Jamon iberico de bellota

I've blogged in the past about HappenStance poet Matthew Stewart and his fine chapbook, Inventing Truth, which came out last year.

He's got a second pamphlet forthcoming, and a copy arrived from HappenStance last night. Called Tasting Notes, it is inspired by his work as a wine-blender in Extremadura, Spain.

He'll be launching it with a reading in Oakham at the start of October, of which more details as they arrive, but in the meantime Matthew has posted about Extremaduran ham - anyone who's been to the region (and I'd guess that that will include the majority of the birding readers of this blog) will know that he's right when he says it's the best ham in the world. Anyone who's not been to the region - go as soon as you get the chance. It's absolutely glorious.

Rock 'n' Roll Friends

I've not quite reached the High Court judge stage yet ("The Beatles? Are they a popular beat combo?"),  but it's fair to say that my finger is very far from the pulse of what's hot and what's not on the music scene these days.

When I do buy music, it tends to be back-catalogue stuff on iTunes, individual tracks more often than not, so it's pretty rare that I get excited by the release of any album. But I must admit that I can't wait to get my hands on a copy of Quiet Heart: The Best of the Go-Betweens, because they remain one of my favourite bands even 23 years after their original break-up. It doesn't seem to have been released in the UK yet, but it should be out any week now.

It's not the first compilation by any means, and this album is as good a summary of that original incarnation as you could hope for, packed not only with the hits-that-weren't but also various obscurities and B-sides, such as the magnificent Rock 'n' Roll Friend. I bought it twice on tape, and wore both out, after it came out in 1990 - the CD version unfortunately has four less tracks.

Quiet Heart is shorter, and also includes tracks from the band's second coming, when Robert Forster and Grant McLennan reunited in the late 1990s, so there's bound to be plenty of "why isn't xxx on here" pub conversations arising from it (you can start now after a quick look at the track listing below). But while I might like to see Love Is A Sign on there, for example, it's good that the wonderful Part Company and Dive For Your Memory made it this time. Most Go-Betweens fans will already have it all, of course (and will buy this anyway), but if it encourages anyone new to listen to the best thing ever to come out of Cairns, Queensland, then it will have done its job.

1. Spring Rain 
2. Love Goes On 
3. Bye Bye Pride 
4. Part Company 
5. Darlinghurst Nights 
6. Bachelor Kisses 
7. Surfing Magazines 
8. Karen 
9. The Clock 
10. Head Full Of Steam 
11. Streets Of Your Town 
12. People Say 
13. Finding You 
14. Dive For Your Memory 
15. Cattle And Cane 
16. Right Here 
17. Here Comes A City 
18. Quiet Heart 

So Here We Are

A combination of busy times at work (Birdfair and all that), lack of inspiration, and sheer bone idleness have resulted in updates here being a little sparse of late.

So, in the interests of doing a bit better at keeping abreast of what's going on in poetryworld, I'll try to blog daily for the next couple of weeks.

To start with, allow me to point you in the direction So Here We Are, from Shearsman, a collection of David Caddy's essays on poetry. Among the subjects covered are here Raleigh, Barnes, Sonia Orwell, Blake, Ethnopoetics, Salisbury, Griffiths, Bunting and Fitzrovia, Walking, Celebrity, Fisher's Place, Raworth's Comedy, the anti-pastoral, Prynne, Crozier, John Riley, David Gascoyne and Forests.

Frampton comes alive

Earlier in the week I went over to the RSPB reserve at Frampton Marsh, just outside Boston. It sits on the edge of fenland, with a saltmarsh on the far side of the sea wall, looking across The Wash to Norfolk.

The presence of good numbers and variety of waders was a reminder that autumn is already well advanced as far as birds are concerned - many of them were species that breed as far north as the Arctic, and are now making their way south to their wintering grounds via the enormous service station that is Britain.

There were at least three Wood Sandpipers around, three or four Spotted Redshanks, Curlew Sandpipers, Little Stints, Ruff, and around 3,000 Black-tailed Godwits.

I was searching through the latter for anything unusual when they suddenly rose into the air as one, usually the telltale sign that a Peregrine is around. Sure enough, one harried and hustled them as they flew, making short, tumbling dives to try to pick off stragglers, then climbing again slowly with an almost clumsy, 'treading water' motion of the wings. As soon as it had gained height, it allowed itself to stall, then flipped over to plunge back towards the godwits.

