Out and about

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

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

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

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

Up for the Prize

Sometimes, although this can be rare, planned outings have a way of working out perfectly and this is what happened with yesterday evening's trip to the TS Eliot reading. Perhaps it is the effect of the South Bank weaving a kind of magic as it did last September when I was there for the reading about Edward Thomas. He managed to tiptoe into last night's event too, with a mention in Carol Ann Duffy's poem about the counties of England.

So the T.S. Eliot prize. Who should win? Well all of them of course although my personal favourites are David Harsent and Esther Morgan. Ian McMillan was the perfect choice as MC, giving the audience permission to gasp, to murmur, to laugh and reminding us we were a tribe - all 1,700 of us in the auditorium. Apparently those on stage could not see us in the dark and they may have been dazzled by the lights hence the importance of the laughs, gasps and murmurs. On the whole the male poets seemed to deal with the nerves better, except perhaps John Burnside who had to perform a magic trick of his own to make a bottle of water appear under the lectern not once but twice and from which he took hasty gulps. During the evening I found myself preferring the men's poems but realising at the same time I was being unduly influenced by the lower register of the male voice and the confident delivery which made their poems appear to have more layers to peel off. I warmed to Carol Ann Duffy again, whose poetry I loved before she became poet laureate and therefore a member of the establishment or so I mistakenly decided. I was wrong - she is as honest and spiky as ever.

There were a surprising number of angels in the poems - most obviously in Esther Morgan's poems. Also dead parents and the evening ended with Carol Ann remembering her mother - a poignant moment. That is one of the purposes of poetry to give continued life to those who have gone on before us. Discuss?