Lucy Lepchani

summer writing workshops in Devon 2012

2012-01-26T04:33:00.000-08:00

Some lovely courses I am running this summer, at The Husbandry School, in Devon

http://www.husbandry.co.uk/lucy-lepchani.html

A place in the landscape

Saturday May 12th 2012, 10am - 4.30pm
Price: £50
For aged 16 and over

Write in response to the land and landscape around this stunning venue, and to your own senses and identity.

As human culture has shaped the landscape over millennia and to this present day, so it has shaped our lifestyles, our societies, our psyches.
Immersed in the vastness and the detail of nature at this burgeoning time of year, how does it shape our poetry or prose?
The workshop will include:
• Stream of consciousness writing
• Looking at other writers styles and responses to this subject
• Practising poetry form, language work, & other creative exercises
• Group work
• Time spent alone or on the land (or in a cosy yurt)

Elements and Boundaries

Wednesday July 11th 2012, 10am - 4.30pm
Price: £50
For aged 16 and over

Close to nature, being grounded, the lay of the land; these analogies and others represent ways in which language and nature are fundamental to our attitudes or perspectives.

When elements are stable, and boundaries hold us safely, the world is good. In intensity or conflict, we must confront change.
In this beautiful place, as all nature responds to summer, whatrumours can be gleaned from the elements? What wisdom awaits beyond the latched gate?

This workshop is an opportunity to allow the subconscious to speak through poetry or prose, and to make conscious connections between nature, language, and your own life.
The workshop will include:
• Discussing boundaries and elements, and their metaphors
• Stream of consciousness writing
• Creative group work – listening and looking at form.
• Looking at other writer’s responses to landscape
• Language work, editing, and other creative exercises
• Time spent writing alone, and on the land (or in a cosy yurt)

10 people max. for both workshops.

A pre-epitaph for Margaret Thatcher

2012-01-10T02:20:00.000-08:00

There's a Hollywood film star on the radio, talking about her! There's a new film about her, and a lot of talk by press and politicians, about that. There's lot of talk in the media and social media, about whether she should have a state funeral or not. There's a lot of talk about what she deserves. Talking about her like she's dead already!
So I have joined in, with this pre-epitaph:

Hers is the ongoing shove in the gutter
by the silk-gloved hand.
Hers are trades laid waste and traditions forbidden:
summer solstice truncheoned
and the blunt end of policies bludgeoning
multi-cultures into monochrome.

She is the ghost of Christmas Sparse;
of State parsimonious, with a piss-up for the rich,
who have pocketed railways and utilities,
Champagne Charlies stacking up shares
and coked-up stockbrokers who stoked up fares.

She is the stroker of big erect missiles
tossed off for a profit and Falkland spoils,
for a special relationship with oil,
blazed then paved the road to Basra
with chemical-charcoaled remnants of the dead.

She is the Class-thug, a struggle-monger,
the rot in the heartwood of nation’s oak,
who choked the life-blood of industry,
a kiss-arse collaborator with poverty,
a cutter-up of communities,
unpicker of Unions’ unity, scab by scab by scab.

She is an aborter of level playing fields,
a Gollum of unborn chances
who danced with Fascist petty-princes,
thankless for values once hard-won in trenches,
or Humanity’s respect for itself.

And Mammon’s mama still feeds Babylon’s bankers,
spreads the legacy of her milky snatch
through apologist policies
and a heritage of Frankenstein sons.
And a nation debates when her death will come –
and how to dispose of the corpse.

Wild Words - creative writing & poetry

2011-12-04T13:19:00.000-08:00

Details of my course run via the Workers Educational Association, in Ashburton, Devon

http://devon.floodlight.co.uk/devon/course-details-reviews/workers-educational-association-wea/wild-words---creative-writing-and-poetry-intermediate/16180339/53411888/course-info.html

We will be working on

fiction writing - plot, characterisation, storylines, tension, voice
plays - introduction to script writing, devising, 5-minute dramas
poetry - contemporary verse, poetry forms, rhythm and flow, haiku, Beat poetry

and a range of creative learning methods, resources, discussions - and a deliciously creative appreciation of words and language.

Details on the link.

Why We Must Invest More In The Arts

2011-12-01T12:51:00.000-08:00

Because every day and night, there is music.

Because everyone has heard of Beethoven, Van Gogh, the Beatles.

Because small children practising dance routines, need a stage.

Because we are not machines,

and because kids who spit rhymes like a laureate's kiss deserve opportunities not to be missed

and because every day is a blank canvas, a masterpiece,

and life paints our stories in countless phenomenal colours.

Because of circuses, spectacles, blockbusters, rock festivals,

and because prisoners can learn to write memories for the people they could have been,

and because we are a nation of carnival queens

and salsa and samba and tango entangle us into expressing our reasons for being.

Because of seamstresses sequins, and scenery painters' brushes,

the Foley artist's portfolio of auditory scenarios,

and Romeo and Juliet, and for genius plays not written yet,

and white-faced mimes and pantomime again and again and again.

For the steady chip, chip of the chisel shaping an icon from Dorset stone.

For prima donna ballerinas, for instruments bowed and beaten or blown

and the opening night of every packed-out show,

for the old soldier making us weep with his poems,

because culture is capital and nobody knows where the economy is going.

For the canvases hanging on Museum walls, for museums without any walls at all,

for the pictures that speak a thousand multicultural tongues

for the lyrical languages spoken and sung

and because 'everybody loves a parade'

because how many dreams can come true on a stage?

And for every Grand Finale.

Shake the Dust

2011-11-21T03:14:00.000-08:00

I am thrilled to have been selected to work in a new post - as a Poet Coach for Shake The Dust 'an exciting new nationwide poetry slam project'.

Shake the Dust

I am just one of five poets chosen to each work in a schools or with a youth group in Plymouth, to teach and develop skills in writing and performing poetry, with a team of talented young people.

Each of us also have a 'shadow' (trainee/assistant) coach to work with us - mine is the very talented Rebecca Tantony from Bristol. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp2H7k3_mak

The project is taking place in five regions of the UK; each region will compete to produce a winning team, and then these teams will compete in a national poetry slam in London in July 2012.

...Do follow us and the trail of dust we will be shaking with these future slam-champions in the making...updates, insights, interviews and sneak previews yet to be posted on this blog...

New Website

2011-11-12T14:58:00.000-08:00

So at last, the new website.

After all that webhost/server/computer incompatibility chaos, all those banging-head-on-wall moments trying to work out what DNS and IPS are and twiddling bits of text and uploading photos and...techno-angst...but in the end it was all worth it! (ahhh!)

lucylepchani.co.uk

Go on, have a look.

100 Thousand Poets for Change

2011-09-06T13:55:00.000-07:00

This is a phenomenal event, located all over the globe on 24th September 2011.

100 Thousand Poets for Change

Founded by poet and editor Michael Rothenberg: to date there are 95 countries and hundreds of cities, villages, and community circles taking part across the planet, in a demonstration/celebration of poetry to promote serious social, environmental, and political change.

Here in Devon, there are 2 fund-raising performances that I know of:

The Great Hall,Dartington, Totnes; 3.30 4.15 pm with Inua Ellams, Ben Mellor, Jackie Juno & Lucy Lepchani.This is an additional event for the 'Interrogate' Festivalof Social Justice

and the other at Epicentre Book Cafe;7.30 to 10.30; special guests Ben Mellor & Matt Harvey, and also with Alasdair Paterson, Kenny Knight, Jackie Juno,Simon Williams, Susan Talor,Jade Moon, Graham Burchell, Ellie Davies, Katie Moudry, Bryce Dumont,The Freakboi, S.V.Wolfland and myself, and others...

please attend! Only £1 on the door to cover costs + a donation to charity

Our chosen charity is MAG - Mines Advisory Group

Links about global 100 Thousand Poets for change events can be seen on their website (link above) and on Youtube.

