Next stop Swindon Poetry Festival

Just saying hello before I head off for four days at The Swindon Poetry Festival.  I feel like someone leaving home for university, except it’s a university of poetry.  Actually, knowing Hilda Sheehan who’s organised the festival, it will be more like a UNIVERSE of poetry in Swindon.  I can’t wait!

I’m packing writing materials, a few books, clothes and footwear for all weather possibilities (summer weather today; high winds and lashings of rain forecast for Saturday and Sunday), liquorice tea (my staple afternoon drink),  and I might sneak a few bottles of wine in there (miniature-sized!)  just in case a tipple is required at key poetic moments.  I’ll probably use Twitter and Instagram to post a few pictures so if you follow me over there, you’ll know what I’m up to.

For the last three weeks, I’ve been working hard at my job with The Reader Organisation and I continue to worry away at my own writing.  When I heard from tall-lighthouse in April that they’d like to publish my pamphlet, I might have thought that I was almost there with this writing project.  The truth is, that was only the beginning, and the re-writing, re-titling, ordering, re-ordering, re-selecting of which poems to include has been my focus over the past five months.  There’s still no clear date for publication but I’m still hoping for this year, possibly November.  I will let you know as soon as I know!

In terms of my own reading, these are my favourite books on my shelf at the moment, there are poems in all of these which have taken off the top of my head.

and I must tell you that I loved Liz Berry’s collection, Black Country, which last night won the Forward Arts Foundation’s Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection.  I’m still carrying this one around with me, weeks after I first bought it.

OK, better crack on with my packing.  See you on the other side, if not in Swindon!