Much like crime, poetry doesn’t pay

Our guest this month was Melanie Branton from Bristol.
She was wonderful: tender, honest, funny, incisive and alert to the subtle layers of potential in everyday words and phrases. She emerged onto the performance poetry scene only a few years ago but already has a pamphlet published last year by Oversteps, with a second coming out later this year. If you missed her, you can find her on You-tube

You can read a short bio and a poem that illustrates her characteristically inventive use of simile here. Melanie’s legs are really much longer than they look in the accompanying photo.

In the second half we heard poems from Izzy, Sara, Diana (who read one by the sorely-missed Irene Benson), Chris (recently back from teaching in Hungary), Michelle, Rachael, Morag, Andy, Ama and Jinny, who read her poem “The Pattern”, which was commended in a recent competition.

Melanie finished the evening with “Manifesto”, of which this post’s title is the first line.

Latest news: congratulations to Rachael, who has a Food-bank Poem in The Poetry Shed.
And Ama will be performing her sequence “Warp” at BRLSI as part of an Odyssey-themed afternoon on Saturday 28th July. The readings start at 2pm. Free admission. Full programme here.

We shall be meeting again after the summer break. To know when and where, keep an eye on the “Who, what, where, when” page, or join the mailing list by emailing Ama at amabolton(at)hotmail(dot)com.

When I was fourteen I had a conversation at a Boy Scout meeting with a fellow who seemed ancient to me; he was sixteen. I was bragging and told him that I had written a poem during study hall at high school that day. He asked—I can see him standing there—You write poems? and I said, Yes, do you? and he said, in the most solemn voice imaginable, It is my profession. He had just quit high school to devote himself to writing poetry full time! I thought that was the coolest thing I’d ever heard. It was like that scene in Bonnie and Clyde where Clyde says, We rob banks. Poetry is like robbing banks. 
– Donald Hall (died 23 June 2018)

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New clothes for a strange climate

My Amaryllis has changed colour after 20 years. I’m told this is caused by warmer winters.

Seventeen poets met last Monday, chaired by Ewa. The topic was “Spring is coming”. Wendy responded with a springtime sonnet and a lovely poem in praise of birdsong. Paul wrote about the awakening of trees after winter and David C about Liverpool emerging from the smog – with lambs and apple-blossom! Mark celebrated the arrival of swallows, and both Rachael and Ama wrote about the arrival of March. Ama’s second poem was inspired by 29th February, Leap Day. Mark read his meditative poem “Good Friday”.

Chris, who has been pruning apple trees, read two new poems “This too will pass”, inspired by the mediaeval Persian legend, and another all about apples. Annette read an allegorical work linking motorcycle maintenance to the maintaining of a relationship. Her second poem, for Mother’s Day, was heart-felt and full of compassion. Ewa’s brave and beautiful poems too came straight from the heart.

My title is taken from Caroline’s moving poem about widowhood. Her second poem was inspired by the five Chinese elements.

Jo read two pieces that have recently been published on-line in Hedgerow – find them in issues 66 and 67.

Jinny read a vivid prose-poem about her grandmother, and a short and darkly mysterious domestic drama set in a wardrobe.

David G read a poem featuring the birds, animals and plants of an Oxford water-meadow, and Mo read one about an absence of gulls. From Terry we heard two nature-poems. David C’s second poem was an amusing villanelle – “Sauce Villanaise”.

Ewan read a very recent poem, “Sacrament”, and “Silent Feet” written out of sympathy with the refugees.

Tina from Wookey Hole came to tell us about a prose writing group that meets in The Fountain Inn on the first Tuesday of every month at 7pm.

The evening was affected by noise from the bar, and so next month we shall be trying a new venue, The Venue in South Street, which promises a quiet room! There is a bar and a fish-and-chip and pizza menu, and free parking very nearby in Bell’s Close car park. Monday 4th April at 7.45 for 8pm. Ama will chair the meeting and the optional topic will be “Sea”. Do come!

When the energy stops, stop. – Kathleen Jamie

Often the poems that end best are the ones that don’t. – Judy Kendall

 

 

 

 

Light a candle: celebrate standing in the dark

Twelve poets met at the Sherston on December 7th to share recent work on and off the topic of lighting candles rather than cursing the dark. There were poems from David and Ama about floating candles in paper boats, and a candle poem from Chris. We heard dark poems from Chris, Andy  and Sara. Sara has the distinction of having been commended this year in the Geoff Stevens Memorial Prize, which was won in 2013 by Rachael. This post’s title is from Rachael’s “Solstice”, due to be published in the January issue of Raceme, a new literary magazine for Bristol and the South-west. Mark read two of his characteristic observations on human nature and from Richard we heard two sonnets inspired by precious stones.

