It’s been a non-stop week of poetry, poetry and well, more poetry!

I received the pdfs this week for my poem No Au Revoir (from my poetry collection Into the Yell) which is featured in Britmag 53.

Then I headed over to Kidderminster’s atmospheric Boar’s Head Gallery with friends for The Vaginellas’ live gig as part of Worcestershire Literary Festival 2012. It was a cracking night – full of fun, laughter and lots of formal poetry, with a filthy/fun/feminist twist.

There are some snippets from reviews of the evening and a poetry video with snippets of poetry from the live gig over on The Vaginellas’ blog now.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, I took part in The Worcestershire Literary Festival’s exciting Worcester Walking Choral Poem project led by poet David Calcutt and working with fellow poets, writer Lindsay Stanberry-Flynn, Worcestershire 2012 poet laureate Maggie Doyle and former Birmingham poet laureate Julie Boden.

This 12-hour collaborative workshop from inspiration to finish (performance!) saw us gather in the morning to explore Worcester Cathedral, its library and the river. Then in the afternoon we worked together to craft our individual poetry snippets into one choral poem and practise it, ready to perform it live for the first time at that evening’s Worcestershire Literary Festival Festival Special Parole Parlate.

It was a great day, both fun, inspirational and productive. I love collaborative projects and it was a joy to get the chance to work with these four poets on such a special project. The evening performance was also a real high!

The audio from this live performance has been set to photos to create a short poetry film on youtube, which you can also see below:

Yesterday morning I was back at my exhibition An Eyeful of Words to lead an art-inspired haiku/poetry workshop. This was great fun and saw the addition of even more petals and leaves to the collaborative poetry-art display.

In the small spaces in between all this excitement, I’ve been busy working on my Hanbury Hall poems and researching/checking out some final historic details. This Thursday, I will be working with a group of people with learning disabilities to help create a collaborative Hanbury Hall poem – all ready to go up on display in the hall’s orangery on Saturday, June 30

The poetry-art exhibition will remain at the orangery until late on Wednesday afternoon. Then it will be moved to Droitwich Baptist Church hall until Saturday, July 7.

Meanwhile, I shall be putting my lungs to good use on Saturday, June 30 when I join poets Ben Parker and Bobby Parker at Worcester Oxfam Bookshop for a reading from Lung Jazz: Young British Poets for Oxfam. The evening, which will also see us reading poems other collections, including Into the Yell, starts at 7pm. Tickets are £5 (for Oxfam) and include a free drink.

And now, while I’ve a few poetry-free minutes, I have a bed to make and children’s party to organise. Sometimes it’s all go!
Hope everyone’s having a fun-packed weekend too!