Below some news from the poetry world but first here in the U.K., after a summer when the government was “missing in action”, we’ve since seen a recent course of events at breakneck speed with the election of Liz Truss as PM followed swiftly by the death of the monarch with the pandering media saturation.
In the same week we’ve seen another young black guy killed locally following “police contact” while around the world the planet and its people are inflicted with flood, fire and drought. We’ve seen the third of Pakistan, one third of an entire country under water and the West barely blinked.
Just before the of Liz Truss took up her appointment I flick on The World at One slightly later than usual and within 10 seconds hear Bernard Jenkins saying Truss will have to level with the country that we are facing “five horses of the apocalypse…”
Yes, he actually said that and “this is worse than the energy crisis of the 70’s” he adds, “we may face power cuts, rationing…” so back to referencing the Blitz then, that will please the brexiteers who say without a hint of irony, “We ‘ad rationing in the Second World War, that did us no harm!”
I didn’t listen to Truss making her opening statement that same day at as though I understand her first announcement was a deeply regressive measure that will do little to help families on low income and quite a bit to help those on higher incomes. Of course it will.
In my poetry world
I’m off back to Totleigh Barton for an Arvon course at the end of the month. with tutors Karen McCarthy Woolf and Mimi Khalvati After seeing the place in late spring it will be inter to see what the countryside in like in early autumn, that’s if seasons have much meaning any more.
After a few techy problems was thrilled to join Red Door Poets presenting a reading and Q&A with Fiona Benson at 6pm on Sunday 4th September.
Very much looking forward to their next event on Sunday 25th September with readers Mary Mulholland, Tom Cunliffe and Katie Griffiths, and their special guests are Alex Corrin-Tachibana, Matthew Paul and Claire Collison.
Also coming up on Tuesday 11th October at 7.30pm is the launch the Live Canon 2022 anthology and poetry prize. “All poems longlisted for the Live Canon 2022 Poetry Prize are published in the anthology. Poems shortlisted for the prize will be read at the event, and guest judge, Rebecca Goss, will announce the overall winner of the 2022 Live Canon Poetry Prize.”
OUT NOW
Placebo by Claire Collison, published by Blueprint Press
Which has been described as
“Beautiful, pin-point writing in this reflective pamphlet by Claire Collison. With gentle precision the poet leads us through life-threatening illness to new life. She conjures the people administering her hospital treatment so we feel we met them too. And we accompany her back into home, memory and the waters of pond, river and sea. A wonderful debut.”
and “Precise and beautiful as a blade, “ Fiona Larkin
England’s Green by Zaffar Kunial, published by Faber & Faber
“Zaffar Kunial is a proven master of taking things apart, polishing up the fugitive parts of single words, of a sound, a colour, the name of a flower, and putting them back together so that we see them in an entirely different light.” Google books
#amreading about drought and flood also embarking on Karen Lords The Best Of All Possible Words, a story of “ hope, survival and love” set on a futuristic alien world and Manland, the second collection of poetry by Peter Raynard
#amwriting poetry, or trying to, about drought and flood. The issues are so vast is difficult to find a perspective, an angle, to reduce it to images that speak to the heart as well as the head
A blog post by Anne Enith Cooper
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