Jo read “From Life” which is published in the Poetry Space Winter Showcase. Ewan read “Desert Wisdom” and a poem on the anniversary of his mother’s death. Ama’s second poem was a celebration of being in the dark. Ama had eleven poems in the last issue of Obsessed with Pipework and one in the December Mslexia. Some of Chris’s poetry has been carved as part of the Shapwich Heath Sculpture Trail.

Karin read two interestingly different versions of a new poem. Paul, a welcome newcomer to the group, contributed two poems.

Next month we’ll be meeting in the same place on January 4th with Rachael in the chair. By tradition we read any other poet’s published work at the January meeting. Rachael has suggested that this time we consider which eight poems we’d take with us to the BBC’s desert island – read two of them and list the other six. This will be quite a challenge, and should make for interesting listening.

Best wishes to all for a happy Christmas/Solstice/Saturnalia and an inspiring New Year.

Poetry is a sort of homecoming. – Paul Celan

 

Balancing heavy objects with light thoughts

Photo by David Robinson

In common with National Poetry Day (yesterday, 8th October), we took “Light” as our theme for the meeting on Monday evening. This post’s title is taken from Andy’s “Increasingly enlightened”, which succeeded in keeping several layers of meaning illuminated for the duration of a quite complex piece of writing. Andy’s second poem was an impromptu haiku in response to one by Joan. Or was Joan’s a halliku? The jury is still out. Anyway, it was good to hear her reading her own work!

Jo read two small but perfectly-formed poems on the topic of light. The use of rhyme and repeated lines made them seem to fold in on themselves in a satisfying origami-like way. Rosalie’s poem, ostensibly about packing to go hoime at the end of a holiday, began with a striking line and kept up the quality throughout. Sara read a small but powerful poem full of implied danger. The lasting image of the light in a rural phone-box at night could be straight from a black-and-white film.

Wendy’s two poems dealt in her usual deft and seemingly effortless style with aspects of light. Mark gave us “The Brecon Beacons had switched off their Light” and an affectionate poem about a lasting marriage. Ewa’s “Beauty in Decay” was full of light and shadow, and Morag read “Chiaroscuro” from the most recent Fountain anthology. Annette read two of her “Louis” poems, playfully and lovingly exploring the darker and lighter sdes of parenting. Ama read “Winter Boat” (starlight and pyrelight) and “Candlemas“. She also read, in Chris’s absence, his profound and perceptive poem “Sunlight Time”.

Paul read two entertaining poems in his unique style – one about planning, but not actually writing, poetry, and one about the memorable quality of a truly awful performance. The first line had us all laughing, and we had to control our guffaws in order to hear the rest. Karin, who is currently “between poems” read “O the Places you’ll go” by the late great Doctor Seuss. Well worth revisiting – I’ll be looking for it in the library. Ewan read two poems of holiday memories, one recent and one from childhood. A poem can be the best kind of souvenir, and it never needs to be dusted!

It was great to have our founder, Jane Williams, with us. Jane read, from her first collection, “Harvesting Potatoes”, a memory of work and sexual awakening during WW2, and “Clouded Yellow”, a tale of a troubled child with a disturbing attitude to wildlife. We hope you’ll come more often, Jane.

The next meeting will be on Monday 2nd November; it will be chaired by Jo and the topic will be clocks. We hope to continue meeting at the Sherston Inn. Archie, the new manager, made us welcome.

Fountain stars: Rosie Jackson was joint first in the Bath Poetry Cafe competition. Rosie and Ama were placed 2nd and 3rd in the Battered Moons competition, and Ama won first prize in the Poetry Space competition. Rosie also had three poems short-listed for the Buzzwords competition, and Jinny was short-listed in the Bridport Prize. Rachael has a poem is the 52 Anthology (Nine Arches Press) and Jo has poems forthcoming in “Gnarled Oak“. Sara, Zanna, Rachael and Ama were all in the short-list for the Bath Cafe Competition.

We will discover the nature of our particular genius when we stop trying to conform to our own and other people’s models, learn to be ourselves and allow our natural channel to open.
~Shakti Gawain.