It wasn't successful, and I suspect it was doing it more in hope than in expectation - godwits are a decent size so you'd think a Peregrine would need a stoop of reasonable length in order to achieve the impact needed to kill one. This looked more like a bit of opportunism, hoping to separate a young or weak bird from the flock.

It's a great reserve, all things considered, and I'll look forward to going back in the near future. Another two or three weeks and who knows what will be passing through.

Poor Rude Lines

A couple of weeks ago John Field very kindly featured my poetry on his blog, Poor Rude Lines. That's more than a little flattering, given the many fine poets he writes about on there. I've been browsing through past posts this week, and particularly enjoyed what he had to say about Katy Evans-Bush's Me And The Dead. Have a look for yourself - this is thoughtful and thought-provoking writing by a sensitive, perceptive reader.

I knew it was too good to last

I've been following the whole Kevin Pietersen/ECB saga over recent weeks with mounting dismay, but having followed England avidly since David Steele's memorable 1975 debut, I should have known that we'd shoot ourselves in the foot at the first opportunity following our ascent to No.1 in the Test rankings. Yesterday's dropping of KP, on the grounds that he might have sent texts critical of Andy Strauss and Andy Flower to a South African player, looks bizarre at best.

Of course, without actually knowing the personalities involved, it's hard to know exactly who's in the right. I'd imagine that KP isn't the easiest player to play with, and yes, I can see the point that maintaining team unity is vital.

But has he ever, for example, pulled out of a game or tour with a dubious injury, or just refused to tour a particular country? No, not to my knowledge. England players have in the past (admittedly before the central contracts era), and it was never held against them. Graham Gooch broke international sanctions to tour South Africa, was welcomed back into the England fold the moment he'd served his ban, then decided 18 months later that he didn't fancy an Ashes tour. When, in 1989, he was struggling during the home Ashes series, he decided he wasn't available for the remaining games. He was rewarded with the England captaincy a few months later.

What about other bad behaviour? Has he conducted himself badly on the field, such as, for example, attempting to tamper with the ball and then lying about it afterwards? No. Mike Atherton did exactly that, but it was never held against him.

It's also a bit of a nonsense that successful teams all have to be best mates, anyway. By all accounts, Geoff Boycott didn't make a huge amount of friends in England dressing-rooms, but there weren't many of his contemporaries asking for him to be dropped. They knew he was the best England batsman of that era, and that the team needed him. In the great Aussie side of recent memory, Shane Warne was far from universally popular, not least with coach John Buchanan. Did they ever drop him? Of course not - he was a genius and match-winner.

And there are more double-standards at work. Someone within the ECB must have leaked talk of KP's contract recently, but no-one has been disciplined there. Someone close to the team, it appears, has been running the fake KP Twitter account, or at least feeding info to it, but again no action has been taken. What makes the texts any different?

I hope I'm wrong, but the whole thing smacks of the approach taken by Gooch when he was captain, when the likes of Gower, Lamb and Botham (plus younger 'flair' players) were excluded on the grounds that they didn't share the captain's rigid, unbending and frankly tedious approach.

Then, as now, the real test was whether such a method worked. Gooch's sides had some notable but isolated successes, but most of his reign was a story of grinding mediocrity. We're much stronger in terms of depth these days, but I suspect that they'll still pay a heavy price for excluding their best batsman at Lord's this week.

Laureate moans (again)

I'm no great fan of the whole idea of a Poet Laureate, at least in its current form, and I'd have to say that I prefer Carol Ann Duffy's earlier books than her more recent work. This particular moan, though, from the Rev Peter Mullen, really put my back up.

Of course, it is in the Telegraph, so a right-wing agenda can be pretty much assumed from the off. And yes, about halfway down, he starts rambling on about 'Lefties', before hammering the point home in the final paragraph. In between he runs through all the usual sneers regarding contemporary poetry.

To be fair, his arrogant disdain isn't confined to the contemporary. He also helpfully points out that Auden, Keats, Hughes and Wordsworth were merely 'competent', and 'fine' - any of you who have hitherto been labouring under the misapprehension that they were great should consider yourselves well and truly corrected.

I should say that I tend to think that there are great poems, for the most part, rather than great poets. Even minor poets sometimes write great poems. But some poets write more of them than others, and for the sake of argument might then get called great. Rev Mullen makes no mention of what, in his opinion, constitutes greatness, but from the tone of the rest of the piece I'm guessing that it's basically poetry that he likes.

