Traced in the Shadow

Simon Armitage

Derek Adams — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:58:12 +0000

Simon Armitage on National Poetry Day

Michael Rosen

Derek Adams — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:49:40 +0000

Alex Smith

Derek Adams — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 17:24:33 +0000

Alex Smith

I was saddened to learn of the death of my friend and fellow Essex poet Alex Smith. Alex was a fine poet and poetry critic, his poems appeared in Acumen, Agenda, Brittlestar, Poetry Review, Stand and The London Review of Books, to name but a few. He wrote reviews for many magazines including Acumen & Poetry Review.
He had five volumes of poetry published, The Appetites of Morning, the Languor of Afternoons (1996 Salzburg University), Kayserling (1997 Overstep Books), Histories (with Anne Born, 1998 Salzburg University), Ocean Myths (1999 Ino Press) and his most recent Venetian Blue (2010 dark age press).
We used to workshop poems in a group that met bi-monthly & in between we would email poems to each other, he was always generous with his time and sharp with his comments.

Todd Swift new portrait

Derek Adams — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 11:04:25 +0000

The Canadian poet, poetry promoter, editor and all round force for good in the poetry community, Todd Swift was one of my first victims for the Traced in the Shadows project, and has been very supportive of it. Recently he contacted me to have some new publity photos taken.

So at the end of August we got together for the shoot ay his home in Maida Vale, London. Knowing Todd’s interest in the movies, he taught film studies as well as poetry at the University in Budapest. I suggested we went for a forties noir style look, Todd was up for it and here are some of the results.

Todd Swift

Todd

I thought they had a touch of the Third Man about them, with Todd looking, I hope he doesn’t mind me saying, like a young Orsen Wells. Todd was pleased with the portraits featuring the colour one below on his popular blog Eyeware.

Todd

Traced in the Shadow at Ledbury Poetry Festival

Derek Adams — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 10:22:47 +0000

in the window of the local chocolate shop

Had a great time at Ledbury, meeting up with old friends, making new ones and enjoying the poetry festival events and workshops. But the main reason for me being there of course was my exhibition. Which I am pleased to say went very well, John at IceBytes Cafe was really helpful and we put the exhibition up on Friday, in time for the opening of the festival, just!

exhibition in Ice Bytes cafe

As you can see the exhibition space was large and well lit.

the comfortable lounge area of the cafe.

On Saturday, much to my delight, over twenty people turned up to hear me talk about the exhibition portraits, the poets and poems. They all seemed to be genuinely interested and asked lots of questions about both the concept and technical aspects of the photography.

Traced in the Shadow at Ledbury Poetry Festival in July

Derek Adams — Wed, 25 May 2011 15:32:02 +0000

Icebytes Café, 38 The Homend, Ledbury from 1st to 10th July

Photographer and Poet, Derek Adams has combined his two interests to produce a series of arresting black and white portraits of contemporary poets. The photographs, coupled with poems which explore aspects of photography written by the sitters form the basis of the exhibition
Traced in the Shadow: ways of looking at poets. Poets included are, Dannie Abse, Matthew Hollis, Allison McVety, Pascale Petit, Katrina Porteous, & Jo Shapcott, some of whom are appearing at the festival.

On Saturday July 2^nd, I will be giving an introduction to the photos and answering questions about the exhibition from 3.15pm – 3.45pm at the Icebytes Café

Part of the Ledbury Poetry festival

Pin back your lugholes

Derek Adams — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 14:57:02 +0000

If you don’t already know about this, it is time to get the Bugged bug. On July the 1st it is time to eavesdrop , hear it, write it, send it. See Bugged http://buggedblog.wordpress.com/.

Overheard as I was going up the stairs of the Curzon Soho, from a girl going down the stairs “we didn’t have sex because …” and the rest was lost in the noise from the bar, damn!

Let me be the judge of that.

Derek Adams — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 14:54:01 +0000

Sentinel Literary Quarterly Poetry Competition, and the judge is… yours truly.

So I hope that there are some great poems coming my way. If you haven’t sent any yet, you have until the 25th of June.

full details here

Dannie Boyo

Derek Adams — Fri, 28 May 2010 12:42:03 +0000

Last Sunday I visited the Welsh poet Dannie Abse, at his home in North London to photograph him for my Traced in the Shadows project.

He was delightful. Amazingly lively for his 87 years, he put up with being photographed for nearly an hour with great humour.

Afterwards he showed me a series of photographs of himself taken over the last 70 years.

As I was packing away my equipment I noticed a copy of the latest Acumen on his desk and knowing we both had a poem in it, I couldn’t help myself mentioning it.

“Really” he said, thrusting it into my hands “show me your poem”.

As I flicked the pages trying to find the poem, Dannie said “there is a good review of my latest book in there, did you see it?”

“No.”

He snatched the magazine back, with a wink “me first” and showed me the review.

“Now show me you poem” handing the book back, “I shall enjoy sitting and reading it, after you’ve gone”

Lurching from launch to launch

Derek Adams — Fri, 14 May 2010 09:54:51 +0000

I was very pleased to get 2 poems in Ambit 200, after many years of collecting rejection slips from them, so when I got the invite to the launch at the Owl Bookshop in Kentish Town on the 29th of April, I was keen to go. Unfortunately I was already committed to reading at the South Bank Poetry magazine, at the Poetry Cafe in Covent Garden. After at chat with Peter Ebsworth SBP editor, I decided it would just be possible to go along to the first half of Ambit’s do & then jump the tube in time to get to the second half of South Bank Poetry’s.

The Owl Bookshop is a great independent bookshop, I had plenty of time to look round it as the Ambit launch started over half hour later than it was meant to. I had a glass of wine or two and chatted to a few people, but only got the chance to see Sam Riviere, read his poems before having to scuttle off.

Arriving at the Poetry Cafe, I just had time to sit on the stairs and listen to a couple of poets, before my spot. Katrina Naomi was reading just after me, so I was glad not to have missed her reading. She read her poem from the magazine as well as the title poem from her forthcoming pamphlett, Charlotte Brontë’s Corset, a collection of Brontë-inspired poems written by Katrina during her residency at the Brontë Parsonage Museum. As always there was a great mix of poets at the SBP magazine launch, take a look at a copy.