No Methodist need apply

Local journalist, editor and archivist Clare Blackmore came to our March meeting  with treasures she has painstakingly unearthed in the archives of local papers and in private collections: about 150 poems by the unschooled but by no means uneducated Victorian poet William Catcott. William was a working man, by turns wool-comber, miner, farm labourer and baker. An observant and thoughtful man, he wrote of rural life and work, love, friendship and local events. Some of his work shows  a passion for justice, standing up for the poor and oppressed — including animals — and criticising the careless and greedy oppressors, the unsoiled drowsy drones. “John Cross” is a passionate defence of a Dorset labourer who kept his family on fourteen pence a day and was sent to prison for stealing firewood. “No Methodist need apply” chides a local bigot who advertised anonymously for a maid-of-all-work. Many of the poems take joy in the beauty of nature. This reading of a dozen poems was a fascinating introduction to the remarkable work of a local man who could so easily have been forgotten by posterity. I do recommend this book, “William Catcott: The Complete Works”.

During the open-mic section we enjoyed poems from Tom Sastry, Wendy Nicholson, David Cloke, Diana Hill, Paul Watkin, Lydia Harley-Tomlinson, Mervyn Lickfold, Michelle Diaz, Jinny Fisher, Rachael Clyne and Ama Bolton.

Jinny, Michelle and Rachael will be reading from their recently-published books at the Avalon Room, 2-4 High Street, Glastonbury BA6 9DU, next Friday, 29th March, 7.30-9.30. Do support them if you can.

Our guest at the 1st April meeting will be Ben Banyard from Portishead. His poems have appeared in Popshot, The Interpreter’s House, Prole, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Broadsheet, Sarasvati, The Dawntreader, London Grip, The Open Mouse and many others.

His debut pamphlet Communing and a full  collection, We Are All Lucky, are published by Indigo Dreams. Ben also edits Clear Poetry, a blog publishing accessible contemporary work by newcomers and old hands alike.

We’ll be meeting once again upstairs at The Venue in South Street, 7.45 for 8pm.

I would recommend the cultivation of extreme indifference to both praise and blame because praise will lead you to vanity, and blame will lead you to self-pity, and both are bad for writers. – John Berryman

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Perfect for persistent abrasion

We started our last meeting with a short but illuminating Q&A session with the featured poet, Jinny Fisher. She started writing poetry ten years ago in response to the death of a friend, and since then she has had many poems published in both print and on-line journals. As always, it was good to hear a set of poems by one writer. Jinny’s are highly-evolved, polished and sparkling with a rather dark humour. Preoccupations that her work reveals include control and escape, boundaries, therapy, loss, science, photography and woodwork.

My title is taken from Jinny’s first published poem, Deep Cleaning, which appeared in The Interpreter’s House in 2015. She finished her set with a topical, political poem.

After the interval we heard poems from Paul W (with visual aid – a brand-new pair of high-tech running shoes), Michelle, Rachael, Morag, Andrew, Karin, David C, Mark, Wendy, David K and Ama, with a final bonus track from Jinny

News: Morag has a regular column, “Electric Blue” in Tears in the Fence, Michelle has a poem in Prole, Rachael has poems forthcoming in Tears in the Fence, Unpsychology and Prole, and has the distinction of being short-listed for a pamphlet with Valley Press.

Next month we’ll be meeting at Jinny’s house in Glastonbury on Monday 8th January, 7’45 for 8pm. If you are not on the mailing-list, please contact Ama (amabolton at hotmail.com) for directions. It has become a tradition that in January we share published poems by other people, as a change from the usual format. Do bring at least two.

I began writing this post two weeks ago, but have been caught in the headlights of you-know-what rushing toward me like a runaway ten-ton truck. The last card was posted today and I’m back at my post, so to speak. Happy you-know-what, everyone! See you next year!

