Mandy Coe

Last night I went to the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool, for Mandy Coe's launch of "If you could see laughter", her book of poems for children. Mandy has a dazzling smile, an easy-going manner of presenting her poems, a very clear voice and is an object lesson for any poet in how to give a good reading. Moreover she obviously enjoys reading and believes in her work! I think this is very important, to believe wholeheartedly in the value of what you are offering your audience. They have come to hear you; they expect the best - up to you to give them the best, your best. Which is what Mandy does, in spades.

Brigid's day, goddess of Fire, Inspiration, and Healing

I am very fond of Candlemas, both the Christian festival of Feb 2nd superimposed on the old pagan beliefs, and of the pagan beliefs themselves.
When I first began this blog I wrote that February in Finnish is helmikuu, the month of the pearl,when ice melts to pearls and refreezes, and this is appropriate for Bride is also associated with healing wells. But it is fire that I'm thinking of today, in particular a fire you can't see but that I experienced a long time ago. This is from part of my diary.

Post-natal in the “Swell Hotel”, 1960’s.

That’s what it was called, the Rotunda lying-in Hospital. Giving birth there, unless you were a private patient, was considered a penance.

The only uses I had ever known for Jeyes fluid had been on farms, for swilling down the floors of the milking parlour, or for swabbing animals down after injury. When it was poured into a bucket of water its white density spread out slowly, pale threads spiralled up through the water until all the liquid in the bucket looked like a thin, treacherous milk. The smell of it never left your nose.

In this ward for the newly-delivered the nurses came each day with their cruel Aladdin’s lamp of the stuff, forced each of us in turn onto our backs with our knees raised and while one of the harridans forced your legs apart, the other slipped a bedpan under you and poured a gush of the savage fluid between your legs. Your skin went on fire, you wanted to leap from bed and run screaming to find plain water and douse yourself. They held you down.
“Now,” they said as they moved on down the ward “none of ye’s ‘ll get an infection down there!”

Soon the ward was full of ripe curses, howls and roars, none of it coming from the cosy bundles in the rocking cradles suspended at the end of our beds. The needle-sharp, burning stink of it filled the air and by lunchtime when we were all prodded out of our beds to sit at the long table down the centre of the ward the sausages and potatoes stank of it too.

Later when you lay back and watched the flames of the huge open fire at the end of the ward flickering cheerfully and the terry nappies drying round it on the wooden clothes-airers, even the sweet smell of the laundry soap would not banish the Jeyes. And you shuddered as you remembered that next morning they’d be back to do it all over again.

OWNING A DOG

I've owned dogs almost all my life, whenever it was possible to do so. I like them. Owning a dog is fun, it's companionable, and it makes you get out and walk even when the rain is pouring down. You become quite a connoisseur of weather and its variations because you are out in it every day.
You meet other dog-owners; this can be good, meaning you make new acquaintance; and can be not good as in you discover the true depths of British sentimentality over your little pooch (all pooches, large and small).It has no limits; it even considers you to be the dog's "MUM".
I just want to make it absolutely clear that in all my life I have NEVER, NEVER given birth to a dog...

AN AFTERNOON OF BIRDS

Grey Hen Press have just brought out a beautiful anthology of poems about birds called "No Space But Their Own"; I have three poems in it, and very short poems they are too! On Saturday the 11th December, Lynn Alderson, Joan Poulson, Gina Shaw, Jo Haslam, Joy Howard and I all gave a reading from it in Todmorden library to a very satisfactory audience who were packed in on every manner of chair the library could assemble, and still there weren't enough!
It was very pleasant, the reading accompanied by plentiful mince pies and wine, and each of us had a generous 12 minutes, so that as well as readings from the book (mine took barely two of those twelve minutes - I do somewhat specialise in short poems!) we could read other poems as long as they included birds, even a mere "token" bird. Well, this was something like my idea of heaven, a whole afternoon spent listening to poems about birds and they were excellent poems too. It was every bit as good as an afternoon spent watching birds!

