Susan's Journal of Literary Things

Polar Poets Return to Manchester

2011-11-30T16:58:00.007Z

After a frenetic few weeks of readings and performances in a pub in Bath, a library in Bristol, a gallery in Haverfordwest and on a beach near Cardigan, I will be heading up to Manchester on Saturday for another Polar Poets event alongside Siobhan Logan.

In October last year, we were lucky enough to perform our multi-media poetry show, Arctic-ulate, at Manchester Science Festival. It was a sell-out event and, as a result of that, we have been invited back to the same venue, the John Rylands University Library (see photo) to offer another performance of Arctic-ulate and also to facilitate a writing workshop, between 2 and 4 p.m, on polar themes.

You can read a little more about our visit on the library's events page. There are still a few workshop places available and a couple of seats for the evening performance (from 6 p.m.) too. If you are interested in coming along, please phone 0161 306 0555 or email jrul.events@manchester.ac.uk as soon as possible.

Remembrance for Lost Species

2011-11-10T14:51:00.005Z

This Saturday, November 12th, I will be reading extinction-themed poetry from Where the Air is Rarefied at Feral Theatre's Funeral for the Great Auk on Poppit Sands, one of Pembrokeshire's loveliest beaches.

The Funeral is one of many similar events that are taking place throughout the U.K and beyond, as part of the Remembrance for Lost Species project.

In addition to poetry about, and a specially-written eulogy for, the Great Auk, the North Atlantic seabird that was persecuted and finally hunted to extinction in the mid-nineteenth century, there will be singing and storytelling. The funeral will be followed by a wake at a nearby café.

If you happen to be in West Wales on Saturday, please do think about coming along to support the event. It's due to get underway at 3.30 p.m.

Where the Air is Rarefied in Pembrokeshire

2011-10-28T11:15:00.004+01:00

November is going to be another supremely busy month, about which I'll write more later. For now, though, here's just a quick post about the latest in the series of Where the Air is Rarefied exhibitions featuring my poetry and Pat Gregory's prints.

From 2nd - 28th November, our work will be on show in Haverfordwest Library Gallery in my favourite county, Pembrokeshire.

We're also pleased to be offering an event in the gallery on Tuesday 22nd November, from 6.30 - 8.30pm. The evening will feature a poetry performance (by me!), a presentation by Pat about the process of our collaboration, and a chance to view all the poems and prints. Tea and very lovely cake will be also be provided.

If you can't make the event, the gallery opening times are as follows:

Monday 9.30 am – 5 pm
Tuesday 9.30 am – 7 pm
Wednesday 9.30 am – 5 pm
Thursday 9.30 am – 5 pm
Friday 9.30 am – 7 pm
Saturday 9.30 am – 1 pm

And if you can't make it to Haverfordwest to see the exhibition at any time during November, all of the poems and prints are, of course, available now as a book, published by Cinnamon Press.

National Poetry Day 2011

2011-10-03T10:36:00.004+01:00

Here are a few of the events I'm involved in for National Poetry Day this year:

1) Last Friday, I was in London, in front of a packed audience at the BBC Radio Theatre in Broadcasting House to record the Saturday Live Poetry Pop-up, alongside the other regular Saturday Live poets. We were each commissioned to write a new poem especially for the event, and were also invited to share poems from past Saturday Live shows. Hosted by Richard Coles and with music by Cerys Mathews, the show will first be broadcast on Radio 4 Extra on National Poetry Day (this Thursday, 6th October, at 10 a.m.). It will also be shown on the BBC Big Screens in city centres up and down the country on the same day.

2) On Thursday, I'll be returning to one of my favourite Cardiff venues - Waterloo Gardens Teahouse - to perform alongside poet and singer-songwriter Maria Lindström from Sweden. The event is scheduled to start at 4.30 pm, with the Teahouse's legendary cakes available, as an accompaniment to the poetry and song, throughout the afternoon!

3) Next Sunday, 9th October, from 7 p.m, I'll be at the Dylan Thomas Birthplace in Swansea, taking part in its first International Festival of Words. Storyteller Amanda Rackstraw and poet Ian Griffiths are among the other performers on Sunday, and there's a whole range of other poets, actors and musicians appearing at the Festival in the preceding days too.

Post-performance, I'm much looking forward to spending the night in the Birthplace. 5 Cwmdonkin Drive has been restored to its 1914 condition - Dylan's parents bought it as a new house just a few months before his birth - and it now offers bed and breakfast accommodation all year round. I wonder which room I'll be allocated...

The Busy-ness of Last Week

2011-09-13T13:05:00.008+01:00

Just starting to get my breath back after last week's workshopping, exhibition-hanging, performing, train travelling, festival visiting... Here are a few of the highlights:

1) On Tuesday, I offered an eco-poetry performance at Swansea's Environment Centre, organised by Keith Ross of Swansea Green Party. The audience was attentive and enthusiastic and I especially enjoyed the lively, post-performance discussion. I also appreciated the thunderous, beautifully-timed rain-on-the-roof sound effects just as I was performing Never Forgets, my protest-poem about the illegal trade in elephant ivory, which contains the line 'that drumming you hear isn't rain'!

2) Thanks to the day spent hanging work in the gallery of Theatr Brycheiniog in Brecon, the latest Where the Air is Rarefied exhibition, featuring Pat Gregory's prints and my poems, is now on and can be viewed until October 4th. Many of the original prints that feature in our recently-published joint collection are on sale, as are a range of digital prints.

3) On Saturday, I travelled up to Yorkshire, to Saltaire, for Arctic-ulate, my latest Polar Poets gig with Siobhan Logan. This was a joint British Science Festival/Saltaire Festival event. In the photo above, we'd just gained access to our Shipley College venue, had set up all the technical equipment and were starting to think about doing a run-through of our show - since we live so far apart, rehearsal time, in the pre-show hours, is precious indeed.

I wish there'd been the time/opportunity to check out more events from both Festivals but I did at least have a couple of hours on Sunday in which to wander along the canal and explore some of the UNESCO World Heritage site before the long train journey back to Cardiff.

Uncivilisation 2011

2011-08-30T15:02:00.004+01:00

Over a week has passed since I got back from Uncivilisation 2011 - this year's Dark Mountain Festival at the Sustainability Centre in Hampshire - and I'm still reflecting on all the discussions, conversations, talks, readings, workshops and performances that took place over the course of the weekend.

I was directly involved in two sessions again this year - the first, my 'animate earth' poetry workshop, inspired by some of the ideas in David Abram's The Spell of the Sensuous, took place in the woods in the only rain of the weekend. (It seems to be an unwritten law that all my outdoor writing workshops must take place in the rain!) Later, I took part in a poetry reading and panel discussion on Wild Writing with Paul Kingsnorth, Adrienne Odasso and Em Strang, in the lovely woodland space (pictured).

The weekend offered so many highlights (listening to Jay Griffiths, alongside Benny Wenda of the Free West Papua campaign; meeting, at long last, Sharon Blackie of Two Ravens Press; Mario Petrucci speaking on poetry as a source of sustenance in the Sustainable Age; the after-dark woodland participatory theatre piece, Liminal...) and I wish I had more time now to elaborate on them all. You can, though, get more of a flavour of the festival's ethos and atmosphere, as well as an insight into many of the other sessions and performances I haven't mentioned, in this review in The Independent.

And in a future blog post, I'll offer some thoughts on Dark Mountain 2, the project's second volume of uncivilised writing, in which an extract from one of my art-poetry collaborations with printmaker Pat Gregory, appears.

Bathhouse Bard

2011-07-17T11:34:00.004+01:00

It was, without a doubt, one of the most interesting venues in which I've been lucky enough to perform. As the photo on the left suggests, I was submerged for the evening in the ruins of the Roman Baths in Caerleon - though what looks like water is actually just a very effective watery projection!

I mostly shared poems from my new collection, Where the Air is Rarefied - and realise I will never again have such a perfect location in which to perform the opening poem, Nerrivik, about the Inuit goddess of the sea!

This Bathhouse Bard event was part of the annual Caerleon Festival, to which I was making a return visit, having first appeared there back in 2007. This time, I was joined by creative writing students from the University of Wales, Newport, plus several local writers, all of whom read a selection of their poetry in the first half of the evening.

Many thanks to Maggie Corke for organising the event (and for her superb post-performance supper!) Thanks, too, to Brian Dawson for the photograph.

A Wilder Vein e-book

2011-06-29T10:41:00.004+01:00

Just a quick post to mention that A Wilder Vein, the non-fiction anthology focusing on the relationship between people and the wild places of Britain and Ireland, in which a prose piece of mine appears, is now available as an e-book at the Two Ravens Press website.

Edited by Linda Cracknell and with a foreword by Robert Macfarlane, the anthology received some very enthusiastic reviews when it was first published in 2009:

A Wilder Vein (edited by Linda Cracknell; Two Ravens Press. £10.99) is an anthology linking writers with the natural world. Its theme is the wilder places of Britain, and its object an exploration of "new ways of seeing". One way, articulated by Gerry Loose, is to follow what the writer sees almost in real time, taking in tiny details: the way young holly sprays from an oak or how scabs of lichen decorate the rocks. A landscape, suggests Robert Macfarlane in his foreword, is defined not only by what it is but by the way we see it: "certain thoughts might be possible only in certain places". If we lose those places, we are losing kinds of imagination too. - The Independent - a recommended book for Christmas 2009.

Here is a book in which 18 writers – poets, novelists, anthropologists and natural historians – visit the uninhabited regions of our crowded little archipelago and meditate on what these places mean; and while individually the results are often sparklingly written and utterly transporting, taken together they also reinforce a point Macfarlane makes in his introduction: that "certain thoughts might be possible only in certain places, such that when we lose those places, we are losing kinds of imagination as well" - The Scotsman

Neil Gunn Writing Competition

2011-06-18T10:55:00.004+01:00

I'm thrilled to have heard that I've been awarded joint first prize in the adult poetry section of the 2010/11 Neil Gunn Writing Competition. It's a biennial competition, organised by The Highland Council and the Neil Gunn Trust and this time, the theme was 'A Wrong Turning', inspired by a quote from Gunn's Highland River - 'Our river took a wrong turning somewhere! But we haven't forgotten the source.'

The award ceremony was in Inverness last Tuesday and, sadly, I wasn't able to get there, but a lovely certificate and a very delicious prizewinning cheque arrived through the post this morning. I've entered so few poetry competitions this year - just two, I think - so I feel especially lucky to have had such good news about this one.

Launch Reflections

2011-06-13T10:36:00.009+01:00

I'm still coming back down to earth after the launch of Where the Air is Rarefied, my new collection of poetry, with prints by Pat Gregory, last Wednesday evening. It really couldn't have gone better.

In spite of my usual pre-event frets that there would only be a handful of people in the audience, the Norwegian Church Arts Centre was packed to its newly-refurbished rafters. Well over a hundred people came along (in fact, we ran out of chairs!), and I much enjoyed chatting to friends old and new once Pat and I had finished doing our performance/presentation.

As I said at the time, so many thanks are due - to Jan Fortune of Cinnamon Press (pictured below) for publishing the collection (in these financially challenging times, it's a huge undertaking to publish any book, let alone one containing full colour prints), to Philip Gross for his pre-publication endorsement and for being an enthusiastic audience member on the night, to Tony at the Norwegian Church for helping the event to run smoothly, and to Ruth Bradshaw for some lovely atmospheric soprano saxophone music before and after the poetry part of the evening.

Finally, for those of you who weren't able to make the launch and who may be interested in buying a copy of the book, I now have a Paypal button on the Where the Air is Rarefied page on my website.

Two Days Since and Two Days to Go...

2011-06-06T09:48:00.003+01:00

Two days ago, I was in London for my resident poet slot on BBC Radio 4's Saturday Live, now presented by Richard Coles. The studio guest was actor/director Richard Wilson, still probably best known for his television role as Victor Meldrew in One Foot in the Grave.

As usual, I had to write two new poems for the show - for my first, short, top-of-the-show piece, I focused on climate change, in recognition/celebration of World Environment Day. My second, longer poem was written in response to a story about two men in the late 1960s, who bought a lion cub from Harrods and lived with him in their Chelsea flat for some years, until his eventual rehoming in Kenya. You can listen to the full show, and find out further details about the content, here.