The power of words

 

3D Electric power lines over sunrise Photo via

We had a good turn-out last night – twenty four of us round the table at The Sherston Inn. Jinny was in the chair and her topic was Power. Jinny herself read “King-sling baby” and “Forms of Travel” – on reflection I think both touched on the power of gravity. Responses to the topic varied from the power of water (Clare’s “Hydrology”) through the power of visual art (Claire’s “Portrait of an Angel”, Rosalie’s “Pencil Power” and “The Black Poppies”) power within the family (Joan’s “Power”, read in her absence by Morag, Pamela’s “Parent Power”, Ewa’s “Three scenes from a Marriage” – which appears in the Fountain Poets’ most recent anthology – and Sara’s “Winks”), the power of love in its manifold forms (Caroline’s “Power”, Sara’s “Scent”, Karin’s spine-tingling “Doppelganger” and “Red Fox”, Ewa’s “And when you kiss me”), to political power (Andy’s “Polemic Power”, Mark’s “Arbeit macht frei”, Caroline’s “Irish Anger” and Ama’s “Post-election Blues”, which earned an immediate heckle.) Mark’s other poem “When real power enthrals” dealt with power in the workplace – specifically a cough-mixture factory.

Rachael contributed a witty listing of the Twelve Steps of recovery for poets, read in her absence by Ama.

Jo read a family-album of a poem, “Waterworths”, and a compact untitled interweaving of past and present that has been accepted for on-line publication – see note below.

Annette’s two short pithy poems were written for last month’s topic – All About Eyes.

We welcomed a new member, Henrietta Lang, who read two engaging poems, “A Special Day Out” and “Dinner-party Man”. I look forward to hearing more of her work.

Some of us had been to a workshop with Roselle Angwin last week, and it was good to hear Claire’s, Andy’s and Morag’s poems which started there and had been thoroughly worked-on in the last few days! Morag’s poem “Three out of four IVF treatments fail” deserves a special mention for its understated but powerful treatment of three or four topics closely interwoven in a short piece of writing.  Morag’s second poem “July in the Waste Land” began life in response to a suggestion at a workshop with Sue Boyle in Bath last month. Again, it dealt deftly with serious subject matter.

Ewan’s first poem, “Let the Bells Ring” was a memorial to raped and murdered First Nation Canadian women. His second, “I go before you” was a biblical exegesis in verse. Many of us learnt things we didn’t know before!

Both of Paul’s poems were set in the Midlands: “Eternity in Sutton Coldfield” and “The First Caravan of the Season”.

Two elegiac pieces were Clare’s “Afterwards” and Ama’s “Gift”. Neil read his own chilling poem “Quietness” and a sinister mother-in-law poem from “A Crown of Sonnets” by Matthew Curry. Chris’s “Old Mother” was an allegorical incantation crying out to be set to music. Any composers out there? Chris has already collaborated with a printmaker and I suggest this could be his next project.

This month’s Fountain stars:

Richard Field, for the fourth year running, has been elected Fool of Glastonbury.

Jo Waterworth has a new poem in the on-line magazine Hedgerow.

Ama Bolton has two poems in the current issue of Obsessed with Pipework … and more in the pipeline!

Rachael Clyne and Jinny Fisher have poems in The Interpreter’s House. They will be reading  at the launch event at the Albion Bookshop in Oxford, on July 16th.
Poets might want to note that the submission window for Issue 60 is… June!

Jinny will be reading at the Fire River Poets Evening for their Poetry Competition Winners: this will be on Thursday June 4th at the United Reformed Church Hall in Paul Street, Taunton, 8-10pm. Refreshments will be available. Tickets are £5 at the door.

The prize-winning and commended poems (including Jinny’s) can be seen here http://fireriverpoets.org.uk/?page_id=693. The judge  was  Lawrence Sail, who also hopes to attend. Jean Atkin, 1st prize winner will be there. Here she is:http://www.overstepsbooks.com/poets/jean-atkin/

Other news:

Jo will be reading at an afternoon with Poetry Space next Saturday, June 6th, in Bristol.

The line-up also includes Myra Schneider and other well-known writers: details here.

Some of the Fountain Poets will be reading at a free day of poetry put on by Tears in the Fence at the  White Horse, Stourpaine, on Saturday July 4th. The Bluegate Poets from Swindon will also be there.

Six Fountain poets will be performing “Waterwoven”, our collage for six voices and rain-stick, at Priddy Folk Fesival on the evening of Friday 10th July.

Next meeting:

Monday July 6th at The Sherston Inn (dining room), starting promptly at 8pm. Andy will be in the chair, and has chosen the topic Belligerent. See you then!

When you write poetry you can’t help but tell the truth.

