Sue and I helped John Lucas (pictured above) to organise the first Beeston International Poetry Festival, which finished last night with a terrific, packed reading by Matthew Welton and Roy Fisher. John also runs Shoestring Press and the Flying Goose Poetry Reading series. I’ve set up a public ( you don’t have to join facebook) facebook group, which currently has 92 members and features photos and single poem videos from most of the readings (two from Roy!), forming a permanent archive. There are currently 18 videos on there, each taken with a hand held Flip video camera. Many thanks to all of the poets who performed and everybody who came. I’m sure you’ll agree that it was a very enjoyable, unique series of readings. I…
In the first of today’s two National Poetry Day posts I want to tell you about a new poetry prize, announced today. It’s for a first collection, in memory of my friend, the fine Irish poet Michael Murphy. If you’d like to read one of Michael’s poems, there’s one in the post that I wrote shortly after his death. Below is the press release about the prize, which has been set up by friends of Michael and is being run by the English Association. The Michael Murphy Memorial Prize To celebrate National Poetry Day, the English Association announces the inauguration of a new biennial prize of £500 for a distinctive first volume of poetry in English published in Britain or Ireland, in the first instance…
I’ve had a bad start with Jonathan Franzen’s ‘Freedom’. My copy arrived a week ago and I sat down to read it almost straightaway, having loved ‘The Corrections’. To my annoyance, I found I’d read the (very long) first chapter already, as it was published as a short story in The New Yorker. Had they announced that it was a novel extract, I would have skipped it and waited, especially as, of course, it had been abridged slightly. So I reread the first chapter 1) to remind me what happened and b) in case there were new bits. I saved ‘Freedom’ up for a second go after I’d done the proofs of my new (adult) novel. A treat to look forward to. Correcting the proofs…
The full programme for next Saturday’s Celebration of Alan Sillitoe is now online and there are still places available for the event, which will be in Nottingham’s Council House. Speakers include Alan’s son, David, novelists Gwen Grant, John Harvey and D.J.Taylor, plus readings from Alan’s poetry. It’s an interesting, varied schedule and I look forward to attending. I first met Alan when I persuaded him to write a short story for an anthology I edited called City Of Crime in the 90’s. I met him a couple of times that year and he was always friendly and supportive to me after that. The last time we met was when he came to speak to my MA group at Nottingham Trent University last year (the photo…
It’s more than 18 years since I last saw Lloyd Cole, whose new album ‘Broken Record’ is just out. Back then, he was filling Sheffield City Hall. Next month, he plays ‘Glee’ a compact new Nottingham venue, with his Small Ensemble. The album’s very enjoyable. The song below can’t help but make me think of the recent movie Tamara Drewe, adapted from the Posy Simmonds graphic novel of the same name, which is set at a wickedly observed writers’ retreat. The crude trailer for the movie made it look so bad that I avoided its Nottingham premiere, with director and Posy in attendance (although I did go and hear Posy speak earlier in the day). Then the word of mouth was so good that I…