New Walk 9 launch & retrospective

This one-off event takes place at Five Leaves Bookshop, Long Row, Nottingham, from 7pm on Wednesday, October 15th, and includes readings from all back issues, as well as from Issue 9. I'll be among the poets reading, but even if that's not really your thing, it's a chance to look around and buy from a great little bookshop.

Free Verse Anthology

In a previous post, I mentioned the little guide booklet that everyone attending this year's Free Verse poetry bookfair received, and how it formed an excellent little anthology, by selecting a poem from each of the publishers represented.

You can now see it for yourself here - it's well worth a read.

Green Man Poetry

An early heads-up that this splendid event will be taking place at Kendall's of Earlsdon Delicatessen, Earlsdon Street, Earlsdon, Coventry, CV5 6EJ, on Tuesday, October 14th, at 8pm.

Barry Patterson's Wild Man Of The Woods will perform his work The Giant Albion's Nightmare, with music and other poetry, including the work of William Blake, and readings from Antony R Owen, Leanne Bridgewater, Tom Wyre, Adam Steiner and myself.

Entry is £4.50, on the door.

Hawk boosting

My latest post is now up at Out There With The Birds - a few ruminations on Sparrowhawks, Kestrels, their hunting methods, and writing. Ted Hughes and Gerard Manley Hopkins get a mention too, of course, hence the appalling pun above. As ever, there's plenty else of interest to be found there, so stop and have a good rummage.

Found in a secondhand bookshop

I have more than enough books in my house. I have piles of books currently unshelved. I have piles of books waiting to be read. I have piles of books that I've earmarked for charity shops but have yet to get round to taking down there.

Unfortunately, this doesn't stop me from buying more. In particular, I can't resist a secondhand bookshop. It's the feeling, of course, that you might unearth an absolute treasure, or something that you've been looking for for years.

At the weekend, I was in Suffolk. There was a secondhand bookshop (no name on the front, other than 'secondhand bookshop') in the market square, so of course I had to browse. For under £15 all in, I bought two old Raymond Chandler paperbacks, the poet Tim Dooley's first collection, The Interrupted Dream, from the mid-80s, and the Reader's Digest Field Guide to the Butterflies and Other Insects of Britain, from their Nature Lover's Library series – I've already got the birds, trees and wild flowers volumes, and love them, and this was in the original hardback, in perfect condition.

The latter probably isn't going to get too much use until next year, but the Chandler and the poetry will be welcome companions on some forthcoming travels.

Antiphon 12

Issue 12 of the online poetry magazine Antiphon is out now - among the contents to have caught my eye so far are poems by Jayne Stanton, Rebecca Bird and Anthony Wilson, and reviews of books by James Caruth and Ben Wilkinson. Recommended, as always.

Camden Migration

Camden Migration, taking place from September 25th to October 5th, is an exploration into the migration of birds and people through the arts, celebrating cultural expansion but also considering its environmental impact, particularly on bird extinction.

On the 10th anniversary of the Morecambe Bay disaster, and the 100th anniversary of the loss of the last Passenger Pigeon, it will use art to explore the perils of migration to both humans and birds.

The Forge building, in which the Festival takes place, uses sustainable materials, powered in part by solar panels, with natural ventilation systems and featuring a 6.5m high living wall. 

The Ghost of Gone Birds Exhibition, a pop-up art studio, will breathe life back into the birds we've lost, creatively resurrecting extinct birds, so we don't lose any more. Eleven artists will be working at break-neck speed over the Festival to create a gallery of gone birds.

Conservationist and internationally-acclaimed poet Ruth Padel will give a talk about her book The Mara Crossing, a meditation on migration, of birds, animals and human beings, throughout history and in today's world of asylum-seekers and detention centres.

David Lindo, The Urban Birder, will give a talk about urban bird migration, and the effect which environmental changes, such as climate change, have on it.

The film drama 'Ghosts' directed by Nick Broomfield, about the Morecambe Bay disaster which saw 21 people lose their lives will be screened, following a short talk by Dr Diana Yeh to commemorate the lives lost during epic journeys of migration and to examine ways forward for the future.

All events can be found at The Forge website.

At Frampton Marsh

There's a poem in my current collection, The Elephant Tests, called At Frampton Marsh, written some time after a visit to the RSPB reserve just outside Boston, Lincolnshire, a few years back.

I was there again on Friday, being shown around by warden Toby Collett, and was amazed at just how much it has developed even in the last couple of years. A bird list of 70-odd species included Glossy Ibis, two Pectoral Sandpipers, around 10 Little Stints, 50-plus Curlew Sandpipers, 10 Spotted Redshanks, hundreds of Black-tailed Godwits, Merlin and Marsh Harrier. The particularly high numbers of waders (I've never seen that many Little Stints or Curlew Sands together) were in part due to a very high tide which came right up to the sea wall.

Here's a little group of five Curlew Sandpipers, and a larger gathering of (mainly) godwits, although there were Dunlin and Knot among them.

