"The First Telling", which I wrote about in an earlier post, has won this tremendously generous award and I am reeling with joy! It was a splendid and glittery evening, a chance to meet everyone else on the shortlist, both poets and publishers and I very much enjoyed attending. Couldn't believe it when my name was listed as the winner. And I was delighted in a more sobering way as the first winner of this award was the late Elisabeth Burns, a very fine poet with whom I corresponded when she was suffering from cancer. She had seen my article on Louis MacNeice's poem "Snow" which sustained me greatly when I too was ill with cancer.
The winning of this award brought it home to me how lucky I am still to be here. Even luckier to be off to Greece next year to take up the 2 week residency at The Centre for Hellenistic Studies, Napflion, which is the second part of the award. I can't wait!
Monday, 7 December 2015
Monday, 28 September 2015
POETRY BREAKFAST AT BEATON'S CHESTER
A welcome start to a week, in Beaton's Tearooms, Chester, to gather a group of writers together, and share poetry and breakfast for an hour! The event was very well-supported, Beaton's breakfast was excellent - croissants, pains au raisins, toasted tea cakes or simple toast and jam, lots of tea or coffee, and the poems read were very good, our theme was City life and we had poems on the good side of city life and the dark side, poems about London, Prague, Chester and Liverpool, poems about trains, traffic lights, bridges and many more. An hour's worth of delight for all concerned! We also had poems on the city walls, provided by Julia McGuinness who is soon to launch her first collection, about our historic walls, on October 21st, at Alexander's jazzbar.
We'll be running another event on Monday 2nd November, when the theme is "The Zoo". Chester Zoo has just added an elaborate section based on islands of the world and we hope for some poems on this theme, but anything to do with zoos, zoo animals, zoo keepers, visitors, the human zoo etc, will be welcomed.
www.Beaton's Tearooms.co.uk
Julia McGuinness www.creativeconnectioncheshire.co.uk
We'll be running another event on Monday 2nd November, when the theme is "The Zoo". Chester Zoo has just added an elaborate section based on islands of the world and we hope for some poems on this theme, but anything to do with zoos, zoo animals, zoo keepers, visitors, the human zoo etc, will be welcomed.
www.Beaton's Tearooms.co.uk
Julia McGuinness www.creativeconnectioncheshire.co.uk
Thursday, 23 July 2015
BUTTONS
Helena Nelson has recently posted an article about Buttons on her blog at Happenstance Press. She kindly included my poem "The Wayward Button" as an example of how buttons can pinpoint a memory.
It seems from the responses that many people love their old button tins, often passed down from Grannies, or mums. I had such a tin once but it annoyed me that - all those buttons! - and I could never find a suitable replacement button in it when I needed one, so I gave it to a friend who does craftwork.
However I did keep a bagful of very beautiful glass buttons. Which I'll probably never use....but I might.
It seems from the responses that many people love their old button tins, often passed down from Grannies, or mums. I had such a tin once but it annoyed me that - all those buttons! - and I could never find a suitable replacement button in it when I needed one, so I gave it to a friend who does craftwork.
However I did keep a bagful of very beautiful glass buttons. Which I'll probably never use....but I might.
Sunday, 19 July 2015
INJURY TIME!
Haven't posted anything lately as I've been sitting with my leg up on a pillow after falling off a wall; it's been too painful to sit and type but things are improving rapidly now and I am hoping to continue my series of reviews of the work of contributors to "Caboodle" (Prole Books), very soon.
I have tweeted occasionally because that's quick!!
Been thinking about the word 'common' as a prefix to so many species - saw a 'Common Footman Moth' , my first, the other day and fell in love with its elegant beauty - anything but common. And since we are losing so much now, nothing deserves such a prefix.
I have a poem considering this question in a forthcoming Scholastic publication for children - 'The Common Newt' which will appear in Funny Poems for Children, (Animals) in September.
I have tweeted occasionally because that's quick!!
Been thinking about the word 'common' as a prefix to so many species - saw a 'Common Footman Moth' , my first, the other day and fell in love with its elegant beauty - anything but common. And since we are losing so much now, nothing deserves such a prefix.
I have a poem considering this question in a forthcoming Scholastic publication for children - 'The Common Newt' which will appear in Funny Poems for Children, (Animals) in September.
Monday, 18 May 2015
TWITTER-ING
Did my usual "Sunday Posting" of tweets, mostly about country things, flowers, scenes, trees, quirky things noticed. I love wandering round with my camera taking pics of things that delight me, and tweeting is my way of sharing these with the world. Not that the world is very interested but that doesn't matter!
You can find me on Twitter @mcevoygill
You can find me on Twitter @mcevoygill
Thursday, 7 May 2015
READINGS
I have some readings looming, hoorah!:
Bradford Lit Fest, 16th May: reading with fellow poet/ novelist Mandy Sutter at Bradford library, 2pm. I'll be reading a selection of my poetry.
Barnton Library Cheshire, Monday 18th May, also with Mandy Sutter. As above.
Much Wenlock, June 11th, 9.00am-10.00am. Guest reader at Anna Dreda's Poetry Breakfast, Tea on the Square.
