under another sun

A few chores this morning, and chats with Betty before boofing up to the smoke this afternoon to do a poetry reading in The Poetry Cafe with Robin, Sarah Barnsley, Tammy Yoseloff and Sue Rose. Arrived in good time with Tammy and Sue already there, went downstairs and started organising the microphone and chairs. Not long after I returned upstairs, when Kev Holmes, a friend from Warwick University who I had not seen in the flesh since then, simply turned up larger than life from the mists of time. Not seen him in the flesh for over 30 years, so it was quite a surprise.  He'd not changed much in has manner or indeed his face. The readings were interesting. We also had a reader from the US, Laura Donnelly who I'd invited at the last moment. Sarah read really well, and with some emotion. Robin read brilliantly, and Sue and Tammy, who had struggled out of her sickbed to be there were both excellent. I read first and kicked off with two poems entirely from memory, which went down w...

An day when things came to me, though I was simply sitting in my office with the cats barging in and out of the room. An offer of some freelance work with my pals in Tavistock Square, which I happily agreed to for the next couple of weeks, what with the Kenny coffers being in a state of déshabillé. Heard from Bob, walking his dog in snowy Salisbury. His dog doesn't understand about vehicles and wants to run under them all the time. I've never felt like that on a walk with Bob. Sent some first words off to Helen for our Centaur project. Excellent to work with someone with infectious enthusiasm. Was also contacted by Sue Rose a poet I saw reading with Tammy and Rhona, and we swapped a poem. She sent me her poem A Guided Tour , which reminded me of one of mine, A n Adumbration of the Light Age . A Guided Tour is gorgeous, very different to mine, but shares that looking back on a past time from the future conceit. Having slipped away from the reading feeling rather trapped nerv...

Took delivery of some bedroom furniture today, hefted in by two muscly men. A spectacle Beth regretted that she missed. Brian sprawled on the bed curiously calm through the whole thing. When they were cooing over him, I said with a laugh that his name was Brian. The most alarmingly muscled man then said that, actually, he was called Brian, he said that his Serbian wife laughed at him until he told her to look up the meaning of his name. Strong apparently, and King in Serbian. I stood corrected. A kitchen lunch with Beth. Beth: pitta bread filled with bacon and eggs, me: miso soup with noodles and fish fingers. Lorraine and Beth are appalled by the fish fingers, but I maintain they are a nice side dish to a miso soup. Then to London to a poetry reading near Waterloo, where with Rhona, Tammy and another woman whose work I liked called Sue Rose, despite one of her poems being very similar to one of mine I am most proud of.  Not seen Tammy read for over twenty years, and she is flu...