Shindig!

Last night’s Shindig at Wilde’s, Leamington Spa, turned out to be a great way to round off a weekend of writing.

It’s a lovely venue, for a start, which always makes a difference, but it’s the poetry that really matters. Myra Connell launched her new Nine Arches Press book, From The Boat (full review coming soon), and read beautifully. At one stage, she mentioned her interest in dreams, and the poems I enjoyed most were those in which you seem to flicker from wakefulness to a dream state. It’s subtly done – you never got the feeling that she was forcing the poems to go anywhere they weren’t meant to go, and yet they did go to some strange places.

The open mic readers were as consistently good as I can ever remember. Partly that was due to the fact that several of Luke Kennard’s students got up and read – he’s clearly teaching them well – but there were fine poems from elsewhere too. Always nice to hear people read someone else’s poems at an open mic, too, so I enjoyed both Simon Turner and George Ttoouli’s stints.

I was pretty happy with my own set, just after the interval – just one slight stumble! It was largely made up of newish poems (well, post-Troy Town, anyway), and it’s always nice to see what response they get. Pretty good, on last night’s evidence, which is encouraging.

I’ve heard Luke Kennard read before, and the same thing strikes me every time – above all, he never forgets that poetry is there to be enjoyed. That’s not to say that there isn’t a great deal of depth to his poetry – there is, and it bears repeated reading or listening – but he’s always thoroughly entertaining (how can you not like someone who orders a bottle of wine mid-set, can’t find enough change, and downsizes to a glass?).

He’s doing a book with Nine Arches early next year, but in the meantime, I’ll be going back to his Salt collections. He’s engagingly modest about the many laurels heaped upon him, but they’re really thoroughly deserved.

I had a chance to talk to Jane Commane and Matt Nunn about my own second collection, due to come out through Nine Arches late this year. It’s all starting to come together well, and I’m busy trying to finish a few poems and revise a few more this week. We talked about possible titles, too. I’ve got one in mind, which Jane pointed out sounded rather like it ought to be an album by The Fall – never a bad thing, in my book.

What else? Well, Under The Radar 5 is out, with poems by the likes of David Morley, Rupert Loydell, Claire Crowther, Mark Goodwin and Sophie Mayer, as well as Myra Connell. I’ve enjoyed reading the reviews, too – Matt Nunn’s thoughtful assessment of Tony Williams’ book is excellent, and Jane Holland is good on HappenStance chapbooks by Alison Brackenbury, Rose Cook and Sally Festing.

Oh, and finally, my set list:

The sea at Ashby de la Zouch
Prelude for Glass Harmonica
The Memory Of Water
The American version
Fantasia for Glass Harmonica
Uchronie
The Meeting Place
Hutt River Province
Worst Case Scenario
Happiness
Cahoots

Myra Connell - From The Boat

As I mentioned earlier in the week, Myra Connell is among the readers at this Sunday's Nine Arches Press Shindig at Wilde's Bar, Leamington Spa. The others, as if I'd let you forget even for a minute, are Luke Kennard and myself, and there'll be open mic slots available to sign up to on the night.

Myra will be launching her chapbook (a very substantial one, too) From The Boat. I've been enjoying reading it this last week - it's allusive, often elusive poetry, showing a refreshing lack of fear of taking risks or, when the occasion demands, communicating simply and honestly.

Anyway, I'll have much more to say about it soon, with a full review, but in the meantime let's just say that I recommend it very warmly.

There's plenty more of interest in the Nine Arches catalogue, too, and some great new releases to come very soon (I've been awaiting Simon Turner's second collection very eagerly, and Mark Goodwin's chapbook sequence Shod also promises great things, judging by what we heard at the Leicester Shindig at the end of January).

But anyway, if you'd like a signed copy of Myra's chapbook, there's only one place to be on Sunday evening.

Leamington Spa Shindig revisited

Just a quick reminder that the next Nine Arches Press Shindig is at Wilde's Wine Bar, The Parade, Leamington Spa, this Sunday, March 14th.