Meanwhile, in just two days, on Wednesday 8th June at 7.30 pm, my new poetry collection, Where the Air is Rarefied, a collaboration with visual artist Pat Gregory, will be launched. All are welcome to come along to Cardiff's Norwegian Church Arts Centre for an evening of poetry, prints, drinks, cake and chat!

'Landlines' poetry competition

2011-05-24T15:45:00.004+01:00

I'm in the midst of a majorly busy few weeks of preparation for both my next Arctic trip and the launch of my new poetry collection, while also battling to keep on top of all the mentoring, tutoring, editing and workshopping that I'm currently involved in. I seem to be even more inundated with emails than usual - but one that's recently brought me real pleasure, rather than just the demand for an immediate response, came from the deputy editor of the National Trust Magazine.

I was very chuffed to learn that a new poem, Flock, that I'd entered for the National Trust's 'Landlines' poetry competition, on the theme of the outdoors, has been shortlisted/highly commended - one of 12 out of some 1700 entries, I think. I haven't entered many poetry competitions at all lately (only one other this year, I think), so the news was especially unexpected. Flock is quite linguistically playful, too, and I wasn't at all convinced it was competition material.

The full results of the competition, including the winning poems (as chosen by adjudicators Jo Bell and Ian McMillan) can be seen here.

Launch of 'Where the Air is Rarefied'

2011-05-09T10:02:00.006+01:00

All are warmly invited to the launch of my new collection of poetry, Where the Air is Rarefied, with prints by Pat Gregory, on Wednesday June 8th, at 7.30 pm, at the Norwegian Church Arts Centre, Cardiff Bay.

Published by Cinnamon Press, the collection is the culmination of a long-term collaboration with Pat. And given that it's an exploration, through poetry and prints, of environmental and mythological themes relating to 'the North', we're both thrilled that the launch will be happening at the newly-refurbished Norwegian Church.

I'll be offering a performance of a selection of the poems and Pat will chat about the process of our collaboration too. Thereafter, we hope people will linger long to help us celebrate - the café-bar will be open for drinks, snacks, cakes etc. all evening.

Hope to see you there!

Pre-publication endorsement of Where the Air is Rarefied by Philip Gross:

The subject-matter of this collaboration builds on the concerns and subjects of Susan Richardson's previous volume, Creatures of the Intertidal Zone, but the interplay with visual art has stimulated a new freedom and experiment with language...pushing her work well beyond her previous comfort zones and...marking her emergence into a new breadth and vividness of voice, a new stage in her life as a poet.

Back to the Arctic!

2011-05-05T10:12:00.008+01:00

I am thrilled, hugely grateful - and not a little disbelieving - to have heard that I've been awarded some very wonderful funding that will enable me to return to the Arctic in July.

Thanks to a grant from the Gino Watkins Memorial Fund, I'll be journeying to the Svalbard archipelago (situated approximately midway between mainland Norway and the North Pole), to undertake research relating to a brand-new writing and performance project (working title Willing the Dragonfly).

The Gino Watkins Memorial Fund is under the joint trusteeship of the University of Cambridge and the Royal Geographical Society and was set up in 1933, in memory of (appropriately enough!) Gino Watkins - to my mind, one of the most dynamic and interesting Arctic explorers.

I am currently deep into planning both my journey and the research I'm hoping to undertake while I'm in Svalbard. Since the beginning of the year, I've also read umpteen texts on wilderness theory, as this theme is, hopefully, going to play a major role in the writing I ultimately produce.

Aside from pre-trip reading, there is, of course, so much else to organise in a relatively short space of time, and I admit to having fleetingly felt a tad daunted by it all. Mostly, though, huge excitement is to the fore, and - in these times when funding is so hard to come by - I also feel extraordinarily lucky.

Dark Mountain, volume 2

2011-04-29T12:03:00.003+01:00

Hoping, one day soon, to catch up on all that needs to be blogged about - details about the forthcoming launch of my new poetry collection, Where the Air is Rarefied, as well as news about some very wonderful funding that I've been lucky enough to be awarded...

For now, though, a plea from Paul Kingsnorth and Dougald Hine, who, as co-editors and initiators of the Dark Mountain Project, are seeking to raise money to cover the costs of publishing Dark Mountain 2, the second volume of 'uncivilised' writing 'for an age of global disruption'.

You can get a sneak preview of the volume's contents here. I'm thrilled to have some poetry included, especially as it will be appearing alongside work by, and/or conversations with, some of my current favourite writers and thinkers, such as Jay Griffiths and David Abram.

Paul and Dougald are requesting people to pre-order copies of the book to cover its printing and design costs. If you like what you see in the preview of the list of contents, and/or you feel committed to the Dark Mountain Project's principles, please do consider pre-ordering - and help to spread the word.

Geopoetics Weekend

2011-04-01T15:06:00.005+01:00

As usual, I'm battling with a big blogging backlog - March was such a busy month. It's already one week on from my journey north to the Lake District - to Coniston, to be precise, where the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics, of which I've been a member for several years, was hosting its Going Outward Geopoetics Weekend.

The venue was Brantwood, the former home of John Ruskin, overlooking Coniston Water, with views across to the Old Man. Saturday's schedule was busy and stimulating, with a discussion on the affinities between geopoetics and Ruskin, a guided walk with Brantwood's head gardener and a session focusing on visual approaches to geopoetics. Filmmaker Alastair Cook was one of the contributors to this session and we were invited to view and discuss several short films from his ongoing Filmpoem project. In the evening, we all took part in a Circle of Geopoetics, sharing poems, prose and songs.

As well as thoroughly enjoying all the conference sessions, not to mention the Sunday morning hike up onto Crag Head, the highest point on the Brantwood Estate, it was wonderful to meet Facebook friends, such as the Director of the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics, Norman Bissell, and to find that they're every bit as lovely in person as they'd appeared online. Great to meet new friends too, including poet Elizabeth Rimmer, who maintains a very appealing blog here.

Before leaving Brantwood, we discussed possible future geopoetical happenings and ways of taking the network forward. Lots of plans are afoot and I'm really looking forward to continue being involved.

Two More Exhibitions

2011-03-14T12:01:00.007Z

In addition to the work that's currently on display in Oriel Cric Gallery in Crickhowell as part of the Words and Images exhibition, visual artist Pat Gregory and I currently have some of our collaborative poems and prints in two other exhibitions in South Wales.

One piece is featured in Many Hands, an Open Exhibition organised by the Women's Arts Association at The Gate in Cardiff, that runs until April 30th.

Three others can be seen in the current Women in Art exhibition at the Old Hall in Cowbridge - this exhibition continues until March 24th.

And if you're not able to get to the exhibitions in person, all of the work will feature in Where the Air is Rarefied, the collection of poems and prints by Pat and myself, that is to be published by Cinnamon Press in June this year!

Haiku and Haibun

2011-03-07T09:51:00.004Z

I'm delighted that two of my haiku appear in the latest issue of Notes from the Gean, the Journal of Japanese Short Forms, published by Gean Tree Press.

I also realise that I neglected to mention another recent publication - two of my haibun feature in the latest issue of Contemporary Haibun Online, reprinted from the British Haiku Society Haibun Anthology 2009 (edited by Jo Pascoo and Lynne Rees). Both of these form part of what I hope will eventually become a collection of haibun about the various European Book Towns I've visited.

Ecopoetry Weekend

2011-03-01T14:05:00.005Z

What a great weekend!

Two ecopoetry gigs - the second of which was on Saturday at the Angel Hotel here in Cardiff, where the Green Party was holding its Spring Conference.

I'd been booked to offer a performance as part of the entertainment programme and was delighted to have such a focused, enthusiastic audience, many members of which were happy to continue discussing ecopoetry - and poetry in general, in fact - once my performance was over.

On Friday, meanwhile, I was at Pontardawe Arts Centre for an evening of poetry on the theme of climate change (see my post below for further info on this event). It was superbly organised by Emily Hinshelwood, the Arts and Climate Change Officer of Awel Aman Tawe and a fine eco-poet herself. Emily estimated that over 120 people came along, with many seeking seats in the upstairs gallery space because the main auditorium was so full. I enjoyed chatting with quite a few audience members afterwards, including some of the climate change poetry competition winners and a representative from the Low Carbon Research Institute.

My friend, Rhys Jones, was the event's official photographer, and, as usual, I must thank him for letting me use one of his photos here.

Two Ecopoetry Gigs

2011-02-24T11:05:00.006Z

This weekend, I'm looking forward to performing at two different events, both with an environmental focus.

Tomorrow (Friday 25th February) an evening of poetry focusing on climate change is taking place at Pontardawe Arts Centre, featuring the National Poet of Wales, Gillian Clarke; internationally-acclaimed Welsh language poet, Menna Elfyn; winner of the John Tripp Award, Dafydd Wyn; and me. The winners of the Awel Aman Tawe climate change poetry competition, as judged by Gillian and Menna, will also be reading and the competition anthology will be launched.

The evening gets underway at 7.30pm. Tickets are free but do phone 01792 863722 to reserve a seat. Emily Hinshelwood, the Arts and Climate Change Officer of Awel Aman Tawe, has indicated that lots of tickets have already been booked in advance, so it looks like the venue will be buzzing.

Then on Saturday (26th February), I'm performing, as part of the entertainment programme, at the Green Party's Spring Conference at the Angel Hotel in Cardiff. More about this gig later...

Private View at Oriel Cric

2011-02-14T09:10:00.004Z

Here's a photo from Friday evening's event at Oriel Cric in Crickhowell, where visual artist Pat Gregory and I are currently exhibiting some of the poems and prints created during our Where the Air is Rarefied collaboration.

It was a really enjoyable evening - the gorgeous gallery space was packed, and Pat and I were pleased to offer a talk about our collaboration. I also performed a selection of the poems.

Many thanks to Suzette Pratten of Oriel Cric for organising the event.

The Words and Images exhibition, which includes work that incorporates text in some form by a whole range of artists, continues until the end of March.

Words and Images at Oriel Cric

2011-02-10T16:01:00.004Z

My second launch event of this very busy week is happening tomorrow evening, 11th February, from 6.30pm, at Oriel Cric Gallery in Crickhowell.

Six of the collaborative poem-and-print pieces that visual artist Pat Gregory and I have produced over the past few years are featuring in Oriel Cric's current Words and Images exhibition. Tomorrow evening is the private view and I'll be performing some of the poems and offering a talk, along with Pat, about the process of our collaboration. Do come along if you happen to be in the area.

And watch this space for details of our other forthcoming exhibitions - as well as the publication of our book of poems and prints, Where the Air is Rarefied. It'll be published by Cinnamon Press in June and launch plans are well underway...

Fanfare Photos

2011-02-09T09:28:00.007Z

Here are a couple of pics from Monday evening's launch of Fanfare (Splash Point Records), the new CD of my namesake, jazz vocalist and trumpeter Sue Richardson, for which I'd written some of the lyrics.

It was such a memorable evening - great venue (Pizza Express Jazz Club in Soho) and a fantastic celebratory atmosphere. Sue's Quintet, plus special saxophonist guests, Alan Barnes and Robert Fowler, who plays with the Humphrey Lyttelton Band, gave a storming performance, of which the above photo gives only a flavour.

In the photo below, Sue is surrounded by her three lyricists from the CD - Annette Keen, Matt Henkes and me!

Fanfare's already received a very positive review in The Observer, while acclaimed jazz musician Liane Carroll has this to say:

A beautiful sophisticated collection of great original songs (all of which would be at home in any 'standards' book) effortlessly played and sung with an assured passion and wonderful sound.

Sue's got a gig in Wales next month so I'm looking forward to meeting up with her again then. And hopefully there'll be time afterwards to chat about some of the other collaborative projects we've got simmering away too.

Fanfare!

2011-02-07T08:57:00.002Z

I'm leaving for London soon - for tonight is the launch of Fanfare, the new CD of my namesake, the jazz vocalist and trumpet player Sue Richardson. I've been collaborating with Sue for a couple of years now and several of our jointly-written songs (her music, my lyrics) are included on her new CD.

The gig kicks off at 8.30 pm, at Pizza Express Jazz Club Soho - I'm hugely looking forward to hearing her Quintet perform the new material. The CD received a lovely review in The Observer yesterday too, so I'm sure the evening's going to be a big celebration!

Flare!

2011-01-27T09:00:00.007Z

To celebrate the centenary of the creation of International Women's Day, a Wales-originated event called Flare! will be taking place on Saturday March 5th, between midday and 12.30 pm.