– Elizabeth Bishop

The ten-thousand-mile stare

Eighteen poets and two listeners crammed themselves into the small cocktail bar at the Rose and Crown on Monday night to share poems on and off Ewa’s chosen theme “All About Eyes”. Ewa started us off with a poem about being stared at by her mother’s cat. Rachael’s “Still seen” also featured a cat closely observing a human, while Mark’s “If you stare right back” dealt with the experience of being stared at by a child on a bus, and the likely perils of staring back. Wendy read “Night vision” and “Can it be paranoia?”, a poem about being watched.

My title is taken from Andy’s “Reflected back”. Chris’s “Eyes are a gift” and “Eyes of Islington” had some strikingly memorable lines too. Karin’s fragments of memoir “Eyes wide shut” and “Shore-lands” were quietly beautiful pieces of writing.

Poems dealing with blindness, both literal and metaphorical, included Ama’s “The legend of St Odelia”and “Two eyes”, Mark’s “Love is blind”, Richard’s “Flirting with blindness” and Andy’s “Blind to the suffering”. Mo’s poems were “Open eye” and the powerful “Gaza sonata”.

Caroline and Jo contributed haiku. One of Jo’s has just been published in the on-line journal Hedgerow. We heard some erasure poems from Neil and Jinny. Jinny’s other poem “The art of staying dry” suited the weather, and Neil, a master of the sting in the tail, surprised us in the last line of his poem “Better”. Paul read two topical poems, “Redress, or Death by pole-axe” concerning Richard III and “Beltane in Victoria Park”. Ewan read “A kind of peace” and “The stage”.

It was good to welcome Claire Coleman back. She read “Extracting sunbeams” and an untitled poem full of colour and light. Rachael brought an effective surreal prose-poem “Evolution is hard”.

Mo let us know about an offshoot of the Tears in the Fence Festival – a free day of poetry at the White Horse in Stourpaine on Saturday 4th July. Some of our Fountain Poets will be reading on that day.

The six of us who performed at the Bath Litfest will be presenting a second performance of “Waterwoven” at Priddy Folk Festival on the evening of Friday 10th July.

We do like the cocktail bar, but it is clearly too small for our group. The Sherston Inn has re-opened, so we’ll be meeting there (not in the skittle alley but in the dining room) next month, on Monday 1st June, when Jinny will be in the chair and the topic will be “Power”.

Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein

“I am below the lemon”

Seventeen of us met at the Rose and Crown on Monday to share poems on and off the topic of “Cocktails”. The pub has a welcoming and relaxed atmosphere and the cocktail-bar is nice enough though rather small. An eighteenth person would have had to stand in the doorway!

Cocktail-related poems included Jinny’s six-liner “Raspberry Gin”, Rachael’s “Working for Tips”, Annette’s “Special Brew Couple”, Chris’s “Body Politic”, from which this post’s title is quoted, Ama’s “Cocktails”, Caroline’s “”The Naming of Cocktails”, a couple of Haiku from Richard, and Rosalie’s “Pousse Rapiere”, read in her absence by Ama.

Other poems included two longer pieces from Karin, a prose-poem from Jo, a Molotov-cocktail of wartime reminiscences from Pamela,  “Glimpses of Bosom on Bathwick Hill” from Mark and two poems about poets from Ewan. Chris read one of his poems from the beautifully produced artist’s book “Flat Holm”, a collaboration with printmaker Otto Dettmer.

Altogether, thanks to all of you, my fellow-poets, it was an evening of rewarding listening to well-crafted work.

Next month we shall be meeting in the same place (come early to ensure a seat!) on Monday 4th May – May-day Bank Holiday. Ewa will be in the chair and her topic is “All about Eyes”.

We welcomed visitors Simon and Jenny from the Wells Festival of Literature, who came along to let us know about this year’s Festival Competitions. The judge will be Peter Oswald, husband of the more famous Alice, and he will read all the entries. The flyer is below. Full details on the website.

I have Claire Coleman to thank for this month’s quotation:

Art is the bridge with the realm of the spirit – the necromancy of humanity.
– from a novel by Mavis Cheek called Aunt Margaret’s Lover.

Hooray for us!

Rachael has a new poem on The Stare’s Nest.

A poem of Jinny’s was short-listed for the Bridport Prize.

Chris currently has a display of poems and photos of Flat Holm in Wells Library.

And Sara has two poems in the brand-new issue of Obsessed with Pipework. This will eventually be available on-line but why not subscribe now? It’s a cracking magazine, and gets better with every issue.

Quicksilver rain, slow sheep

We had a really enjoyable informal session at the Sherston Inn’s skittle alley on Monday night. A few of us met beforehand for supper, which was good, freshly-cooked and good value.

