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

 

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The clock is ticking

Fog and illness made for a smaller-than-usual group of poets last evening at the Sherston Inn, with Jo in the chair, sharing poems on and off the theme of “Clocks”. Nevertheless we welcomed two new listeners who we hope will come again. There were some memorable contributions. Neil was inspired by a cold to write two clever pastiches – (“O nose thou art thick …”), Ewan left his comfort-zone and explored the wilder shores of haiku, Jo read two wonderfully witty poems on the clock topic, Mark performed a villanelle from which this post’s title is taken, and a topical poem about the extra hour in bed. Clare too contributed a short and sweet poem on the changing of the clocks, read in her absence by Ama.

Paul never knowingly writes on-topic; from him we had one poem in praise of his poetic collaborator (a muse that mews) and one about the Severn Bridge, both in his distinctive style. We have learned to expect to be disturbed by Jinny’s work. She did not disappoint. Wendy read two poignant and well-crafted poems – one of them a prize-winning sonnet – on the theme of time. Pamela delighted us with a handful of tiny poems. From Richard we had two fine sonnets, from Rachael a pair of short, skilfully-written poems, and from Ama “Time Travel”, her Bridport 3rd-prize-winning poem from 2008, and a very recent pastoral invitation to abandon the use of clocks.

Our next meeting will be on Monday December 7th, when Ewa will be in the chair. The theme she has chosen is “Better to light a candle than curse the darkness” – a proverb that can also be taken literally during the short winter days.

Other news:
Congratulations to Rosie Jackson, who won the Hilly Cansdale prize in the Wells competition.
There is a new poetry open-mic venue in Glastonbury, “Tea and Chi” in Benedict Street at 7pm on the last Thursday of the month.
On November 10th in Bath there will be a free slide-show-illustrated sequence of readings from poems written in 1915 – details below.

“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

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.

Memories shaped from wet sand

We met for the last time at the Sherston Inn on Monday evening. Alas, the availability of cheap booze and cheap food at a nearby establishment has forced the closure (on 25th March) of this historic coaching-inn.

Sara was in the chair, and her topic was Water. This enabled four of the six Watery Poets to perform two-thirds of their set from last Saturday’s Day of Good Poetry (see the previous post, below). We had  watery poems also from Rachael (“In its Element” and “I have not heard”), Jinny (“Grooming Fish” and “Camouflage”), Karin (“A Fishy Tale”), Wendy (a modern ballad in traditional form, “The Drowning at Cinder Hope Ford”), Linda (“Searching for the Shinings”), Andy (“Bath-Time” and “Flow-form”), Morag (“The Splash”), Gill (“Towards Evening”, a memory of floating candles on Hiroshima Day, read in Gill’s absence by Ama), and Mark (“A Costly Bath”), as well as some splendid water-related riddles in the Anglo-Saxon tradition from Richard and a handful of sparkling haiku from Caroline.

Off-topic we had two poems with a twist of the unexpected from Ewa and  Mark (“By bus to Weston Super Mare”), “March” and a strongly evocative poem “Cwm Rhondda” from Rosalie, and Ewan’s “The Boy from Wales”. Karin’s intricate narrative poem “Sugar Man” provided this post’s title. In addition we enjoyed Wendy’s wistful and evocative “Topsy Turvy”, and Ewa read Warsan Shire’s wonderful poem “For women who are difficult to love“. Altogether it was a good session.

Next month we shall be meeting on Monday April 13th in the cocktail bar of the Rose and Crown, 7 St John Street, Wells BA5 1SW. There is no car-park, but on-street parking is allowed in the evenings. The Google map is here. Caroline will chair the meeting and her topic is,  naturally, “Cocktails”. Cheers!

Poetry is not a discipline. It’s a hunger, a revolt, a drive, a mash note, a fright, a tantrum, a grief, a hoax, a debacle, an application, an affect. We cannot make the gods come. All we can do is sweep the steps of the temple and thus we sit down to our desks. – Dean Young

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

The open waters of time

Eighteen of us were made welcome at The Sherston Inn in Wells when we met last week to share recent poems, some of which were on the theme of remembering. And some were about forgetting.

The first two poems remembered fathers who had served in WW2, and another recalled the evening when the poet’s parents had met. There were childhood memories and memories of things that had happened earlier that same day, poignant memories of a bedside vigil and a clever limerick about the tricks that memory plays. This post’s title is quoted from one of Ewa’s poems.

Sara’s “Southborough” told of a Norfolk tomb with an enigmatic inscription hinting at a very strange story. Jinny, a welcome newcomer, read two very accomplished poems, one of which had the intriguing title “Interrogation of a woman who no longer has a voice”. Paul, who excels at titles, read “Eulogy for an unreadable CD”. A great many birds were mentioned during the evening – kingfishers (twice), starlings (twice), avocets and guillemots.

If there were were a prize for the most unusual poem it would have to go to Keith, who wrote an epitaph – wrote it on a large piece of wood that he had found on his way to the meeting.

Next month we’ll be meeting in the same place on Monday 8th December. Andy will be in the chair, and the optional theme will be “Festive Gatherings”.

 

is poetry not
a sticky sap that oozes up
through cracks in our hulls

whether we will it
or not, sometimes captures
accidentally

a small winged moment
preserves it for eternity
memory, amber
—Laura M Kaminski

Renewing a transatlantic friendship

Alicia and Jeff Rasley from Indianapolis happened upon the Fountain Poets a couple of years ago. What a lovely couple! They entered into the spirit of the group, Alicia reciting poems by Robert Frost from memory. Jeff sang “Twinke twinkle little star.” In Latin! Both of them are writers and travellers. Alicia travels to research her historical novels. She teaches writing at two state colleges and in workshops throughout North America. Jeff is an author and writing coach who spends time every year trekking in Nepal, where he is deeply committed to helping tribal communities in a non-invasive way. His website is here. We’ve kept in touch since their visit, and they have just spent three days in Wells. Some of us met up with them in the Bishop’s Palace on Sunday afternoon.

Photo by Jeff Rasley

From there we walked to the old Mendip Hospital Cemetery, now a peaceful wildlife sanctuary and home to many sculptures carved from dead or dying trees in situ by Peter Bolton.

Back in Wells, we met up with a few other Fountain poets for local real cider and beer in the lovely back garden at The Full Moon. It was a beautiful evening. We shared a few poems on a transatlantic theme but mostly we just talked … they recalled hearing David Cloke’s amazing Morse-code poem, and another in Somerset dialect by Richard, on the subject of pigs. I think we could have talked all night!

The next day Alicia and Jeff posed for me in the dappled shade of an ancient yew tree in The Coombe, just outside Wells city boundary but a short walk from the centre.

Those of us lucky enough to have got to know the Rasleys are looking forward to their next visit to Somerset.