Co-organised by writer and creative practitioner Leona Jones and women's workshop leader Jules Heavens, it has aimed to develop a network of women throughout the UK and beyond who will host an event/an activity of their choice - be it singing, dancing, storytelling, performing, painting or even just sitting in silence - to celebrate the achievements of women worldwide.

I'll be taking part in Leona's 'reading aloud' event, using works by women writers, in the entrance hall of the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff. If you're interested checking out the range of other activities that'll be happening, do visit the map on the Flare! website.

With Words International Haiku Competition

2011-01-19T16:02:00.004Z

I'm in the midst of a hectic-barely-pausing-for-breath-forgetting-to-sleep sort of period at the moment, with umpteen workshops, mentoring sessions, gigs, writing and funding application deadlines to fulfil before the end of the month. Consequently, I have a big blogging backlog so anything I manage to write here is likely to be a bit brief and fragmented.

One thing I've been meaning to mention, ever since I found out about it just before Christmas, is the lovely (not to say unexpected) news that I was commended in the With Words International Haiku Competition 2010. Over the past couple of years, I've really grown to enjoy writing haiku, though I know I'm still very much at the learning stage (and I'm fully expecting this learning stage to last for at least another couple of decades!)

The list of all the winners can be found here , at Area 17, the blog of competition organiser and adjudicator, Alan Summers.

The Yamaha Sunday Jazz Jam

2011-01-08T12:13:00.004Z

Had another lovely audio surprise yesterday - an email from my namesake, the jazz vocalist and trumpeter Sue Richardson, with whom I've recently been collaborating, writing lyrics for a few of the songs on her soon-to-be-released new CD, Fanfare.

Sue emailed to let me know that one of our songs, Walk on Gravel, was featured on Jazz FM last weekend, on Helen Mayhew's Yamaha Sunday Jazz Jam. The show is still available to listen to - but only until tomorrow lunchtime - and the playlist for the show can be found here.

More to follow about Fanfare - I'm much looking forward to the launch at Pizza Express Jazz Club in Soho in about a month's time...

With Great Pleasure

2010-12-28T16:06:00.004Z

Christmas Day was ticking along as usual - I was about to sit down for our family lunch, in fact - when one of my dearest friends rang and yelled excitedly into the answerphone about having just heard one of my poems on the radio.

To my huge delight and even huger disbelief, the actors James Bolam and Susan Jameson, guest presenters of the Christmas edition of Radio 4's With Great Pleasure, had apparently selected a poem from Creatures of the Intertidal Zone, to read aloud on the programme as one of their favourite pieces of writing.

Post-lunch, and still feeling deeply disbelieving (my friend must have got it wrong...must have been someone else's poem...), I managed to track the programme down. And did indeed hear Susan Jameson mention the fact that she'd discovered my work earlier this year, that she appreciated my interest in environmental issues and had opted to read my 'take on consumerism', the poem 'Tesco Extra'.

Other writers featured on the programme include Wendy Cope, James Thurber and U.A. Fanthorpe and you can listen to the whole show, available via bbc iplayer for the next few days, here. (Ignore the fact that this page asserts that James Naughtie is the guest presenter - this is a mistake! James Naughtie introduced an older show and the link will take you to the James Bolam/Susan Jameson programme from Xmas Day!)

Even now, three days on, I find it astounding not only that they should have come across my work (how and where, I wonder?) but also that they seemed to like it enough to share it. What a memorable Christmas!

International League of Conservation Writers

2010-12-22T12:00:00.007Z

I'm thrilled to have heard that I've been accepted into membership, as a Fellow, of the International League of Conservation Writers, as a result of my focus on environmental issues in my published poetry, performances and workshops.

As the ILCW website states, 'The International League of Conservation Writers is a forum to bring writers together from all over the world who are writing to promote wilderness, nature, conservation, and other means to protect and restore the natural areas, habitats, animals, and plants of our planet.'

The complete list of ILCW members can be found here. I feel so honoured (not to mention a bit disbelieving!) to be listed alongside some of my writer-heroes, including Gretel Ehrlich (author of This Cold Heaven) and Jay Griffiths (author of Wild).

I'm really looking forward to interacting with some of the other members and, of course, continuing to commit to writing environment-focused poetry, in the months ahead.

Haibun Today

2010-12-14T11:38:00.003Z

Another nice bit of publication news. The winter quarterly issue of Haibun Today contains one of my recent haibun from a small collection I'm working on about European Book Towns. I've visited seven so far over the past decade, from Hay-on-Wye here in Wales to Wigtown in Scotland to Fjaerland in Norway to Damme in Flanders.

It'll probably be another decade before I feel I've got enough material for even a small pamphlet, but at least this gives me the opportunity to become more practised at writing haibun - a form I've really grown to enjoy - over a lengthy period of time!

No Condition is Permanent

2010-12-09T12:17:00.006Z

Around this time last year, I blogged about my involvement with C Words, a Bristol-based exploration of carbon, climate, capital and culture, developed and implemented by the arts, social justice and ecology group PLATFORM and several other collaborating organisations.

One of my eco-poems, Prudhoe Bay (which appears in both the social/ecological justice anthology, Dance the Guns to Silence, and my collection, Creatures of the Intertidal Zone) was chosen to be featured at the C Words exhibition, chalked on a huge blackboard in the foyer of the Arnolfini Gallery.

PLATFORM have now just published a slim anthology called No Condition is Permanent, featuring the work of nineteen poets on the theme of climate justice and change, all of which was written/displayed/performed during the C Words season. I'm thrilled that Prudhoe Bay has again been selected to feature in this inspiring anthology.

Exposure

2010-12-04T10:08:00.004Z

Just a quick post, before I head off to run today's workshop, to announce the publication of Exposure (Cinnamon Press), an anthology of microfiction and prose poetry, edited by Cinnamon's founding editor, Jan Fortune-Wood, and Holly Howitt.

I'm very happy to have a piece included in the anthology, alongside writers such as Angela France, Gail Ashton (with whom I edited Cinnamon's narrative poetry anthology, In the Telling), Frank Dullaghan and Wendy Klein.

Here's some Exposure blurb from Cinnamon's website:

Exposure is an exciting anthology of prose poetry and microfiction selected by Holly Howitt and Jan Fortune-Wood from over 1,000 writers in Wales the UK and across the globe. Ranging across love, loss, hate, journeys and other oddities these finely written pieces constantly surprise, delight and challenge. With a powerful title piece from Bill Trüb this is an innovative anthology full of difference.

Hope you'll be inspired to buy a copy and delve in!

Blood, Sweat and Treason

2010-11-23T10:48:00.004Z

Almost one week on, I'm finally getting around to blogging about the highlight of last week - the Cardiff book launch of Blood, Sweat and Treason, the autobiography of defender of democracy in Zimbabwe and former international Test cricketer, Henry Olonga.

The event was organised and hosted by my partner, Russell Holden, founder and director of In the Zone, a Sport and Politics Consultancy. It took place in the delicious Waterloo Gardens Teahouse in Cardiff, where I was lucky enough to offer several poetry readings and exhibit the work from my collaboration with printmaker Pat Gregory earlier this year.

Last Wednesday's event justifiably attracted a big audience - a mix of cricket fans and those who were interested in Henry's political protest of 2003, when he and team mate Andy Flower wore a black armband at a World Cup Match to symbolise the death of democracy in Zimbabwe. It was fascinating to hear Henry both speaking candidly about his protest and the momentous impact it has had on his life and career, and reading extracts from his autobiography, recently longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award.

Friend and photographer Rhys Jones came along to the event and, as usual, took a range of photos that perfectly captured the atmosphere. Thanks to him for the pic that accompanies this post, showing Henry, me, Tara (Henry's lovely wife) and Russell, once the event was over and we could relax with yet another pot of wonderful Waterloo Tea!

Wild Writing in Suffolk

2010-11-17T10:03:00.002Z

Living in Wales, I'm used to rain and as a dog owner, I'm out walking in it most days. I don't actually mind it, as long as I'm booted and well-waterproofed. I was, however, wishing for a rain-free Wild Writing Workshop this past weekend when I travelled across to Suffolk, and hoping that the eastern side of the country would live up to its much drier reputation.

Unfortunately, it was not to be. It was fine when I did the recce for the walk - a beautiful route along the estuary of the River Orwell on the Shotley Peninsula - on Sunday morning, but then heavy rain set in about twenty minutes before the workshop was due to begin. All the participants were well-prepared, though, and gamely sloshed through mud and rain as I offered a series of writing prompts that they were to draw on in the indoor part of the workshop later. And in spite of the weather, I must admit that I really enjoyed it.

Post-workshop, I moved on to Arlingtons Brasserie in Ipswich to perform at an evening of Anglo-Welsh Poetry and music, alongside East Anglian-based poets Ian Griffiths and Rosalynde Price and harpist Ceinwen Thomas. It was a really well-attended event - the audience was appreciative, focused and eager to buy books at the end. It was especially nice to chat with a few young people who'd never been to a poetry event before and who confessed they only came along because of the pre-performance meal! Before the event began, they said they felt embarrassed being there, as poetry had a huge cringe factor for them, but they ended up hugely enthused and determined to go to more poetry gigs in the future.

Enormous thanks are due to Suffolk Poetry Society for inviting me to offer both the workshop and performance, and especially to Ian and his artist-partner Carol Lawrence, who shared their lovely home and were so hospitable throughout my stay.

Climate Change Poetry

2010-11-04T12:02:00.003Z

Have really enjoyed offering two poetry workshops on the theme of climate change this week - the first was at the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea, as part of the Dylan Thomas Festival, while yesterday's was in the borough of Neath Port Talbot, at Pontardawe Arts Centre.

The workshops were organised by poet, performer and scriptwriter Emily Hinshelwood of Awel Aman Tawe, a community energy charity which recently received funding to deliver a stimulating programme of arts activities on the climate change theme. Alongside the poetry workshops, a range of other events have taken place, including an animation workshop and an environmental film festival. A poetry competition (deadline 30th November), adjudicated by Gillian Clarke and Menna Elfyn, is also underway.

Both workshops contained a lovely mix of familiar faces - creative writing students from a range of projects and courses I've previously been involved in - and participants who were new to me. One of the familiar faces at the Swansea workshop belonged to Caroline Gill, whom I must thank (not for the first time on this blog!) for the above photo of me and Emily.

I've started to make plans to run more climate change poetry workshops in the months ahead - do get in touch if you might be interested in attending.

Arctic-ulate at Manchester Science Festival

2010-10-27T11:45:00.002+01:00

So, the Polar Poets (Siobhan Logan and I) headed north this past weekend to perform Arctic-ulate, our multi-media poetry show, at Manchester Science Festival.

We were lucky to be performing in the Historic Reading Room of the John Rylands Library - a magnificent cathedral-like space with stained glass windows at each end and superb acoustics. Though I'd had a frenetic week in the lead-up to the event, and the Cardiff to Manchester train journey wasn't exactly the most relaxing experience of my life, the gig itself ran super-smoothly.

We had lots of time in the space for our pre-show set-up and run-through (see photo!), and there was a helpful and efficient team on hand to assist with any technical issues. As for the audience - well, I'm still a tad dazed and amazed at the fact that the show was a sell-out. Everyone was so focused and attentive - they bought books, asked questions at the end...we really couldn't have asked for more.

Something Else and Saturday Live

2010-10-19T09:53:00.002+01:00

Have got a few broadcast-y things from the last couple of weeks to mention.

First off, at the beginning of the month, I did one of my regular review-the-Sunday-papers and chat-about-the events-of-the-week slots, as a guest on the live Radio Wales chat show, Something Else. This time, topics ranged from the Ryder Cup to the increasing popularity of beauty products for men to a new survey suggesting that mid-life crises now start at the age of 35... I love being a guest on this programme - it's a real treat to have the opportunity to sound off about irritating/frustrating/ludicrous news stories for an entire hour! I've been doing the show for about six years now, I think. This time, my fellow guests were adult education tutor Debra Perry and food critic and restaurateur Simon Wright.

Then more recently - this past Saturday, in fact - I had one of my resident poet slots on BBC Radio 4's Saturday Live. The studio guest was singer-songwriter Edwyn Collins, formerly with seventies/eighties band Orange Juice, who suffered a life-threatening stroke in 2005 but who has fought back to make a remarkable, not to say inspirational, recovery. My longer end-of-show poem was therefore about overcoming adversity, while my topical short poem at the start of the show focused on the feel-good news story of the week - the rescue of the Chilean miners after sixty-nine days underground.