It's the Leamington launch for Myra's new chapbook From The Boat, and as if that's not enough there's the added attraction of Luke Kennard, whose collections, including The Harbour Beyond The Movie and The Migraine Hotel, have met with critical acclaim and impressive sales. I'll be reading a full set, and there are open mic slots available too (sign up on the night).

The next Leicester event is at The Looking Glass on Monday, April 12th - Simon Turner and Myra Connell will be joined by Leicester's own Lydia Towsey - hope to see you there.

PS. I'll be posting more about Myra's chapbook later in the week, and also hope to post a little flurry of reviews next week. They're all sitting around on my hard drive - they just need tidying up a bit.

Robin Hood - loan shark

Well, that's how one of the radio news bulletins billed this, but the truth actually looks a lot less interesting. Can't really see anything particularly contentious in this, whether or not the author has interpreted the ballads correctly, and as you'll have noticed in the past, I'm a compulsive defender of RH's reputation.

Jean Binta Breeze

Just a quick reminder that you can celebrate International Women's Day at the Y Theatre, Leicester, tonight. See Jean Binta Breeze interviewed live on stage by Dr Jane Dowson, then hear her read from her forthcoming collection, Cutting A Lime. Expect new and collected work that moves seamlessly from the personal to the political. Expect intimacy and energy, celebration and community, glitz, glamour and a global premiere all wrapped up in an orange headscarf and filmed beautifully, by the good people of Bloodaxe.

It all starts at 7pm, and tickets are £8 or £5 for concessions. Call 0116 255 7066 for more details, or book at www.ytheatre.co.uk

Migration watching

There are two sides to visible migration. One is the hard slog – standing on a windswept hilltop, freezing cold, getting a crick in your neck as you try to log huge numbers of Sky Larks, Meadow Pipits, geese or whatever passing overhead.

Despite all that, the rewards are enormous. There’s no better way to get an idea of just how many bird movements go on in these islands, even among species we often think of as essentially sedentary.

The other side of it is enjoying the happy accidents. A couple of years ago, I went along to a local reservoir at the end of March to see a Lesser Scaup that had arrived the previous day. As I set up my scope on the crowded dam, I looked up at the observation tower just as a very bedraggled Wheatear alighted on it. For 15, maybe 20 minutes, it sat there, occasionally preening, but mainly just getting its breath back. It visibly revived, before heading on its way further north, perhaps even beyond the UK.

Yesterday was a glorious, clear day, but still probably a week or 10 days too early to realistically expect the first Wheatears or Sand Martins. I went over to Willington Gravel Pits, mainly in the hope of seeing the Water Pipits that have been there in recent days.

After parking in the village, I walked up the green lane as far as the entrance to the reserve itself, when I heard the unmistakeable ‘coor-li’ call of the Curlew. Small numbers are fairly regular visitors here in spring and autumn, but at first I struggled to locate just where the sound was coming from.

I scanned over the valley of the River Trent towards Repton, and finally, between the trees and hedges and fences, picked up some movement in the water meadows there. A flock of 30 or so Curlew were bustling along the riverbank, feeding constantly as they went. Once or twice, they were flushed into the air by dogwalkers, but they quickly returned to the same spot and resumed their lunch, joined now by a pair of Oystercatchers.

Now, I love Curlews anyway, and although we don’t have huge numbers on my inland patch, neither are they particularly difficult to find in the course of the year. This, though, was the biggest flock I can remember for a long, long time, and the sight and sound of them even overshadowed the long-staying Bittern that flapped over the reedbed a little later, or the Whooper Swan drifting through a flock of Goosanders.

I suspect they’ll be gone on their way to their breeding grounds very soon (indeed, they’re probably already gone), which makes the lucky chance of our paths crossing all the more pleasurable.

Salt Reading, De Montfort University

It’s been a busy week at work, so I haven’t been able to get to as many of the events at the Cultural eXchange Festival at De Montfort University in Leicester as I’d have liked to.

Last night, though I did go to the Salt reading, featuring John James, Tom Raworth and Simon Perril. It was very well attended, and fully lived up to expectations.