Superstitious Doggerel

2011-09-06T13:22:00.000-07:00

Don't walk under the ladder,
don't put new shoes on the table,
don't trust the tongue of an adder,
never let the cat near the baby's cradle,
if you spill some salt, then throw
some over your shoulder and wish,
kiss a chimney-sweep but don't get caught -
never smell of fish.

Don't put umbrellas up indoors,
never demand the impossible,
if you get run over wear clean drawers
for when you get taken to hospital.
Look out for a black cat crossing your path
don't wish for all that might have been,
dont listen to that ghostly laugh
that rings through the graveyard at Hallowe'en and

cross your fingers, cross your legs,
read the signs of the weather,
and I heard from a gypsy selling pegs
who gave me lucky heather,
that the seventh son of a seventh son
has stuck a silver pin in a figure made of wax,
and that you can't trust anyone
who's seen you through a wooden crack

but watch the cracks in paving stones
and watch out where you tread -
and whatever you do, or do not do:
you're going to end up dead.

The Chimaera

2011-07-30T14:12:00.000-07:00

My poem 'On Dreams' published in issue 8 of The Chimaera an 'online miscellany of poetry and prose' edited by Paul Stevens. It hails from the other side of the world to me: Australia... The Chimaera
...and for all the millions of poets that there are, what a small world and universe it is: several of the other poets selected are people I know or who have performed with, or who have in turn published my poems in their magazines.
This edition, whose theme is 'Life, the Universe, & Everything' especially features work by the Australian poet Les Murray.

The artork and layout of this edition is quite stunning. Do have a look.

fridge magnet poetry

2011-07-12T03:30:00.000-07:00

Symmetry Pebbles

2011-07-12T01:37:00.000-07:00

Just a quick mention about Symmetry Pebbles - an excellent 'online poetry journal for new and exciting poets'.

It is edited by a friend, poet Richard Thomas, who has a keen eye and a great sense for selecting poetry that somehow 'hits the spot'. Great design and layout and easily readable.I sometimes struggle to read text on line - the sheer density of it- urgh! Symmetry Pebbles has grace and a sense of space. I read it every-so-often and enjoy the poems a lot - consistently fresh, quirky, moving, clever, delicious, provoking.

Symmetry Pebbles has been extremely succesful regarding responses and further contributions,from every sort of poet and from local to international - two of my poems have been selected for the September edition, (as well as several being published in a previous edition) I am most honoured.

www.symmetrypebbles.com Type name into search bar. Hooray! At last I'm new and exciting!

Gifted & Talented at Killerton

2011-07-12T00:34:00.000-07:00

* photo: (c) National Trust.Courtesy of National Trust.

I occasionally work for an excellent project called 'South West Gifted and Talented'. It exists to offer extra-curricular experiences in a number of subjects, to young gifted and talented students. Teachers are chosen from those who are engaged with their art, science, or practical skill in the working world and who also have active involvement with education.
Last week I worked with two such groups, years 5 and 6, (ages 9 -11) at the wonderful venue of Killerton House in Exeter. The children came from all parts of Devon,Somerset and Cornwall, to do some creative writing.

Killerton is a National Trust property, given by former owner Richard Acland in 1942. Acland's generous gift of the Killerton Estate comprised a sumptuous house, hundreds of acres, cottage properties including tenancies of working farms, and land in other parts of the county, all of which hold a wide and sumptuous green belt between sprawling Exeter and other town developments.
The long history of the Acland family refelects generations of strong Liberal, and eventually Socialist views and actions, that have been part of shaping our most precious heritage: rights for women, rights in the workplace, the abolition of slavery, education for girls, and finally - wide public access to the former estate and grounds, and the environmental benefits of this being placed in the nation's trust.

The venue provides an excellent learning environment: a grand structure with furniture and musical intruments, pillars and stucco work, large paintings of the great and the good, and artefacts from those most privileged lives; a small museum of costume and jewellery; and this juxtaposed to the laundry room with the dreaded box-mangle that was known to crush fingers and cauldrons and weighty irons; and in the costume museum - vicious corsets, used to train the soft bones and internal organs of young girls into contortions for the rest of their lives. However, the ideals of this family and the way they lived sometimes reflects and sometimes challenges stereoptypical perceptions of 'how they lived'.

photo: (c) Paul Leitch

This stimulated some fascinating discussions about equality and privilege. To be part of that with young minds and fresh ideas is itself a privilege. National Trust guides and I provided some essential details and perspectives.

I used the theme of 'status' in the workshop which was titled as 'Upstairs, Downstairs'.We looked at status as a device in writing: shifting this in relation to each character as a way to shape the plot and to create and hold interest in dialogue. We also considered status in relation to working on characterisation prior to writing narrative.

The children all seemed to enjoy their day immensely, responded with great skill to the theme and the exercises, and those pieces of work that were read out were skilful and moving.

Any learning environment contributes to the learning experience. With thanks to the Acland heritage and the National Trust, and to Christine Mitchell and Phil Creek of South-West Gifted and Talented, last week's workshops were a huge success and enjoyable, influential experience for many.

The Importance of being a Dole Scrounger

2011-07-02T10:18:00.000-07:00

Ernie’s got an attitude – he’s long term unemployed,
they’re going to cut the benefits they say he has enjoyed
for too long - and has scrounged from those who pay their taxes,
so Ernie’s income’s going to fall to governmental axes.

But Ernie’s got an attitude, and no qualifications -
school was dull and disengaging and he didn’t have the patience
to dot the ‘I’s and cross the ‘t’ s and sit all day and listen
while football pitch was wide and green, and fish in rivers glisten,
and nuts and berries grew on trees, and roads led far away,
to fantasies of azure seas far brighter than our British grey.

So Ernie learned his attitude - and that’s a disadvantage,
his intellect is razor sharp his wits pit with advantage,
but he sees through suspect spectacle, and hegemonic farce,
saw all through school, divide and rule constructing class in every class,
he sees the masters and the slaves, perceives the state machine
that mashes minds to sausage meat and souls to might-have-been -

so Ernie values attitude - he does not want to fit
into a cog just like a cog – will not be part of it,
but nuts and berries, fish and seas, cannot sustain or be obtained,
he has to find a way to play the system at its game,
for Ernie’s education taught him how not to belong
(and blind to their own blind spots, systems never learn where they go wrong).

So Ernie says his health is poor, his back is dodgy, racked with pain
he’s got depression and represses tendencies to go insane
he cannot sleep, eats poorly, has schizoid-disordered quirks,
ironically – this will be true – if they send Ernie out to work;
and they’re going to legislate a way to take away his choice,
but Ernie’s got an attitude, and insight, and he’s got a voice.

So now you’ll hear him on the lines when flying pickets join the shout,
you’ll hear him at a demo when they’re trying to get the Tories out,
you’ll see him, just one in the crowds when many march for peace,
you’ll find him starting new campaigns – his wonders never cease -
he is an artist, and a poet, a philosopher, he writes a blog
he’s a busker and a hustler trying to find the clear point in the fog,
you’ll see him on the forums knocking down the racist, sexist trolls -
it’s time this nation valued all the work done by some on the dole:

for every culture needs its speakers, shamans and creators,
the avant garde and visionaries, movers and our shakers,
freelance pickets and resisters and our raging rebel-rousers,
we need our ragged rebels and their philanthropic trousers
in a world more stick than carrot, and a gap between the rich and poor
that’s gaping like precipice and gripping with its ugly claw -
we need our Situationists, our scoundrels and our knaves:
this is a fact of life as long as masters need their slaves.

