Art and Nature – inspiring poetry

Thank you Katrina Naomi for choosing my poem Framed Woman as joint-runner up in this year’s Poetry Society Stanza Competition. The poem was inspired by an Edward Hopper painting used as a prompt at Poetry Kit’s on-line ekphrastic poetry course, then polished to betterment following feedback from the Brighton Stanza Group. Yes, many hands make light work!

Katrina chose a rich variety of interpretations on this year’s competition theme ‘Choice’. My poem focuses on a woman trying to move out of a claustrophobic relationship. The possibility of choice comes to her as “a tendril unlaces in the white hot sun.”

You can read Framed Woman, together with the winning poem (Sarah Wimbush’s Blood Sugar), joint runner-up Liz McPherson’s Outsider, and the ten commended poems by Julian Bishop, David Bleiman, Partridge Boswell, David Bundred, Sue Burge, Virginia Griem, Sue Norton, Michael Saunderson, Michael Shann and Paul Wellby, by clicking on: https://poetrysociety.org.uk/news/sarah-wimbush-is-chosen-as-the-poetry-societys-2021-stanza-competition-winner/

Stanza groups exist all over the UK (and even abroad). Everyone is welcome to attend, share their work, feedback on other people’s poetry. Some Stanzas hold organised public readings, publish anthologies, run workshops – the sky’s the limit. Check the Poetry Society website for details of your nearest group.

Nature is never far away in my poetry, so it felt really special to have a poem included in the poetry and flash fiction anthology Awakenings, published online by The Sussex Wildlife Trust.

It’s the brainchild of Lucy Townsend, who approached the Trust with the idea as a way to celebrate its 60th anniversary. You can read it all for free at: https://sussexwildlifetrust.org.uk/awakenings

It’s great that organisations are increasingly including poetry in their communications with the general public. Every poem that reaches new constituencies is to be especially celebrated.

Living down here in Brighton, the South Downs are a big part of my life. The Brighton Downs Alliance now includes a poetry/flash section on their website. Check out Chalk It Up for my poem On Beacon Hill and 15 other snapshots of downland life at: https://www.brightondownsalliance.org.uk/chalk-it-up.html

Magma 70 – The Europe Issue

Europe means Europe (as Teresa May sadly never said) and Europe in all its complexities is the theme for the Spring issue of Magma, which radiates a raft of continental perspectives. 

Editors Susannah Hart and Paul Stephenson have steered a careful passage around knee jerk Brexit poetry to produce a subtle, playful and thought-provoking issue, packing in a bumper array of  80 poets, who include: Claire Booker, Steve Boorman, Kit Buchan, Rishi Dastidar, Josh Ekroy, Mark Fiddes, Jan Heritage, Paul Jeffcutt, Jane Kirwan, Wendy Klein, Neetha Kunaratnam, Martin Malone, Richie McCaffery, Katrina Naomi, Ian Pindar, Julian Stannard, William Stephenson, Matthew Sweeney and Claudine Toutoungi.

As selected poet, Anna Kisby (who is a Londoner, now residing in Devon) offers three powerful poems which look at what it means to belong to a place. Richard O’Brien writes a fascinating article on Christopher Fry’s 1973 poem ‘Fanfare for Europe’ written to celebrate Britain’s new alignment with the continent.  The Director of StAnza, Scotland’s international poetry festival, Eleanor Livingstone, shares her extensive experience of poetry festivals across Europe. And Rosalie Challis writes an emotional response to Marcel Proust – starting out as a short letter poem, but developing into something of a memoir on Franco-cultural life in 1960s London.

Will Stone takes a thoughtful look at the visionary poet, Georg Trakl, an extraordinary talent who emerged from the turmoil (personal and national) of turn of the century Austria-Hungary. Rainer Maria Rilke said of Trakl’s poems: “I have discovered much in them: overwhelmed, amazed, wondering and mystified. I imagine that even one who stands close by must experience such spectacles and perceptions as though pressed, an exile, against a pane of glass.”

Claire Booker reads her poem ‘Galia Melons’ at Europe House

Through good planning and a piece of Magma magic, the editors were able to secure the perfect location to launch Magma 70 last month –  Europe House in Smith Square. More than half the poets in the issue were able to read their work, which made for a fun and very action packed evening, with some memorable renditions (Kit Buchan and Wendy Klein to name but two).  And of course, Magma wouldn’t be Magma without its poetry review pages, this time with reviews by Claire Crowther, Rishi Dastidar, Michael Loveday and Laurie Smith.                                              To  purchase a copy of Magma 70, or to submit your work to the magazine, please click on: Magma

 

The Interpreter’s House unleashes flying furniture!

Chairs and sofas are blooming on the spring issue of The Interpreter’s House. No need for daffs and crocuses when you can enjoy poetry and short stories, curled up somewhere warm until the clocks change.

Poets in issue 64 include Miranda Barnes, Claire Booker, Ingrid Casey, Gram Joel Davies, Pamela Job, Wendy Klein, Julie Mellor, Katrina Naomi, Stuart Pickford, James Sutherland Smith and Samuel Tongue.

And if that’s not enough to rev up your day, there’s fiction by Anna Lewis, Eleanor Fordyce and Nicola Ratnett, plus Dawn Gorman reviews Much Possessed (John Foggin, smith/doorstop) and Martin Malone reviews Scarlet Tiger (Ruth Sharman, Templar Poetry).

The Interpreter’s House is edited by Martin Malone from his eerie in Aberdeen and comes out three times a year. If you want your work to appear in the summer issue, hurry, hurry as the submissions window closes on Feb 28th.

To buy a copy of issue 64 or find out more about the magazine, go to: theinterpretershouse.com

New Welsh angles on Frida Kahlo, RS Thomas and Serbian milkmen . . .

R.S. Thomas, Frida Kahlo, Serbian milkmen with beautiful hands – the autumn issue of New Welsh Review jiggles with style, content and thought-provoking analysis, together with poems by Claire Booker, Valerie Laws, Katrina Naomi and Rosie Shepperd.

And the wonderful, yet frequently misunderstood, poet R.S. Thomas is given a new slant by Professor M Wynn Thomas, whose book ‘RS Thomas: Serial Obsessive’ was published by the University of Wales Press this year.  

‘Woman Smoking’ by Shani Rhys James

Jasmine Donahaye offers a moving poetical response to Shani Rhys James’ exhibition of figurative paintings ‘The Rivalry of Flowers’ currently showing at Aberystwyth Art Centre before going on tour.

And there is a fascinating feature on the 19th century novelist Amy Dillwyn, whose unrequited love for her friend Olive Talbot became central to her work.

Want to read the winning poems in this year’s Cardiff International Poetry Competition? Fancy flash fiction  from the Flash In The Pen competition? Intrigued by how a dream inspired my poem ‘Is This What A Mother’s Bones Become?’ Look no further for your answers than issue 101 of New Welsh Review, which can be purchased from good book stores or direct from the following link: http://www.newwelshreview.com