Dig this!

I'm running a poetry workshop at Polesworth Abbey on Friday from 10am to 2pm - there are further details here if you'd like to sign up. There are also a number of workshops at later dates, run by the likes of Jackie Rowe.

I've been along to the dig a couple of times in the last few weeks, and there are some really intriguing discoveries being made. Come along to the workshop, and you can find out more about them, and hopefully turn them into poetry.

No previous experience is necessary - all you need is a pen and some paper...

Stop me and try one

The new issue of Tears In The Fence - no.55 to be exact - arrived in the post yesterday. In fact, two copies arrived, because I subscribe, and I also have a poem, Saltings, in this issue.

As you'll hopefully be able to see from the terrible photo (phone-cam, sorry) above, it's had an external makeover, with glossy, colour covers. Inside, though, the format is much the same. Lots of poetry, fiction, and a really hefty section of essays and reviews. The quality is excellent  as always (on my first skim through, I read fine poems by Kerry Featherstone, Mark Goodwin, Andy Brown and Rupert Loydell - I tend to turn to the names I know first), but there's also an awful lot to read. It's as much a book as a mag.

Anyway, instead of listening to me talk about it, you should try it yourself. There's a free copy going to the first person to claim it - just send me your details in the comment box of this post, and I'll mail it out to you. You will then, of course, become a subscriber and spread the word about one of the UK"s best literary mags, wont't you?

Billy Letford's Bevel, out now

I heard William Letford read at StAnza a year last March, and I've been looking forward to his first collection from Carcanet since then. Well, the wait is over – Bevel is out now.

Most of the articles I've seen about him since then, whether in literary journals or the more general press, have made much of his day-job as a roofer. That's fair enough - I'd be willing to bet it's been a good long while since there's been another poet/roofer, it's something that clearly informs his poetry much of the time, and if it helps draw a bit more attention to his work, then that's great.

I hope, though, that it doesn't become the only way he's defined, because he's just a very talented writer and performer, full stop. Buy the book and you'll see what I mean.

Curiouser and curiouser

At first sight, I thought this story about an author attacking taxpayer-funding for Welsh writers was a possible case of very sour grapes. His claims are so ludicrously overblown ("not a single Welsh writer of national or international note since the 50s") that it's hard to take it seriously. You can come up with your own list of writers of note to refute that, I'm sure, and several bloggers and commentators have already done so* - as you've probably come to expect, I'll just say one name. Repeatedly.**

RS THOMAS RS THOMAS RS THOMAS RS THOMAS RS THOMAS RS THOMAS !!!!!!!!

It's even harder to take Mr Ruck at face value when you realise that the festival at which he was supposed to have given his speech was cancelled. Presumably he'd already sent the press release out, and the journalist ran with it. Oh dear.

* Dannie Abse featured on several, I was glad to see.
** I know Thomas had already published plenty of work (and plenty of his best work) before the end of the Fifties. But he also published a lot of well-received work after that date, and certainly his acclaim by the wider literary world came much later.

Recent reading

There's an excellent review, over at Roy Marshall's blog, of Maria Taylor's Melanchrini, her debut collection from Nine Arches Press.

In the past week or so, I've read it, Daniel Sluman's Absence has a weight of its own, and C J Allen's At The Oblivion Tea-rooms. Now, I know I'm far from being an impartial observer, given that I'm published by Nine Arches, but I reckon that's a very strong, and varied, trio of collections, the sort of rich vein of form that any press would be very proud of.

I'm putting together a few more thoughts on all three books (I do have Alistair Noon's Earth Records to read, though, and it's a perfect day for reading), but for now, I'll just say that Roy hits the nail squarely on the head about Maria's book.

Mallard mayhem

Want to see a heartwarming wildlife rescue story to round off the week? Here's what happened in the car-park at our office yesterday.

Competition time

It's getting very close to deadline time on a couple of excellent poetry competitions. The Essex Poetry Festival 12th Open Competition has a first prize of £1,000, and is judged by Pascale Petit - you've only got a few days left, as the deadline is July 30th.


Meanwhile, the Buzzwords Open Poetry Competition (all money raised goes to the excellent Buzzwords reading/open mic series in Cheltenham) has a prize of £600, and is judged by Ann Drysdale. The deadline has just been extended until August 14th, so there's still time to polish up that submission.

