My diary posts are the place for a bit of my news, poetry community news, plus my adventures in creativity
A quick roundup of some events in the world of poetry, activism and beyond follows. I’ve been running to catch up with myself since I embarked on my MA in Writing Poetry shortly after returning from a somewhat tiring… let’s face it I was tired before I even left… yet fun yoga break which also included kayaking, a first for me, and plenty of sun soaking.
When I left all the news headlines were of British infrastructure crumbling, not a metaphor, literally crumbling; school buildings, hospitals and prisons. Shortly after my return came the, not entirely unexpected, decision to develop Rosebank, a new oil and gas field, the biggest the U.K. has seen in years.
Despite fierce opposition, despite the fact it is estimated it will not be at optimal output for fifteen years, which takes us to 2038, eight years after the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to reduce emissions by 68% by 2030 relative to 1990 levels. The companies involved vow to halve their emissions by 2030, by drilling for more oil. Confused? Me too. While the development has been justified further my government ministers as, “a crucial part of our transition to net zero”. And despite the fact 80% of the oil will be exported, deemed “crucial to the UK’s energy security.” Go figure!
In the light of that I was somewhat uplifted to receive a heads up from XR London about the following actions taking place 17th-20th October led by Fossil Free London. Full schedule here XR UK will be leading actions on 17th and 18th. (Training, workshops and networking ahead of the protests on 14th-16th October. You don’t need to come to these to attend the protest.)
The actions are in opposition to an event nicknamed the ‘Oscars of Oil’, the biggest names in the fossil fuel industry will come to London to talk oil and money. It’s the biggest annual gathering of fossil fuel companies attended by the CEOs of Shell, BP, ExxonMobil and Total & Equinor, responsible for Rosebank.
XR UK note “The official name of the summit was the ‘Oil and Money conference’ until a few years ago when it rebranded as the ‘Energy Intelligence Forum’. We’re not even joking.”
NATIONAL POETRY DAY
Takes place on the 5th October and the theme this year is refuge.
Red Door Poets present an online event on Sunday October 29th, from 6.00 – 6.45 pm.
Opening the Door to… Glyn Maxwell
Mary Mulholland will be interviewing poet, playwright, novelist, librettist and lecturer Glyn Maxwell about his writing life.
“Glyn Maxwell’s books of poetry include How The Hell Are You, Pluto, Hide Now and The Breakage, all of which were shortlisted for the T S Eliot or Forward Prizes; his most recent volume is The Big Calls. His 2012 essential guidebook On Poetry was critically acclaimed and is widely read; he is currently writing an expansion of it on Substack called Silly Games To Save The World. He has taught writing at several major universities in the US, and is currently Head of Studies on the MA at the Poetry School in London.”
#amreading about the line and line breaks in poetry and meter, the latter is almost an alien concept to me if I’m honest…
#amwriting or reworking a poem which attempts to decentre the human relation to nature or reassert our place as part of nature not above and beyond, something like that
Seeds and Fuses 