So stand up for those with attitude, respect those wise and crazy schemes.
This system is a nightmare: please, do not step on our dreams.

Gecko Workshop

2011-06-27T04:04:00.000-07:00

TR2's studio 3. Photo courtesy Hugh Pearman, www.hughpearman.com

Theare Royal Plymouth's education programme takes care of its practioners too - freelancers included. (see previous blogs)

Last week, in the spacious and sprung-floor luxury or the TR2 building, I took part in four half-day training sessions. These were exactly what I needed to make physical & social connections to creative writing. Even though I use drama games and methods when working with groups devising/scriptwriting, my craft is one spent largely in solitude and whilst sitting down.

The opportunity to transfer the creative process into a physical context was rejuvenating, most effectively for me through Gecko Theatre Company's physical theatre workshop facilitated by Amit Lahav, the Company's creative director. Worked to almost-exhaustion whilst sharpening the response of senses and emotions is one of the best things I ever do...is it too late to change creative paths...?

Working alongside other practitioners from drama, puppetry, clowning, directing, writing, and other practices,ensured a group absolutely committed to the process in every fine moment.

Other excellent workshops were hosted by Graeae Theatre, TR2 associate Kevin Johnson, and puppeteers Stuff and Nonsense.

I am motivated to engage in more physical creative processes, though I suspect my change of direction will eventually be in the writing. Watch this space.

Bawdy Bardism

2011-05-20T14:34:00.000-07:00

Invited to be guest poet at the Bardic Finals at the Annual Gorsedd in Glastonbury, yesterday: (19th May 2011)

Gorsedd (ˈɡɔːsɛð)

— n
(in Wales) the bardic institution associated with the eisteddfod, esp a meeting of bards and druids held daily before the eisteddfod
[from Welsh, literally: throne]

I am not a member of this traditional path, but they are a peace and poetry and nature loving lot so I was honoured to be invited to attend. The event was held at Glastonbury's Assembly Rooms, a community owned building, with a history and reputation for hosting many things 'alternative'.

My set seemed to go down very well - but the highlight for me was watching and listening to the contenders for the position of 'Bard of Glastonbury' and gaping at some of my old friends who have changed so much (or so little) since I once lived in this town until about 18 years ago. How the years have shaped us all - some for the better, some for the worse. Are we really that old now?
Contenders each presented their performing and literary skills to varying degrees of ability, to cover the topic 'The Glastonbury Zodiac'. The alleged Zodiac refers to land formations in the landscape. Kali Roberts' clarity of verse and voice and Wes White's erudite wit offered recitals least cluttered by esoteric references and 'insider' perspectives, far more acessible to non-Bardic, non Glastonian audience members like myself.

Outgoing Bard Tony Atkinson, kept the event focused superbly throughout. The wider Bardic group(what is the collective term for Bards? A Grove?)also brought a sense of Bardism's deeper significances, amidst a properly glitter-edged, white-robed, floaty-dresses, silver-branch jangling pageant - and not without its wonderfully spontaneous bawdy moments. The drunken dancing on stage during one musician's set, was a refreshing antidote to an overdose of deities, dragons, ley-lines and such. The range and number of people in the audience was impressive - demonstrating the popularity of the Bardic Path and the community's respect for its poets, and for the competition. How would I describe it in a nutshell? Cosmic slam poetry in a peculiar hat.

Many thanks to Tony Atkinson for the invitation to be guest poet, and congrats to Kali Roberts, the new Bard of Glastonbury.

I pondered whether this event was typical of our ancient British heritage, or was just something completely...other. A unique synthesis perhaps, between heartfelt ceremony and bawdy revels, the respected Oral Tradition and post-modern Mummery, ancient rites and avant-garde interpretations of them.

Only Glastonbury could put on a night out like this. I recommend it as entertainment for next and for future years. And the cafe is Licenced to sell alcohol.

Selected Poems

2011-05-06T17:59:00.000-07:00

Two of my poems have been selected for inclusion in a forthcoming anthology Moor Poets volume 3. More about this when the book comes out in a few weeks/months

Also awaiting some photographs of a creativity talk and workshop I ran this week. Blog to follow soon.

Meanwhile I've joined Twitter with view to networking with other writers and poets but have been sidetracked, of course.
There are just so many witty posts and links, bright political edges, humanitarian campaigns, windows into worlds of art and performance, and wonderful geeky things like Staffordshire Bull Terrier facts, cup-cake trends and global seismic reports.

Fact: this is our family Staffordshire Bull terrier, Milo, who we rescued last year.

UK women poets website directory

2011-04-29T04:11:00.000-07:00

Just added myself to this.
(Glad I had my technician daughter Natasha age 12, to help me with all the techie stuff.)

What a good idea A-Gender is. It says this on the home page:

"A-Gender was formed in 2010, initially as a Google discussion group, as a result of perceived gender bias on the UK literature scene, by a group of female poets. It was observed that significantly more women than men attend creative writing classes, and are published in ‘starting out’ publications such as The New Writer, but that the higher up one travels into the upper echelons of literature – the prize short lists, and the publications with the highest kudos (the LRB, the TLS), the less women are apparent. "

Take a look here:http://a-gender.org/poets/lucy-lepchani

2011-04-28T03:30:00.000-07:00

The World is our Own Back Yard

If I stop throwing snails into my neighbour's garden
and she stops her cats from crapping in mine
and the kids accross the road stop dissing each other
stop spitting, stop hissing between their teeth -
start telling the little kids that their cycle helmets are cool

and people in their 4 by 4s stop driving past old folk at bus-stops
start giving them lifts all the way to the shops
then maybe they will buy apples for beggars
give smiles to stressed parents in supermarket queues,whose
snot-nosed kids squirm, screaming

then maybe all those parents would phone up their own and say: thank you -
thank you - and I love you,

then maybe all those loved-up mothers and good loving fathers
might contact their MPs and say: from now we will only vote for policies
that promise more love
and more love
and more
love

well then arms dealers will have to stay home, play golf
and peace will grow deep roots

and the people in my town will skip through the streets
and my neighbour will spay her six damn cats

oh if only, if only
I would stop throwing snails into my neigbour's garden.

From 'The Beckoning Wild' my pamphlet published by Acumen
Email me for details or see my earlier blog for Paypal link: £3.50

Tagore Festival

2011-04-14T04:54:00.000-07:00

Satish Kumar,editor of Resurgence magazine, has initiated the Tagore Festival at Dartington's beatiful Estate, from Sunday 1st to Saturday 7th of May.
Celebrating the life of India's Nobel poet, first avant-garde artist,and political activist, acts have been drawn from all over the world and include names such as Jane Goodall, Vandana Shiva, Deepak Chopra, Michael Morpurgo, and dozens of others. Activists, writers, dancers, musicians, and poets have been invited.

Thursday's event 'Gitanjali' is named after Tagore's esteemed poetry book,and takes place at nearby Sharpham House,. Its poets include Simon Armitage, Zena Edwards, Benjamin Zephaniah, Malika Booker, Brian Patten, Matt Harvey and others, as well local (Devon) poets, are taking part.

I'm running an event comprising a short talk and workshop called 'Divergent Fire - Tagore and Creativity' on Monday 2nd May at midday,and am also hosting one of a series of The Culture Cafe,on Wednesday 4th May at 5.30, doing a few poems including new ones. I'm looking forward to introducing some new and emerging poetry and spoken-word artists who are former students from my WEA classes. Both events at Dartington.

Details of all events: http://www.dartington.org/tagore

temporary website vs imaginary website

2011-04-14T04:26:00.000-07:00

The temporary website I have constructed is not working, due to my new and temporary web-host's error. The imaginary website, however, has smooth and minimal graphics, perfectly placed images, and words that come out without peculiar hieroglyphics and font mutations. Technology has yet to catch up with me, I think,rather than me with it.