Anyone who likes birds would really love this anthology. And it has illustrations too, done by Emma Stansfield. One of my poems about the heron sits opposite one of her spare and exact sketches,and since my poems are also spare, they suit each other perfectly!

The bird in my photo is a fan-tailed dove that just happened on my roof during snowy weather and it looks like a snow-bird.

Woodcock seem to be appearing out of their seclusion this weather: the poet Matt Merritt mentions a sighting on his blog of a woodcock seen in Leicester, and another poet, Chris Kinsey, has seen one in Newtown, Powys. Do they only appear to poets? Well, this poet has never had the luck to see one. Yet...

Joy Howard, who runs Grey Hen Press, deserves great credit and admiration for her extraordinary energy in bringing out anthology after anthology, and there are two more in the pipeline.
There are some truly amazing women around and I have been lucky to be published by three of the most energetic women I know: Helena Nelson of Happen Stance Press, Jan Fortune-Wood of Cinnamon Press and Joy Howard of Grey Hen Press. And all by pure happenstance too.

HARLECH IN THE RAIN

I have recently been on a week's writing course with the excellent Jan Fortune-Wood of Cinnamon Press (and other) fame. She is not only a very good tutor but also a brilliant cook, turning out super, comforting winter meals - moussakas, curries, stews - of great flavour and deliciousness. We assisted her, but only with rudimentary chopping of veg and general clearing up.
These good meals were even more welcome as every day broke with rain, fog and tearing winds. Daphne Gloag and I set off one afternoon for Harlech Castle and tried to ascend one of the towers, not for the view since there would not be one on account of thick mist, but merely for the hell of it. We were very nearly blown right out of it!
When it rains and rains and rains you either stay in or you brave it. I badly wanted to get to Morfa Harlech, the nature reserve, so again Daphne and I, together with Becky Gethin, set off in my car for an expedition thereto. We didn't get there. There is no road access at all. Tough on us, but perfect for the wading birds!

However we did get to Ynys to find this wonderful tiny church set behind an avenue of irish yew trees that were showering the path with red beries. Ynys mean "island" and this church, set on a high hill with three foot paths leading off it in different directions, probably once was an island. Becky took this great photo of the church and its open bell tower.

During the week we all benefitted from a great deal of personal one-to-one mentoring, and I'd like to thank Jan very much for this, and also to thank all the other poets and novelists who were sharing the week both for their company and for their helpful comments`on my work in progress.

And one day I'd like to see Harlech in the sunshine. Or at least see it without impenetrable mist...

No Excuse?

I have been neglecting this blog for weeks, but I'm back again. Meanwhile my book The Plucking Shed has been joyfully launched and I have been very busy doing readings from it, most recently with Judy Gahagan, Martyn Crucefix and Mike Loveday at Poetry in Palmers Green. I very much enjoyed hearing the others read: I had already seen a poem of Mike Loveday's in the recent issue of Assent, and I really liked the fine lyrical quality of Martyn Crucefix's work while Judy Gahagan was taking a most fascinating tour through the idea of "frontiers" as suggested by clothing.

This coming weekend Poem Catchers (myself and Judy Ugonna) are running a workshop for Chester Literature Festival, after which I am presenting my group The Poem Shed to do a reading. All details are on Chester Literature Festival's website.

More anon...

YORKSHIRE

Off to Yorkshire for a few days to do a reading at the Georgian Theatre, Richmond, on Monday June 7th, as part of a group I belong to called The Band who are: Pat Borthwick, Ed Reiss, John Wedgwood Clarke, Hazel Cameron, and, previously, Caroline Carver.
Then later in the week I'll be going to the East Bridlington Poetry Festival not only to attend some of the exciting events on offer but also to receive my Runner-up award in the East Riding Poetry Competition.
I'm particularly looking forward to hearing Paul Durcan read his poetry as I have three of his collections: The Berlin Wall Cafe; Christmas Day; and Crazy About Women. They are wry, sad and funny, off-the-wall and absolutely so Paul Durcanish no-one could possibly imitate him. I love his work! If you have never come across his poetry before find some and read him. He's a tonic - there is simply nobody like him.