Essex Book Festival 7th March at Canvey

Three Essex poets will be reading and discussing their poetry. Derek Adams, Rosie Sandler and Adrian Green represent the diversity of poetic responses to the Essex environment and will be reading from their own publications as well as anthologies from the festival.
Canvey Library on March 7th @7pm

Derek Adams is a poet and photographer who has published 3 poetry collections, unconcerned but not indifferent – the life of Man Ray, (Ninth Arrondissement Press), Everyday Objects, Chance Remarks, (Littoral Press) and Postcards to Olympus (Poetry Monthly Press).
derek-adams.co.uk

Rosie Sandler’s poems have been published in many magazines and anthologies and she also writes short stories and novels for adults and children. rosiesandler.co.uk

Adrian Green is a former small press editor whose poems and reviews have appeared in magazines and anthologies in England and Romania as well as two pamphlet collections and a collection, Chorus and Coda, from the Littoral Press. greenad.co.uk

Essex Poetry Festival 2016

This years Essex poetry festival is fast approaching, with lots of good events lined up .
I am looking forward to seeing some great performers at ‘The Only Way is Poetry’ at the Cramphorn Theatre on Saturday 8th October.

But there will be a whole months worth of poetry events from 22nd September to the 22nd October, so check them out on the festival website http://www.essex-poetry-festival.co.uk/

I will be reading at two Essex libraries as part of the festival. Both events will consist of about 30 minutes of me reading poetry, followed by a Q&A session about my poetry or indeed poetry in general.

Poet in Residence – Ely Folk Festival 2016

For a second year I found myself invited back to the Ely Folk Festival as Poet in Residence, many thanks to Arts Development in East Cambridgeshire and the Ely Folk Festival organisers. I spent the weekend running poetry writing workshops for children. There was a bit of a bug theme going on at this year’s festival with the Wildlife Trust leading bug hunts, workshops to produce bug themed items for the children’s parade, bug themed stories and bug inspired printing and drawing activities.
  

Naturally my poetry workshops had a bug theme too; I read poems about insects from Ted Hughes, A. A. Milne and others to inspire the young poets. We played rhyming games, I asked the children to name an insect they might like to right about, then we all took turns of coming up with words that rhymed with them. We also looked at acrostics as another way of making a poem about an insect. Then primed and inspired the kids set to work on their poems.

 

I also I was very pleased to get a visit from the first ‘Bard of Cambridge’ Marion Leeper in between her storytelling sessions, part in a mini workshop with me and wrote a poem. Ten year old Tashi Marley, Young Fenland Poet Laureate 2016 also came along and took part in a workshop.

  

On Saturday between all this happening, I was wondering around the festival site accosting people and asking them to write a line or two about the festival, for me to shape into a crowd-sourced community poem, to be performed at the Babylon Arts spot on stage in Marquee Two on Sunday afternoon. I also set up a board outside the Babylon Arts tent where people could write their thoughts on a post-it note and place it on the board, all this gave me plenty of very diverse material to work with on Saturday night.

        

There were more poetry workshops on Sunday.  As well as the performance slot at 2pm, where three of the children, Bex Bruce, Heather Moss and Tashi Marley got up on stage with me to read their poems, then I read the crowd-sourced community poem, which seemed to go down well.

   

Sunday also saw me ignoring Sir Thomas Beecham’s advice “Try everything once, except folk dancing and incest.” and dancing among the other Morris sides with the Milkmaid Molly, dance group for people with learning disabilities (Molly’s) and experienced dancers (Buddies), at which I am a very inexperienced buddy.

  

and here is the crowd sourced poem, many thanks to all those who helped write it.

Ely Folk Festival 2016 –
poem made up from crowd sourced material, collated by Derek Adams, Festival Poet.

 Wearing Visi Vests to brighten the day
smiling marshals show us our way

to a flotilla of multicoloured tents,
watched over by the Ship of the Fens.

Kettle on –  organise bits –
walk to site –  collect tickets –
register dog –

Ely started under a damp sky,
but the music keeps us
warm and dry.

Spending time with friends,
Freedom for the kids to roam,
Beer & music,
what more do you need?
Sunshine!

Great! The weather’s turning dry.
No more raindrops in my eye.

Children play –
Fun,  dancing,
Kites to make,
Linocut printing.

‘I’m looking for the face painting’

Children fly homemade kites
that dance and whirl on the wind –
tug, tug, tugging at heart strings.

‘Kite, oh, kite when will I see you again?
I lost you, so small, on a cloudy wet fen.’

Adults
whiling the time away
day dreaming,
not a care in the world.
‘Is it time for a beer yet?’
Beer flows – Life slows
listen – chat – read – relax –

 

Nice friendly family festival
on the public side.
Quite a headache
on the organisational side.

Friendly happy people.
‘Hilary is my heroine.’

Heading out east
for a festival feast.
Lots for your money
but don’t tell Jonny.

It is hot
– ice cream melts,
appetising food smells
drift over the site.

‘I love fish and chips.’
‘I love the pizza.’

Wind blows – paper flies – chairs turn over
paper plates Frisbee  and  Flying pizza!

Morris Dancing
In fine feathered headgear.
Morris Drinking
tasty cider or beer.

In the beer tent, the barmaid says –
without the hint of a wink in her eye –
‘Golden Shower’s been very popular,
so has the Slap and Tickle.’

Sound of instruments being tuned –
Sound check –
One two,  one two.
Yeh yeh yeh!!
Uh uh uh!!
Yeh

Mawkin Mayhem
in a flat County

Music continues into the night.
Muggy,  Lovely,  Ely,
sometimes sunny.
What a wondrous Party.

Dannie Abse

So sad to hear of the death of Dannie Abse, a great poet who I was not only lucky enough to hear read many times, but spent a wonderful few hours in his generous company when photographing him for my ‘Traced in the Shadows’ project. He gave me a poem to use with the photo, here are two lines from it that are feeling very apt today…
“Hold it! Click. Once more! And we smile again
at one who’’ll be irrevocably absent.”

Poem Card for Southend Festival

I was really pleased to find one of my poems being used on Poem Cards, as part of the Southend Festival’s campaign to get people to write poetry about Southend.

See link  for details:

https://www.facebook.com/SouthendFestival/posts/672647529437776

My poem card along with some others with poems by members of the Southend Poetry Group are being distributed around Southend on Sea.

Poem Card for Southend Festival

Shoot with Robyn

Here are some photos from last weeks shoot with the lovely Robyn Elizabeth.

Simon Armitage

Simon Armitage on National Poetry Day

Michael Rosen

Alex Smith

Alex Smith

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

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