John James read first, and although right at the outset he announced that he wouldn’t be reading The Conversation, a particular favourite of mine, he didn’t disappoint. He reads well, in a slow, measured voice which contains just a hint of his Cardiff origins. I particularly liked Romsey and Romsey, Take Two (it was reading the second of these in Tears In The Fence last summer that got me interested in him and made me go out and buy his Collected Poems), both of which will presumably appear in his next volume, but he’s a difficult poet to pin down. Associated, as he is, with the avant-garde, and especially the so-called Cambridge School, you might expect difficulty or obscurity, but you’d be wrong. He looks back to the New York School, for sure, but beyond that too to the Romantics, and there are times when popular song seems as strong an influence on him as poetry. Above all, his work has a positive and highly sensuous feel to it, something which gives him a highly individual flavour.

I’ve heard Tom Raworth read before, although a long time ago, and I’d forgotten just how much fun he is. Deadly serious, too (quite literally so, given the charged subject matter of some of the poems he read), but very, very entertaining. If I seem to be damning him with faint praise by writing so little about him here, it’s just that I’m not familiar enough with his work on the page to have many meaningful reference points, but I’ll have to put that right. The sheer energy of his poetry made me feel a little breathless - God only knows what it's like for him!

Finally, we had Simon Perril, who teaches at DMU. I’ll admit my heart sank a little when he gave a lengthy introduction to his reading from his new book, Nitrate (long introductions always put me off) but the poetry was well worth the wait. Presented alongside Simon’s own collages, perfectly paced and beautifully read, it worked very well. Again, he comes across as complex but never difficult, the sort of poet you can imagine building a real following. I liked the reading so much that I bought the book, which is written around the subject of early film, and enjoyed seeing some of the pieces on the page during a quick flick-through later.

So, hats off to DMU for putting together such a good line-up – hats off to DMU students for turning out in such good numbers.

The submissions process

Timothy Green, poet and editor of the always excellent Rattle, has posted this essay about the huge number of poetry submissions to magazines. It makes some great points, and picks up on something I've been thinking about recently.

That is, he points out what should be obvious, really - that even great poets don't write exclusively great poems, but that it's the tendency to assume that they do that can make it hard for new poets to break into established publications. Rattle, I should add, is a magazine that always shows the benefit of Timothy having used the principles he sets out here.

Out now

Just came across this over at David Morley's blog - looks like a really interesting anthology, and the launch is positively star-studded! Not just poets, too, but with Peter Blegvad as MC. I'll have to try to get to it.

Troy Town review

In the Winter 2010 issue of Leicester Poetry Society’s magazine, The Stanza, Charles G Lauder Jr’s review of Troy Town appeared. I really enjoyed reading it, and I’m grateful to Charles for such a thoughtful and perceptive assessment of the book. Here it is.

There is a pulling in Matt Merritt’s Troy Town, between poems about wildlife and those taking you on a tour of the Americas, and poems that lurk indoors, staring out at the world through a closed window, where what is pertinent is off-camera, a point on the horizon of lurking danger or darkness, the decision being whether to look at it straight on.

The opening poem, First Draft, poses that question when a seagull, an unseen landfill tip, and the start of snow are spied in this fashion: “It’s either that or go downstairs / and waste the best of the morning / raking out the ashes of a fortnight.” Hares In December awaits death (“their moment / still months away”), while The Morning Of The Funeral deposits its two stanzas either side of the visit to the crematorium. Curtains and Show, Don’t Tell speak of barriers to prevent the night from breaking in: “After dark, nothing got in or out” and “the night, raw and gaping / hammering, hammering on the skylight.”

It’s as if Merritt is building up courage to will himself out into the world, to take on the Sierras, the Andes, and even Sex After 36:

It’s different. They must have changed the rules
while you were off chasing

other interests…

When history is imagined in the poems, one can’t help but wonder whether we ever left home or are more part of a fevered dream: the fifth century setting of Federati, the seafaring delirium of Calenture, the delusions of grandeur secession from Australia of Hutt River Province. This reaches its peak in the title poem, which calls to mind not only the historic city, but English turf mazes, and the bewildered state of one’s own mind:

To put aside all thoughts
of dead ends, blind alleys, mental maps.
To put aside all thoughts.
Yet here we are,
on hands and knees again, penitent,
bent on special pleading to whatever
it is lies at the centre, certain only
there’s but one place this is heading.

