Poetry Competition

Lightship are running an interesting collection of writing comps. Here is the contact address if anyone is interested. http://www.lightshippublishing.co.uk/competitions

Sean O'Brien gave a resounding reading at the LRB bookshop the other night where Ashok and I attended to the refreshments and rubbernecked the rubberneckers. I noticed a fair share of delightful bitchiness going on between some of the minor poets who turned up. It reminded me of the theatre world I used to inhabit. Minus the sex.

Kleinzahler Gig

Saw him in last night Newcastle with Andrew, Sean-he is good value; read Snow in North Jersey which is one of his I've always liked. As Ashok said he is reading in London,(and elsewhere I think) worth getting to see him if only for his delivery and style of reading. I bought Sleeping it off in Rapid City his new selected edition.

In more detail just in case!

Do hope you can come. LG

mon 16 may, a summer chorus—with roisin tierney, jennifer martin, martyn crucefix, jacqueline saphra, geraldine paine, robert vas dias, eve grubin and carrie etter

Summer starts as ever, with a seasonal chorus of voices, familiar and new:

* Dubliner Roisin Tierney, recently returned to London from several years in Spain—pamphlet Dream Endings (Rack Press, 2011);

* Jennifer Martin has a poetry MA from Bath Spa University and was shortlisted for a 2010 Eric Gregory Award;

* Martyn Crucefix’s new (fifth) Enitharmon collection, Hurt, follows his highly praised translation of Rilke’s Duino Elegies (2006);

* Jacqueline Saphra’s Rock’n’Roll Mamma (Flarestack, 2008) will be followed this summer by The Kitchen of Lovely Contraptions (Flipped Eye, 2011);

* Geraldine Paine (b. London, lives in Kent, Glamorgan M.Phil) had her first collection, The Go-Away Bird published by Belfast’s Lapwing Publications in 2008;

Anglo-American Poetry-School-tutor Robert Vas Dias has had nine collections published in UK and US including Still Life (Shearsman, 2010);

* Eve Grubin (Morning Prayer, Sheep Meadow Press) lectures at NYU in London and is Poet-in-Residence at London School of Jewish Studies;

* Carrie Etter, latest collection Divining For Starters (Shearsman 2011). Her collection The Tethers(Seren, 2009), was winner of the inaugural, Cegin/Coffee-House-Poetry-sponsored London New Poetry Award 2010.

Anne-Marie Fyfe (Organiser)
coffee-house poetry at the troubadour
www.coffeehousepoetry.org
www.annemariefyfe.com

… life, literature and the pursuit of happiness… in the famous Troubadour basement:
London's liveliest & best-loved poetry venue…

readings MONDAYS from 8 to 10 pm, tickets £7 concessions £6,
season tickets 30% off…
cheques payable to Coffee-House Poetry at PO Box address below, no credit cards

events at: 263-267 Old Brompton Road LONDON SW5
(no mail to this address, see correspondence address below)
nr. junct. Earls Court Rd & Old Brompton Rd
nearest Tube station: Earls Court (District & Piccadilly Lines)

for information, advance booking, season ticket & mailing list enquiries,
write to Anne-Marie Fyfe
at Coffee-House Poetry, PO Box 16210, LONDON, W4 1ZP
or e-mail: CoffPoetry@aol.com

Time theme

Thanks Fiona; very acute. Here is my Easter Sunday diary poem which is about time in a way (but aren't they all?). best wishes to all, James

FOR NOW

If the lack is constant

it is also at a remove

like this Easter haze

lightly marring a clear sky

Imminence has receded

to days of blandness and small treats

This will do for now

Still on the Time theme, written yesterday. Anyone else got one?

                               Being empty

on sun days and other

cast offs by holy obligation

I am at liberty to invent

my memory.

             That couple with baby

shaded in her pram,

      how the father holds the

         mother’s hand:

It is me who is loved,

                      their path is my past

  endowed with memory of her

   tired face, the way

she sits, silent in dawn

    breastfeeding

her cantankerous one

   and how he sees her in

       that beginning light

sees his own time in her

    profile,

         watches, aches.

November review

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/apr/10/sean-obrien-november-poetry-review

in case any one missed it ...

Patience

I

Will I know from the way his knuckle raps

on the old oak door, how the wood sings

in the August air as a mockingbird might

or how the Clark’s rubber sole of his boot

beats lightly on the stone step?

If the bell rings clear, he’ll rush the room

and catch me up in his grip, press my nest

to his stomach and kiss my hair, humming

into my forehead the first notes of a lullaby.

II

Mum stitched my blue dress from scraps

rolled and folded, wrapped in wax paper

and tucked between Sunday shoes

and an old oak box locked.

For the neck, she brought out a letter

with preaching tabs between the sheets.

Sister Anne’s austere print signed off

with love and blessings for Confirmation.

I wore the dress that Sunday ceremony,

my slim blue figure a stain in the aisle.

III

Imagine balloons rising from the palms of children

and pitching north on the tide, how easy they drift

without looking down at the bone-pale peaks

of the mountains. Imagine unlocking your box

of wishes. Watch them pull away at the wind’s

hand. Try not to mind where they land.