In the meantime, I have ascertained from those in the know, that I am a technology immigrant, rather than a native or an alien. In my country, imaginary websites grow on trees.

website down

2011-04-09T04:08:00.000-07:00

My website is currently down - I'm changing web hosting services and haven't got a new one sorted out yet. I'm on the case...

Miriam's Otter Book

2011-03-17T14:23:00.000-07:00

I haven't collaborated with poet Miriam Darlington in our 'Honey Tongues' poetry duo since last October when we shared the stage at a packed out venue: the Royal Castle Hotel, Dartmouth. The trip there combined driving, ferry-crossings and sightings of seals in the Dart(for us) and Torbay Poetry Festival attendees devouring cream teas with scones the size of babies heads and strawberry jam and with clotted cream as yellow as sunshine.
Our replete audience then savoured our poems of a local and elemental nature. A memorable day, organised by Patricia Oxley, (editor of Acumen Poetry) as a finale of this established local festival. No scone pictures, unfortunately. They all got devoured.

Mim (Miriam)is now heads down, reaching a deadline for her otter book which is due to be published next year. Very exciting - having spent time with Mim over a few years and seen this project in process from time to time - I am looking forward to seeing the full extent of her adventures in print. More details soon.

She is going to be reading her poems - some of which are otter inhabited - on a poetry walk entitled 'In This Garden' at The Tagore Festival, Dartington at 2.30 pm Saturday 7th May.
http://www.tagorefestival.com/pages/festival.html

Sugar and Spice and Big Girl's Blouse

2011-03-17T13:15:00.000-07:00

First gig of the year - Sugar and Spice Cabaret at the Barrel House in Totnes on March the 8th, for International Women's Day - 100 year celebration. The venue was packed predominantly but not exclusively with women, the line-up rocked, and we raised £333 for charity

This event - and another on Friday 11th March Big Girls Blouse, were organised by the multi-talented Jackie Juno - poet, comedienne, singer, current co-Bard of Exeter - and many other wonderful things. http://www.brianabbott.info/jackie_juno.htm
The venue was at my house and next-door-neighbour Clare's house - both dwellings packed with lovely women who paid to see Jackie's one-woman show and a few poems by me, win things in the raffle, and to eat cake, drink wine and participate in a clothes-swap. New outfits for all.

Two hundred and something pounds (I have forgotten exact amount) raised for Womankind Worldwide in our living rooms, means that the innovations of Ms Juno and our particularly wonderful audiences raised nearly £600 for charity during this week.

The Beckoning Wild

2010-05-04T04:19:00.000-07:00

Delighted to get a packet in the post today - didn't know what it was until out tumbled copies of my new - and first - poetry pamphlet The Beckoning Wild, published by Acumen Publications.

It's available for sale from the publishers, at Acumen Publications for £3.50 including postage.
Also here, from me directly, pay via PayPal.

Artwork kindly provided by artist Brenda Rogers; it is her acrylic on canvas painting titled Shiva. I love it.

Here's a taster poem:

The First Cut

We smashed so many plates when we clashed
that we started to stock up on crockery:
stashed job lots, hoarded it up in the attic and under the bed -
ammunition for forecast showers of ceramic smithereens.

We stacked up towers of cracked Spode,
chipped Wedgewood sold cheaply in charity shops
and malformed pots rummaged from car-boots and jumbles.

His sulks predicted old crock cyclones,
my moods precipitating terracotta typhoons
let loose with teapots exploding from ceilings and walls
tea-cups trashed inelegantly

as bone-China shrapnel spun splinters
and fast flying saucers invaded the back of the skull

when we turned to observe those mosaic crash-landings
scatter into fragile
silence.

Love. Leaving us scarred all over.

(previously published in Unsung magazine)

I very much enjoyed working with Acumen editor Patricia Oxley, who selected the poems from my cacophanous mumble of written submissions and gave The Beckoning Wild its own clear voice and identity.Acumen's website - where you an also read about Torbay Poetry Festival, Acumen poetry magazine, and other good stuff.

Theatre Royal, Plymouth

2010-04-20T07:16:00.000-07:00

My occasional work in schools ratcheted up a notch this January, when the Theatre Royal, Plymouth, contracted me to work on several projects:
1. to lead the youth Theatre 'Young Company' writing group for ten weekly sessions, with a focus on performance poetry/ monologues for performance;
2. to work in two schools - Goosewell Primary and Hyde Park Junior School - for 8 or 10 weekly sessions on the Theatre's 'School Ties' project - writing and completing to performance standard, play-scripts with yr 5 children;
3. and some single sessions with other education or community projects. I can, and will, write more about each of these in forthcoming blogs.

It's just like that saying we have about buses: wait for hours and not a thing, then three come along at once. So after a quiet-ish autumn (a few private clients wanting text; a couple of jobs in schools)I was suddenly looking at full-time work, overall; planning and evaluating sessions at home, writing up the children's work into scripts, commuting to Plymouth most days, in a car with no heating and some dramatic snowy intervals. Juggling this with WEA courses, other occasional work commitments, family, studying...

Snow & ice can be especially annoying in rural areas; the main roads are gritted but the smaller roads are often not. It can be that a longer journey cannot be made because half a mile of small-town lanes have not been gritted. So, poet on the bus, walking the distance from Plymouth City Centre to Theatre Royal's TR2 building on its Cattedown outskirts; two pairs of gloves and a multitude of layers and sturdy boots striding out. I had to treat myself to some new ones, of course.

I loved it. Sometimes it is quite an enjoyable thing to suffer for one's art.

Image: courtesy of Theatre Royal, Plymouth.

Published by Acumen Publications

2010-04-20T07:02:00.000-07:00

I have enough poetry to be published in an anthology, and have been thinking for some time about who, in an ideal world, I would like to publish it.
As a newcomer, the larger publishing houses are unlikely to be interested. So I narrowed it down to three or four companies who might like my style, themes, etc; and who are active in the world or both publishing and performing.
I first approached Acumen Publications who have published 2 of my poems and one literary article in their excellent magazine, and who gave me a 'launch' performance during Torbay Poetry Festival 2006 and empolyed me to run a workshop in 2007.

'No, we don't publish any anthologies' said editor Patricia Oxley, in an email. 'But we do publish occasional pamphlets. If you would like me to consider this, please initially send me 6 poems.'

So I did; and then she asked for more; and I now have a pamphlet due out this month (May 2010).
It is called 'The Beckoning Wild' and has a cover picture that is a photograph of a painting by Brenda Rogers. I am really looking forward to it being in the world

ACUMEN POETRY: http://www.acumen-poetry.co.uk/.

'...and then she said...'

2010-04-20T06:45:00.000-07:00

Last autumn, I had the privilege of collaborating on the creation of a cabaret in spoken word, with spoken word artist Sara Hurley and musician Rachel Miller. Piloting the event as 'A Feast of Spoken Word' in a charismatic local venue, the St. Lawrence Chapel, in Ashburton. We sold every last ticket as bums crowded seats! Lots of enthusiastic feedback, too.

Since then, we have gone on to tweak our performances a little, have re-branded the show as '..and then she said...' and are looking for bookings. Now. Please contact one of us if you would like to make a booking or see an upcoming show...

The artists: myself - performing ‘Landscape, Portrait,’ a selection of poems.
www.lucylepchani.co.uk

Sara Hurley: An actor and storyteller by night, and educator and community artist by day. Sara also directs creative arts company ‘Blazing Tales.’

