In which I reveal what percentage of my annual income comes from being an actual poet compared to all the other poetry-promoting stuff. A panel discussion hosted by the Society of Authors on 26 October, with Tom Chivers, Tamar Yoseloff and me. Get your (possibly tax deductible) tickets here.
Little Interview
Oh, I forgot to put this up at the time. Poetry Spotlight turn their beams on me.
?! ?! ?!
Here’s a handsome book – an anthology of new poems inspired by punctuation marks, just out with the newly hatched Laudanum Publishing. Here’s the living contents page: Abigail Parry, Amy Key, Ali Lewis, Bobby Parker, Camellia Stafford, Charlotte Newman, Chris McCabe, Declan Ryan, Edward Venning, Fran Lock, Hannah Lowe, Helen Mort, Isobel Dixon, Jody Porter, Joey Connolly, Joelle Taylor, John Clark, John McCullough, Stuart McKenzie, Jon Sayers, Jon Stone, Julia Bird, Kayo Chingonyi, Kimberly Campanello, Kirsten Irving, Liane Strauss, Lisa Kelly, Phil Brown, Phil Terry, Simon Barraclough, Vahni Capildeo.
My poem is called ‽ and it’s about an unsuccessful covers band called Isobel and the Interrobangs.
Joy in the Afternoon
Another Joy Forever – this time in Winchester, where Keats’ mist and mellow fruitfulnesses came from. A lunchtime joy, Wednesday 10th August.
Pretty thing for your corkboard
Yesterday, Mike Sims and I performed A Joy Forever (Flowers) at Test Valley Garden & Literary Festival – Keats and his floral poetry amongst the dripping lupins of Bere Mill gardens. Lovely. Next month, we’re doing A Joy Forever (Fame) at Keats House. More poems, more cakes, more games, less rain (hopefully), more gifts. A Joy Forever Flyer
Ever Joyful …
Some more Joy Forever events coming up, in which my Keatsian friend Mike Sims and I bring together poems, letters, games and cake on a John Keats theme for a social and bookish get together.
19th May at the Enitharmon shop, London – launching the Winchester Poetry Festival with a short Keats & his Books event (invitation only)
12th June at Bere Mill, Whitchurch – Keats and Flowers
3 July at Keats House, London – ‘Whatever Happened to Johnny Keats?’ – tea and immortality
August – another Winchester event, date and venue tbc
A Swan Prayer
I wrote this for a blog for a fashion start-up that – er – didn’t, after visiting the Nick Waplington photographic exhibition at Tate Britain earlier this year. Waplington’s exhibition juxtaposed images of landfills and rubbish heaps with backstage shots from Alexander McQueen’s ‘Horn of Plenty’ Collection – see above, who wouldn’t pray to the goddess in that dress? As the poem is not going to go where it was supposed to now, I’ll recycle it here.
**
SWAN PRAYER
Swan, who’s a bunch of milk roses; Swan
with poppies in your beak, whose feet are lilies
picked to be dyed black – my prayer is more.
More of the cut minerals and dressed pelts
monogrammed with air-miles, worn once
and then thrown; more hot technology,
more haute horologie – still watertight,
fathoms down. Max me out, pile my plate,
let whatever has been mined be burned.
Grant me further, faster, newer, rarer
**
or if I can’t have this then give me less.
Please. Release us from the weight of what
we own. Strip the dressers and the vaults
one by one, rip the image down,
make all the things that we assert
be subject to the sweet dissolve and rot. Flick
the switch on our light, take the heat from our thought:
Swan – I’ll make my mind a bowl and scrape it clean
for you to fill with more of nothing than anyone.
Oil black, rust red, bone white Swan.
**
Watch The Horn of Plenty! show
Interview with Nick Waplington