Raven mad

I need help. Birdwatching readers of this blog, don't be deterred by the poetry talk that follows - you have a role to play. And poetry-loving readers, don't let the birds put you off. You might hold the key to a minor mystery too.

I'm usually pretty good at making notes for poems. I sometimes scribble them on the backs of receipts or bus tickets, or use the notebook on my phone, but I've generally got at least one real notebook on me, and I have a sort of 'master' journal into which I transfer everything at the first opportunity.

I'm usually good, too (and this is the journo in me) at attributing all the material appropriately. Which is to say, if there's no indication otherwise, I assume that the note is my own original work. If it's something I've heard or overheard or read, and noted down for later use (either as inspiration or as background material), then I also make a note of exactly where it came from.

Earlier this week, I was reading through some notes for a barely-started poem involving ravens. I must have been writing them in a rush, because none of the notes are attributed to anyone else, despite the fact that I straight away recognised one bit of background material, discussing the fact that ravens are known to engage in purely recreational 'play', as being from Mark Cocker's Birds Britannica (a book I'll never get tired of recommending to anyone who'll listen).

The next note, also unattributed, reads: "Quite why this [the propensity for play] should have made them thought suitable as messengers of the divine, or even deities themselves, is not clear. No one needs a god who's taking the piss the moment your back is turned."

That's not from Mark's book, but I certainly didn't write it either. So who did? Does anyone recognise it at all? I'd love to know just to be able to read it in context again. Your suggestions please, because I've been trying to work it out for two days now and it's beginning to drive me round the bend.

Best yet?

Monday night's Nine Arches Press/Crystal Clear Creators Shindig was as good as any reading/open mic I've been to - I'd wondered whether the ongoing deluge and the Leicester holiday fortnight might make keep people away this time, but in fact the Western was packed out.

A great bill helped, obviously. I'm not going to attempt to review the night properly, but Alan Baker, Maria Taylor and Robin Vaughan-Williams are all poets whose work I've known and enjoyed for some time now, and all three gave fine readings, as ever. You can read much more about them here and here.

Kim Moore was a new name to me, though, and closed the night with a really fine set (she was down from Barrow-in-Furness, but has family in Leicester, I think). I bought her Smith/Doorstop pamphlet - If We Could Speak Like Wolves - on the strength of it, and it more than does her justice. I loved her opening poem, The Wolf, in particular, not least because of her declaration that she reads it because she doesn't know what it means. That enquiring sense is there throughout the book.

The open mic slots seem to get better with each reading, and it was nice to see more and more West Midlands poets coming to give it a try. Gary Carr's second poem, a letter to his daughter, was a real highlight for me, Gary Longden, Deborah Tyler-Bennett and Jayne Stanton were as good as always, and Graham Norman and Maria Rooner performed the same poem in English, then German, to good effect. Considering I managed to fail O Level German three times (don't ask), I surprised myself by how much I actually followed when Maria was reading.

Talking to Alan and Robin afterwards, we were trying to work out what makes the Shindigs work so well (aside from the poets, obviously). The size and shape of the room certainly helps, as does the fact that there's always been a nice, relaxed feel at the Western - people wander in from the street or the other bar and dip in and out of the poetry, which you don't get at many places. And last but certainly not least, the laid-back, resolutely uncompetitive atmosphere cultivated by Jane and Matt of Nine Arches and Jonathan Taylor of CCC, makes all the difference.

Cannon Poets 14.7.12

Saturday night meant a short trip down the M42 to read at the Cannon Poets event at the Moseley Festival. Moseley Exchange was a nice venue, for starters, right in the middle of the village suburb, and there was a good-sized audience.

Cannon Poets is a group with a long and distinguished history, and in the first half of the evening we heard recent work from some of its members. There was a lot to like - a particular highlight for me was the poem on dust (I'll check the names when I get home and edit it in here). Rich McMahon's Irish-tinged folk was splendid, too, although he was a hard act to follow.

I read straight after the interval, and surprised myself by almost getting through a set without a bird poem (one zipped in there just before the end). It wasn't intentional, and I don't suppose it'll happen too often again.

Fellow Nine Arches poets Daniel Sluman and Angela France completed the line-up. Daniel read from his debut collection, Absence has a weight of its own. There's a raw passion, ferocity even, to his poems, whether they're dealing with physical or emotional injury and trauma, but it's handled with great assurance throughout. The book's every bit as good as the reading led me to expect, which is saying something (I'll post more on it at a later date).

