Summer is whizzing by and my head is filling up with to do lists. At this point, they are mild-mannered and patient lists, humming softly to themselves as summer ripens around them, but once they cotton-on to shrinking daylight and cooler winds, once they catch sight of the date on the calendar and the dying hydrangeas, they’ll turn snappy and it won’t be pretty, even if they are arranged decorously in a floral notebook.
What kinds of ‘to do ‘s’ are being written in my lists? Books to read, reviews I’ve promised to someone, poems to finish writing, workshops to plan, emails to send, poems to format in WordPress…… those kinds of things. And what have I been doing, then?
Various stuff, including making a blog so that I have somewhere to share news and information about the poetry workshops and events I’ll be running in Trowbridge from September 2016. I hope that I’ll keep adding to this as time goes by. The blog is called Town Hall Poets because Trowbridge Arts is based at the old Town Hall and that’s where most of my poetry events will take place.
I’m trying to make contact with people near to me who might like to know about poetry events in Trowbridge and it’s not that easy. Although I have a healthy number of followers and readers of this blog – Hello! – and at And Other Poems, and on Twitter, you’re not necessarily anywhere near where I live. I’m doing the usual things, scouring Twitter for #Wiltshire #Somerset #Trowbridge hashtags (Trowbridge is in west Wiltshire, on the border with Somerset) and following likely people. I’ve started a Trowbridge Poetry Society Stanza (more about that very soon) and the Poetry Society has kindly emailed Poetry Society members with nearby postcodes to let them know about a new poetry group, and two people have already been in touch. So that looks promising.
I also went on holiday to Brittany for a week with my family. It was a lovely mix of sea mists, rain, bright sunshine, sea swimming, beach walks, food and alcohol indulgences, and full-on family time.
We spent a day in Quimper where we visited the beautiful Musée des Beaux-Arts and saw a wonderful exhibition of Self-Portraits, a touring exhibition from the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.
I was also captivated by a collection of work by and of the painter and poet Max Jacob, Max Jacob et ses amis, who I knew little about. I’ve been finding out more about him since I returned to the UK, thanks to the wonders of the internet.
I didn’t take my phone on holiday and I really missed its camera (I took a small digital camera, instead) but I enjoyed being offline for the week.
Anyway, back home now, it’s been raining all weekend, and I’m determined to take a look at my ‘to do’ lists this week before they turn nasty. Wishing you all a happy week, whatever you’re up to.
Josephine Corcoran 