She performs: ‘River’- a celebration of a changing landscape inhabited by haunting memories. Stories of human frailty and failure twist and turn with only the power of the nature at their side. Hear the river’s ancient chorus and see its heart, briefly revealed, in a new show with present day relevance.
‘River’ is composed for The River Dart, in Devon, a place that has inspired many artists over time. It is an invitation to a specific river, although its themes are universal.
www.myspace/sarahurleystoryteller
www.blazingtales.co.uk

Rachel Miller: Musician, Composer, Storyteller.
She performs: 'Selkie', a classic Celtic myth about a seal woman who has her skin stolen by a lonely hunter. It is a soulful and sensual tale of love, loss and longing.
Modern sound technology meets the poetic world of myth and music in these stunning solo shows. Rachel plays a wide variety of musical instruments, live on stage, and builds up evocative and beautiful textures of music and sound that conjure the images and emotions of a tale. The tale is told through a lyrical narrative written by poet Gwen Woolley.

'A mesmerising, hypnotic performance which transports you to another plane. Storytelling at it’s finest’. Barbican Theatre, Plymouth

'A captivating storyteller, creating a rich and atmospheric world, mysterious and delightful"
Sharon Gal, Resonance 104.4FM Radio, London.

www.sonictales.co.uk

Wild Words

2010-04-20T06:30:00.000-07:00

This is the name of a class I teach for the Workers Educational Association. It runs every September for 6 weeks, and then January for 6 weeks, in the music room at Foxhole, Dartington, near Totnes in Devon.

I designed the course to encourage new writers to engage more deeply with their own creative process; to understand the unique shape of it, and the forces that reside there. It is crammed with exercises and techniques aimed at enriching language, inviting inspiration and dissolving blocks. We learn practical literary skills, engage with drama games, and use sensual, evocative resources such as fruit or other items from nature; artefacts, clothing, picture cards, published poems. I give a lot of energy and attention to the process and get to know each person's strengths and potentials as best as I can.

My learners always surprise, enthrall, move, and delight me with their work and their progress, and course feedback always leaves me with a beautiful, crystal clear sense of why it is that I do this work.

Further details from www.wea.org.uk

Catching up...

2010-04-20T06:02:00.000-07:00

I have been so busy, that I am writing this in retrospect. All my good intentions to keep up have gone the way of the diaries of my youth. The present is always more engaging, the creative impulse always winning over the reflective moment. So, a few fleeting entries here in an attempt to get up to date.

Back in September I attended a workshop led by American Poet Jay Leeming. I love Jay's work - if you haven't come across him, heres his website link:http://www.jayleeming.com

The workshop was organised by Moor Poets, who are a local group that promotes poets, and the reading, writing, and performing of poetry. Their anthology publications are full of high quality work. Here's a link to Moor Poets website too: www.moorpoets.org.uk

Hares logo by Petra Tilly

They have an engaging new pamphlet, 'Wild Thoughts' that came out last year. One of my many tasks was the desktop publishing of all the poems into the booklet - other people had initially been engaged to do the task but had to cancel, and the project had a deadline. Not too demanding a task until I got to the printing. I have vowed before, never to get involved in printing, but what could go wrong, I thought? I had two excellent printing machines to work with. After a few pages rolled out I engaged in yet another tense, painful education about the compatibility of certain printers with certain settings on the software - and this time I absolutely vow to never, ever, ever, get involved in printing in bulk, ever, ever again.

The poems are wonderful, though, and a former student from my creative writing classes has some work in the pamphlet, as do I one written at Jay's workshop.

The Glór Sessions

2009-11-12T14:29:00.001-08:00

Got back to Dublin the following Monday, showered off the mud in the hostel, rested, went to meet Dennis at his hostel.
We walked through Dublin talking about being in love with Dublin, understanding why James Joyce wanted his heart buried here, how the buildings and bridges and street speak in some way that we recognise in our blood. Dennis has an Irish surname, an Irish parent. My ancestors are Irish further back - can our DNA remember it here, we wonder? Stop by on our way to the International Bar to hear some buskers with pipes, bodhrun, fiddle: and nearly cry or dance or something of that overwhelming nature with the passion of it.

We have been invited to the International Bar, by poet Stephen James Smith, who runs the Glor Sessions (glór means: voice, sound or noise) a weekly spoken-word, poetry and music night. Stephen welcomes us, buys us Guinness.
'The Girls' from the Picnic turn up (almost unrecognisable in mud-free attire) with hiusbands and friends. They are here to give us support and to enjoy the show - I can see how tired they are after the weekends exploits. These are women who know how to enjoy their drink! (And they made sure that I did too.)

It was an excellent evening of words and tunes, and a spirited audience in the beautifully built International Bar with its wooden floors and polished, old oak bar-tops and beams throughout, and frame-mirrored walls .

What I especially love about Irish audiences, is that they use their ears to actually listen, not just to hear things with. In England, or at least in the south as it is familiar to me: if there's a run of funny poets at the open mike, and a serious one comes along, or a nature poet, or a gentle voice - the energy often drops; sometimes turns chilly. The literary poet is judged differently for their capabilities than the sometimes less literary, entertaining one. The symbiotic relationship of energy between audience and performer, fails somewhat.

In Ireland, they pay attention to what's being said with... easy to say 'greater respect', but I wonder if it's more than good manners, sensitivity. It's as if they just have more appetite for the spoken word. (Even at the Electric Picnic when I took to the stage slightly ill and distinctly lacking pizazz - a man in the audience spoke to me softly afterwards, said he's especially liked the one that...and so on. He had really listened.) One person in the audience, a man called Gerry, befriended Dennis and I with much enthusiasm. If I had had any more Guinness to drink, not only would I have not been able to speak my poems but would probably have burst into a heartfelt rendition of Irish nationalist folk songs. (Not that I know the words more than a few lines of 'the Wind That Blows the Barley'.)

Stephen James Smith compered with panache, and shared poems too. Enda Reilly's music was especially excellent, and I bought his CD 'Oxygen 21', (the title track of which has now become a fond favourite with friends and family.)

I've never had an encore for my poetry until that night. Dennis, who took to the stage after me, received one also. So many compliments, every one of them truly meant. We have both been invited back anytime.
I am interested in finding any ways I can possibly muster the funding to do so. A poetry tour of Ireland is definitely somewhere in my future plans.

Dennis and I walked back to our hostels, blowing kisses to the Liffey, high as kites and in love with Dublin all over again.
We said goodbye for now; promising to be partners in rhyme again some vague time in the near future - our separate ferries sailing back to Blighty on the cold grey sea in the morning.

Ha'Penny Bridge - Image courtesy of Tourism Ireland Imagery

Electric Picnic loses the plot.

2009-11-12T03:28:00.000-08:00

photo taken by Tony Walsh: Me & Dennis Just Dennis (with skeleton facepaint) at the Electric Picnic 2008.

The Electric Picnic takes place in the grounds of the Stradbally Estate, Portlaoise, Ireland, every year.

My experience there in 2008 was so amazing, I wondered if this year would be shadowed by my memories of it. The shadows were much more real and disappointing than that could have been: but whether by the logistic incompetence or the skinflint capitalism of the organisers, I do not know which.

What is brilliant about Ireland is the warmth and hospitality of the people. Unlike the British: they talk to you, to each other, on trains, at bus-stops, in bars, and anywhere else where strangers might become better acquainted.
Last year, I camped next to fellow Brit poets Dennis Just Dennis and Tony Walsh, and we were befriended by three young Irish women: Sam, Rachel and Michelle, who also came to see and hear our poetry and as a result became interested and inspired by poetry in general. (I love it when that happens!). 'The Girls' as we fondly called them, met up with Dennis and myself this year (Tony couldn't make it - we all really missed him!) and joined by their friend Sarah, continued where we left off last year with their generous and inclusive friendship. How amazing it is to find such a welcome in another country.

