Reading Round: a new reading group in Cheltenham

I’m delighted to be leading a Reading Round in Cheltenham and looking forward to starting it in September. Reading Round is a reading group with no preparatory reading or other homework. The focus is on reading and exploring a short story and a poem in each session: I will distribute copies and read them aloud, and we’ll discuss them in a relaxed, informal atmosphere. There’s more  information here. The Reading Round will take place at School House Cafe, a community-based cafe in St Pauls, walking distance from Cheltenham town centre. Sessions will be on Tuesdays at 2.00-3.30pm starting 17th September 2019. The Reading Round is free to attend, but places are limited and booking is essential. If you’d like to book a place or find out more, please send me an email. There are thirty sessions in total. Reading Round is sponsored by the Royal Literary Fund.

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New poems on M58

Good to have some new work published on M58, Thanks to Andrew Taylor.

Prose Poetry Anthology

Good to have work in this new anthology of prose poetry. Thanks to Anne Caldwell and Oz Hardwick. I thought it was going to be good and it is – well worth checking out here.

Arvon Teacher Week, July 2019

Very much looking forward to tutoring the Arvon Teacher Week with Catherine Johnson, July 22nd-27th at The Hurst in Shropshire. An Arvon course at Lumb Bank was hugely important when I started out writing. This is a great opportunity for teachers – and it’s subsidised.

The Golden Book: Fifty Years of Arvon

Good to have a piece in this, an anthology celebrating fifty years of the Arvon Foundation. Available here or free if you attend an Arvon course in 2019.

 

According to John James

This has just arrived. I’m pleased to have work in here along with such good company. Thanks to Kelvin Corcoran, and to Tony Frazer at Shearsman. The cover’s by Bruce McLean. Copies available from Shearsman.

From the Shearsman website:
‘Sadly, John James passed away in May 2018, just a month after launching his New & Selected Poems, Sarments (Shearsman Books) in London. Here friends, admirers and colleagues take their cue from 2 quatrains in James’s ‘Theory of Poetry’, and respond accordingly: Anthony Barnett, Kelvin Corcoran, Chris Cornwell,​ Lyndon Davies,​ Andrew Duncan,​ John Goodby,​ John Hall, ​Alan Halsey,​ Peter Hughes,​ Romana Huk​, Linda Kemp,​ Mark Leahy,​ Tony Lopez,​ Anthony Mellors,​ Ian Patterson,​ Simon Perril,​ J.H. Prynne, ​Denise Riley, Peter Riley,​ Gavin Selerie, Simon Smith,​ John Temple,​ Nick Totton, Karlien van den Beukel,​ Robert Vas Dias,​ Geoff Ward,​ John Wilkinson, ​Cliff Yates, plus a painting by Bruce McLean on the cover.’

Safe as Milk

Here’s a short film of me talking about Captain Beefheart’s Safe as Milk and the importance of it for my writing, as part of the Royal Literary Fund’s Writer’s Talisman series. Thanks to the RLF and to Kona Macphee.

The North, Summer 2018

Great to have two new poems in The North: ‘October’ and ‘Bank Holiday’. I’m in good company – Issue 60 is a cracking edition. Thanks to the editors, Peter and Ann Sansom.

 

 

In Transit

Very pleased to have a new poem, ‘Copenhagen to Stockholm’ in this new anthology, published by Emma Press. Thanks to the editors Sarah Jackson and Tim Youngs.

 

John James

Sad to hear that John James has died. One of the writers whose work I go back to again and again. I met him when he came to do a reading at Edge Hill University in 2005. Such a nice bloke, and a remarkable poet.

‘I reach toward the poetry of kindred
where we speak in a work as we seldom do otherwise’

from: ‘Poem Beginning With a Line by Andrew Crozier’ in Cloud Breaking Sun (Oystercatcher Press, 2012).