Out and about

I seem to have lined myself up with a variety of poetry events to go to over the next few weeks – partly because it’s National Poetry Month, partly because it’s my birthday month but also because I need to get out more.

First up is David Harsent’s poetry workshop in Cambridge on Saturday, part of Wordfest – for some reason I’m approaching this with trepidation. I do know it will be a really good day and that I’ll get a lot out of it as I did out of Pascale Petit’s wonderful workshops at Tate Modern but…. Well it’s still the school holidays and I shall be gone for the whole day. I’m sure they will cope and there’s really no need for me to feel guilty.

Later in the month I’m going back to the South Bank to hear Jane Hirshfield read from her latest collection “Come Thief”. Little does she know that she has a hard act to follow which was Alice Oswald and Memorial.

Then in May there is Martin Figura’s Whistle at Camden Roundhouse. Ever since I discovered that he performs it I have been promising myself that I would get organised enough to get to a performance. With the assistance of Vanessa Gebbie I do have a ticket. I also have Jan Fortune to thank for pressing a preview copy of Whistle into my hands about two years ago and exhorting me to buy it and read it. It is one of the poetry books that gets taken off the bookshelf more often than many of others. The prospect of hearing it live gives me goosebumps. Roll on May.

Discovering Paul Durcan

A poet I've discovered recently whilst on holiday in Ireland is Paul Durcan. 'Discovered' is not quite the right word as he was a poet I was aware of but hadn't got around to reading properly. He has a new collection out and so was all over the Irish papers while we were there. 'All over' is again something of an exaggeration for an interview and a review of 'Praise in which I live and Move and have My Being' in the Irish Times. A poet on the front page of the newspaper would have been quite a thing but alas it didn't happen.


While we were in May we visited the Museum of Country Life at Turlough - a fine place to find out about how people used to live. I was browsing the poetry in their shop - Yeats, Heaney and Durcan when the manageress came and put a pile of about half a dozen copies of 'Praise' next to me. The collection opens with a poem about a woman in an Irish bookshop taking it upon herself to sign copies of her own book On Glimpsing a Woman in Hodges Figgis Bookshop in Dublin". I have never heard of Amanda Brucker but you didn't need to in order to get the point of the poem. So there I was with this book in my hand with some irresistible poems in it and so I had to buy it but I bought it to give to my father in law. There you thought I'd broken my no new books rule (unless they are to do with Malta and for research purposes). My father in law had already told me he mostly reads only poetry these days and was pleased to be given it.

The only question is whether I should start with one of Durcan's older collections or buy my own copy of 'Praise'.