If you're interested, you can listen to the whole show, including my poems, here. And you can check out the gallery of photos of studio guests and regular resident poets from all the programmes from the past couple of years too.

National Poetry Day Photo

2010-10-15T11:45:00.007+01:00

It feels a bit like old news to be blogging about National Poetry Day more than one week on, but anyway...here's a pic from the event at which I performed at Cake Gallery in Mumbles last Thursday evening.

On the right is Susie Wild, who read some new poems on the 'home' theme, as well as an extract from her just-published collection of short stories, The Art of Contraception. Sarah Rees, of the fabulous Cover to Cover independent bookshop, who organised the event, is in the middle.

Many thanks to fellow poet and blogger Caroline Gill, one of several Swansea friends who came along to the event, for use of the photo.

National Poetry Day Event - 7th October

2010-10-04T10:02:00.007+01:00

A shameful amount of time has passed since I last posted here - several months of travelling and walking in the Western Isles and West Wales, writing, workshopping, Saturday Live-ing and editing. In some ways, it's hard to believe that we've already shifted into autumn (where did the last few months go?), though with National Poetry Day looming, there can't really be any doubt that October has arrived.

This year, I'm performing at Cake Gallery on Dunns Lane in Mumbles, alongside poet, journalist and short story writer Susie Wild, at an event organised by Sarah, of the wonderful Cover to Cover Bookshop. I lived in Mumbles for a couple of years at the tail end of the nineties, when I had a residency at Swansea University, and I'm always glad of any excuse to return. I'm looking forward to meeting up with some old friends and former students; the event starts at 7pm on Thursday 7th October - do come along!

Long Poem Magazine Launch

2010-07-31T11:42:00.005+01:00

At last - a brief post about the launch of Issue 4 of Long Poem Magazine at Keats House in Hampstead on July 22nd. I'm very pleased to have a new sequence of poems in the magazine and was equally chuffed to be asked to read it at the launch event. Other readers included Giles Goodland, winner of this year's Cardiff International Poetry Competition and Graham Mort, who shared his forty-minute-long tour de force of a poem, 'Electricity'.

I hadn't been to Keats House for about fifteen years and it's undergone extensive restoration work since then, so I much enjoyed having a look around both house and garden before the event got underway. What a great launch venue! And what a treat to hear so many long poems and sequences in their entirety.

Surprise!

2010-07-29T15:52:00.006+01:00

Received an unexpected email from a travel website called Tripbase this week:

We have created a range of top Welsh sites... that we think are fantastic resources for those who have an interest in the country, and perhaps would like to discover more... As an interesting and useful site, we have commended your blog to our visitors and you can see it listed at the following link:

http://www.tripbase.com/c/wales/

I've been given a little Highly Commended badge (see left - scroll down a bit) and am feeling Highly Surprised to have received it, as I've been rather a lax and lapsed blogger of late. I've got such a big backlog of things to write about - hope to try to catch up soon...

Two Months On...

2010-07-13T12:38:00.015+01:00

More than two months have zoomed by since I added a post here - it's been a monstrously busy period and I've had little time to do anything other than focus on the next looming deadline. Since there's no way I'm going to be able to do a proper, thorough catch-up and blog about all the events of the past weeks in detail, I'll just list a few highlights here instead and include some links for you to browse further if you're interested.

So, here are some of the things I've been doing:

delivered a workshop on the Poetry of Uncivilisation, and also an ecopoetry performance, at the Dark Mountain Festival in Llangollen

wrote two new poems for my regular poet-in-residence slot on Radio 4's Saturday Live. You can listen to the programme, first broadcast on June 5th, here.

performed, as guest poet, at Write Angle Poetry Cabaret in Petersfield, Hampshire

did one of my regular review-the-papers-and-discuss-the-week's-news sessions on the Radio Wales chat show, Something Else

devised, with fellow Polar Poet Siobhan Logan, our new show, Arctic-ulate, and performed it at Wrexham Science Festival. You can read Siobhan's account of the event here and we'll soon be adding details of our forthcoming Polar Poets gigs too.

went to Upton Jazz Festival to listen to The Other Sue Richardson, jazz trumpeter and vocalist, perform some of the songs we've co-written. Sue's new CD, which includes these songs, will be released in the autumn. We're now busy plotting to take our collaboration further so watch this space...

did lots of work on, and finally finished, my next poetry manuscript, Where the Air is Rarefied, which, as regular readers of this blog will know, is a collaboration with printmaker Pat Gregory. Our book will be out with Cinnamon Press in 2011.

Much to reflect on and savour - and much to look forward to, too!

Don't Breathe A Word

2010-05-04T17:57:00.011+01:00

I have quite a few events and activities to blog about from the past few weeks, not least the performance of my play, Don't Breathe A Word, at three South Wales venues - Chapter in Cardiff, the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea and the Riverfront in Newport. The production was part of Michael Kelligan's On the Edge series - this season he's featuring plays by Welsh women writers including Gwenno Dafydd, Lucy Gough and Gillian Clarke.

I wrote Don't Breathe A Word almost two decades ago when I was living and studying in Toronto. It was subsequently performed by Something Permanent Theatre Company at various venues and festivals including the Edinburgh Fringe, and British Council funding also enabled us to tour University venues in Helsinki, Turku and Tampere in Finland. The poster, below, is from one of those early productions.

At first I felt quite ambivalent about having it performed again so many years on. Would it feel dated? Would it sound naive and overwritten? Would I be able to sit through a whole performance without leaping to my feet and yelling 'Stop! Edit! Too wordy! Too sentimental!'

Well, I'm pleased to report that in spite of my pre-production anxieties, I feel very happy to have revisited it. It was imaginatively directed by Bethan Morgan and performed with great energy and sensitivity by Polly Kilpatrick and Rebecca Knowles - they brought out both the humour and poignancy in exactly the way I intended. I've since received some lovely feedback and would very much like to be involved in more theatre projects again in the future.

Some Thoughts Before Cornwall

2010-04-05T11:55:00.006+01:00

Still feeling a bit underpowered post-virus, so taking a break from packing (will be away for a few days in Cornwall from tomorrow) to catch up on blog stuff.

Starting to realise that my enforced period of rest has been useful in lots of ways. My head's decluttered and some poems that I was really struggling to shift pre-virus are cantering along nicely now. The beginnings of an idea for a brand new project have also eased their way through to the front of my brain - much more reflection's needed but I'm feeling tentatively excited about it!

Pleased, too, to have a poem in the latest issue of The Seventh Quarry, edited by Peter Thabit-Jones. And über-pleased to have a workshop and reading confirmed for a festival in May, about which I'll write a longer post later.

Okay. That's it for now. Back to the rucksack...

Wrexham Science Festival

2010-03-26T14:33:00.009Z

Been fighting a brutal virus for the past ten days or so, which has severely limited all my usual activities, poetic and otherwise. Lots of postponed/cancelled workshops and, most frustrating of all, couldn't make it to London for my Radio 4 Saturday Live slot last weekend either.

I do have one cheery thing to report though - the Polar Poets have their first booking! Siobhan Logan and I will be performing our new show, Arctic-ulate, at the Wrexham Science Festival in July.

The Festival is designed to make science exciting and accessible to all ages and, according to the organisers, the aim is that it will 'be the highlight of the early summer calendar...and encourage us all to investigate, enjoy, learn and re-think our ideas about science and technology.'

Our Polar Poet event will address the Festival's 'Earth and the Universe' theme and I'll post plenty more info about it in the months ahead as we develop and rehearse the show. In the meantime, though, here's a sneak preview of our Festival publicity:

Arctic-ulate is a multi-media show that interweaves poetry, storytelling, performance, monologue, music and Powerpoint images. It evokes the unique appeal of the Arctic, one of the planet’s last great wildernesses, and explores the science and heritage of this landscape, from ice-melt and the aurora borealis to indigenous peoples and European explorers.

Devised and performed by the Polar Poets, Siobhan Logan and Susan Richardson, it also highlights the fragility of the Arctic at a time of climate change and increasing industrialisation. We aim to entertain, to cast word spells, but also to encourage people to reflect on some of the most pressing environmental issues of our time.

London and Nuuk

2010-03-12T11:25:00.004Z

I was recently contacted by poet and printmaker Nancy Campbell, who is currently writer-in-residence at Upernavik Museum in Arctic Greenland. As well as exploring ways in which her own work can evolve in responding to the Arctic landscape, Nancy's also compiling an online resource, on her London and Nuuk blog, about other artists and writers whose work is inspired by the Polar Regions.

For an Arctic-obsessive like myself, this is a thrilling venture and I'm really happy to have been featured as the latest interviewee.

Thaw by Fiona Robyn

2010-03-03T12:39:00.006Z

Novelist and poet Fiona Robyn has decided to publish her new novel, Thaw, on the internet for free over the next few months. On 1st March, bloggers the world over took part in Fiona's 'blogsplash', announcing Thaw's publication and including the first instalment of Ruth's diary, which makes up the novel, on their blogs.

Though I'm a little late in joining in, Ruth's first diary entry appears below, and you can continue reading Thaw here.

These hands are ninety-three years old. They belong to Charlotte Marie Bradley Miller. She was so frail that her grand-daughter had to carry her onto the set to take this photo. It’s a close-up. Her emaciated arms emerge from the top corners of the photo and the background is black, maybe velvet, as if we’re being protected from seeing the strings. One wrist rests on the other, and her fingers hang loose, close together, a pair of folded wings. And you can see her insides.

The bones of her knuckles bulge out of the skin, which sags like plastic that has melted in the sun and is dripping off her, wrinkling and folding. Her veins look as though they’re stuck to the outside of her hands. They’re a colour that’s difficult to describe: blue, but also silver, green; her blood runs through them, close to the surface. The book says she died shortly after they took this picture. Did she even get to see it? Maybe it was the last beautiful thing she left in the world.

I’m trying to decide whether or not I want to carry on living. I’m giving myself three months of this journal to decide. You might think that sounds melodramatic, but I don’t think I’m alone in wondering whether it’s all worth it. I’ve seen the look in people’s eyes. Stiff suits travelling to work, morning after morning, on the cramped and humid tube. Tarted-up girls and gangs of boys reeking of aftershave, reeling on the pavements on a Friday night, trying to mop up the dreariness of their week with one desperate, fake-happy night. I’ve heard the weary grief in my dad’s voice.

So where do I start with all this? What do you want to know about me? I’m Ruth White, thirty-two years old, going on a hundred. I live alone with no boyfriend and no cat in a tiny flat in central London. In fact, I had a non-relationship with a man at work, Dan, for seven years. I’m sitting in my bedroom-cum-living room right now, looking up every so often at the thin rain slanting across a flat grey sky. I work in a city hospital lab as a microbiologist. My dad is an accountant and lives with his sensible second wife Julie, in a sensible second home. Mother finished dying when I was fourteen, three years after her first diagnosis. What else? What else is there?

Charlotte Marie Bradley Miller. I looked at her hands for twelve minutes. It was odd describing what I was seeing in words. Usually the picture just sits inside my head and I swish it around like tasting wine. I have huge books all over my flat; books you have to take in both hands to lift. I’ve had the photo habit for years. Mother bought me my first book, black and white landscapes by Ansel Adams. When she got really ill, I used to take it to bed with me and look at it for hours, concentrating on the huge trees, the still water, the never-ending skies. I suppose it helped me think about something other than what was happening. I learned to focus on one photo at a time rather than flicking from scene to scene in search of something to hold me. If I concentrate, then everything stands still. Although I use them to escape the world, I also think they bring me closer to it. I’ve still got that book. When I take it out, I handle the pages as though they might flake into dust.

Mother used to write a journal. When I was small, I sat by her bed in the early mornings on a hard chair and looked at her face as her pen spat out sentences in short bursts. I imagined what she might have been writing about; princesses dressed in star-patterned silk, talking horses, adventures with pirates. More likely she was writing about what she was going to cook for dinner and how irritating Dad’s snoring was.

