Category: Poetry
-
The promise of Jocelyn Simms
If you’re in the book trade, you receive a lot of books for review, but there are certain names that, like those first signs of approaching summer, bring a sparkle of anticipation. I was looking forward to The Promise of Thaw by Jocelyn Simms, and the promise was fulfilled. The back-jacket reviewers are Elaine Briggs,…
-
What’s Nigel doing these days?
In the front of our first ever poetry anthology, Routemasters and Mushrooms, I wrote, “the works speak for themselves. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do. We intend this collection to be the first of many.” That was 2006. The winning poem, which opens the book, is by Nigel Humphreys. The writers…
-
Three poems find sanctuary
You too can be Battersea Poetry Home. It’s amazing the treasures you can rescue from potential oblivion, and give sanctuary to in your own head. When you pick up a poetry book and find something you love, ideas, images and phrases take root. You have enriched yourself, as well as rescuing a book that might…
-
The Astonishing Worlds of Mandy Pannett
How many years ago did I jump on a train to Arundel to have lunch with Mandy Pannett, and talk about organising a poetry collection competition? It happened before the Corbyn movement swept me away for several years of single-minded battle; it happened before the most urgent women’s campaign of my lifetime, and before COVID,…
-
Women writing poetry – scary?
Ask a poet for a bit of text to for the back jacket, to encourage readers to open her book, and you get this…. Wormwood, earth and honey Selected poems by Catherine Edmunds teasel scratches, bramble catches deep inside my den of mischief mud pies splatter, cracked plates clatter if you dare to enter here…
-
20th Century Art in Hastings
This article, adapted from a piece in a former Hastings anthology, Visions of Hastings, explains how the Hastings Modern Art Beach Book came to be… text © 2010 K Green, pictures © 2010 K Reekie They threatened to build an art gallery on The Stade in Hastings and, despite a furious tide of resistance, they…