Angela France has a collection forthcoming from Nine Arches next year, and I found the poems from it that she read at the end of her set were an intriguing departure from her past work - more directly personal, for a start, less rooted in stories. They worked well, though, and it'll be a collection worth waiting for.

The audience was appreciative, talkative after the readings, and plenty of books seemed to be changing hands. Hard to ask for more than that.

Readings

Just a quick reminder that I'll be reading, with fellow Nine Arches poets Angela France and Daniel Sluman, at the Cannon Poets event at Moseley Exchange, Alcester Road, Birmingham, tomorrow from 7.30pm. It's part of the Moseley Festival.

On Monday, Nine Arches and Crystal Clear Creators team up for the bi-monthly Shindig at The Western, Western Road, Leicester, from 7.30pm. Featured readers are Robin Vaughan-Williams, Maria Taylor, Kim Moore and Alan Baker, and as usual open mic slots will be available on the night.

John Clare Day

It was nice to see George Monbiot, in The Guardian, talking about the greatness of John Clare, his role as chronicler of the enclosure of great swathes of the English countryside in the early 19th century, and as elegist for what was lost.

I'd have to seriously take issue with his opening sentence, though, in which he claims that Helpston is now situated in one of the most dismal and regularised tracts of countryside in Europe. Now, the mania in this country for 'tidying up' every bit of countryside people can find is a personal bugbear, and it's undoubtedly true that in most parts of England (and parts of the rest of Britain, too), there's a depressing lack of the patchwork of habitats that would have been common back in Clare's day (although it's also worth noting that many of them would have been manmade, too).

But Helpston is no worse than most places, and a lot better than many others. It's just at the edge of the Fens, so although there are prairie-style fields in the vicinity, it's far from being unbroken expanses of intensive farmland. Just to the south, Castor Hanglands is a National Nature Reserve, and along with neighbouring Ailsworth Heath (the Emmonsails Heath of Clare's poems), retains some of its former glory. There are several woodlands, Maxey Gravel Pits (a working quarry, but a breeding site for a lot of birds), and a little further north, the lakes around Lolham* and Tallington. Regularised? No, far from it. Dismal? Not really - I think George is trying far too hard to bring Helpston itself into his argument about Clare. He really doesn't need to.

* Clare's name can be found carved into one of the arches of the bridges near Lolham that carry the East Coast mainline across one of the streams. The bridges, Lolham Brigs in his poems, have been around in one form or another since Roman times - nice that Clare left his mark on them.

David Swann: The Privilege of Rain - Time Among The Sherwood Outlaws

As I've moaned more than once recently, I haven't been getting time to write the reviews that I'd like to for this blog. One of the books I've enjoyed a lot this year is David Swann's The Privilege of Rain - Time Among The Sherwood Outlaws (from the excellent Waterloo Press), so in the absence of any coherent thoughts from me about just why I like it, read Steve Spence's very positive review of it in Stride. I like the point he makes in the last paragraph about it being a book that keeps asking unanswerable questions - that's a mark not just of Swann's sympathetic approach, but also of his unassuming, modest style as a writer. It works superbly.

Dates for the diary

I'm lucky to have a job I genuinely love, but it has rather got in the way of poetry these last few months., so I'm trying to get back into the swing of things. I have been reading plenty of the stuff, as ever, but I'm being a bit more disciplined about setting aside time to write, and in making sure I can get to readings and open mics.

So, over the next few weeks, I'll be up and down the A42, A38 and A511 (you can tell I read maps for fun, can't you?), starting with Poetry Alight, at the Spark Cafe Bar, Tamworth Street, Lichfield, at 7pm next Tuesday (July 10th).

The following Monday (July 16th), is the bi-monthly Nine Arches Press/Crystal Clear Creators Shindig at The Western, on Western Road, Leicester. As well as the usual open mic, there'll be the launch of Maria Taylor's new Nine Arches collection Melanchrini, plus readings from Alan Baker, Robin Vaughan-Williams, and Kim Moore. Great line-up, great place to read, great evening in store.

Finally, on Tuesday, July 24th, there's The Fizz, at the wonderful venue of Polesworth Abbey Refectory. Featured poet is Terri Jolland, entry is free, open mic slots are available, and it all starts at 7.30pm.

Being Human

Not the TV show, though. Let's get that straight right from the outset. Anyone who's landed here expecting discussion of that, you'd best bail out here and now.

