Saturday Night Out

When the Poet Laureate is giving a reading less than five minutes from where you live, really it would be churlish not to rock up there! And when the reading is to raise money for a hard-pushed charity whose funding has suffered brutal cuts, well, all the more reason to join in. 

On Saturday evening we popped round the corner to a local church where Carol Ann Duffy was guesting at an event hosted by the Metropolitan Community Church of Manchester on behalf of the Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit.

The reading was small enough to feel very cosy, and was a sell-out with an audience of just under 200. Tony Warren, creator of Coronation Street and friend of Carol Ann for the past thirty years, welcomed her to the microphone. In the first half she read some old favourites, including a selection from The World's Wife. She also hinted at some surprise to be revealed in the Xmas Eve episode of the Street! After the interval she introduced new poems which will feature in her next collection, The Bees, due to be published next year. I'm looking forward to the new book. Over the past couple of years Carol Ann has read new poems at various gatherings and published them in newspapers. Poems such as John Barleycorn, Achilles, The Shirt, Premonition, The Human Bee - it will be exciting to see them as part of a wider, new collection. 

I do believe everyone should have a Poet Laureate in their locality to read to them on a Saturday night....!

Quest for an Even Keel

The last six weeks have been a rollercoaster and I really don't think my feet are properly back on the ground yet.

In the middle of July I did a week-long poetry workshop with Carol Ann Duffy and Gillian Clarke at Ty Newydd in Wales. It was just as inspiring and challenging as you'd expect, working with creative tutors and talented participants. I did an Arvon course with Carol Ann two years ago at Moniack Mhor and it took me about six weeks to get back to normal after that, so I did know what to expect. Even so, such an intense and wonderful experience still takes quite a while to come down from afterwards.

Hot on the heels of that, we went off on holiday to Mallorca. We haven't been abroad for three years, so that was another exciting experience, and challenging in its way as I'm not the world's most confident flyer.

The hotel we stayed in had a proper swimming pool - 25m long and 2.6m deep at the deep end. I had the blissful luxury of being able to swim outside - 1K or more nearly every day for 10 days. Given half a chance I think I could get used to that lifestyle...eating, swimming, reading books. Ahhhh dream on.....

Swimming and Poetry Weekend Round-up

Photo courtesy of Terry Wha

Today in the Review section of the Guardian, Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy has commissioned another poetry special (like the ones about war and ageing) on the subject of sport. Her contribution to the article is her poem 'The Shirt', mentioned here yesterday. 

We don't normally get the Independent newspaper, but as my dad is here for the weekend and it's his regular Saturday read, we bought it too. Serendipitously, it has a feature - 'The 50 best swimming pools', which highlights an interesting selection.

Obviously it doesn't include Tynemouth pool, since it's now derelict, but the photos above show how fantastic it was in its heyday. The colour one was taken only 40 years ago. With the upsurge of interest in outdoor swimming, I'm sure there'd be lots of people who'd use it, in the unlikely event of it ever being dug out of retirement.

The Shirt

Hey, what did I tell you on 20 June? Well, here it is - The Shirt!

John Barleycorn

One of the poems that Carol Ann Duffy read at Sunday's garden party was John Barleycorn. This poem was commissioned by the BBC's Culture Show for a pub-themed edition. It's a great example of how poetry takes on a different life when it's read out loud. It was quite moving to hear her declaim the litany of pub names. She enjoys the grape and the grain and said she didn't need to do much research to call to mind all the wonderful - real - names that feature in the poem!

I found the words of the poem here and you can listen to it on this clip on youtube.  

Poetry Garden Party

We spent a lovely afternoon at the highlight summer event of Manchester's poetry scene - Linda Chase's poetry garden party! The weather was perfect, Linda's house and garden looked spectacular, the place was full of people who love poetry and live music and the Poet Laureate herself read a selection of her newest poems written during this past year since she's been Laureate! In fact - here's a hot tip! - the ink had barely dried on one she wrote last night in response to Rooney's treatment of the fans! She is a keen footy fan - remember Achilles the poem she wrote about David Beckham's injury? This new poem, called The Shirt should appear somewhere in the next few days - remember you heard about it here first!

It was a pleasure to catch up with friends I've made at poetry classes, including the tutors I've had the good fortune to work with and be inspired by - Carola Luther who read some of her fantastic poems, Alicia Stubbersfield, Linda and Carol Ann. I'm sure that the event will have raised lots of money for Poets and Players whose events showcase the talents of established and up-and-coming poets and performers from the UK and further afield. Thank you, Linda, for the mammoth amount of preparation that went into such a friendly and beautiful occasion.

