National Poetry Competition

Poet and novelist Helen Dunmore has won the £5,000 first prize in the National Poetry Competition with The Malarkey, having entered at the last minute "on an impulse".

You sometimes hear the view that poets who have "made it" shouldn't be entering competitions like this, that they should be reserved for bringing new poets to wider attention. I don't have a problem with it at all - I'd imagine very few poets or novelists in the UK have "made it" to the extent that they can afford to ignore the possibility of a £5,000 prize. And anyway, surely all entrants want to compete against the best.

That said, I was a bit dismayed by the comment from Ruth Padel that when they discovered who it was by, they "threw their hats in the air". It makes it sound as if they wouldn't have been just as pleased if it had been by a complete unknown (I'm sure that's not what she meant, but it doesn't sound good).

But anyway, I like the look of what I've read of the shortlisted poems so far, especially those by Jon Stone, Ian Pindar and Sam Riviere. It looks like a really strong, energetic list to me. The winner itself is growing on me too, although I think it does err on the side of being a bit too prosey in parts.

Shindig! in Leicester

It's that time again - the next Nine Arches Press Shindig is on Monday, April 12th, with readings from 7.30pm, at the Looking Glass, 68-70 Braunstone Gate, Leicester LE3 5LG.

The featured readers this time around are Myra Connell, Lydia Towsey and Simon Turner. It's another varied and very entertaining bill, I think - we're lucky to have three such talented poets in town together.

Lydia Towsey is a poet and performer. Commissions include: Freedom Showcase in 2007 and Beyond Words in 2009. Residencies include two weeks with Theatre Royal Stratford East and years inside Leicester’s coffee shops... Lydia has performed with John Hegley, Jean Binta Breeze and Keorapetse Kgositsile, the South African Poet Laureate. Her latest publication is within The Great Grandchildren of Albion (a forthcoming project of Michael Horovitz). She comperes and coordinates WORD! the longest-running East Mids poetry night (www.myspace.com/wordleicester) and in 2009 was the Artistic Director of The Lyric Lounge (www.lyriclounge.co.uk). She’s doing an MA in Writing and putting together her first collection. She drinks a lot of tea.

Simon Turner was born in Birmingham in 1980. Heaventree Press published his first collection, You Are Here, in 2007. His poems and reviews have appeared in a number of publications, including Tears in the Fence, The Wolf, Horizon Review and The London Magazine. With George Ttoouli, he co-edits Gists and Piths, an experiment in blogging dedicated to the publication and discussion of contemporary poetry, which has been up and running since 2007. He lives and works in Warwickshire.

Myra Connell’s first collection of poems, A Still Dark Kind of Work, was published by Heaventree Press in 2008. Her poems have appeared in various magazines, and her short stories in two collections from Tindal Street Press, Her Majesty and Are You She? Her new collection, From The Boat, is just out from Nine Arches. She lives in Birmingham and has two grown-up sons.

Entry is absolutely free, and you can sign up on the door for the open mic.

I should add, by the way, that Simon's new Nine Arches collection, Difficult Second Album, might even be out by the time of the reading. I loved his first book, but at the reading in Leamington the other week, he warned not to expect a re-tread, saying that there was a 'Zen Arcade' feel to the new book. Now, anything that in any way recalls Husker Du's classic double-album is OK by me, so I'm more eager than ever to see the collection.

'Ard wok? Yeah, but worth mekkin' the effort, me duck

Still on a historical theme, I read this at the weekend.

I'm always wary of Hollywood versions of Robin Hood (well, I'm wary of pretty much any adaptation, be it TV or film or whatever), but I really can't wait to see this film now. Honestly. It'll be good to hear an attempt at an East Midlands accent. In the past, on the rare occasions that a TV programme has been set in the region, everybody's spoken like Brummies (Steve Coogan's Saxondale is the honourable exception). The prospect of England's greatest folk hero greeting his outlaw band with a gruff "ay up, me ducks" is too good to miss.*

I am sightly baffled by some of the pronunciations they mention. 'Corp' for 'cup'? No, and 'Noddinham' doesn't sound right, either. More like 'Nottnum', I'd have said. Still, 'tekking' is dead right, and hopefully they'll remember to drop their aitches and shorten all their vowels to ridiculous extremes. 'Wok' for work.** 'Oss' for horse, etc. And of course, they'll have to refer to their ill-gotten victuals as their 'snap'. Kudos to Crowe for even trying, though. I'll be first in the queue to see it.

