Friday night live

Despite the howling gales and the rain bucketing down (I found myself having a Cardiff flashback there and wanting to say tamping down, which sounds so much better), and despite both my headlight bulbs giving up the ghost during the course of the day, necessitating a last-minute dash to Halford's, last night's reading at Leicester Poetry Society was a success.

A good roomful (including HappenStancers DA Prince and Marilyn Ricci) had braved the storm, and a very attentive audience they were too.

We read in alphabetical order, which meant I went first. Always a good thing. It's not so much that I get nervous, but more for the same reason that I prefer to open the batting when playing cricket. If I've got too much time to think about the 7ft fast bowler/untested new poem (delete as appropriate), I get very tempted to start completely overhauling my technique/rewriting things on the hoof. Far better to get in there straight away and face the (chin) music.

It also means I enjoy the other poets' work more. Pam Thompson and Lydia Towsey were both excellent (I swapped books with Pam at the interval - her pamphlet Hologram has a fantastic hologram of David Bowie on the front) - confident and assured but in contrasting styles. I particularly enjoyed Lydia's snail poem and Pam's canal poems, but there was an awful lot to like.

Books were bought, sold and swapped, and a thoroughly good time was had by all. Oh, and my set-list was:

The Memory Of Water

Unquiet

Hutt River Province

The sea at Ashby de la Zouch

Knots

The Meeting Place

The American Version

Uchronie

Midstream

Whinchats

Under Cotopaxi

Worst Case Scenario

Happiness

Troy Town

Lullaby