Given the trips to Tahoe, Cotopaxi, and Hacienda Cusin, we do realise we have gone somewhere, and like the poet in the sonnet Revisited, return to an empty house in the same state as we left it:

The bicycle in pieces on the kitchen floor.
A mess of plastic carriers in the rucksack
on the door. Yesterday, today, tomorrow.

This is a quiet collection of poems, perhaps too quiet at times – purposely silent to hear the planet’s hum (Hummadruz, A Conspiracy Of Stones), or to observe the Paradise Tanagers, Red Knots, Redstarts and other birds wonderfully described throughout the book:

And they’re airborne again,
only now they’re more
a shimmering shoal of sand eels,
dissipated in a second, disappearing momentarily,
a stubborn collective thought of explosive energy.

The Anthologist

Earlier in the week I finished reading Nicholson Baker’s novel The Anthologist. To be honest, it struck me as an intriguing and always fascinating essay on poetry, rather pointlessly dressed up as a novel.

In brief, the anthologist of the title is Paul Chowder, a middle-aged US poet who is supposed to be writing an introduction to the anthology he has put together. He’s not getting far, though, as he keeps putting off actually starting to write it, and to make matters worse his girlfriend has left him.

And there, I suppose, was my problem. The story and characters just weren’t involving enough to make me really care – I found myself plodding grimly through those parts and waiting for the bits where he digresses into his own theories of poetry.

That part of the book is excellent. Even when I didn’t agree with him, Baker made a great case for his ideas, but some of his theories, especially on rhythm, seemed to make perfect sense.

Which is all a long way of saying that any poet will probably find something to enjoy in this book, but they might also find themselves wondering why Baker chose to frame his ideas in quite this way.

Subscribe to HappenStance

I’ve said it before, and I am of course biased, but HappenStance is one of the UK’s most consistently interesting poetry presses. I’m in awe of quite how one-woman publishing team Helena Nelson manages to maintain such a high-quality and increasingly prolific output, but she does, and it shows no signs of stopping in 2010.

Among the chapbooks coming out are Jon Stone’s Scarecrows and one from Tim Love, plus a debut chapbook from Matthew Stewart is due next year. The back catalogue, of course, includes pamphlets from Alison Brackenbury, Mark Halliday, Ruth Pitter, Michael Mackmin, Andrew Philip, James Wood, Rob Mackenzie, Gill McEvoy, Tom Duddy, Frances Thompson, Marilyn Ricci, Patricia Ace and Eleanor Livingstone (plus many more, including yours truly), and a really fine full collection from DA Prince.

For just £7.50 (in the UK, £12 elsewhere), you can subscribe to HappenStance for the year. For that, you get a chapbook of your choice and the latest instalment of The HappenStance Story, plus a discount on other books, and advance notice of and invitations to launches. You also get the satisfaction of supporting a great poetry publisher. Give it a try…

Miscellany

Where to start? Well, the latest issue of Tears In The Fence arrived on Saturday. It's pretty much my favourite poetry mag these days - there's always a good range of poetry and a really extensive review section, so it takes weeks and weeks to get through, in the best possible way. It's still small enough to slip into a coat pocket, though - ideal for browsing in spare moments.

I've only skimmed it so far, but have enjoyed work by Simon Turner, Carrie Etter, Chris Torrance and Jackie Litherland. Still loads of stuff I haven't even touched on, though.

The latest issue of The Stanza, Leicester Poetry Society's in-house mag, also arrived. There's a generous review by Graham Norman of the reading by Pam Thompson, Lydia Towsey and myself back in November, and also Charles Lauder's equally generous and very perceptive review of Troy Town. I'll post it a bit later in the week.

Which reminds me, Graham Norman is one of the readers at the Members Night at LPS this Friday, along with Caroline Cook and Carol Leeming. It's at the Friends Meeting House, Queen's Road, Leicester, at 7.30pm.