By the end of a poem, the reader should be in a different place from where he started. I would like him to be slightly disoriented at the end, like I drove him outside of town at night and dropped him off in a cornfield.
—– Billy Collins

Love’s Exuberance

Rosie Jackson writes about love like no-one else does. She writes about other things too but it seems to me that love is the foundation on which her poems are built. She writes with warmth and honesty, intelligence and humour, and it was a treat to hear her reading as guest poet on 6th November at the lovely Cheeseyard Cafe near Wells.

In the second half we had some strong readings from Andrew Henon (his poem appears in Tears in the Fence #67), Sara Butler, Paul Rogers, David Cloke, Michelle Diaz, Rachael Clyne, Ama Bolton, Morag Kiziewicz and Paul Watkin, a very welcome visitor who used to be a regular in the old days of the Cafe Piano! He read this poem.

Thanks to those who came just to listen, we had a good-sized audience. Ten copies of our nourishing new anthology “Feast” are still available at only £4 each, or two for £4 if you are a contributor.

Next month we shall be meeting in the skittle-alley at The Sherston Inn Priory Road, Wells BA5 1SU, 7.45 for 8pm. The featured poet will be Jinny Fisher.

On 30th November, Words & Ears in Bradford-on-Avon will be featuring readings by  Tania Hershman and Pam Zinnermann-Hope.

‘One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper patterns at the right moment.’ –Hart Crane

The airy distance

Our guest poet at the February meeting was Linda Saunders, who captivated us with work from her latest collection A Touch on the Remote, and a few new poems including one from Project 2017, a Bath-based series of workshops that several of us have signed up for. My title is taken from Linda’s first poem, Thin Air, one of many on the theme of distance and remoteness. These are thoughtful, intelligent, well-crafted poems and I wholeheartedly recommend the collection.

Contributors to the “open-mouth” part of the evening (we have no microphone) included Ewan, Andrew, Morag, Claire, Sara, Rachael, Paul R, David C, Caroline, Wendy, Ama and Jane, our founder. Jo read two from her “Islands” series, Gillian performed a reedbed conversation between starlings, and Ewa read (a month late) a poem by Wislawa Szymborska Some people like poetry – (two per thousand, apparently!) Some of the poems we read this time commented on recent events across the pond.

Our next meeting will be at the same place (Just Ales in Market Street) and time (7.45 for 8) on Monday March 6th, when our guest will be the Bristol-based Laureate’s Choice poet Tom Sastry. Not to be missed! Come early to be sure of a seat.

A piece of writing can only be as good as its weakest word.
– Sue Boyle

Writing-off the cost of the petunias

David Cloke, convener of the East Coker Poetry Group, was our featured poet at Monday night’s well-attended meeting in the congenial setting of Just Ales, the Wells micropub. We always enjoy the wit, originality, intelligence and technical skill of David’s work, and it was a joy to listen to him, and indeed to take part in his campanological poem Bells, which needs nine voices to ring the changes. Oh, and to our great delight he did perform his famous morse-code poem! My title is taken from his first poem, Space.

Jane gave a much-appreciated second performance of her Rap on Growing Old, which went down so well at the spoken word event at Wells Litfest. She also read Supper Dish, placed 3rd in the most recent East Coker Poetry Competition and published in their very attractive anthology.

Jo read Shooting Photons in the Canaries, published on-line on  Monday in Amaryllis, Poetry Swindon’s blog. Her second poem was Wunderkammer, published in print in this year’s Broadsheet, (launched last month at Exeter Poetry Festival) where Jo’s poem sits happily alongside work by such well-known names as Julia Copus and Annie Freud.

Ama read Three ways of looking at a Fig, which recently won a small prize at the Torbay Festival. Caroline read two short but sweet autumnal poems, and we welcomed two new readers, Alison and Michelle. Michelle runs a monthly poetry open-mic in Glastonbury at Tea and Chi in Benedict Street at 6.45 on the last Thursday of the month. The featured poet this month will be The Bristol Sadhu.

We heard new poems from Rachael, Ewan, Mark, Morag and Andrew. Rachael will be running a creative writing course in Glastonbury starting in the new year; see the previous post for details.