I’ve always wanted to write my own journal, and this is my chance. Maybe my last chance. The idea is that every night for three months, I’ll take one of these heavy sheets of pure white paper, rough under my fingertips, and fill it up on both sides. If my suicide note is nearly a hundred pages long, then no-one can accuse me of not thinking it through. No-one can say; ‘It makes no sense; she was a polite, cheerful girl, had everything to live for’, before adding that I did keep myself to myself. It’ll all be here. I’m using a silver fountain pen with purple ink. A bit flamboyant for me, I know. I need these idiosyncratic rituals; they hold things in place. Like the way I make tea, squeezing the tea-bag three times, the exact amount of milk, seven stirs. My writing is small and neat; I’m striping the paper. I’m near the bottom of the page now. Only ninety-one more days to go before I’m allowed to make my decision. That’s it for today. It’s begun.

Continue reading here...

Snow and Sweet Potato Cake

2010-02-25T11:03:00.010Z

This past weekend was about as close to ideal as it's possible to get! On Saturday, I headed east into the Malverns to seek out some snow as it may be the last chance I get in a long while to walk in my favourite kind of wintry landscape. Had an exhilarating walk along the ridge, along with my partner and our hyper-excited young Labrador who relishes the snow as much as me - although I draw the line at rolling in it and eating it!

Then on Sunday, it was my afternoon-tea-with-poetry event at Waterloo Gardens Tearoom where printmaker Pat Gregory and I have been exhibiting our art/poetry collaboration, Up There Where the Air is Rarefied throughout the month of February. To my delight, the event was a sell-out and audience members munched on sandwiches, scones and cake (including my favourite - sweet potato and mixed berries) while I performed some of the poems and Pat spoke about our collaborative process and the theme of the exhibition.

Performance photos are never very flattering - I always seem to be caught mid-gurn! - but I like the fact that in this one, you can see the extensive range of teas that the Tearoom offers on the shelves behind me (current favourite = peppermint-rooibos).

Only a few days remain now until we take the exhibition down at the end of the month - the time seems to have whizzed by - but I'm happy to report that we have another gallery lined up, elsewhere in Wales, for the exhibition and accompanying performances/talks later in the year. I'll reveal more in a few months' time...

Half-Term and Something Else

2010-02-19T12:19:00.007Z

My writing students have had a break this week because the venue where I hold the classes shuts for half-term. This has meant more writing time for me - and I've finally-finally-finally made a breakthrough with the sequence of poems (on the cheery theme of extinction) that I've been working on since October. I've been struggling with one poem in particular and though I'm still far from satisfied with what I've written, there's definitely been some progress over the past few days.

Otherwise, there's been the usual admin to keep on top of, applications to work on, festivals to contact for Polar Poets bookings, plus one of my regular slots on Something Else, the BBC Radio Wales Sunday lunchtime show, chatting about the news of the week and stories from the papers.

This coming Sunday is my afternoon tea and poetry event at Waterloo Gardens Teahouse, accompanying the art/poetry exhibition, Up There Where the Air is Rarefied, that I've been involved in with printmaker Pat Gregory and which is on show at the Teahouse until the end of the month. All tables have now been booked - people will be tucking into sandwiches, scones and cakes from 3.30pm, I'll be performing at 4 and Pat will be talking about our collaborative process too. I'm really looking forward to it - cake and poetry is such a great combination!

Better Late....

2010-02-09T11:07:00.007Z

Shockingly, it's taken me nearly a week to get around to writing about the opening of Up There Where the Air is Rarefied, my collaboration with visual artist Pat Gregory, at Waterloo Gardens Teahouse.

It was a lovely evening - the venue was brimful of people, both friends and strangers alike; food was consumed; tea and wine were drunk; Pat and I gave a brief talk about our collaboration and I also performed a selection of the exhibited poems.

The exhibition is on at the Teahouse throughout the month of February. On Sunday 21st, Pat and I will be performing there again at a special 'afternoon tea with poetry' event. Bookings are now being taken - if you're interested in coming along, please do contact the venue to reserve a table as places are limited. Afternoon tea will be served from 3.30 pm onwards and the poetry extravaganza is scheduled to begin at 4!

In the meantime, here are a couple of photos - not very good ones, as I was a bit too preoccupied with everyone else to focus on taking many pics - but I hope they at least give a flavour of the how the just-hung work looked in the venue before everyone started to arrive and of how jolly the gathering was!

Private View - Up There Where the Air is Rarefied

2010-02-03T10:26:00.005Z

You're warmly invited to the private view of Up There Where the Air is Rarefied, the art/poetry collaboration that I've been involved in with printmaker Pat Gregory over the past few years. Back in 2008, a selection of our work was shown at Oriel Canfas in Cardiff - this time we're on show on the other side of the city, in the delicious Waterloo Gardens Teahouse.

When: Wednesday 3rd February, 6.30-8.30 pm - that's tonight!

Where: Waterloo Gardens Teahouse, Penylan, Cardiff CF23 5AA

There'll be wine and cheese, and tea and cakes! You'll have the chance to view the work in the exhibition, hear some of my poems and listen to both Pat and I chat about our collaborative process.

If you can't make the private view, the exhibition is on at the Teahouse throughout February. There will also be an event featuring afternoon tea and poetry at the venue on Sunday 21st February at 4 pm - bookings are being taken by the Teahouse for this event.

Saturday (and Sunday) Live

2010-02-01T14:20:00.002Z

Am just starting to unwind after a very busy, yet thoroughly exciting, weekend.

On Friday/Saturday, I was in London for another Radio 4 Saturday Live poetry gig. The studio guest was Laurence Shorter, author of The Optimist, so in response to this, my longer end-of-show poem took a light-hearted look at optimism, pessimism and the rather banal, chipper phrases that regularly get churned out to cheer people up. You can listen again to this poem and my top-of-the-show topical piece about our apparent emergence from the recession, along with the rest of the show here.

Back in Cardiff on Sunday, I fulfilled a lifelong ambition by taking part in a dance show - the annual Lord Mayor's Matinée, to be precise - at St. David's Hall. I've been learning to tap dance (albeit only a one-hour-per-week evening class) for the past eighteen months and I, and my fellow students, were required to perform a routine to 'Yankee Doodle Dandy', wearing silky cowboy shirts and glittery stars-and-stripes cowboy hats (hmm...)

I was significantly more nervous doing this than I ever have been when doing a poetry gig - the auditorium is vast, the event was a sell-out and the choreographer of the number was rash enough to position me front centre stage so I had no-one in front of me to copy, should I forget my steps. I managed to shuffle and ball-change my way through it, though, and actually really enjoyed the whole experience. Definitely want to do it again next year!

Poetry on Tap

2010-01-21T10:22:00.010Z

Much enjoyed my guest poet slot at Poetry on Tap on Sunday afternoon at The Promised Land in Cardiff. Poetry on Tap is a new monthly poetry event, co-curated by Ivy Alvarez and Mab Jones, and after just three months, it's already built up a diverse and enthusiastic following.

Poet, fiction writer and journalist Susie Wild was Sunday's other featured reader, the open mic section attracted a mix of talented first-timers and more experienced performers and I sold a very pleasing number of books to boot!

The next Poetry on Tap is on Sunday 14th February at 2pm. Check out the website for info about this, and all future, PonT events.

Polar Poets: the Week-Long Launch

2010-01-19T11:31:00.004Z

I feel a tad sad that we've come to the end of our Polar Poets launch week. But satisfied too. Every day last week, my fellow Polar Poet, Siobhan Logan, posted a range of arctic snippets and activities on our blog, including a caption competition, a Polar Poets quiz, some sample poems from our respective collections and a couple of interviews. Do head on over and take a look.

We're very pleased with the response - plenty of visitors, comments and links from other people's blogs and e-newsletters - and are now looking forward to developing a schedule of Polar Poets performances at venues up and down the country in the months ahead!

Polar Poets Go Live!

2010-01-11T11:19:00.006Z

Some info about my latest poetry and performance venture, getting underway today!

Siobhan Logan and Susan Richardson are the POLAR POETS, two writers who use poetry, storytelling and multi-media performance to evoke the unique appeal of one of the planet's last great wildernesses.

Join us as we launch the Polar Poets' arctic expedition on-line. That's right - this launch is happening entirely in the blogosphere. No need to pull on boots and brave the ice. Every day this week, there'll be something new to sample. We've got interviews, quizzes and piccies - there will even be PRIZES! - drop in and take a look.

Our ice-breaker ship for this venture is:
http://polarpoets.blogspot.com/

Day One: Monday 11th January - now Live! Don't miss the Caption Competition!

Enjoy!

Excess Baggage

2010-01-09T17:16:00.004Z

I feel so lucky to have been asked to take part in the Radio 4 travel programme, Excess Baggage, this morning, to talk about a subject that's very close to my heart - the joys of wintry landscapes and the ways in which they impact on my writing. Margaret Elphinstone, a writer whom I much admire and who shares my love of Arctic and sub-Arctic locations, was also interviewed by presenter John McCarthy.

If you're interested in listening, you can access the programme here.

December Ends....

2009-12-31T10:17:00.002Z

December, and the Old Year, ends and I'm finally getting round to posting something here. It's been a pleasingly, though at times a bit overwhelmingly, busy month from a poetry point-of-view - a slew of pre-Christmas performances, another Radio 4 Saturday Live slot (you can listen to the programme from 19th December here if you're interested in checking out the two poems I came up with) and quite a few deadlines to meet (the last of which is at 4 pm today!)

Also had my usual twice-weekly workshops to run, plenty of one-to-one tuition and mentoring, plus a scriptwriting session at Pontardawe Script Café for Peacock Vein Writing Group. This group contains quite a few students with whom I previously worked when teaching creative writing at Swansea University in the early years of this decade - it was so great to meet up with them again.

Another highlight of the month was visiting the Earth: Art of a Changing World exhibition at the Royal Academy, in which thirty leading contemporary artists from around the world present new and recent work in response to climate change. I'm still processing and thinking about all I saw and have several poems brewing in response to some of the work.

I'm heading down to West Wales for a few days over the New Year period for lots of walking and reading (Magnetic North by Sara Wheeler is top of my reading list) and will hopefully find some time to mull over all that went on in 2009 and all that I hope 2010 may contain.

Happy New Year - and thanks to everyone who's stopped by to read and/or post a comment here over the past twelve months.

C Words - Carbon, Climate, Capital, Culture

2009-12-01T10:06:00.007Z

On Saturday, I went to the Arnolfini in Bristol for C Words, an investigation into carbon, climate, capital and culture, developed and implemented by the arts, social justice and ecology group PLATFORM and several other collaborating organisations. Over the past seven weeks, the Arnolfini has hosted a series of installations, workshops, actions, discussions and exhibitions leading up to the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen which opens on December 5th.

I first came across PLATFORM several years ago, at another event at the Arnolfini, when I performed some poems at a Remember Saro-Wiwa evening. One of these poems, Prudhoe Bay, had been published in Dance the Guns to Silence, an anthology focusing on social and ecological justice to mark the tenth anniversary of Ken Saro-Wiwa's execution.

I was thrilled that this same poem, Prudhoe Bay, was chosen to be featured at the C Words exhibition over the past seven weeks - it was one of several poems to be chalked onto a huge blackboard in the foyer of the Arnolfini Gallery. I wish I'd had time to make lots of visits to Bristol so that I could have participated in the C Words season more fully, but at least I got a flavour of the inspiring environmental art and activism that's been going on.

Polar Poetry

2009-11-24T18:00:00.009Z

On Friday last week, writer and performer Siobhan Logan, author of the wonderful Arctic-inspired poetry collection, Firebridge to Skyshore, came to visit me in Cardiff. We first met at the Polyverse Poetry Festival at the University of Loughborough back in July and shared out mutual obsession with all things Arctic whenever there was a brief gap in the programme.

Since then, we've exchanged a few emails about the possibility of collaborating on a polar poetry project, so it was wonderful to meet again in person last week and start to give shape to some of our ideas. Over lunch (very appropriately, in the Norwegian Church Arts Centre, one of my favourite Cardiff landmarks), we talked about putting together a polar-themed performance, discussed possible sources of funding and also came up with a list of organisations from which we'll aim to seek bookings.

There's lots more planning to do in the weeks ahead of course - we have to put a proposal together and, crucially, come up with a zingy name for the project (like finding an apt title for a poem, this is going to be so hard to get 'right'). I really hope all our planning will pay off and I'll be able to write another polar poetry blog post in a few months' time with news of bookings for the spring!

Suffolk Poetry

2009-11-18T11:10:00.005Z

Last Friday, I was lucky enough to be guest poet at one of Suffolk Poetry Society's poetry cafes, at Browsers Bookshop in Woodbridge. Getting there took seven hours on the train from Cardiff, via London and Ipswich, but the long and contorted journey was unquestionably worth it!