* The comments thread, predictably, gets into the old Nottinghamshire vs Yorkshire debate. But we all know he was really from Leicestershire, don't we?

** Essential in terrible joke usually only intelligible to people from Whitwick (Johnny Wong's is the Chinese takeaway in the Market Place)...
"Have you heard? They're laying people off at Johnny Wong's."
"Really?"
"Yeah, they've got no wok."

Hoard saved for nation

Glad to see that the Staffordshire Hoard will be staying in the West Midlands after the £3.3 million purchase price was met with the help of a grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund.

Exactly where it'll be is another matter. There'll probably be a lobby for it to be in Staffordshire itself, but I'd have thought that the logical place, in terms of security and ensuring it's accessible to as many people as possible, is Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

Still slightly disappointed that it was Dr David Starkey who was being interviewed about it on every TV and radio news report I heard last night. I'm sure he's very good when it comes to his own specialist area, but couldn't they have found an Anglo-Saxonist?

Suit Of Lights - Damian Walford Davies

Seren Books, 2009

Sometimes, writing a review, you struggle to find a way into it, a place to start. Not so here - by the end of the first line of the first poem, Bee, Walford Davies has given you a major talking point, one that you find yourself returning to again and again in the course of an always entertaining and thought-provoking book.

Let's have a look at the first two lines:

Bumble or honey? I couldn't tell, not be-

ing an apiarist...

See what I'm talking about? Walford Davies breaks the line halfway through 'being', turning what might otherwise be a mundane sentence into a pun. It's a device he repeats at regular intervals throughout this collection, and I still can't make up my mind how effective it is.

On the plus side, I have to admire a poet with the panache and sheer guts to do that on the first line of the first poem of his first full collection. And initially, it works. There's the pun already mentioned, and later in the same poem he breaks the word 'weight' between lines. Almost impossible to read, you might think, but in fact it works well in the context of working with something fragile, tiny, "a fraction of an ounce".

There are times though, later in the book, when it starts to feel like something of a tic, an attention-seeking gimmick, even. At best it can seem pointless ("depart-/ment", in Plague, for example), at worst irritatingly distracting. It's not necessarily going to be a deal-breaker, a Marmite factor (it wasn't for me - as I say, I'm still undecided about it, but I liked the book a lot), but you will find yourself thinking hard about it. And that, to be fair, might be reason enough for Walford Davies to use it.

For the most part, he's a broadly mainstream poet, usually at his best when dealing with subjects drawn from history, landscape or art (some of the more domestic pieces felt a little underwhelming, or at least less essential). Two things, I think, really set him apart from the pack, though.

One is the way that, despite most of his poems being on the short side (and even the longer ones tend to use short lines, always giving them an airy, light feel), his language is satisfyingly rich, dense with allusions and, yes, more puns. It goes without saying that a poet ought to relish the sound, the shape, the weight of words, but it's not always as obvious that they do as it is here. The result is extremely readable - while Walford Davies is coming from an academic background, and is never shy of using his enviably wide knowledge, this is poetry that's anything but difficult. On the contrary, it's the sort of book you might find yourself reading in one sitting, alternating between chuckling and furrowing your brow.

Secondly, there's the fact that Walford Davies seems to be a very patient poet, one who's willing to take time to build up a cumulative effect. That's especially evident in the many sequences - Kilvert, The Ideal City, Salt Islands and Aerial were all particular favourites - and in recurring images, such as the "suit of lights" of the title, linking disparate scenes and characters.

So forget my initial reservations about the line-breaks. Walford Davies deserves kudos for trying something different. He deserves even more for a collection that's as rich and well-achieved as any I've come across in a while.

New poem

A new-ish poem of mine, The Limits, is up at Ink, Sweat & Tears. There's loads of good poetry and prose on the site, so have a good browse...

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.