We heard two rather poignant poems from Wendy, who has produced a new single-poem pamphlet with her own delightful illustrations, Saving the Earth. It’s a good present for a child, and a bargain at £1.50.

The next meeting will be at the same place on Monday December 5th, when the headline act will be the collaborative programme Second Skin from six Fountain Poets. All are invited, but not required, to bring a clothing-related poem!

NB Alice Oswald will be in Bath next Tuesday evening, 15th November.  She performs her work from memory, and to hear her is an unforgettable experience. It looks as if tickets (which include a voucher for the wonderful book Falling Awake) are still available.

“In the act of writing the poem, I am obedient, and submissive. Insofar as one can, I put aside ego and vanity, and even intention. I listen. What I hear is almost a voice, almost a language. It is a second ocean, rising, singing into one’s ear, or deep inside the ears, whispering in the recesses where one is less oneself than a part of some single indivisible community. Blake spoke of taking dictation. I am no Blake, yet I know the nature of what he meant. Every poet knows it. One learns the craft, and then casts off. One hopes for gifts. One hopes for direction. It is both physical, and spooky. It is intimate, and inapprehensible. Perhaps it is for this reason that the act of first-writing, for me, involves nothing more complicated than paper and pencil. The abilities of a typewriter or computer would not help in this act of slow and deep listening.”
– Mary Oliver, Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems

Fountain stars!

Congratulations to Fountain poets Claire Coleman and Jinny Fisher. Claire has six poems in Sarasvati #42, published by Indigo Dreams, and Jinny has two prose-poems in The Poetry Shed.

Ewan MacPherson and Jane Williams performed at the spoken word event “Write out, Speak out” during Wells Litfest. Jane’s verbal fireworks proved to be the evening’s stand-out performance.

Zanna Beswick and Ama Bolton were at the Torbay Poetry Festival yesterday, reading their  Commended and Highly Commended poems at the Torbay Poetry competition prizegiving event.

Next meeting in Wells: Monday 7th November. Guest poet will be the wonderful David Cloke from East Coker. Will he read his unforgettable Morse Code poem? I do hope so!

Left-handed Scissors

Twenty of us met in the Micro-pub on Monday evening, when the featured poet was Jane Williams, who started the group back in … 2002 I think it was, about a year after she started writing and about the time she won the Wyvern Prize for a poem in the Wells Litfest competition! It was a real treat to hear her work. This post’s title is the title of her introductory poem – inappropriate scissors as a metaphor for life’s unexpected turns – after which the poems offered snapshots from Jane’s long and eventful life. The evening’s optional theme was “Messages” – the theme of National Poetry Day later this week – and Jane’s poems are, almost without exception, messages of love.

Every poem is of course a message of some sort – an attempt to communicate. We heard messages from Wendy, Caroline, Ewan, both the Pauls, David C, Gillian, Jinny, Morag, Sara, Andrew, Ama, Rachael, Jo, Anne (great to see her after a long absence) and Ali, a welcome newcomer. Finally Jane read a poem by her old friend George Wilson, a excellent poet who used to come and read his work in the early days of our group, and who has recently died aged 93. As a schoolboy he was taught by the man who took the pen-name George Orwell, and later, when teaching in Northern Ireland, he became friends with Seamus Heaney.

We liked the atmosphere at our new venue. It was warm and welcoming. Snippets of conversation drifted in from the front room and blended surreally with the poetry. The next meeting will be on Monday 7 November, once again in Just Ales Micro-pub in Market Street (behind the bus station), 7.45 for 8pm. Real ale and local cider on tap, as well as tea and coffee! We look forward to an extended set from David Cloke from East Coker, a long-standing member of our group and a very fine craftsman with words. There will be a charge of £2.

Rachael, Morag and Andrew are all in the latest issue of “Tears in the Fence”.

