Guest Poet: Brokenborough Poets
Brokenborough Poets are a small but dedicated group of poets who have been meeting regularly at the Horse Guards, a country pub just outside Malmesbury for more than 10 years. Fieldwork is their first anthology and represents not only the individual voices of the poets but also the diversity of the group as a whole.
Come and hear the work of insightful Liz Carew, and a wealth of moments with Atherton Gray. Add into the mix the comprehension and craft of David Lukens, the natural lyricism of Matthew Oates, inner and outer explorations by John Richardson and some surprising scales and arpeggios by M M Season and you are in for a literary treat.
The Brokenborough Poets are all published writers, have had their work selected for well-known magazines and anthologies, and won prestigious poetry competitions. A feast of poetry not to be missed!
Cover design/artwork by Stevie Gilmore. http://www.originalart-paintings.co.uk
Guest Poet: Liz Carew
Liz Carew was born near John O'Groats and her family comes from Orkney. She moved steadily southwards and settled in Cirencester. She studied French at University and has worked in tourism and as an ESOL teacher, to give herself a multicultural fix.
She is inspired by landscape and history and has been published in Poetry Scotland, The French Literary Review and Graffiti.
Guest Poet: Atherton Gray
Atherton Gray has recently retired having been a consultant haematologist at Great Western Hospital since 1991. Doing the rounds he was very aware that each person has a story to tell, which often manifests itself in poems. He has found both reading and trying to write poetry very enjoyable and stimulating. He writes as part of the process of fully realising experiences so the wealth of the moment is not lost. He has done well in local poetry competitions.
Guest Poet: David Lukens
David Lukens has a degree in philosophy and has worked in teaching, business and information management. Lives in Wootton Bassett and apart from writing poetry, plays tennis and makes sourdough bread. He has been published in Acumen, Under The Radar, and Butcher's Dog. His Poem A Circular Life was chosen as one to be published by Alison Brackenbury in the Poetry Space 2014 Competition, and he has often done well in Swindon's international poetry competition.
Guest Poet: Matthew Oates
Matthew Oates - is a naturalist, author and broadcaster who is dedicated to developing a poetic approach to nature. He works for the National Trust as specialist ecologist, and writes for The Times Nature Notebook column. Many of his poems explore experiences in the natural world and the concept of 'Spirit of Place', as does his latest book In Pursuit of Butterflies. (Bloomsbury, 2015).
Guest Poet: John Richardson
John Richardson is a founder member of Swindon's BlueGate Poets, (now Poetry Swindon). Over the last ten years he has: given many poetry workshops, been a tutor to apprentice poets, was MC of Marlborough Literature Festival's poetry cafe for its first three years and MC'd Bath's poetry cafe last year. He is a poetry publisher of several pamphlets and of the free e-zine the IMPpress. He has been a runner up several times in Swindon's international Battered Moons poetry contest and was a guest reader at the Cheltenham Poetry.
Guest Poet: MM Season
MM Season began writing poetry as a way of tightening up her prose. Generally she writes strange fiction from novel, flash fiction to Twitter length. Her work has appeared in the UK, overseas and in online publications. For two years she was editor of a quarterly charity magazine. Her background is linguistics and she has lived in Japan and France and various English counties. Now she writes poems to articulate long-mulled observations and to capture sudden ones.
27th October 2016, The Swan Hotel, Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire BA15 1LN
Good to share a room with such a creative and supportive crowd at Thursday's Words & Ears, when our guest performers were five of the Brokenborough Poets featured in the new and excellent Fieldwork anthology, plus their fellow Brokenborough-ite, Phil Kirby, who did the introductions and read some of his own work.
The anthology voices - some new to me - each delivered a powerful snapshot of their own style. As the title suggests, there was much of the natural world here from Matthew Oates, John Richardson, Atherton Gray, Liz Carew and David Lukens, plus readings of work by absent members Sue Chadd and Mand Christie.
From an 'alarm of woodpeckers' to the 'day closing curtains', there was much to satisfy here, and the anthology bears re-reading to discover wonderful things such as this, from Daddy Longlegs by Atherton Gray:
Half-hair, half-spirit,
they hatch from
the worn-out earth
delicate as ideas.
Do get hold of a copy if you can.
The anthology was sponsored by Malmesbury Carnival, and your entry fees on the door meant that Words & Ears was able to donate £50 to the Carnival - always good to give something back, so thank you for that.