Nightingales

Lorraine working from home this morning, which was nice to have tea together. We noticed the mushrooms were gone as mysteriously and quickly as they came.

Thinking about my friend Tim Gallagher and trying to make an old poem about him work, had the image, which I rejected, of him disappearing into a wood like Keats's nightingale. A short walk at lunchtime, then slept heavily for an hour this afternoon. Luckily just before I went out this evening I did an hour's work I was pleased with. Then, before Lorraine got in, I walked to The Nightingale Room above the Grand Central pub opposite the station, which was tonight hosting a poetry reading.

I will be reading there at the end of next month, although having done a blog post about this, it turns out the day has been changed and now it is October 25th. Anyway it seemed churlish not to turn up for some poetry, before I go on there. I knew a couple of people Michaela Ridgway and John McCullough with whom I had a brief chat about Japan, as he was just back from his holiday there. I sat down, and a friendly woman came and sat next to me and asked me if I was going to read, and I said no. She then tried to sell me a place on her learn to perform your poetry course for £65, a kind offer I declined. She read later in the open slot.

One of the guest readers, was an enthusiastic black-lipsticked woman called Bethany Pope, who had given me a bit of a bowser of a review for The Nightwork. I liked her poetry although it was all dialled up to 11. Another American woman, Christina read exclusively from a book about her the death of her drug addicted father. This short on laughs, but obviously heartfelt. The final guest was Robert Hamburger, whose poetry I liked too. The refurbished Nightingale Room is spiffy, however, and I am pleased I went.

Home in a cab to Lorraine, who was already in bed.

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