If even a few people remember a line or two in a poem you wrote, you’re not just getting there, you’re there. That’s it: and all the greater glory is mere vanity.
– Clive James

News from East Coker

David Cloke, co-ordinator of the East Coker Poetry Group, writes:

Our meetings are held at the Helyar Arms, East Coker and normally start at 7.30pm on the last Tuesday of the month.

Sometimes we have to change a date or time of a meeting and our website will display any changes and the latest details.

Tues 27th Sept Kate Scott

Kate Scott is a scriptwriter, playwright and award-winning children’s author. She is also a published poet regularly heard on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Poetry Please’. Kate’s stage plays have been performed in the Salisbury Fringe Festival and at the Salisbury Playhouse Studio. Kate will be reading some of her work and also discussing poetic inspiration and finding your poetic voice

Tues 25th Oct Competition Evening

Come and read your entry – We hope to read all the entries

Everyone eats food. But can you write a recipe in poetic form? Following a vote at our May meeting, this is the challenge for our 2016 competition – A Recipe in Poetic Form

The recipe can be for any sort of food – a soup, a main course, a pudding, a cake, etc. The choice is yours – but there must be enough information in the poem so that in theory the recipe could actually be made. Entries by email if possible to :-info@eastcokerpoetry.org.uk to reach me by the 1st October

We are also now accepting (for a second prize) poems based on the title but not actually an eatable recipe……….

Tues 29th Nov Annie Fisher

Annie Fisher won our 2012 poetry competition with three excellent poems on the theme of ‘Postcards’. She has gone on writing poetry and has new put together a collection that is being published in November. We are delighted to welcome her back to East Coker for a reading of her work

____________________________________________________

For more information about the East Coker Poetry Group, contact

David Cloke, Group Co-ordinator, 01935 862623

email info@eastcokerpoetry.org.uk website www.eastcokerpoetry.org.uk

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

 

 

 

 

Mind the Gap

(Photo by Dave Bonta, from his blog)

I don’t quite know what was different. Maybe it was the tall candles on the table. Maybe it was the TV in the adjoining bar turned down low enough not to be intrusive. Whatever it was, it made for an unusually good atmosphere at the Sherston on Monday evening, and some especially good poems were read rather well! We welcomed a newcomer, Terry, and hope to hear more of his work in the future.

Ewan was in the chair and the theme was “Our home in Somerset”. Some poems embraced the theme. From Rachael, Terry, David, Ama, Ewan, Morag, Andrew, Ewa, Wendy and Karin we heard about the view from a house on a hill,  about Porlock, about traffic in Yeovil, about bus journeys across the Levels, about the Romans on Mendip, about one particular shed in Wells, about a difficult day at work in Somerset, about Somerset as a surrogate home and about homesickness and the loss of a homeland.

My title is taken from David’s English national anthem, an inspired collage of phrases from the shipping forecast, the football results and elsewhere.

Neil’s two poems were, as we have come to expect, witty and well-crafted. Jo wrote touchingly about articles of clothing, and we had some hard-hitting topical poems from Wendy and Paul. Jinny’s poems are always surprising, and deeper than they seem on the surface.

Ewa, who was not at the last meeting, read a “Desert Island” poem that she found on the back of a door in a health visitor’s office in Taunton – Please Touch Me, by Phyllis K Davis.

Congratulations to Rachael, who has had a poem accepted for inclusion in an anthology to be published in the United States.

Next month we shall meet at the same place on 7th March. The meeting will be chaired by Ewa and the theme will be “Spring is coming” – but don’t expect it to be all lambs and apple-blossom …

“I rarely think of poetry as something I make happen – it is more accurate to say that it happens to me. Like a summer storm, a house afire, or the coincidence of both on the same day. Like a car wreck, only with more illuminating results. I’ve overheard poems, virtually complete, in elevators and restaurants where I was minding my own business. When a poem does arrive, I gasp as if an apple had fallen into my hand, and give thanks for the luck involved. Poems are everywhere, but easy to miss.” – Barbara Kingsolver