No, I'm talking about the theatrical production based on the Bloodaxe anthology. I haven't seen it yet, but over at Gists & Piths, George Ttoouli has posted this excellent review of the show, which makes me want to make sure that I do, and soon.

I know the anthologies - Staying Alive, Being Alive and now Being Human - have divided opinion in poetryworld at times, but then so does pretty much every anthology that comes along. I'm not mad about the packaging, I suppose, and I can take or leave the division of them into chapters, with little essays introducing each one. When all's said and done, though, all three have contained plenty of poetry that I'm glad to have encountered, and which I might well not have done otherwise. George has a point about some of the more non-mainstream voices generally being represented by their least left-field work, but even so, it puts them in front of a potential new audience.

There's more about the show, including dates and venues, here. I think I'll probably catch it at Uppingham School in October (who thought it would be a good idea to call a festival Up The Arts, though?)

Reading at Moseley

I'm going to be reading along with fellow Nine Arches poets Angela France and Daniel Sluman at the Moseley Exchange, Birmingham, at 7pm on July 14th. The event, presented by Cannon Poets, is part of the Moseley Festival, and admission is £2.

Poetry reviewing

It's not often I find my way over to Facebook these days, but I have been following an interesting discussion on Rob Mackenzie's wall this week, about the way that poetry is reviewed in this country.

It's a complex subject, and to a large extent I find myself agreeing with the thrust of Jon Stone's argument (why can't poetry be reviewed in the same way that, say, film and music are?), as well as feeling a good deal of sympathy for Rob's starting-point.

I suppose one of the angles that hasn't been explored fully is where the reviews are appearing. I've no idea what The Guardian (or any of the other broadsheets) pay their reviewers, but I'd assume they do, and that would inevitably create a different situation to that of reviewers writing for a small press mag for no financial reward. While it might on the one hand make it easier for the reviewer to be critical (not having to worry about offending a potentially large proportion of the magazine's subscribers), it might also work the other way - the paper would be reluctant to consistently be too lukewarm towards the books of a regular advertiser.

In poetry mags and webzines themselves, it's a bit different. The reviewer is often writing for no reward other than a free copy of the book (although some, such as Magma, certainly pay). From personal experience, that's fine - it's a chance to read more poetry than I could otherwise afford, and especially to take a chance on books that I'd otherwise have thought looked interesting but didn't feel like shelling out for. It does mean, though, that the reviewer is often predisposed to like what they're reading - you're unlikely to take the time and effort to read the book carefully, make notes, then write the review, if it's something you just don't like.

The same's true on blogs, and that's certainly unashamedly the case here at Polyolbion. I don't get the time or the money to read anything like all the poetry I'd like to, so I'm not going to waste precious time writing a negative blog review when I could be just getting on with finding something I do like. I don't get enough time to be positive about all the things I do like, for that matter, so a great many good books go unheralded.

Finally, someone in the discussion brought up the subject of what a review is actually for. I haven't ever, I don't think, bought a book of poetry purely on the strength of a review, but a good review (as in a well written one) is often enough to spark my interest in a book that might otherwise have passed me by - again, it might well encourage me to take a few chances.

So what is a good review? Well, as Rob originally suggested, I want to see some suggestion of weak points, as well as strengths (and I can't think of a single collection I own that doesn't have at least some negatives), and I want to see both highlighted with plenty of reference to the actual text. In that, at least, I suppose it's always going to be different to any print review of film or music, where examples can only be described.

New at Nine Arches

Nine Arches Press has two new debut collections out now - Melanchrini, by Loughborough poet Maria Taylor, and Absence has a weight of its own, by Cheltenham-based Daniel Sluman. Having heard them both read from the books, I'm looking forward to getting stuck into them, because they're realkly both very distinctive poets.

Meanwhile, over at Gists & Piths, Simon Turner is interviewing another Nine Arches poet, C J Allen, whose At The Oblivion Tea-Rooms was recently published. Regular readers here might recall that I'm a big fan of both Clive's and Simon's poetry, so it's probably no surprise that it's a terrific interview, with a lot of interesting things to say about form, among other things.*

Finally, the next Nine Arches/Crystal Clear Creators Shindig takes place at The Western in Leicester on July 16th - be there!

* Incidentally, I think Clive's reason for wanting to be a painter - "I liked the smell of linseed oil and the way they hardly ever seemed to do anything" - probably sums up my childhood ambition to be a cricketer, and continuing obsession with the game.