Bangladesh, Margate, where next?

Last Tuesday I performed a set of poems in Dhaka, Bangladesh and 3 days later read more poems at The Turner Contemporary Gallery as part of the Margate Bookie Festival. A tiny glimpse of the jet-setting life!

My grateful thanks goes to Bengali poet Aminur Rahman, who rustled up a venue, audience and the kindest of welcomes for me and my husband. We were in Dhaka for the funeral of my father-in-law, Abdul Gaffar Choudhury, who is hugely respected in Bangladesh as a poet, journalist, and hero of the 1971 war of liberation. It was lovely to catch up with some of the poets I met in 2019 when we performed at venues across the city. These included Shakhib Lohani, Ayesha S Chowdhury, Jahidul Huq, and Mohammad Nurul Huda.

The latest issue of The Dhaka Review, edited by Aminur Rahman, was also launched, with articles or poems by a host of respected Bengali poets, plus international writers including Fiona Sampson, Agnes Meadows, Isabel White, Ali al-Shalha, Annabel Villar, Julio Pavanetti, Claire Booker and Tobias Burghardt.

Tributes to Abdul Gaffar Choudhury included a beautiful rendition of his song of liberation, and poems specially written to commemorate him.

Touching down at Heathrow after a 14 hour flight (including breath-taking vistas of Sylhet’s endless horizons of water) I had only one day to recover, before heading off for Margate. What a joy when I arrived to find poetry friends, old and new, in the magnificent modernism of the Turner Gallery.

Here we are, ready to perform our poem +1 from the latest issue of 14 magazine, edited by Richard Skinner, curtesy of Margate Bookie’s creator and man about the pumps, Andreas Loizou.

Poets included Jill Abram, Clare Best, Claire Booker, Angus Carlyle, James Coghill, Kaylen Forsyth, Christopher Hamilton-Emery, Caroline Maldonado, Jess Mookherjee, Kathy Pimlott, Elisabeth Sennitt Clough, Emma Simon, Tamar Yoseloff, plus four women poets supported by Community Action Sutton (Fay Chung, Beverley Dixon, Elizabeth Mudyiwa, and Nali Patel).

Copies of series Two, issue 2 of 14 magazine are available from https://richardskinner.weebly.com/14-magazine.html

14 Magazine – the Red issue

14 poetry magazine is where lovers of the sonnet go for their fix. Free-verse, Shakespearean or concrete, specular or prose poem, if it’s got 14 lines, you’ll find it on the pages of Richard Skinner’s lovingly compiled, celebration of the form.

After a hiatus of several years, following the retirement of originating editor, Mike Loveday, 14 (Series 2) has risen phoenix-like as a new annual magazine, which now includes a special feature for under-represented voices from community groups and charities across the UK.

Poets in the Red Issue include:

Jill Abram, Clare Best, Dermot Bolger, Claire Booker, Stephanie Bowgett, Angela Cleland, Imogen Cooper, Josephine Corcoran, Charlotte Gann, Robert Harper, Maria Isakova-Bennett, Peter Kenny, Claire-Lise Kieffer, Brian Kirk, Pippa Little, Rosie Miles, Jessica Mookherjee, Cheryl Pearson, Kathy Pimlott, Estelle Price, Elisabeth Sennitt Clough, Sue Spiers, Isabelle Thompson, Harriet Truscott, Julia Webb and Tamar Yoseloff.

“I hope you enjoy the contents of Series Two, Issue 2 of 14 magazine, writes Richard in his foreword. “From Leith Harbour to Whitehall, from the Isle of Man to Crosby Beach to Hope Gap, Middlesex to Suffolk, Montparnasse to Port Antonio, Zimbabwe and beyond, the world awaits you.”

“I’m delighted to showcase work by five women supported by Community Action Sutton, a membership organisation that supports, develops and promotes the voluntary sector in the London borough of Sutton”.

I loved all these showcase poems: such strong and fascinating insights into other cultures. So thank you to Fay Chung, Beverley Dixon, Elizabeth Mudyiwa, Nali Patel and Barbara Watts, for sharing their work.

You can buy a copy of 14 from Vanguard Editions (richardskinner.weebly.com). Plus look out for the next submissions window when it comes up in April.

Swansong for 14 Magazine

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. After eight wonderful years, poets and fans of Britain’s only literary magazine devoted to fourteen line poems, gathered last night at the Poetry Cafe in Covent Garden to celebrate its last ever edition.  And oh, the irony – issue 14!

P.66  ‘Detritus’ by Claire Booker

It was standing room only for late-comers. And what a feast of sonnets, including  work by Alan Brownjohn, AF Harrold, Joel Allegretti and Catherine Smith.

My own contribution to the magazine, a 14 liner entitled ‘Detritus’, picks up on an extraordinary remark made by Anton Chekhov that he could find ideas for stories anywhere, even in a used ashtray.

To order a copy of 14 (issue 14) please click on the following link.  You’ll be buying a piece of literary history!  http://www.fourteenmagazine.com