Tears In The Fence Festival

The independent literary magazine, Tears In The Fence, is holding a festival to celebrate its 30th birthday, on 24-26 October.

It all takes place at the White Horse, Stourpaine, and among the speakers already confirmed are Peter Hughes, Carrie Etter, Dorothy Lehane, Chris McCabe and Steve Spence. You can find out more here.

Poetry: The Next Generation

The Poetry Book Society has announced its 20 'Next Generation' poets, the once a decade list that aims to, as chair of judges Ian McMillan puts it, "lead our national cultural conversation for many years to come".

As always, there's going to be a lot of argument about who was included and who wasn't, as well as the criteria used to make the choices and the entry requirements that do seem to make things harder for small presses.

I'm not going to rehash those arguments here, but I do find Daljit Nagra's inclusion slightly strange. Not that he's not a fine poet, just that I would have thought he's already very firmly established as one of poetry's big names - I would have thought the place could better have gone to a less well-known poet. On the other hand, maybe outside poetryworld he's not that well-known, and this is, after all, an attempt to get people who wouldn't otherwise read poetry to pick up a book.

Anyway, congratulations to all concerned, and I'm particularly pleased to see Rebecca Goss, Luke Kennard and Helen Mort among the 20 - all poets whose work I enjoy a lot. Of the others, there are several who I'm still to read, so if nothing else it will give me some ideas for the future.

Winchester Poetry Festival

Winchester Poetry Festival takes place this Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with writers including Jackie Kay, Michael Longley, David Constantine, Patience Agbabi, Ros Barber, Julia Copus and Brian Patten among those taking part.

You can find full details, including the programme and how to book, here.

And the books I brought back...

I didn't say yesterday that I returned home on Saturday with several more books than I set out with (of course). They were:

Sarah James' Be[yond], as I mentioned in my last post. It's an adventurous and hugely enjoyable collection - I recommend it highly.

Three splendid Worple Press volumes - Andy Brown's Exurbia, John Greening's Knot, and Anthony Wilson's Riddance. I haven't started on any of these yet, but all three are by poets I've enjoyed a lot in the past. There are loads of other goodies in the Worple stable, too - Michael McKimm's Fossil Sunshine is excellent, and Stephen Boyce's The Sisyphus Dog looked intriguing.

Royall Tyler's A Great Valley Under The Stars, from Isobar Press. This is one of the reasons Free Verse is such fun - I doubt I'd have come across this book otherwise, but I started reading it yesterday and it's great. I have a bit of a fixation with New Mexico, which is what made me pick it up initially - I'm glad that I did.

Finally, it occurred to me when I got home that the programme given away free to everyone attending is actually a pretty good little anthology in its own right - there are profiles of each attending press, plus a poem from one of their poets. I have a spare copy, so, if you'd like it, leave a comment here, and I'll send it out.

Free Verse 2014

On Saturday, I was down in Red Lion Square in London for the Free Verse Poetry Book Fair. I attended a couple of years ago (or was it three?), and it was obvious then that it had bags of potential, but I was staggered at just how busy it was throughout the day on Saturday. From beginning to end, the main room was exactly as it appears in the above photo, while the readings and talks were well attended.

I particularly enjoyed the Knives, Forks and Spoons Press readings, especially Sarah James (and bought her collection, Be[yond]), and the readings from Bill Griffiths' work by Geraldine Monk and Alan Halsey (pictured below).

As always at such events, a large part of the pleasure was in catching up with other poets and publishers, and I chatted to Helena Nelson, D A Prince, Alan Baker, Michael McKimm, Peter Carpenter and Roy Marshall, among others, as well, of course, as to my own publisher, Jane Commane of Nine Arches Press (below).

It was only afterwards that I realised that, in the hustle and bustle in the Conway Hall, I'd managed to somehow miss Alison Brackenbury and the Sidekick Books stand - that's a mark of how busy it was.

I read alongside fellow Nine Arches poet Josh Ekroy, and Worple Press poets Mary Woodward and Martin Crucefix, at the Garden Cafe out in the middle of the square. There was a decent-sized audience, and we were on just before the arrival of the marchers in support of the NHS (and Billy Bragg, a longtime hero of mine). Me and Josh are pictured below - I think I need to work on my microphone technique.

Free Verse

Just a reminder that Free Verse, the poetry book fair, takes place in London this Saturday. As part of it, I'm reading at the Garden Cafe, Red Lion Square, at 11.30pm, with Josh Ekroy and two Worple Press poets. There are events at the Cafe, at the nearby Conway Hall, and at the Rugby Tavern in the evening.

Birdwatching Argentina

As there's been a heavily Argentinian feel to the start of the new football season at Leicester, with the arrival of Ulloa and Cambiaso, I thought I'd post this video from the trip to Argentina I went on earlier this year. We were at Puerto Valle, looking out across the Rio Parana towards Paraguay. I don't actually do much in the video other than nod a lot, but fortunately my travelling companions were more talkative.