Ledbury Poetry Festival. Sunday July 5th, 2pm, in the panelled room, The Master's House. I'll be reading from "The First Telling", my recent Happenstance pamphlet.
Sunday, 3 May 2015
CABOODLE REVIEW, PART 2
It's the turn of Russell Jones' collection "Our Terraced Hum", the shortest collection in 'Caboodle', consisting of 13 sonnets.
In her foreword to "Caboodle" Angela Readman suggests the poems have a slightly voyeuristic quality to them, since they are based very much on observations of other people's lives. I think I would say they are minutely observed by a poet with a very sharp eye for the goings-on of urban lives. In the very first poem the poet states 'I sit watching the lives of others, fan/ whirring, reeling in the sweaty cling/ of life.' But includes himself in that 'sweaty cling' by using the first person - it is 'our terraced hum', not theirs.
"The Flat Opposite" depicts a couple who've long lost interest in each other: the woman goes to take a candle-lit bath and when she reappears dressed only 'in the flowers of white smoke' she finds the man busy flicking through TV channels, oblivious to her presence , though the poet is not - he appreciates seeing this 'goddess' through his window. Voyeuristic perhaps, but you get a feeling of lost opportunity, an underlying wistfulness in the face of human indifference one to the other.
Jones has a good grasp of country life despite these sonnets having urban settings. In "The Back Room" an old mirror recalls for the inhabitant a country childhood rich with the smells of strawberries, memories of ploughed fields, summer bathing with friends. It is relegated to the back room, while its owner 'treads the torn beige carpet... a clock/ marking his exit through vast streams of corn,/ larks screeching'. Likewise in "Garden State" we meet someone who surrounds himself with wild flowers who 'swims/ in the rainbow of life that surrounds him'. Both poems remarkable for their countryside knowledge.
In three of the poems there is a strong hint at desire for escape from the urban scene of 'hot rod bawling down the road ....gaggles of drunks...brotherhood hymns from the football grounds'. Pigeons become angels, the reek and fume of the street become a dragon on whose back you could clamber and name your destination "Above the 100% Human Hair Extension Salon". "Reflections on the Dog House" has a similar yearning where the dogs are tired of the 'bright and brash' streets, wanting to escape into 'a cradle of stars'. In "Loft Conversion, The Smoking Gallery" an ageing man pours a drink and remembers a stag he shot in '37 with the'old ghost of his gun'. His loft dwelling is a 'haven of eyes in the desert/ of a blind city.' as if he were still out hunting as before. What he has lost 'remains in the art of preservation', a hoof, antlers, a tail.
Russell Jones' language is terse and to the point,with a harsh urban overtone that sometimes peels away to reveal the nostalgic beauty of a far-off remembered world. A short collection but a very fine one.
In her foreword to "Caboodle" Angela Readman suggests the poems have a slightly voyeuristic quality to them, since they are based very much on observations of other people's lives. I think I would say they are minutely observed by a poet with a very sharp eye for the goings-on of urban lives. In the very first poem the poet states 'I sit watching the lives of others, fan/ whirring, reeling in the sweaty cling/ of life.' But includes himself in that 'sweaty cling' by using the first person - it is 'our terraced hum', not theirs.
"The Flat Opposite" depicts a couple who've long lost interest in each other: the woman goes to take a candle-lit bath and when she reappears dressed only 'in the flowers of white smoke' she finds the man busy flicking through TV channels, oblivious to her presence , though the poet is not - he appreciates seeing this 'goddess' through his window. Voyeuristic perhaps, but you get a feeling of lost opportunity, an underlying wistfulness in the face of human indifference one to the other.
Jones has a good grasp of country life despite these sonnets having urban settings. In "The Back Room" an old mirror recalls for the inhabitant a country childhood rich with the smells of strawberries, memories of ploughed fields, summer bathing with friends. It is relegated to the back room, while its owner 'treads the torn beige carpet... a clock/ marking his exit through vast streams of corn,/ larks screeching'. Likewise in "Garden State" we meet someone who surrounds himself with wild flowers who 'swims/ in the rainbow of life that surrounds him'. Both poems remarkable for their countryside knowledge.
In three of the poems there is a strong hint at desire for escape from the urban scene of 'hot rod bawling down the road ....gaggles of drunks...brotherhood hymns from the football grounds'. Pigeons become angels, the reek and fume of the street become a dragon on whose back you could clamber and name your destination "Above the 100% Human Hair Extension Salon". "Reflections on the Dog House" has a similar yearning where the dogs are tired of the 'bright and brash' streets, wanting to escape into 'a cradle of stars'. In "Loft Conversion, The Smoking Gallery" an ageing man pours a drink and remembers a stag he shot in '37 with the'old ghost of his gun'. His loft dwelling is a 'haven of eyes in the desert/ of a blind city.' as if he were still out hunting as before. What he has lost 'remains in the art of preservation', a hoof, antlers, a tail.
Russell Jones' language is terse and to the point,with a harsh urban overtone that sometimes peels away to reveal the nostalgic beauty of a far-off remembered world. A short collection but a very fine one.
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