It was also so good to see gain, Marty Mulligan, who runs many spoken word projects but largely, the Leviathan poetry tent in the Electric Picnic's Mindfield. Marty seems to have endless energy for keeping the tent/stage/random poets/audience/sometimes strange audience members in the right place at the right time. I don't know how he manages it; and he performs his poems from memory (I still carry my little black book everywhere like a security blanket) and sings in a band at the end of the day, AND manages to look relatively mud-free and suave in a black suit and shades. Laid back, mellow, yet on the ball, Marty Mulligan is honourable, and cool. He has just inspired that line to rhyme too.

Dennis and I did a show together at the EP last year: The Race for the Write-house: with Bollock O'Barmy and Hilarious Clingon. Alluding to USA politics of that time, our sham-slam politically based poetry set ended with us encouraging our audience to 'vote poetry'.

This year, Den and I had nothing new to share, but both having written new poems that went in slightly different literary directions, we performed separate sets.
I ended up doing two: one on Saturday one on Sunday.
I felt ill during my first one. Nothing thwarts a performance more than needing a chair on stage because you have a headache and dizziness, and the fect that you might throw up any minute. Luckily, a quiet and appreciative audience responded well and I recovered from what was probably exhaustion and a bit of hypothermia.
The rain was intermittent but the cold wind whipped. There were no fires around which I could get warm.
Paella, hot chocolate, and a medical heat-pack I had bought 'for emergencies' made me feel much better. Later that evening, I sat round the fire in the 'body and soul' area, recovered, told poems impromptu in 'The Big Chair', drank a lot, enjoyed music.
Next day, my short set worked better as my inner rhythms did their thing in harmony with the words as they came out of my mouth. Applause. Phew.

I loved hearing the Poetry Chicks again. Their combination of feisty politics and erudite grace let loose by tongues that hark back to the mysteries rhyming powers of the Greek Chorus, Pamela Brown and Abby Oliveira are something else. Impressed by eloquent Belfast poets Chelley McClear and friends' polished show. Kate Tempest (who will one day be a name known worldwide, and who leaves me open-mouthed in awe, and who is also a sweet, wild, good-hearted woman) and Salena Godden jamming together with music and madness of the Book Club Boutique. Dennis Just Dennis commanding a storm of applause again, getting offered bookings to other shows. Ophelia rocking rhythms in the Irish tongue. Marty Mulligan's rhyming and timing and Irish heart. Raven being entirely brilliant, tender, powerful.
I love the poetry tent.
I missed it when I went anywhere else - but everywhere else up in the Body & Soul area was also a great place to be.

Back to my griping. I have seen better organisation at 1980's anarchist free-festivals where there was no organisation other than a sense of common humanity; greater 'duty of care' at impromptu roadside raves and more common sense at a Village Idiots Gathering (Chanctonbury 1987, in fact.)
The severe lack of toilets at this festival led to obscenely blocked loos and several sewage leaks -gallons of it..Toilet queues were the worst of any festival I have been to since a particularly vile WOMAD some years back; shit piled high, no handwashing facilities, gel run out after half an hour not refilled til next day. Good thing it was cooler weather, or we'd have all got dysentery. Caged in our camping field by locked metal fences and a security guard (with no spanner) at the narrow exit to the field (thank god someone vandalised the fence at a couple of points) no fire buckets or exits, deep wide mud-flats, crap all over the woods...it was a nightmare, comparable to a hedonists' refugee camp. Security people and site crew overworked, worse camping facilities than ours, and many of them furious with their tosspot boss ( the one with the headphones.) The recycling facilities, held together by devoted and hard-working individuals, was ultimately unworkable chaos.

The organisers let down the entire festival; the outstanding arts, top bands and impromtu small stages, endless innovative sounds, the spirit of the Electric Picnic and the beautiful Irish people, and festivalgoers of all ages: ripped-off by a bunch of posturing gobshites.

Croissant Neuf Summer Party

2009-11-12T02:40:00.001-08:00

Croissant Neuf Summer Party is these days called a 'boutique' festival. Apparently. It's what all the best festivals used to be like 'back in the day'...before we were inflicted with festival licensing, security fences and overpriced marketing tat; and when political vision was more commonly and appreciatively held in the activist hands of the festival goer.

Croissant Neuf truck - photo taken from their website.

True to its grass roots, Croissant Neuf boasts "The world's largest portable Solar Powered P.A. system." and which blasts out the volume from the main stage, lights the little fairy lights around stalls, yurts marquuees, lights essential stalls and venues - and all powered by the sun (and a little from windmills, too).

I enjoyed running a poetry workshop; later loved sharing the stage to do a set of poems in Cafe Seren but especially enjoyed compering the open mike and hearing new open-mikers, some poets reading their work in public for the first time, including an eleven year old girl and a man in his forties. I love it when new poets stand up and share their voices, ply their written craft into new shape for their voices.

Whilst CNSP would do well to encourage more performance poets at futire events - theirs is an audience that seem to greatly appreciate and enjoy spoken word - I did enjoy discovering two spokenword/poetry acts that combine their words with music: Mr B The Gentleman Rhymer, who held an audience-packed Cafe Seren in frenzied, dancing hysteria; and the unique, enchanting storytelling rhymes and wordsmithery of Quercus Burlesque. I will be looking out for gigs by these folk in the future. I want more!

I loved the whole festival. Sean running ongoing green-woodworking and wood carving workshops, eleven year old Natasha playing with new friends and joining in the many craft workshops - even using an oxy-acetaline torch for the first time, to make her tin windmill, and having her first go on a trapeze in the big-top. The sun shone, the loos were clean, we kept good company with new friends and old, and the view was stunning

I hope they will have us back next year.

Croissant Neuf Summer Party 2009 from Croissant Neuf on Vimeo.

The unexpected - at WOMAD

2009-11-12T02:03:00.000-08:00

Next festival of the season: WOMAD, at Charlton Park in Malmesbury. Not there for literary pursuits but to assist husband Sean with selling his beautiful woodwork, I was surprised to hear the Bristolian tones of Nathan Filer, as I walked past the Real Ale Tent.

For a festival that so excellently embraces the music and dance of the whole world, even its most obscure regions and distant islands, I think it really lacks something by not embracing further, the poetry voices of many nations. So with exotic Bristol suddenly represented in my midst, stayed and enjoyed every nuance in Nathan's witty, erudite rhyme and ramblings.

It turned out that the tent's stage was being managed by friend and poet Peter Hunter, who is also Apples and Snakes co-ordinator for the South UK (though he was not wearing his A & S 'hat' at the time).
Encouraged to do a few minutes on the open mike the next day, I did just that.

The Real Ale Tent and Pete & friends put on a vibrant, arts community, poetry and music for-the-people by-the-people all weekend. We bought real ale in support of such a venture. Cheers!

A brief divergence from poetry related things:

WOMAD always surprises me with some kind of music or another. This year, amongst other delights, I discovered Spanish based punk-folk band Che Sudaka. I haven't seen a relatively little-known band at WOMAD pull a crowd like that before. On one of the smaller stages, people spread way back into the throng of the festival to get a glimpse of what, who, this phenomena was. Many stood in the pouring rain when the skies let loose for a while. I haven't seen so many people pogoing, proper full-on up-and-down jumping, since...I don't know when. Decades ago. I bought the CD, and am playing it frequently. Not pogoing, though.

Poetry Stars

2009-11-12T01:17:00.000-08:00

The Queen's Theatre, Barnstaple

Another highlight of my poetry year was back in June. Mel Scaffold, the South West co-ordinator for Apples and Snakes, booked me and fellow poets Adam Horowitz and Edson Burton as support to Brian Patten, for the North Devon Fringe at the Queen's Theatre, Barnstaple.

