Due to Pratibha’s very recent illness, her visit to Fountain Poets has been postponed to later in the year (update: June 3rd.) March 4th will be an open-mic meeting.
Pratibha Castle, an Irish born poet living in West Sussex, is widely anthologised and published in journals and ezines including Agenda, High Window, Orbis, Spelt, Stand, Tears in The Fence, The Friday Poem and One Hand Clapping. She is a Michael Marks and Pushcart nominee. Shortlisted in The Bridport Prize 2023, her work has additionally been highly commended and shortlisted in numerous poetry competitions including Indigo Press, Repton, King Lear Award and the Welsh Poetry Competition. Her award winning debut pamphlet A Triptych of Birds & A Few Loose Feathers (Hedgehog Press 2022) is joined by Miniskirts in The Waste Land (Hedgehog Press 2023), a Poetry Book Society Winter Selection 2023, and gives the reader a glimpse of life in Notting Hill and India in the late 60s/early 70s. Pratibha performs her poetry internationally on zoom and at live events, including The Cheltenham and also Gloucester Poetry Festivals. She is currently working towards a full collection.
We welcome Pratibha on Monday 4 March, in the upstairs room at the King’s Head in Wells High Street, starting promptly at 7pm. As usual there will be open mic slots.
Thirteen of us were lucky enough to hear a spellbinding reading by Gram Joel Davies last Monday, as well as some pretty wonderful offerings in the open mic section.
I am sure no-one will forget I Used to Think my Body was Mine, I am a Cold Shoulder, Elsie, or The Journey for which no-one wants a ticket. They went straight to the heart.
On the more light-hearted side, we were entertained by Silent Letters, Sonata for Remington and Alliteration, and For the Pips on their 100th Birthday.
Poetry can tell us what human beings are. It can tell us why we stumble and fall and how, miraculously, we can stand up. — Maya Angelou
ways with words in the city of Wells 