Poetry Exhibition

The word 'Exhibition' usually goes along with the word 'Art'. But next week it will be combined with the word 'Poetry'. Yes, Leicester is having what may be its first ever poetry exhibition.

Having been asked many months ago to contribute a piece, and with the deadline tomorrow, I have finally got my piece finished a few moments ago.

The road has been long and twisting. I set out with one idea - a poem in ceramics. But that somehow didn't get off the ground. Then came the idea of a different poem in metalwork. I researched this, had much helpful input from various people who have far more technical know-how than me, accumulated the required materials, then realised it was too difficult in the time I had remaining.

Then came the third idea - one of my short published poems written in letters variously rotated and flipped. And Now it is done. Though I still have to figure out how to attach the mirrors people may need to help them read the thing.

If you are in Leicester next week, head down to the Independent Arts Centre on Humberstone Gate. The exhibition will be upstairs.

As for the poem in metal - I still intend to create this. A project for the longer term perhaps.

National Poetry Day

It is National Poetry Day. Of all the themed days of the year, this is one of my favourites. Yes, I think it even beats the international Speak Like a Pirate Day (September 19th).

This year the theme of National Poetry Day is Heroes and Heroines.

Tonight I'll be heading into Leicester for a poetry evening at the Writers' Club. Hopefully I'll be able to perform the following new piece (though of course without the hyperlinks):


Cutting with light

In the musty cinema
our awkwardness dissolved in darkness
and pale beams cut the smoke seeded air
of 1977

Gripping the worn velvet of the seats
our pupils huge and hormones coursing
we watched as knights sparked light
in an epic duel of right v wrong.

I read about it afterwards
That modulated double hum
ninety Hertz
and ninety-eight

with a Doppler shift thrown in
as Ben Burtt swung
his shotgun microphone
before the speaker stack

It was iconic from day one
The static hiss as beam hit beam
and heroes pitched their strength
was interference from a cathode ray

The crew would later
have to shush the stars
‘We put the noise in afterwards,’ they’d say
‘It’s just a sound man’s trickery.’

But in all our adolescent grey on grey
we’d have traded real life
in a flash
for such high-contrast clarity

To choose the narrow path
or let the dark side win
and know for certain
which was which

Or wracked and wreathed
in luminous blue pain
change sides
cast down the enemy

And when Vader’s helmet was removed
revealing a broken man
made whole by one good choice
were not our own half-sins healed also?

St Margaret's Bus Station

The result of my two-hour writely residency this morning...


St Margaret's Bus Station

Stop to look
at the giant slab of the roof
bright blue
dropped between the ring road
and the dull red brick
of Sandacre and Short Street.

Inside
a high ceiling of steel beams
and concertinaed walls of glass
enclose a hall
one hundred and twenty paces end to end.

A room to wait and greet
where place names read like poetry:
Pool Meadow,
Three Pots,
Fosse Park,
St Margaret's.

Is this your drab commute
of diesel exhaust and sausage rolls
served in a greasy caff?
Or the set for Bond or Jason Bourne
to weave and dodge in hot pursuit.
Could it be a brief encounter's final scene?
A final touch
and the scent from a lover's skin.

Poetry, Screenplay and Prose

Three forms of expression through writing - poetry, prose and script. Each is different from the others.

But the dialogue in prose and script is very much like poetry. It has brevity and rhythm. It wants to be spoken aloud. Similarly, descriptive passages from prose and poetry can be filmic. Perhaps the forms are not so different as we might think.

Today I will be enjoying all three forms. This blog is prose. I am catching a moment to write it after an hour or so of script writing - which I will be going back to shortly (after a cup of tea and a moment standing in the morning sunshine.)

This evening, I'll be going to the weekly meeting of Leicester Writers' Club. Today we have the adjudication of our annual poetry competition. I know I'll be hearing some excellent material read out - which will be a treat. I enter this competition every year, though with little hope of winning as the club is blessed with many fine poets these days.

My experience of working in all three forms is that each enriches the others. Working with poetry freshens up my prose writing. And vice-versa. Working with script sharpens my storycraft.

I'll end here with a poem - not at all in my usual style. It plays with a peculiarly dyslexic appreciation and confusion of left and right. It was first published in a pamphlet distributed around NHS waiting rooms in Derby.

Bilateral Symmetry

Mirror, mirror on the wall,
I can’t work you out at all.
I stare at you and see the sight,
of me turned round swapped left for right.
But I can’t work out how you know,
not to swap me head for toe.
If I were now to twist you round,
would I see me up side down?

Firebridge to Skyshore book launch

Firebridge to Skyshore is a book I have been living with in anticipation for well over a year. The author, Siobhan Logan, is a fellow member of Leicester Writers' Club. That means I have heard much of the material read out in our regular manuscript workshopping meetings.

The project started when Siobhan was invited to write some poems about the Northern Lights to accompany an exhibition of visual art. Within a couple of months she had produced a large amount of new work. I remember hearing it for the first time and marveling at the freshness of the voice she had discovered as well as the sheer volume of beautiful, arresting poems

Since then Siobhan has been on a long journey. She has spoken to Saami reindeer herders and ionospheric physicists, made two visits to Tromso in the north of Norway, seen the Northern lights in all their glory and put on performances at venues as far afield as the Richard Attenborough Centre in Leicester and the Science Museum in London.

Yesterday a crowd of friends, family, poets, novelists and journalists gathered in the Friends Meeting House in Leicester to celebrate the launch of Firebridge to Skyshore, which contains this body of poetry as well as several prose essays on the science and mythology of the Northern Lights.

Siobhan gave a reading from one of the prose essays and performances of some of the poems. I am pleased to say that among the performance pieces was one of my favourites, Flyttsamer on Postcard, which tells the story of one moment on a reindeer drive, captured in the photograph on an old postcard.

There is much to say about this beautiful book that makes an interesting contrast to the pull of digital publishing. Firebridge to Skyshore comes to us from Original Plus Books - who seem to have a list of poetry collections and prose books produced lovingly on a very small scale. The illustrations in this collection are from woodcuts produced by Dolores Logan, Siobhan's sister.

Will we move eventually to a world in which most books are published digitally at very low cost and environmental impact whilst the remaining few are lovingly handcrafted works of art?

I might explore that idea further at some stage. But for now, I can browse my copy of Firebridge, whist looking forward to the next book lunch - which will be on Thursday.