The audience was warm, attentive and very knowledgeable on matters poetic. Almost all of them read a poem in the first part of the evening and I enjoyed the mix of their own work and poems by a range of published writers, including Ruth Padel, that they wanted to share with the rest of the group. Lots of questions and lively discussion followed my reading, lots of copies of Creatures were sold and lots of carrot cake was consumed - the evening couldn't have been better!

I was struck, too, by how vibrant the Suffolk poetry scene seems to be - on the day after my visit, there was to be both a Kenneth Steven workshop and a Celtic poetry evening, for example. Fred Ellis, my hospitable and dynamic host, was brimming with ideas for new projects the whole time that I was there and I'm already looking forward to returning to the area and being involved in other Suffolk poetry events in the future.

Saturday Live and Writing Lyrics

2009-11-11T11:55:00.004Z

I was up in London again at the weekend for another poet-in-residence slot on Radio 4's Saturday Live. This time, the studio guest was shoe entrepreneur Harvey Jacobson so my end-of-show poem was shoe-themed! For my top-of-the-show poem in response to one of the week's news stories, I came up with a piece that blended the Kelly Report on MPs' expenses and Bonfire Night. If you missed the programme and are interested in hearing it, you can listen again here.

Later in the day, I met up with my namesake, the very talented jazz vocalist and trumpeter Sue Richardson, to chat about our ongoing collaboration. Neither of us has had much time to devote to the project of late, but Sue is planning to record her new CD next spring and also has a tour lined up, during which she'll preview all the new material - so songs now need to be written!

I really enjoy writing lyrics and will, I hope, be drawing inspiration from some of my favourite lyricists (Cole Porter, Ira Gershwin, Stephen Sondheim, Dave Frishberg...) as Sue and I move forward with our collaboration in the months ahead.

A Wilder Vein is Published!

2009-11-03T17:47:00.008Z

Yesterday was the official publication date of A Wilder Vein (Two Ravens Press), an anthology that I'm absolutely thrilled to be part of.

Edited by Linda Cracknell and with a foreword by Robert Macfarlane, it's 'an anthology of new literary non-fiction that focuses on the relationship between people and the wild places of Britain and Ireland. This is writing which animates a connection between humanity and the natural world, articulating discoveries and new ways of seeing – writing which is, above all, a meditation on who we are as people in a still-wild world.'

‘A Wilder Vein is a significant contribution to the contemporary literature of place. The work gathered here is testy about piety, but not reticent about beauty. Repeatedly, these writers return to the idea that cognition is site-specific, or motion-sensitive: that we think differently in different landscapes. And therefore, more radically, that certain thoughts might be possible only in certain places, such that when we lose those places, we are losing kinds of imagination as well.’ - Robert Macfarlane (author of The Wild Places, Mountains of the Mind)

Contents:

Foreword by Robert Macfarlane
Introduction by Linda Cracknell
Ardnamurchan Almanac by Gerry Loose
The Slob Lands by Neil Hegarty
Black Rabbits by Marco Daane
Crossing the Divide by Kenneth Taylor
Explorations in a Legendary Landscape by Michelle Cotter
Wild Life on Braighlinne by Mandy Haggith
The Light and the Line by Jane Alexander
Sewing a Seam on the Spirit Line by Lisa Samson
The Hill by Alison Grant
Echoing Lands by Raja Shehadeh
The Road North by Judith Thurley
Whale Song by Lesley Harrison
Strata by Sara Maitland
Beached Wales by Susan Richardson
Humber by Katharine Macrae
Routes by Ken Wilkie
Walking the Edges by Margaret Elphinstone
A Dub in Assynt by Andrew Greig

Back in my childhood and early teens when I first started to dream about becoming a published writer, this was exactly the sort of anthology that I craved to be featured in, so I really am feeling quite excited today!

If you like the sound of the book too, do visit the Two Ravens Press website and check it out.

Oxjam Cardiff

2009-10-27T17:39:00.007Z

Friend, photographer and fellow blogger, Rhys Jones, has been kind enough to send me through some photos from my recent Oxjam Cardiff ecopoetry gig. In most of the photos, I'm looking pink-cheeked and overheated (the venue, Y Fuwch Goch, a city centre bar, was very crowded and it was an unseasonally warm October Sunday) but in this black-and-white image, excessive pinkness thankfully doesn't show!

Oxjam was a great event to be involved in - though it was mostly a showcase for musicians throughout the country, organisers in some cities made space for poetry too. And since climate change was Oxjam's fundraising focus this year, I felt very passionate about participating.

Fiona Robyn's Blogsplash

2009-10-20T19:54:00.005+01:00

Novelist and poet Fiona Robyn (whom I interviewed here about six months ago) is going to blog her next novel, Thaw, starting on the 1^st of March next year. The novel follows 32 year old Ruth’s diary over three months as she decides whether or not to carry on living.

To help spread the word she’s organising a Blogsplash, where blogs will publish the first page of Ruth’s diary simultaneously (and a link to the blog).

She's aiming to get 1000 blogs involved - if you'd be interested in joining in, email her at fiona@fionarobyn.com or find out more information here.

Desert Island Writings

2009-10-13T17:54:00.010+01:00

Friday evening's poetry reading at Circles Bookshop in Bristol was hugely enjoyable. The venue was very much my kind of place - cosy, intimate, brimming with second-hand books and with a little café-bar area. I did about forty minutes of performance, then after the interval, the event organiser, Trevor Carter, otherwise known as the Bard of Windmill Hill, interviewed me about my inspirations, aspirations and motivations.

As a starting-point for the interview, I'd been asked to bring along five pieces of writing that have inspired me in some way - it was, of course, extraordinarily difficult to choose just five. After much mulling and pondering, re-reading and list-making, though, here's what I plumped for:

1) Terra Incognita by Sara Wheeler - the book that first got me interested in ice and snow and polar exploration

2) Three Women by Sylvia Plath - the poem that triggered my desire to write Two of Me Now, my poetic drama about Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf, way back at the beginning of the nineties.

3) Earth Shattering: Eco Poems - edited by Neil Astley. When Trevor forced me to get more specific and pick just one poem from this anthology, I went for Frogs by Kathleen Jamie.

4) The Woman of the Sea from a collection of Inuit Folk Tales, edited by Lawrence Millman. This is a story that's informed quite a lot of my most recent poetry, not to mention the collaboration I've been involved in with printmaker Pat Gregory.

5) (this is a bit of a quirky one) - Ah, But Underneath - lyrics by Stephen Sondheim from his musical, Follies. I've always been a huge Sondheim fan and when I'm writing performance pieces (for Radio 4's Saturday Live, for example), I'm aware that his use of assonance, alliteration, double and triple rhymes, is something I really aspire to.

So, that's my list. Ask me again in a week, though, and I'd probably come up with a completely different selection - there were so many favourites I had to leave out...

Between the Lines

2009-10-08T11:26:00.003+01:00

Should anyone happen to be in Bristol tomorrow evening, and feeling in need of a bit of poetry plus some poetry-inspired chat, I'm going to be the guest at Between the Lines at Circles Bookshop in Bedminster.

Between the Lines is a poetry reading with a difference, as once I've done my performance stuff in the first half of the evening, there'll be an interview section, hosted by poet and event organiser Trevor Carter. I've been asked to select five 'Desert Island' poems or other pieces of writing (how to whittle so many favourites down to just five?) and chat about my inspirations and motivations.

Circles Bookshop is at 65 North St, Bedminster BS3 1ES and the event's due to start at 8.15 pm. It would be lovely to see you there!

Poems on Pen y Fan

2009-09-29T18:31:00.006+01:00

I'm going to be doing a few ecopoetry gigs for Oxjam in October and a couple of Sundays ago, I joined the Oxjam Brecon team for a mountain-busk-with-poetry on top of Pen y Fan in the Brecon Beacons as a fundraiser for the main event.

I fulfilled a long-standing ambition by performing poems on top of a mountain and hugely enjoyed the hike to the summit too - some of my all-time favourite walks have been Beacons-based. Thanks to Katie Hall for co-ordinating the event and for the above photo too.

To London for Saturday Live

2009-09-28T18:13:00.003+01:00

This time, instead of doing my Radio 4 Saturday Live session from BBC Wales in Cardiff, I was up at Broadcasting House in London again. As always, two new topical poems had to be written to a tight deadline - my short top-of-the-show poem was triggered by China's recognition, at last week's UN Climate Change Conference, of the need to curb its greenhouse gas emissions, while my end-of-show longer poem focused on garden makeovers, inspired by this week's main studio guest, Alan Titchmarsh.

It was quite a coincidence that he should have been this week's guest, as I worked with him briefly earlier this year when I was asked to contribute some poetry to BBC2's coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show back in May. (You can read about my Chelsea experience here).

As ever, I really enjoyed the Saturday Live poetry challenge and, as an added bonus, I made it to the Barbican Art Gallery in the afternoon to see Radical Nature - Art and Architecture for a Changing Planet, 1969-2009. This exhibition of artists' responses to climate change and environmental degradation is on for another couple of weeks and I heartily recommend it.

Oh, and if you want to listen to my Saturday Live efforts, there's a link to the show on BBC iplayer here.

Creative Writing Workshops

2009-09-23T18:16:00.004+01:00

Next week, my creative writing workshops for the term get underway. For the past umpteen years, I've been offering these courses through Cardiff University's Centre for Lifelong Learning. However, a couple of months back, the University took the astonishing decision to axe all its humanities courses for adults - you can read all about the campaign to save the courses here.

I've since decided to continue running my ten-week courses on a private basis at Llanover Hall Arts Centre. The Thursday class (1-3pm) is brimming, and there are just a few places left on Tuesdays (3-5pm).

So, if you're interested in coming along, or if you have questions about the workshops, please get in touch as soon as possible!

New Journal on an Islands Theme

2009-09-18T17:37:00.005+01:00

I'm a bit late posting news of this new journal, seeing as it was launched a couple of weeks ago (I seem to have a big backlog of Things to Blog About at the moment). It's a journal in which I'm thrilled to be included, not only because the islands theme is a bit of an obsession of mine, but also because I admire so many of the other island-dwelling poets whose work is featured, not to mention the inspired editor, Nesrin Eruysal.

Here's the full blurb:

The Autumn (and first) issue of the Turkish Söyleşi Üç Aylık Şiir Dergisi is now available to download in pdf format or read online as a virtual magazine:

http://soylesipoetrymagazine.com/

This issue centres on the theme of Islands, its contributors hailing from the water-locked places of the world, translated into both Turkish and English.

Edited by: Dr. Nesrin Eruysal

Editorial by: Dr. Pete Hay

Poetry by: Pete Hay, Ihsan Topçu, Kadir Aydemir, Adnan Adam Onart, Dimitris Lentzis, Dimitris P. Kraniotis, Fatma Akilhoca, Stephanos Stephanides, Immanuel Mifsud, Maria Grech Ganado, Aine Mac Aodha, Drax Ireland, Ray Givans, Sheenagh Pugh, Susan Richardson, Norman Bissell, Christine de Luca, Donald S. Murray, Maoilius Caimbeul, Oddfríður Marni Rasmussen, Hrafn Andres Hardarson, Adalsteinn Ásberg Sigurdsson, Ingunn Snædal, Gerður Kristny & Kenneth Rosen

For more information on this and forthcoming issues email: nesrineruysal@gmail.com

West Wales Wildlife

2009-09-14T20:09:00.008+01:00

Haven't blogged here for a while - mainly due to my having spent some time in West Wales. Walked several sections of both the Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion Coast Paths and also explored the Preseli Hills, where the sheep in the above photo obligingly posed for me near the rocky outcrop of Carn Menyn, believed to be the source of some of the bluestones at Stonehenge.

The wildlife highlight of the week came on a boat trip to Ramsey Island - saw lots of Atlantic Grey seal pups on the stony beaches and five choughs putting on a spectacular diving and swooping display high above the cliffs. Hopefully, in time, this'll inspire another island poem for the sequence I've been intermittently working on over the past year...

Borders, Newbury

2009-09-03T17:41:00.004+01:00

Feeling dozy but happy today after getting back to Cardiff from Newbury in the early hours of this morning and sleeping only a few hours. I was performing at Borders Bookstore last night, as guest poet at the monthly literary evening that's held there.

