the Bristol Poetry Festival in late September.

Always in need of a conflict

Fifteen of us met on Monday evening to share poems on and off the topic of “Belligerence”.

Andy, chairman for the evening, read Fragment #9 of his evolving magnum opus “Power Politics”. Mark dealt obliquely with war and its aftermath. David Green’s poignant first poem recalled two interwoven acts of belligerence, and his second investigated possibilities arising from “… the aggravating folk next door …” Jo wrote of belligerence, chillingly, from the point of view of the one on the receiving end. Sara’s two poems looked , one touchingly and one zanily,  at the belligerent possibilities of cooking and eating. That’s quite enough adverbs for now – ed.

Rachael read one poem meditating on the contents of a wardrobe after a death, and another observing belligerent bird behaviour. There were more birds – puffins this time – from Ewan, and Morag read a passionate comment on what’s happening to the bees.

I have taken this post’s title from one of Pamela’s poems “The Way it is”. Her other was a hypnotic chant, “All Eyes”.

We have come to expect rich, raw, fine-tuned autobiographical fragments from Karin. Her poems  had us listening spellbound. Wendy’s poems, too, are always firmly rooted in the real world and always beautifully written.

Jinny’s poems tend to sound straightforward but often have a sting in the tail. Her poem about decorating the Christmas tree was a good example. Her second poem was an erasure-poem from a scientific paper written by her son. Alchemy!

Ama read a quasi-sonnet about an unwritten ballad, and “Biographie” an erasure-poem that can be read here.

The Wells Litfest competition was mentioned after the meeting. The deadline for entries is the end of this month. We decided that we would each enter at least one poem or story. Read about it here.

The six poets of “Waterwoven” will be performing this collaborative sound-collage at Priddy Folk Festival’s Word Tent tomorrow evening (Friday 11th July) at 8pm, and at the Bristol Poetry Festival in late September – date tbc.

Next month we’ll be taking a break, but we hope to be back in the Sherston Inn on 7th September, when Karin invites readings on the topic “Fifty”, and on 5th October when Ama will chair a session on “Light”, the topic for National Poetry Day Thursday 8th October.

Fountain Stars

Rachael and Jinny have poems in the current issue of The Interpreter’s House and Rachael is in Reach Poetry UK. Rachael’s poem in the webzine Three Drops from a Cauldron has been nominated for Best of the Net. Ama’s “Post-election Blues” was posted on The Stare’s Nest on Sunday. David has sent his two poems about the Queen to Buckingham Palace, and has received a thank-you letter!

“Accuracy, Spontaneity, Mystery.” These are the three qualities Elizabeth Bishop admired in the poetry she liked best, according to her essay, “Writing poetry is an unnatural act…” (702) from the collection Elizabeth Bishop: Poems, Prose and Letters

Latest news

Our next meeting will be on Monday 14th October and will be chaired by Rachael Clyne.

Bristol Poetry Festival starts very soon! see Poetry Can for details. On Friday 4th October 12 midday to 1.30pm, Fountain poet Sara Butler will be the guest reader at “Bristol Can Openers”, Foyles Bookshop, 6 Quakers Friars, Cabot Circus, Bristol, BS1 3BU. Entrance is free.

Congratulations are due to Chrissy Banks of Fire River Poets for winning second prize in the Yeovil poetry competition, judged by Neil Astley of Bloodaxe Books.

Neil commented…

Only after choosing ‘The Waves’ as my second prize winner did I discover from the codes on the sheets that another poem, a highly accomplished and moving sestina called ‘Don’t Look Now’, which I would have wanted as a joint third prize winner, was by the same poet (the competition rules only allow for one prize per poet). This added to my admiration of this poet’s technical skills and ability to marry feeling with form in a way which intensifies and draws out the experiences being evoked. ‘The Waves’ is an urban poem in which people’s precariously lurching lives in the city are written about as though swept and buffeted by sea and storm. The metaphor of the waves as the rhythm of life permeates the whole poem in such a way that the reader isn’t always aware that the sea carries all before it.

Twenty Poets Perform

Once again Mark Sayers is putting on this splendid event. It will take place in the cafe area of Bristol Central Library, College Green, BS1 5TL, on Saturday 21 September from noon until 3pm.

Fountain poets Mark Sayers, Sara Butler and Ama Bolton will be taking part in this free event. If you’re in Bristol that afternoon, do come!