For a small Devon town, Barnstaple is well renowned for its thriving spoken-word scene, and this theatre is at the heart of it.

Brian Patten is a phenomenal performer. There is something inexplicable about seeing a true master at work - and not just because this poet has probably spent more years doing it than almost anyone else in the land - but it is as if his command of the audiences' total attention results from some brilliant, diamond-like quality in his own mind. We breathed in Brian's poems like prana, and they sustained us like that force - joy, sorrow, empathy, humour, and other aspects of our human condition, celebrated with tenderness and wit.

I always love socialising with poets after the gig; and together with some of the Apples and Snakes crew, enjoyed some of Barnstaples hostelry. At one point, as Brian regaled with tales of poets past he told us of some of the poetry conversations he once had with Robert Graves; who in turn, had spent time listening to the wisdoms of Thomas Hardy; who, likewise, had enjoyed conversations with Wordsworth.

I could feel the poetry in the air between us, crackling all the way back through time to the first starlight.

Gossip.

2009-11-10T14:33:00.000-08:00

Haven't written anything for ages because I have been too too busy.

Prone to loquacity in my daily life, I only want to write anything here, that is part of my literary and creative life, and that might be of use or enjoyment to someone. I've had a delicious, poetry-suffused summer and autumn, so there are many words just waiting for their moment to be typed up.

I really do not want to discuss my jam-making projects, random serendipities, sketch book, gardening, weird friends, scandals, family matters, or whatever else on here.

As much as my private life has its exquisitely fabulous and deeply interesting moments, I'm quite a private person, conversely, for someone who sometimes likes a bit of showing-off on stage.

So, I will soon be both praising or cursing various literary events and venues where I have poesied this year; and will be saying all kinds of juicy things about other poets, and generally being opinionated, right here on this space.

Come hither...

CRB checks, and what is really precious...

2009-07-19T14:33:00.000-07:00

I disagree with Michael Morpurgo’s viewpoint about enhanced CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) checks for writers/poets/artists who work in schools, being 'insulting'. I think that being famous has nothing to do with anything on this matter (remember Gary Glitter?)

I do not doubt that Michael Morpurgo’s response is that of a good man, shocked by his close encounter with a painful reality. But people who want to hurt children are cunning and devious, and children’s needs are paramount and sacrosanct.

I occasionally visit schools as a poet/writer: sometimes performing, reading, collaborating or teaching, and usually with a class of around 30 and with at least 2 adults. I am not in the slightest bit insulted by CRB checks. The £64 is a bit pricey for any impoverished artist, but it is a legitimate, tax-deductable business expense, so never mind.

Even with strongly held anti-ID card, specific anti-establishment views, I do not oppose being ‘checked out’ for this work. The process isn’t about me, me, me, and the offence it may be to the wonderfulness of my work. It is about the children.

Schools, which are an environment primarily for children, function best when there is a relaxed as well as secure atmosphere. As a parent, I would challenge a school’s ability to care for my children if it did not provide either of these qualities, or both in good balance. This means that staff should not have to work in an environment where they are expected to worry about, or act with reckless habitual nonchalance towards people from outside the school coming into it.

Recently, when I arrived in the foyer of a school where I was to spend the day writing and recording sea-shore poems, the teacher who greeted me was suddenly diverted by a safety/discipline issue with other children. Consequently, a small girl was instructed to lead me up two narrow flights of stairs to the classroom, before I encountered another adult.

With another group, working on Dartmoor, I enjoyed being alone with 5 children for a few minutes, to write about our observations: green beetles, blue-black feathers, far skylines and the sound of skylarks and stone-chats.

On another occasion - a woodland walk - I responded with a mother’s instinct rather than a poet’s voice and quickly lifted a distressed girl from the large, gravelled puddle into which she had just stumbled, face-first.

I have been sent to choose the stationery I required for making poetry books, from a cupboard in another part of the school, and passed a child reading unattended in the corridor.

None of the staff in any of these schools would have allowed these ordinary events to happen if I was not so thoroughly cleared by the Home Office every 3 years. Without CRB checks, any visitor would have to have a constant chaperone, or the school would be violating their duty of care and potentially be placing children at risk.

If I was the parent of any of the above described children, I would be relieved to know that the visiting writer had had a thorough CRB check. Especially if that child had already been assaulted and was re-learning boundaries; or if that parent, assaulted as a child, was learning to let go and heal their own past.
These frailties are too common, too important to overlook in favour of the naïvety or vain preciousness of artists – no matter how reputedly brilliant, saintly or famous.

Hearing Voices - Dartington, 11th July 2009

2009-07-12T06:45:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, Mim Darlington and I performed at a ‘poetry walk’ in the beautiful grounds of Dartington Hall, Nr. Totnes. It was an event hosted by Ways With Words Literary Festival, and despite a constant drizzle of rain, we enjoyed the company of a fifteen audience members. Our walk takes in views and vistas founded by gardener Dorothy Elmhirst, and maintained exquisitely since.

Mim & I have been leading poetry walks regularly at Ways With Words under the moniker 'The Honey Tongues'. Mim read some poems from her book ‘Windfall’ (publ. Oversteps Books) and I enjoyed reading mostly new ones of my own.

Mim Darlington reading from 'Windfall'

In the afternoon, I attended the Ted Hughes Memorial Lecture, given by Sir Andrew Motion. Sat on the high gallery of the stone built Great Hall, surrounded by the oak beams of its vaulted ceiling and amidst a crowd of Hughes devotees, I tried not to fall asleep. Not for any fault of Andrew Motion, but there were a lot of people in that room, it was a muggy day, and heat rises…

The Great Hall, Dartington. photo from Dartington Hall website

Andrew Motion’s lecture kept my soft brain sharp. He discussed the rivalry between Hughes and the poet Phillip Larkin, citing quotes from personal letters from each to close relatives, and press articles, written throughout the decades of their fame.

It seems that each perceived the other as a manifestation of their own shadow, worthy opponents in each other’s artistic quest: Larkin’s uptightness, Hughes’ wildness.’ Hughes embraced modernism, Larkin scorned it.

Hugh’s creative process involved him keeping the channel between conscious and unconscious, open, finding connection with wildness. Motion quotes of Larkin’s poems: ‘their rage or contempt is always checked by the ... energy of their language and the satisfactions of their articulate formal control’.

Motion used the phrase ‘the librarian and the shaman’.This inner-world and outer-world conflict, projected or not, is what significantly helped to shape each poet’s unique voice.

I enjoyed the lecture immensely. I am deeply interested in writers’ creative processes. In part as I live out the myth of my own, and in part because I teach creative writing classes with adults and work with children in schools.

It is something that I enjoyed discussing with other writers on the Isle of Arran residential, last month; and enjoy discussing often with Mim Darlington and other poetry peers. Each conversation is as valuable as any lecture by one former Laureate about another; though I’ve yet to experience a ‘worthy opponent’ of the Larkin-Hughes style.

I don't think it's necessary. Cooperation and appreciation breed a stronger, more positive culture in which to work rather than one undermined by blind projection and self-limiting rivalry. Identifying the nature of one's own inner shadows is an opportunity to grow both into them and out of them.

After leaving the Great Hall, I had two hours until a short performance of two of my poems, with the group Moor Poets.

Moor Poets logo, Artwork by Petra Tilly

I had bought a book of poetry with me to read: Planet Young, (Flapjack Press) by Liverpool born poet Gerry Potter; but there were all these lovely new poetry books to be bought at ways With Words, so I browsed, bought one. I will not say here by whom it is written, but someone of academic proportions and whose work, as I have come across it, has been very enjoyable.