Thanks to the energy and vision of the store's manager, John O'Connor, a stimulating programme of events takes place at the store as well as at local schools and in the wider community. Last night's audience (a mix of avid readers and practising writers) was really engaged - I experienced my longest ever post-performance question-and-answer session (it only came to an end because the store needed to close at around 10.30pm!) and enjoyed some lovely one-to-one chats with members of the audience too.

Big thanks to John O'Connor for organising the event, and to writer extraordinaire Liz Martinez for getting me invited!

Ludlow Green Festival

2009-09-01T20:00:00.003+01:00

Travelled up to Ludlow on Sunday for my ecopoetry gig at the Ludlow Green Festival. Performed a range of poems from Creatures of the Intertidal Zone, as well as some new stuff, and was lucky to have a very focused and attentive audience.

After an animated question-and-answer session and the book signing bit at the end, I explored the rest of the Festival, most notably all the stalls in Castle Square exhibiting and demonstrating green products and services. There was a lovely atmosphere - people of all ages, children, dogs and live music. It was good to have the opportunity to be part of it.

Kreativ Blogger Award

2009-08-28T17:13:00.006+01:00

I was both thrilled and stunned to receive the Kreativ Blogger Award from Hazardgal at Muse Mountain recently.

Having received the award, here's what I must do:

1. List 7 things that I love
2. Link back to the blog that awarded it to me
3. Choose 7 blogs to award as ‘Kreativ Bloggers’
4. Comment at each blog to let them know they’ve been chosen

So, first of all, here's my List of Seven Likes:

1. the colour yellow
2. dogs, especially my buoyant young chocolate lab
3. walks in wild places
4. winter weather
5. all kinds of stationery - hard-backed notebooks, pens, pencils etc
6. watching cricket
7. learning to tap dance

(Hard to limit it to seven...)

And now for the seven blogs/bloggers (in no particular order) to whom I want to pass the award on:

Caroline at Coastcard
Sue Guiney - Me and Others
Peony Moon
From the Field Book
Red Raven Circling
Asynchronous Process
It All Started with a Ghost

Reading Lasses

2009-08-25T20:06:00.004+01:00

Good books and good food - the perfect combination! On my recent trip to Dumfries and Galloway, I spent a lot of time at Reading Lasses bookshop/café in Wigtown, Scotland's National Book Town. It's the only second-hand bookshop specialising in women's studies and literature in the whole of the UK. Our cottage was about fifteen miles away on the coast so whenever we travelled into the hills to do some walking and exploring, we always conveniently needed to go through Wigtown first! As well as browsing for hours and buying rather too many books, I couldn't resist sampling both a Jane Austen cappuccino and a Virginia Woolf latte!

More Dumfries and Galloway tales to follow later in the week. It really was a wonderful trip.

Dumfries and Galloway

2009-08-13T12:09:00.009+01:00

Partly inspired by Sara Maitland's A Book of Silence, I'm heading up to Dumfries and Galloway for a week from tomorrow.

I'm looking forward to exploring Wigtown (it'll be the sixth Book Town I've visited!), doing lots of coastal and hill walking and also seeing some of the land art by Andy Goldsworthy and Alec Finlay that's in the area.

As always seems to be the case before I leave for a trip, I'm spending today trying to tie up every loose end in my life - must finish off every last item of work, respond to every email, make umpteen phonecalls, finish two poems, select all the books I want to read while I'm away (most important, this!), do laundry and then think about getting packed. Have to squeeze in a couple more dog walks too - Hooper's in super-lively mode and is definitely picking up on the pre-holiday excitement!

I'll be internet-free while I'm away - back here in just over a week's time!

The Seventh Quarry

2009-08-12T14:53:00.007+01:00

Very happy to have a poem included in Issue 10 of The Seventh Quarry, edited by Peter Thabit Jones.

On my initial quick flick through the journal, I was delighted to see that fellow poet and blogger Caroline Gill has a poem in there too. I'm looking forward to a more thorough, leisurely read later...

Saturday Live and Something Else

2009-08-08T11:17:00.004+01:00

Two radio gigs this week - the first being Something Else, the look-through-the-papers-and-discuss-the-week's-news show for Radio Wales on Sunday. I love the unpredictability of this programme - the fact that it's live, that you never know how successful the mix of guests (there are always three of us) will be, and also that you might end up having to hold forth on a subject about which you actually know very little! Veteran political journalist Patrick Hannan guides us through the show really well though.

Then this morning I enjoyed another resident poet slot on Radio 4's Saturday Live. As was the case back in May, I performed my two new topical poems down the line from the BBC studio in Cardiff. It was a shame not to have been in London as the programme's guest was wildlife filmmaker and natural history guru Simon King, whom I would have loved to meet!

This time, my short top-of-the-show poem was about the speculation surrounding the Ashes, Flintoff's injured knee and the England cricket team's dismal performance on the first day of the Headingley Test yesterday. For my final, longer poem towards the end of the show, I came up with a Simon King/Springwatch piece. If you're interested, you can listen again to the programme on the Saturday Live website.

Cinnamon's Sizzling Summer Sale

2009-08-02T09:14:00.003+01:00

My publisher, Cinnamon Press, has just announced a great summer offer on books, both novels and poetry. Here's the relevant blurb:

'Small presses are having a hard time at the moment, but Cinnamon Press is managing to stay afloat in a tough climate and to produce 25 great books a year. Like all small presses we need readers and Cinnamon Press currently has a fantastic summer sale. Two novels for £10; two poetry books for £8; free anthology with any 4 books.'

Hurry on over to Cinnamon's website and buy!

Polyverse Reflections

2009-07-28T17:39:00.004+01:00

Very much enjoyed my time at the Polyverse Poetry Festival at the University of Loughborough on Saturday. I was glad to be scheduled to read with Angela France whose excellent collection, Occupation, has recently been published, and whom I met for the first time when I was guest poet at Buzzwords in Cheltenham last year. It was great to hear a full set from Sally Clark too, another Buzzwords poet, and a huge pleasure to catch up with Gail Ashton, with whom I edited In the Telling, after so many months of phone and email communication!

Another highlight was meeting Sue Guiney, whom I've got to know via blogging and Facebook over the past year, for the first time. Her wonderful play-in-poetry, Dreams of May, was performed late on Saturday afternoon and it got a justifiably enthusiastic response from the audience. So many of the play's images, both verbal and visual, have stayed with me since I left the Festival.

Last but by no means least, was the opportunity to chat with poet Siobhan Logan, a fellow Arctic enthusiast and traveller. I'm really looking forward to reading her collection, Firebridge to Skyshore: A Northern Lights Journey, in the days ahead.

Regrets? That Carol Thistlethwaite wasn't able to make it. And that I wasn't able to be at the Festival on Sunday too - had to get home to Wales by the end of Saturday to relieve the dog-sitter!

Polyverse Poetry Festival

2009-07-23T11:54:00.004+01:00

I'm really looking forward to performing poems from Creatures of the Intertidal Zone at the Polyverse Poetry Festival at the University of Loughborough on Saturday at 1 pm. The Festival runs from Friday to Sunday and it looks like it's going to be a great weekend. Carol Ann Duffy is headlining on Saturday evening and there's a fantastic range of other performances, readings, workshops and roundtables to choose from.

Some of the poets involved include Angela France, Carol Thistlethwaite, Gail Ashton, Julie Boden and Chris Kinsey. Cinnamon Press is running a workshop on small press publishing on Sunday and there'll also be a rare opportunity to see a performance of Sue Guiney's critically-acclaimed play, Dreams of May.

Full details of the programme can be found on the festival's Facebook page. Hope to see you there!

Home Again

2009-07-20T17:58:00.004+01:00

I'm back from my five days' retreat on the north coast of Norfolk. I picked this area because I'd never been there before and really knew very little about it other than it was likely to be peaceful and would hopefully offer good coastal walks, wildlife-spotting opportunities and big skies!

And wasn't it wonderful! I walked for miles every day, visited Cley Marshes Nature Reserve (the highlight was seeing spoonbills and marsh harriers), saw common and grey seals on Blakeney Point, read two novels and two collections of poetry and managed to squeeze in some writing time too.

Have come home feeling refreshed and revitalised and brimming with new poem ideas - it was wonderful to have the time and space in which to think and allow those ideas to swim to the surface. Just wish I could have stayed there for longer...

On Retreat

2009-07-11T16:57:00.003+01:00

I'm taking myself away for five days of walking, reading and writing in a quiet coastal location. No workshop facilitating, no marking, no one-to-one tutoring, no performing, no internet, no emails, no Facebook, no blog. I thought about going with a predetermined writing plan as I have quite a few projects-in-progress that need to worked on, but finally decided to go with no agenda and just see what emerges.

My backpack is brimming with some delicious books that I've been saving up for this trip, some rather less delicious waterproof walking gear and lots of good old-fashioned notebooks and pens.

I'll let you know how it goes (and catch up on other things that I've been meaning to blog about, including last weekend's visit to the Ledbury Poetry Festival) when I'm back.

Ouroboros Review - Issue 3

2009-07-07T10:23:00.004+01:00

The third issue of the beautifully produced Ouroboros Review is now online and I'm very happy to have three poems included in it. Other poets who feature in this edition include John Siddique, Michelle McGrane, Denise Duhamel and my fellow Cinnamon Press poet Louisa Adjoa Parker.

A Wilder Vein

2009-06-30T10:12:00.006+01:00

I'm really thrilled to hear that I've had some work accepted for what promises to be a delicious new anthology of literary non-fiction, A Wilder Vein, edited by Linda Cracknell and due to be published by Two Ravens Press in November this year. Some of my favourite writers (Margaret Elphinstone and Sara Maitland) are also included in the anthology and another favourite, Robert Macfarlane, is writing the Foreword.

Here's the pre-publication info about the anthology from the Two Ravens Press website:

An anthology of new literary non-fiction that focuses on the relationship between people and the wild places of the British Isles: writing which animates a connection between humanity and the natural world where it is not obviously dominated by the human presence. Writing that articulates a discovery; a new way of seeing; an emotional response; a meditation on a place or who we are as people in a wild world. The anthology is edited by Linda Cracknell (collections of short fiction: Life Drawing, The Searching Glance). Robert Macfarlane (author of Mountains of the Mind and The Wild Places) has provided a Foreword.

Contributors include Raja Shehadeh, Sara Maitland, Andrew Greig, Margaret Elphinstone, Gerry Loose, Mandy Haggith, Neil Hegarty, Lisa Samson, Alison Grant, Lesley Harrison, Marco Daane, Katharine Macrae, Michelle Cotter, Jane Alexander, Judith Thurley and Susan Richardson.

ISBN 978-1-906120-43-6; £10.99 Publication date November 2 2009

Ashes Poetry Prizes

2009-06-26T10:09:00.003+01:00

I'm off to the Old Library in Cardiff soon for the prize-giving ceremony of the children's Ashes Poetry Competition, for which I was recently one of the judges. The competition was run by Glamorgan Cricket in conjunction with Academi and as a lover of both poetry and cricket, I feel very lucky to have been involved.

As part of the event, I've also been commissioned to write a new performance poem about the First Ashes Test Match between England and Australia, which gets underway in Cardiff on July 8th, so I'll be performing that at some stage today too. Dannie Abse, the head judge of the competition, will also be reading several of his cricket-themed poems.

IKEA Ecopoetry Pics

2009-06-23T10:06:00.004+01:00

Here are a couple of photos from my World Environment Day ecopoetry gig at IKEA in Cardiff, courtesy of the co-organiser of the aMuse with IKEA project, Laura Evans.

The first shows some of the shoppers who chose to stop to listen, while in the second, Emily and I are looking extremely relieved that we didn't end up performing to rows of empty sofas!

Wicked Words and Witty Women

2009-06-21T10:15:00.004+01:00

Though it's rather short notice, here's some info about a workshop and performance I'm offering later today at a Wicked Words and Witty Women event at Milgi's Lounge in Cardiff. The first of these events took place back in March for International Women's Day on a minimal budget - today's, though, is co-hosted by the Women's Arts Association and Leaf Books and funded by Academi!

My performance poetry workshop is at 5pm, while a storytelling session and a drop-in creative writing workshop are also being offered (the latter by Ivy Alvarez).

In the evening, I'm doing a poetry performance in Milgi's yurt at 9pm. There'll also be storytelling by Mary-Anne Roberts O'Reilly and an open mic. Hope to see you there!

Respond!