Finally, there are some great pics of the Short-eared Owls at Cossington Meadows over at The Leicester Llama and at Soar Valley Birding.

Coming soon...honest

I've not got round to writing that much of substance about poetry on here recently, for one reason and another, but I promise to do better over the next few weeks.

I'll have reviews of Michael McKimm's Still This Need, George Ttoouli's Static Exile, Karen Solie's Pigeon, and a number of chapbooks, and I might even manage to finally finish a piece I was writing about poetry on the page as a sort of musical notation for poetry read aloud. You'll be begging for mercy, I warn you...

The race is on again

After last year's rather unseemly brouhaha (I've been dying to use that word - you can tell, can't you?), the contest to find the next Oxford Professor of Poetry is back on.

Of those mentioned in the Guardian article, I think I'd like Anne Stevenson to get it - she's one of those poets who seems to transcend a lot of the divisions in the poetry world. I wouldn't be unhappy with Geoffrey Hill, though, but I hope that's not Clive James angling for someone to beg him to stand. I should probably give his poetry a fair chance, but his crimes against TV are too many to mention.

Small presses in the spotlight

I've been meaning to post something about this event, flagged up here by Alan Baker. I think Nine Arches Press are going to be there too. Sounds well worth a look.

A cricketing Eden

When I was a kid, in the days when there was absolutely no cricket coverage in the winter (except occasional highlights programmes during Ashes series), I fed my cricket obsession in the winter by reading every cricket book in the local library.

My favourites were Christopher Martin-Jenkins accounts of various England tours. Two in particular stick in the mind. One was the story of their disastrous 1974-75 Ashes tour, and the other covered England’s 3-1 win in India in 1976-77, when Tony Grieg's young and improving side surprised everyone.

The bit that really sticks in the memory was the Second Test, at Calcutta (as it then was), when India started the last day just minutes away from a second consecutive defeat. Despite that, the Eden Gardens ground was packed almost full, roaring on the local heroes. I remember deciding there and then that one day I had to watch a test match at that venue.

So the Second Test at Eden Gardens that’s just finished, with India beating South Africa with minutes to spare, was another reminder that the death of test cricket may have been exaggerated. The atmosphere throughout was absolutely electric, so although limited overs and 20/20 cricket may reign supreme elsewhere in the subcontinent, Kolkata has evidently retained its appetite for the longer form of the game. And it’s rekindled my desire to go out there – I’m not bothered if it’s for an England test.

Leamington Spa Shindig

I'm delighted to be reading at the next Nine Arches Press Shindig, at Wilde's Wine Bar, The Parade, Leamington Spa, on Sunday, March 14th.

It's the Leamington launch for Myra's new chapbook From The Boat, and as if that's not enough there's the added attraction of Luke Kennard, whose collections, including The Harbour Beyond The Movie and The Migraine Hotel, have met with critical acclaim and impressive sales. There are open mic slots available too (sign up on the night).

The Shindig schedule is now into full swing, alternating between Leamington and Leicester on a monthly basis. The next Leicester event is at The Looking Glass on Monday, April 12th - the line-up's almost confirmed, so watch this space.

Just arrived

I love bookshops, of pretty much any kind, and I do try to make a point of buying there whenever possible. It's not just that I don't want to see them disappear, it's the fact that I like to have a browse through a book first. I also like to see what the book's like as a physical object - it's not a deal-breaker, but it's important.

Still, Amazon is a God-send, meaning that you can get hold of books that you'd otherwise never come across (and in the poetry world, there are a lot of those). This morning, a parcel arrived containing Philip Gross's TS Eliot Prize-winning The Water Table, and Canadian poet Karen Solie's third collection, Pigeon.

I've got her first two books - Short Haul Engine and Modern And Normal - and they're excellent, especially the latter. I sort of missed the publication of Pigeon last year, easily done since Canadian poetry gets even less coverage over here than most, so I'm looking forward to catching up. She's one of those poets who doesn't quite fit easy categories.

