My writing Life
This week started well as I was able to finish off my poem Waiting and take it to the writing group on Wednesday. On Thursday there was a meeting of our local Stanza group and we had been asked to bring a newly discovered, or long remembered, favourite poem to discuss. Although there were only three members present, we had a lively discussion. One person had brought an extract from Shelley’s The Mask of Anarchy which led to many political parallels with our contemporary experience. I took Hannah Lowe’s Self Portrait, Before Me, as she is a new, and wonderful, discovery for me.
Yesterday, Saturday, I went to Barrow- in- Furness, on a cold train, with a sore leg, on a filthy wet day, to a workshop led by Kim Moore. After waiting for a taxi for 20 minutes at Barrow station, the taxi driver got lost and I nearly gave up. I’m glad I didn’t, as the workshop was very worthwhile, introducing me to new work and new poets and I got three poems to work on out of it. The journey back was equally miserable as the weather, was, if anything, worse, and by then it was dark, and the train was again cold, and full of people getting steadily very drunk before a night out in the clubs in Lancaster. Don’t tell me I don’t suffer for my art!
Looking forward this week to my reading at the library in Lancaster on Thursday 19th at 6 pm. Hope to see you there!
Reading Week
At Kim’s workshop we looked at a poem by Choman Hardi a Kurdish poet, who has written about women in the conflicted areas of Kurdish Iraq and Syria and whose website is worth a visit. Kim brought one of her poems to the workshop on Saturday.
Hare in the Headlights
Preparing for my reading this week, hare in the headlights questions arise as follows: Will anyone come? Will the library be quiet enough for me to be heard? If anyone does come, will they like my poetry?
Anyway, I say to myself it’s worth a go.