2009-06-17T12:55:00.008+01:00

I'm delighted that my recent ecopoetry gig at IKEA in Cardiff on World Environment Day appears on the RSA Arts and Ecology website as part of Respond!, a project that's been developed to highlight and celebrate a month of nationwide events, performances, exhibitions and talks that demonstrate the arts’ engagement with environmental issues.

You can see my listing here. And do take time to browse all the other wonderful cultural eco-events that are taking place throughout the month of June. I wish I could attend every one of them!

Leamington Peace Festival

2009-06-15T10:21:00.006+01:00

Enjoyed a lovely sunny day at the Leamington Peace Festival on Saturday. Had a half-hour ecopoetry slot on one of the stages, the bandstand, in the early afternoon and performed a selection of my environmental-themed poems from Creatures of the Intertidal Zone.

It was quite a challenging space in which to perform as the bandstand was fronted by a wide walkway through which crowds of people were continually moving, while beyond the walkway was a grassy area where festival-goers were sitting, picnicking and, hopefully, listening! Given the choice, I like to perform in an intimate space where it's possible to make eye contact with members of the audience and really connect with them - but having said that, I hugely enjoyed the experience, got some very positive feedback and sold some books to boot!

Spent the rest of the afternoon exploring more of the festival - listening to some of the bands and browsing the information stalls. It was such a well-organised, well-supported, friendly event that I wish I could have gone back for more on Sunday!

In the Telling is Published!

2009-06-12T10:08:00.007+01:00

Very excited to have received my complimentary copies of In the Telling, the just-published anthology of narrative poetry that I co-edited with Gail Ashton for Cinnamon Press, through the post today!

It's been a two-year project from our initial proposal to this moment of holding the published book in my hand. In response to our call for submissions, we received over four thousand poems from all parts of the UK, USA, Canada, India, Bangladesh, Italy, France... There were comic poems, tales of personal and global disaster, poems of love between all kinds of different beings from Glaswegian teenagers to green peas! Image after image was spun, woven, unbuckled, unwrapped...

Not surprisingly, the selection process was long and challenging. My least favourite part was sending out all the rejection emails - mainly because we had to say 'no' to so many strong pieces of writing but also because I really don't enjoy being on the receiving end of rejection emails myself! It's all been worth it, though - Gail and I are feeling very chuffed with how the book reads and looks. After so many hours spent poring over so many poems, then doing all the ordering and layout, I can hardly believe it's actually published!

If you'd like to order a copy (£7.99 UK delivery; £8.99 elsewhere) please visit the Cinnamon Press anthologies page and scroll down until you get to In the Telling.

Ecopoetry Galore!

2009-06-09T09:45:00.007+01:00

Friday's ecopoetry gig in 'the living room' at IKEA went very well! I'd expected it to be really difficult to persuade passing shoppers to listen - imagined lots of empty sofas and people zipping by with trolleys while I valiantly, and not a little desperately, ploughed on through my poems. But quite a few shoppers did actually stop, plonk themselves down on a sofa and tune in! Some even bought copies of Creatures of the Intertidal Zone to take away with them!

This weekend I've got another ecopoetry gig coming up - at the Leamington Peace Festival in Leamington Spa. Most of the other performers are bands/musicians, I think, so it would be great if you can come along and support a poetry event! I'm on between 1.55 and 2.30pm on Saturday 13th on the bandstand.

Ecopoetry at IKEA!

2009-06-04T07:49:00.007+01:00

To celebrate World Environment Day tomorrow, I've been invited to do an ecopoetry performance, along with fellow poet Emily Hinshelwood, at IKEA in Cardiff! It's at 2 pm and we'll be in the Living Room Department so people will hopefully be persuaded to have a break from shopping and sprawl on the sofas while they listen!

Tomorrow's performance is part of the aMuse with IKEA project, developed by Oxford Muse. As the co-ordinators of the project indicate, the aim is 'to transcend the frontier between the consumer society and culture. We wish to enable shoppers to discover new interests and new kinds of people whom they would not normally meet. The IKEA store thus becomes a new kind of community centre.'

I love the idea of poetry popping up in unexpected places - it'll be interesting to see what the reaction is. I'll be performing poems from Creatures of the Intertidal Zone and possibly some brand-new ecopoems too, so if you happen to be in the area, do come along!

Saturday Live from Cardiff

2009-06-02T12:26:00.004+01:00

Did another Radio 4 Saturday Live slot this past weekend. This time, I performed my poems 'down the line' from a BBC Wales studio here in Cardiff instead of travelling up to London - all the poets are apparently going to be using their local studios from now on so that the Beeb can save some money. It felt very different performing on my own in a tiny cupboard of a studio - yes, it was still live radio, but the frisson of excitement that comes from being live in the studio with presenter Fi Glover and whoever the guest of the week happens to be was missing. Still very much enjoyed it though!

My choice of theme for the short top-of-the-show poem inspired by one of the major news stories of the week was obvious - the Ruth Padel/Derek Walcott Oxford Poetry Professor shenanigans. The second, longer poem in response to one of the topics covered in the show proved to be trickier. Fi conducted a lengthy interview with Lynndie England who was one of several military personnel convicted in connection with the torture and abuse of inmates at Abu Ghraib prison back in 2005 - not exactly suitable subject-matter for a witty performance poem. My only other option was to write a poem loosely inspired by a piece about bookmakers at a greyhound racetrack. Hmmmm.....

If you want to hear what I finally came up with, you can listen again for one week only by clicking on the link on the Saturday Live website.

Housmans Radical Bookshop

2009-05-28T11:29:00.008+01:00

Was up in London again on Saturday to do an ecopoetry reading - a selection of poems from Creatures of the Intertidal Zone - at Housmans Radical Bookshop, just round the corner from King's Cross. What a wonderful venue and what a fantastic programme of talks, readings and music they offer - often two events a week!

Here's some blurb on the shop from the website:

Housmans Bookshop continues to see its role as it has since its foundation. Whilst acknowledging its roots in the peace movement - and, specifically, in the radical pacifist end of the movement - it aims to be a broad-based, non-sectarian shop, encouraging the dissemination of a wide range of progressive and alternative ideas. As the shop's founders recognised, opposing injustice and oppression and the degradation of our planet are prerequisites of a more peaceful society.

And here's some info on what they stock:

Wide coverage of politics, political theory, peace studies, and world current affairs.
Material about - and in support of - campaigns for peace, the environment, human rights, sexual freedom, equitable and sustainable development, and a great deal more.
General fiction and non-fiction.
Many hard-to-find radical publications - and we can obtain most books to order within a few days.

As well as really enjoying the reading, I went to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich beforehand, specifically to see the North-West Passage exhibition that had just opened. As an Arctic obsessive, I was in my element viewing old maps and expedition artefacts like tins of now-mouldy pemmican, ships' biscuits and letters from Lady Jane Franklin to her missing husband....

I'm sure that, in time, my visit will spark some new poems for Up There Where the Air is Rarefied, the North-inspired collaboration I'm still involved in with visual artist, Pat Gregory. Hope to return to the exhibition before it closes in January too.

Chelsea Flower Show Poetry (2)

2009-05-25T11:16:00.008+01:00

I'm finally catching up with everything which means I can at last write a few lines about my one-day poetry residency with BBC 2 at the Chelsea Flower Show last week.

I really enjoyed the whole experience in spite of it being quite high-pressured and compressed! I arrived at the Show mid-morning, whizzed around the gardens (there was already a bit of a poetry theme going on, with the QVC Garden, pictured above, containing engraved quotes from Keats and Tennyson), grabbed some lunch from the BBC catering van and then got to work on writing my minute-long performance piece in response to what I'd seen. I was then escorted to one of the show gardens to perform it to camera in front of a large and enthusiastic crowd (they'd seen all the tecchie people in BBC jackets and were probably hoping Alan Titchmarsh was due to arrive for some filming rather than me!)

Later, I went up on the terrace from which the 8 pm evening show is broadcast to speak with Alan T. and the other presenter, Joe Swift, and to perform the second, shorter poem that I'd been asked to write. Strangely enough, I felt quite relaxed at this point (or maybe I was just exhausted!). Since I'm more used to doing gigs in front of a live audience, the fact that there were just cameras watching made it much less edgy for me; it felt more like I was there for a friendly chat!

You can watch the result for one week only on the BBC's Listen Again facility (I'm on about two-thirds of the way through and then again right at the end). I feel so lucky to have had this experience and it's certainly whetted my appetite to do more TV work, should I ever have the chance.

Poetry at the Chelsea Flower Show

2009-05-14T09:43:00.005+01:00

I have some exciting news!

I've been asked to be poet-in-residence for BBC2's coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show next Tuesday (19th May). Have to visit the show during the morning, write a performance poem in response to what I see, then perform it in one of the show gardens on BBC2's evening programme at 8pm! At the end of the show I'll apparently be joining the two presenters, Alan Titchmarsh and Joe Swift, for a chat and another short poem.

It's going to be challenging, that's for sure. But I really want to try and savour the experience and enjoy.

Home from the Troubadour

2009-05-12T11:00:00.005+01:00

Had a great time performing poems from Creatures of the Intertidal Zone at the Troubadour in London's Earl's Court last night along with seven other Cinnamon Press poets. As was to be expected, there was such a rich variety of voices to enjoy - it was good to meet and put faces to so many familiar names and book covers too! Loved swapping icy Antarctican poems with Judy Kendall during the break and was especially moved by New Orleans poet/playwright Jan Villarubia, who read some very poignant post-Hurricane Katrina postcard poems from her debut collection Return to Bayou Lacombe.

I was unfortunately unable to stay to hear all of Frank Dullaghan's set - had to dash away before the end of the evening so as to catch my late-night train back to Cardiff. Got home by quarter to two so am feeling a mite weary today. There's so much writing/teaching/admin/organising to be done though - the next few weeks look to be the busiest of the year so far. I've got three more trips to London coming up, the first of which, next Tuesday, is for a gig that promises to be both extremely exciting and extremely scary, though in a good, must-rise-to-the-challenge sort of way...

Coffee-House Poetry at the Troubadour

2009-05-07T10:03:00.009+01:00

I'm looking forward to performing at the Troubadour on Monday, along with seven other Cinnamon Press poets. Here's all the information about the evening from the organiser of the Coffee-House Poetry reading series, Anne-Marie-Fyfe:

mon 11 may: 8-10 pm at the troubadour (263-267 Old Brompton Road, London SW5):

cinnamon press poets with wendy klein, dana littlepage smith, frank dullaghan, catherine m brennan, susan richardson, gail ashton, judy kendall & jan villarubia—introduced by jan fortune-wood

___

Editor of independent North-Wales-based Cinnamon Press, Jan Fortune-Wood, introduces Cinnamon poets:

v former psychotherapist Wendy Klein (first collection Cuba in the Blood);

v Dana Littlepage Smith (Black Elk Dances for Queen Victoria) who lives and teaches in Devon;

v banker Frank Dullaghan from Dundalk (On the Back of the Wind) who's lived in Essex and Dubai;

v Dubliner, Catherine M Brennan (Beneath the Deluge), now on the UEA Creative-Writing MA;

v Susan Richardson (Creatures of the Intertidal Zone), BBC R4's Saturday Live resident poet;

v Gail Ashton (Ghost Songs)—her biography of Geoffrey Chaucer is due out soon;

v editor of Edward Thomas's poems/letters Judy Kendall (The Drier the Brighter);

v and New Orleanian Jan Villarubia who lost her home to Hurricane Katrina—Return to Bayou Lacombe is her debut collection.

Thirty Poems in Thirty Days

2009-05-02T12:03:00.006+01:00

Well, National (though I guess it should be 'International' considering that poets from across the globe, and not just the States, have been participating) Poetry Writing Month is over for another year. I managed to meet the poem-a-day challenge and am chuffed to have a pile of rough first drafts here in front of me on my desk where, a month ago, there were none! Most need a huge amount of editing and reworking of course; some felt forced at the time of writing and I'm not even sure if it's worth returning to them...

But there were a few days around the 20th of the month when I felt completely focused and 'in the zone'. The poems just seemed to stream out - six in two days, I think. Wish I knew why - it would be great to be able to recreate the conditions which might make that kind of writing possible on a more regular basis. It wasn't as if I had extra time or space in which to write - bizarrely, the gush of poems came when I was at my most frenetically busy.

Best not to analyse and try to make sense of it perhaps - best just to be glad that it happened!