Diversifly

This rather splendid book is out a week tomorrow, February 8th (the web page hasn't been updated yet), and as you'll see, it comes with a whole-hearted recommendation from me. As well as commissioned poems from the likes of Carrie Etter, James Sheard and Andrew McMillan, there's a lot of really fine work by other familiar and not-so-familiar names. The artwork is excellent, too, and there's a foreword by Brett Westwood. Enjoy!

DIVERSIFLY

Calling all birders, birdwatchers and birdlovers!

Fair Acre Press is running an Arts Council England-funded project called DIVERSIFLY – it's all about people's everyday encounters with the birds that we can easily see and hear in Britain's towns and cities.

It will be creating podcasts involving some of Britain's best known poets, along with the 'Urban Birder', David Lindo.

It will also produce a full colour poetry and art book – involving well-known poets and artists, chosen to reflect the diversity of Britain's human urban populations; plus the book will also include less known, even never-before-published poets and artists from all over Britain, and from all backgrounds and walks of life.

But first, you, Britain's resident bird experts and enthusiasts, are being asked for your help to inspire the poets and artists, with YOUR descriptions of and photographs of your own everyday encounters with British urban birds.

Fair Acre's editor, Nadia Kingsley, will include these in blogs which will remain on the Fair Acre Press website during and after the project is completed.

For more details, or to send writing or photos, click here.

A journey on the Nene

As I've mentioned on here before, last April I joined poet Jo Bell, storyteller Jo Blake Cave and visual artist Jo Dacombe for a dawn chorus walk along the River Nene at Wadenhoe in Northamptonshire, following in the footsteps of nature writer BB. We walked, we heard the birds sing, and we talked poetry over tea on Jo's boat. 

Now the Three Jos In A Boat project has borne fruit in the form of Riverlands – a journey on the Nene, the national premiere of which is being staged at All Saints Church, Thorpe Road, Aldwincle, NN14 3EA, this Saturday, April 21, and Sunday, April 22, from 7.30pm. The hour-long performance promises atmosphere, mesmerising stories, humour and humanity. The evening will also see the first availability of Alwalton-Wollaston, a visual response to the journey on the Nene by Jo Dacombe and Kate Dyer. A limited edtion will be for sale at the performances.

Tickets are £10, or £8 for senior citizens, students and the unemployed, and include a £2 donation to The Churches Conservation Trust. If the event is not sold out, tickets will be available on the door.

For further information, you can contact Rosalind Stoddart, tel: 01536 370 108, email: ros@rosalindstoddart.co.uk; website: www.rosalindstoddart.co.uk

Constructed Landscapes

Last Thursday, I took part in a workshop led by Mark Goodwin at the Phoenix in Leicester, which took the work of artist Helen Saunders as its starting point.

It was a great couple of hours, very inspiring, and I'm going to go back for another look at Helen's work, as the exhibition has been extended until a week on Friday (June 10th). Quite the best thing, I think, was that Helen herself took part, and talked quite a bit about her processes and techniques.

I'm going to come back to that, and its relevance to poetry (incidentally, I might be wrong, but I think Helen's responsible for the cover of Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts' Edgelands), in more depth a bit later, but in the meantime, I can recommend the exhibition very highly.

Municipal art

Just came across this post at Litterbug. I enjoyed the poem, but it also made me resolve to make the effort to go and see Derby Municipal Art Gallery. Distant memories of nightmarish journeys round Derby's one-way system have kept me away in the past - it might be time to brave it again.

Current reading and browsing...

Big new batch of posts over at Stride - I like the look of the Ivon Hitchens book, he being an artist I've liked for a long time, and Simon Foxell's Mapping London sounds pretty enticing, too. I love maps of any sort, to be honest, and I tend to love London too, when I'm not there, which is the vast majority of the time.

Where books are concerned, I'm still enjoying Colin Simms' Gyrfalcon Poems a lot, and having mixed thoughts about Mark Cocker's Crow Country. I absolutely loved his Birds Britannica, and I have a very big soft spot for corvids, but at times in this new book he does go over the top, rather. It's when he starts straining for 'poetic' effect, I think - a "rose-tainted sky", or a "junta of greylag geese" (why? in what possible sense a junta?) - that I lose patience a little, and when he tries a bit too hard to justify his obsession. Don't get me wrong, it's a very enjoyable read, and both fascinating and moving, but he could do with reining things in just a little at times.

Strange songs

Over at the always entertaining Fretmarks, there's this. I remember hearing about the idea on Radio Four months ago, and it's no less odd now that it's actually come to fruition. But I have to say, I'd love to see it, and I'm trying to work out a way of slipping up to Gateshead next month to have a look.