The Day After The Night Before

Here you have it. Democracy. 

Back in the Swim - Again

Back in the pool at 6.30am - hurrah! The mornings aren't even dark now. Bit of a challenge as the lanes were busy, but 1k seemed to go by quickly and I was glad to be back in there. Plus, after such an early start, the day is so much longer, plenty of time to get lots done! And perhaps it's psychosomatic, or magic even, but I don't think I'm quite so creaky this evening.

Today was my mum's anniversary, three years already. Here's a poem by Carol Ann Duffy about her mother. She's written a few which mention parents, but I think this one is particularly moving.

Before You Were Mine

I'm ten years away from the corner you laugh on

with your pals, Maggie McGeeney and Jean Duff.

The three of you bend from the waist, holding

each other, or your knees, and shriek at the pavement.

Your polka-dot dress blows round your legs. Marilyn.

I'm not here yet. The thought of me doesn't occur

in the ballroom with the thousand eyes, the fizzy movie tomorrows

the right walk home could bring. I knew you would dance 

like that. Before you were mine, your Ma stands at the close

with a hiding for the late one. You reckon it's worth it.

The decade ahead of my loud, possessive yell was the best one, eh?

I remember my hands in those high-heeled red shoes, relics,

and now your ghost clatters toward me over George Square

till I see you, clear as scent, under the tree,

with its lights, and whose small bites on your neck, sweetheart?

Cha cha cha! You'd teach me the steps on the way home from Mass,

stamping stars from the wrong pavement. Even then 

I wanted the bold girl winking in Portobello, somewhere 

in Scotland before I was born. That glamorous love lasts

where you sparkle and waltz and laugh before you were mine.

Carol Ann Duffy

from Mean Time, Anvil Press

Ted Hughes Award

The Saturday poem today featured another woman (only the third this year - remember I am keeping count). Alice Oswald has just become the first recipient of the Ted Hughes prize, a £5000 annual award established by Carol Ann Duffy when she became Poet Laureate. 

Written from a little girl's perspective, this poem is quite spooky, I'm looking forward to getting the book and reading the rest of this collection.

Daisy

I will not meet that quiet child

roughly my age but match-size

I will not kneel low enough to her lashes

to look her in her open eye

or feel her hairy wiry strength

or open my mouth among her choristers

I will not lie small enough under her halo

to smell its laundered frills

or let the slightest whisperiness

find out her friendliness

because she is more

summer-like more meek

than I am I will push my nail

into her neck and make

a lovely necklace out of her green bones


Alice Oswald

And this just in...

Oh the Poet Laureate is on fire.....follow the link to read her poem about David Beckham's injury.
Fantastic!!
(Thank you to my stringer who keeps me abreast of football-related issues!)

Older and Wiser

Today in the Guardian there was no poem of the day. Instead there was a treasure trove of poems commissioned by Carol Ann Duffy on the theme of ageing. Sixteen poets (eleven women and five men) contributed original poems. The poems are wonderful - serious, funny, rich, full of vitality. They reflect the robust confidence that can only be gained from having been round the block a few times, tempered with a wistful fragility and sensitivity which makes each of them very moving. 

I admire Carol Ann Duffy's decision to showcase the talents of these poets and put the topic of ageing on the agenda in this striking way. 

All the poems can be read by following the link above, Linda said I could include her poem here in Marineville - thank you Linda!

Old Flame

He turns my hand in his hand

as if to catch the light,

separating my fingers

to see my rings, one by one.

Questions and answers follow -

country, stones, when, from whom

and then my other hand

because this ritual has been

going on for fifty years

and there are no surprises,

as he counts the parts of me

and the decorations I choose.

But today I wear a bracelet

he has never seen before,

knowing that it's to his taste,

that it will spark new attention

beyond his routine inspection.

Between the larger stones,

sit dashes of orange abalone,

keeping spaces in between

irregular chunks of turquoise.

He fingers them around my wrist

and I'm a girl again, fluttering

through her jewellery and her life


Linda Chase 

born in 1941, is an American poet, living in Manchester, where she set up the Poetry School. The Wedding Spy and Extended Family are published by Carcanet; a new collection is due in autumn 2011.

More Billy Collins

Laureate Carol Ann Duffy praises Billy Collins when she describes him as one of her favourite poets. I enjoy his take on life and his suggestions for how to go about reading poetry


Introduction to Poetry
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

Billy Collins
from 'The Apple that Astonished Paris'