Rachael’s scheme for arranging the seating did make the space feel more comfortable.

Chris Scully was back from a summer spent on Flat Holm Island, bearing a copy of a limited-edition book of the poems he wrote during his stay, bound and illustrated with dramatic screen-prints by Otto Dettmer. There is a link on Chris’s page.

The January meeting is traditionally the one when we are encouraged to read published poems by other people. Sara read, very beautifully, three by Raymond Carver: A Haircut, Grief and Late Fragment. Chris read Pam Ayres’ The Dolly on the Dustcart. Jinny performed two of Pascale Petit’s searing poems from “The Zoo Father”: The Ant Glove and My Father’s Books, as well as the exuberantly cynical Spare us by Dennis O’driscoll.

Wendy contributed two poems by A.E.Housman, Oh, When I was in Love with you and When I was One-and-twenty. In the second half, she treated us to Jabberwocky and Wynken, Blynken and Nod – familiar to all, but when did we last read them? Joan read George Herbert’s Love bade me Welcome, and her 12-year-old grand-daughter Beth’s colourful poem Dawn. Beth will go far, I think! Richard gave us three 8th-century poems; an anonymous Anglo-Saxon meditation on the ruins of Bath, a very moving short Chinese poem in Arthur Waley’s translation, Watching the Reapers by Po Chu-i, and Riddle 30 from The Exeter Book.

Pamela performed, in the authentic dialect, two of Charles Benham’s Essex Ballads: Miss Julia the Parson’s Daughter and These New Fangled Ways, the second of which can be heard here in a recording the author made in 1895. Caroline had us chuckling with appreciation of Billy Collins’s Forgetfulness, read here by the author. Later she read Handbag by Ruth Fainlight and Apologia by Connie Bensley. Neil, a welcome newcomer to our group, read two of his own poems: Burning the Onions (with a lovely sting in the tail) and Ghosts. We look forward to hearing more of his work.

Ewan read two new poems: Paris, a reflection on recent events, and Mary’s Poem, from which I have taken this post’s title. Mark shared Kipling’s Alnaschar and the Oxen and Masefield’s London Town. Ama read, from the Fountain Poets’ 2013 anthology, Rayburn by Irene Benson, who died in September last year and is sadly missed. After the interval Ama read two poems that have appeared recently on The Stare’s Nest, Laura Kaminski’s tender meditation Babysitting the Next Dalai Lama and Marc Woodward’s savagely funny An Unexpected Change.

When I checked my e-mails later that evening I found a Bridport Prize newsletter and learnt that “our” Jinny Fisher was on the short-list! Congratulations, Jinny!

Next month we shall be meeting in the skittle alley on Monday 9 February. Paul will be in the chair and his choice of subject (for those who may find one useful) is “Speed”. Thereafter we shall meet on the second Monday of each month until the summer break after the June meeting.

 Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.
-Anton Chekhov

Words that split the universe in half

We met on Monday 19 May with Wendy Nicholson in the chair, to read and hear poems on the theme “A Sense of Place”. Chris read two poems written recently on the island of Flatholm, and Rachael shared some new poems from Iona. Ewa wrote about the lack of a sense of place, and Ama (with help from Morag) described a journey from one place to another by bus and train and on foot.

Caroline gave us “Australian Extremes” and “The Garden of Harmonious Pleasures, Beijing”. Pamela took us, in two short atmospheric poems, to her garden and to a bird sanctuary. Wendy gave us a glimpse of a changed landscape, and Ewan’s poem “The Ants”, from which my title is taken, was set in Greece.

One of Paul’s poems was set in Bedminster and his second, “Countryside versus Greed”, was a foretaste of next month’s theme, protest poetry. The title of Mark’s first poem, also a protest poem of sorts, was “His Parents Live in a Rather Unfortunate Part of London”. Andy and Morag read “Soul Birds” and “The Splash”. Altogether it was a successful theme.

Next month’s meeting will be on Monday 2 June, with Paul Rogers in the chair. Our theme (optional, as usual) will be Protest Poetry.

We decided to cancel the July meeting as it clashes with a reading at the Merlin Theatre, Frome, by Sir Andrew Motion (7th July, 7.45pm.) Meetings will resume in September after the summer break.

Andrew Goldsworthy, an occasional Fountain Poet, reports from Spain:

On the National news the other day the newsreader said; “La Poesia es la expresión de lo que hay dentro” – (Poetry is the expression of what there is within) it must have been in relation to something I missed or perhaps just a gratuitous plug for poetry.