I also thought it was time to get a CD version of Dr Feelgood's classic Down By The Jetty - maximum rhythm 'n' blues, from the days when that meant sweaty blokes from Canvey Island cranking out their own high velocity take on the music that became rock 'n' roll. More punk than most punk ever was, and then some.

Special offer

It's turning into a long, long winter. You need something new to read to see you through those evenings by the fireside. So, now's probably as good a time as any to remind you that my first full collection, Troy Town, is still available. It's in hardback, with a glossy cover featuring Tom Bailey's photography, and you can buy it from Arrowhead Press, through Amazon, or direct from me.

I've also still got a very few copies of my chapbook, Making The Most Of The Light - it's sold out at the HappenStance site, but there are maybe half a dozen dotted around the house. They tend to go well at readings, so they won't be around for long.

Until the end of March, you can get them direct from me for £7 and £1.50 respectively, or £7.50 for both. Just email me at the link on the right, or get in touch through the comments box, and I'll send them out to you.

Bitten by the Bittern bug

One of the side-effects of the hard winter is that certain birds usually known for their secretive and skulking behaviour can be seen a lot more easily. Woodcocks, for instance, of which I’ve seen more locally this winter than in the last 10 put together, and Bitterns.

There have been several around Soar Valley sites since around Christmas, but I’d managed to miss them every time, even the one at Swithland Reservoir that seemed impossible not to see, so small was the area it was frequenting. So, for a change, I went to the far side of my local patch yesterday, to Willington Gravel Pits in Derbyshire, where a Bittern has been seen on and off since early autumn.

Thing is, once I got there, I rather forgot about it. It’s a big site, and there was plenty else to divert my attention, and anyway the reedbed’s big enough that any Bittern can stay hidden for days at a time. I walked down to the first viewing platform, which overlooks an almost enclosed bay of the main lake, and after a scan of the water and the reedy fringes, started watching the nearby bird table. There were plenty of Reed Buntings, two Willow Tits (easier to find than March Tits in my part of the world), and several Robins and Dunnocks.

At one point, there was the sound of movement in the reeds behind me, but careful scanning revealed nothing, and when a Water Rail started squealing from the same area, I assumed it had been responsible for the whole commotion. I returned to watching the table, which now had a couple of Bullfinches in attendance.

Then there was the sound from the reeds again, and I looked round to see a Bittern flying almost straight towards me. Bizarrely, it seemed not to have even noticed I was there, even though the viewing platform is really rather prominent, and it got to within 15 yards before suddenly veering right then sweeping round in a wide curve, and finally dropping out of sight into a ditch. They’re really glorious birds, and always look more golden than you expect.

After that excitement, anything else was always going to be an anti-climax, so a single Stonechat, four Oystercatchers and a couple of Shelducks were no more than pleasant diversions. But out on the far side of the water, patient grilling of a flock of dozing Pochards produced a pair of Pintail, also asleep with their heads tucked out of sight. They’re not a duck we get very often in the East Midlands, so it was a nice tick.

As it turned out, my regular Soar Valley site, Cossington Meadows, had a Bittern, two Pintail, two Little Egrets and the three Short-eared Owls yesterday, but I’d bet my house that the Bittern wouldn’t have shown if I’d gone there instead!

Poetry miscellany

Friday night, I was at Leicester Poetry Society for a reading by Alex Pryce, a young Northern Ireland-born poet who’s currently a student at Leicester University, as well as running PoetCasting in her spare time.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, not really having heard any of it before, and I’m sure she’s a name you’ll hear a lot more of in years to come. She seems to have a very sensible attitude, though – she’s in no hurry to rush a book or even pamphlet out, even though what we heard suggested she has a lot of strong material.

She also played several poets from the PoetCasting site, and as it happened they were all (with the exception of Milner Place), poets I hadn’t yet got round to listening to. I particularly liked the truly extraordinary Hannah Silva, and Richard O’Brien, but it was all just a reminder that it’s a great resource, and a good way of getting a taste of new poets that you can then go off and read.