Sat in the Roundhouse Café with tea and cake, I read my new book, its posh pages smelling of delicious poetry secrets. I enjoyed a couple of contemporary sonnets, then Gerry’s book began to jangle from my bag. A silent jangle, yet with a strong sense of scouse accent.

Jangle, I have learned from the introduction to Planet Young, is a Liverpudlian term for a particular kind of gossip. I carried on reading my new book, enjoying the thoughtful adaptations of traditional form, appreciating the subject matter and poetic insights within the carefully, consciously edited verses. But by now, Gerry’s book was hollering from the depths of my bag as if it didn’t give a shit about sonnets, and The Sons of May Butler demanded my heart to give it a second read that day.

The ongoing inner conflicts of the poet are an interesting phenomena en route to each finding one's voice, but it is another thing when the conflict in a poets psyche occurs between two others.

The new book went back in the bag. Out came Planet Young. Half an hour of reading later, I found my pen and a petrol receipt from the depths of the bag, and was inspired to write. It's about a voice finding its feet...

I was interrupted delightfully by the arrival of Jackie Juno, poet, singer and comedienne and good friend. We are both in Moor Poets, and exchanged stories of our recent adventures (she’s been to Ireland while I was in Arran) before going to the Moor Poets performance (I will write about Moor Poets quiet a lot in other blogs) in the Duke’s Room.

Each of the twelve of us present, read two poems from our recent, stunningly good (if I do say so myself) compilation CD ‘Uncharted’.

'Uncharted' CD, artwork by Sean Hellman

Apart from Mim, Jackie and myself, there are more than a dozen others on the CD – a delicious assortment of voices that illuminate vibrant and unexpected worlds. Many of us read a more recent poem, too. I am always surprised by and grateful for the brilliance of my peers; I especially enjoyed John Daniels and Rebecca Gethin’s new poems, and wonderful to hear and to meet with all the others again. To buy the CD, details/enquiries via the Moor Poets website. £5 well spent.

After the performance, our good-sized audience asked intelligent questions; and then a perve made inappropriate comments about some of the poets and I was gripped again by inner conflict: whether to speak harshly or just to cringe and shudder. The cringe and shudder won instantaneously; and a few moments uncomfortable silence was well managed by compere Jennie Osborne. After the performance I managed not to make eye contact. Disturbing men are not that common at Moor Poets readings, thankfully.

Two of the audience had also attended The Honey Tongues poetry walk, and requested a copy of a poem I had read that morning. Its new and I couldn't think of a title so have called it 'Zen Poem'. It began life with a exercise based on the I Ching, facilitated by John. G. Hall.

Hunt opportunities under shadows.
Stalk the impossible - teach it to fly.
Learn soft landings in broken places.
Take up the martial art of the pen
and circle the circle of thought
that defines: you.
Close in on every
moment upon moment.
Capture it -
savour every
spark.

I went out that evening with my family to hear Siberian Nenet singer Tatiana Lar performing with Nigel Shaw and Carolyn Hillyer, in a large marquee in the middle of a rainstorm on Dartmoor. It was an awesome end to a surreal day.

Planet Young has just started whispering from my bag.

Shhh; I’m writing a blog.

Isle of Arran adventure, poetry workshops

2009-07-07T10:33:00.001-07:00

Isle Of Arran Poetry Adventure, June 2009

I have recently returned from a poetry writing residential week on the beautiful Isle of Arran, Scotland. Needing to clear my head of chasing paid work as a poet, writer and educator; and the rigidity of academic studies, and craving space for my own 'voice', I just had to get away.

The week was organised by Manchester poet and poetry magazine editor (Citizen 32, Cadre) John G. Hall. Although I had not previously met John, I have been reading his poetry via Myspace for a few years, and his poetry and online workshops via Facebook, this last year.
I enjoy his unique style, and am in awe of how prolific his work is; so the opportunity to meet him and to learn, and learn from other poets around the infamous and vibrant Manchester scene, was very appealing.

My friend Mim Darlington, also from my Devon locality, attended too. She is also a poet, but is currently researching otters for her forthcoming book, and doctorate, in nature writing.

photo: Matt in poets window, St. Columbas. By Daniel Brocklehurst

photo: Poets in St Columba's Chapel by Daniel Brocklehurst

...and so we arrived on Saturday after many tiring hours travel to arrive at the comfortable, spacious, tasteful living accommodation in the converted St. Columba’s Chapel in Whiting Bay. This sanctuary was to be our home and workshop space for the week. Both Mim and I felt an immediate need to explore nearby places of interest so we went to the pub. We also met up with the rest of our clan, some of whom were staying in another house in nearby Lamlash village.

Sunday was a grounding and group-bonding day; a long walk in the mizzle from the tiny harbour and exquisite beaches of Blackwaterfoot, beside a calm quicksilver sea. Along the coast path past past basalt cliffs, rock pools, oystercatchers, curlews, fulmars, eider-ducks, plovers, and watched by an inquisitive seal; and on through fields of flowering reeds, foxgloves, varieties of stonecrop, lichen, and orchids amongst countless other flora, and a glimpse of wild hares; and on to the King's Caves, so called because Robert the Bruce once watched a highly influential spider make its web in that same place.

Photo by Vanessa Fay: Gerry Potter, Mim Darlington and Steph Pike on the beach near Blackwaterfoot, Arran

Photo by Vanessa Fay: Gerry Potter in King's Cave, Isle of Arran.

Then, high up a cliff path and through enchanting woodland, back the waiting minibus; and then on to the Machrie Moor Stone Circles.

We got there a bit late for the moment of Solstice but midsummer magic did not elude us. As we approached the tallest of the stones, we noticed a curlew sat atop it, shrieking at us.

Photo: curlew on standing stone, midsummer 2009, Isle of Arran

She must have had a nest nearby, so we stepped carefully. She eventually flew away with effective distracting-tactics before we continued to explore the stones and their mysteries, some of us enchanted by our encounter with this usually shy species.

The week of workshops and activities unwound tensions and nourished the senses. Spontaneous activities included abundant feasting, drinking, and all kinds of merriment, including two of our number swimming the mile-or-more across to Holy Isle, and back, surviving sunburn and jelly-fish stings. We all thrived on a week of what turned out to be scorching summer. We endured Scottish midges, and possibly one or two hangovers. And collectively, wrote some stunning poetry.
The Unsung crew (Unsung is a Manchester based poetry magazine) organised and compered a gig in a pub in the nearby village of Lamlash. An unforgettable night, (especially for the locals, I would imagine).

Photo: Poets performance & night out. Lamlash

It was great to have an opportunity to meet John, at last, extending our on-line exchanges to an inexhaustible rapport – sharing insights and extracts of life-stories, philosophies and book-lists, plotting future performances and poetry proliferation. A renga-party is still to be done...

Photo: (below) John facilitating haiku workshop

There is much to be written about the Isle of Arran, about John G. Hall, and the other poets – especially those whose workshops I really got my teeth into. I’m still energised by everyone’s work, by the residential living experience, and the teeming flora and fauna of that island. It was an unforgettable week, and another sharp string to my poet’s bow.
Instead, I am letting the experience catalyse, cogitate, settle. I am sending some Arran-born poems to both the Unsung and to John’s upcoming Arran Poetry compilation. I hope that these few pictures each speak their thousand words, for now.Except these:

Midsummer: curlew,
sentinel on ancient stones,
shrieks like a fish-wife.

Arran on myspace: www.myspace.com/c32isleofarranworkshops
Unsung: unsung.manchester@gmail.com
Citizen32: http://citizen32live.moonfruit.com/

Photo by Michelle Green: Arran's haiku students