On Saturday, I was at Coton Manor, in Northamptonshire, for Charles Lauder’s Trees and the Imagination workshop. The fog barely lifted all day, but it didn’t really matter. We discussed a lot of tree poems*, walked in the woods, and wrote for a while ourselves, and I left with the makings of a poem that I’ve been trying to write for a while now. Most importantly of all, the carrot cake was exquisite.

For the rest of the weekend, I wrote a bit more (although not nearly enough), and read. The latest issue of Blackbox Manifold is now up – have a browse.

* One of the poems in the little booklet that we didn’t get round to discussing was John Ashbery’s Some Trees. I’m not usually a huge fan of Ashbery (or at least, he’s my least favourite of the New York poets), but I did enjoy reading this several times yesterday. I should probably re-read a bit more of his work.

Alex Pryce and more

Alex Pryce, the driving force behind the very wonderful PoetCasting, is reading at Leicester Poetry Society, Friends Meeting House, Queen's Road, Leicester, tomorrow at 7.30pm. I've not heard her before, partly because she spends a lot of her time dashing around the country recording other poets, so it'll be good to finally catch up with her.

Also, De Montfort University's Cultural eXchanges programme is out (although I don't think you can book until Monday). March 4th has a talk by Chris Hamilton-Emery, of Salt, on the 10th anniversary of the major independent publisher (daytime, unfortunately, but I'll try to take the day off), as well as a later reading by John James, Tom Raworth and Simon Perril. I've raved on here about James recently, so that's an absolute must.

Owls, yet again

I'm owling mad, me. No, really - they're among my very favourite birds.

Very poor jokes aside, I spent yesterday trekking round my local patch, attempting to kickstart my 2010 list, and to prevent my increasingly dodgy back from seizing up altogether.

It worked on both counts, with the early highlight being a good look at a lovely drake Smew at Swithland Reservoir. It took a while to find it, watching from the dam, because it was tucked in right underneath the overhanging vegetation along the Kinchley Lane side of the res, so I walked over that way and, as it gradually made its way out into open water, was able to get great scope views of it in all its cracked-ice glory.

Most of the rest of the day was spent mopping up some fairly bread-and-butter birds, but on most of my birding trips this winter, I seem to have been magnetically attracted to Cossington Meadows, and its Short-eared Owls (although there was also the hope that the Bittern found by John Hague the previous day would still be around).

It was a gloriously clear, sunny day, and as I entered the reserve and walked over towards Rectory Marsh at about 3.45, I could see a white shape flitting around behind the trees. As I got closer, it was revealed as a Barn Owl, and a very pale one at that, hunting along the hedgerows and occasionally perching on a fencepost. I watched, along with a couple who’d made the trip over from South Derbyshire, and caught sight of a crow mobbing a large bird high in the distance. To my surprise, it was one of the Short-eareds. Surprise, because for most of the winter they’ve been waiting until it’s almost dark to come out, and because you don’t usually see them at any great height.

So, we trooped round to a position overlooking Swan Meadow, and stood with half a dozen other birders as the show commenced. The mobbing had finished, so the SEO descended to its usual level and started quartering the rough grass. Another Barn Owl appeared, this one much darker and more orangey on its back, and for the next hour, we were able to watch up to three SEOs and three Barn Owls hunting nearly non-stop. It was very noticeable, especially when they glided close in, that there was a considerable colour difference between the Short-eareds, too, with one appearing much lighter than the others.

I finally gave up when I realised I was getting positively dizzy with cold (or was that just with the experience and with having my eyes pressed up to my Swarovskis for so long?). There was a fantastic sunset over Charnwood Forest, with what seemed like every possible colour bleeding into each other, and after 15 minutes thawing out in the car, I drove home, enjoying the extra bonus of a Woodcock in perfect silhouette as it flew across the road between Bradgate Park and Swithland Wood.

Title contenders revisited

Well, my poll on titles for poetry collections has now closed, with a clear preference being shown for wacky or surreal titles, followed by one-word titles, followed by titles on the model of The (Blank).

Not exactly the biggest survey sample, to be fair, but it did confirm what I’ve been thinking – that choosing a title that, first and foremost, makes your book stand out from the crowd of poetry releases might be the best idea.

Thanks to all those who voted.