I’ve been given two good pieces of advice about how to deal with my return to London and my “Western” life. First, I was told to give myself a week to just stare out the window and allow all the different pieces of myself to find their way back together. The other is to get back into the work and demands of London life as soon as I can. I’m enough of a Gemini to find both approaches appealing and luckily, the calendar and the long Easter weekend have played in my favour. 

I’ve taken about five days to just chill — both literally and figuratively — and now it’s time to get back in the saddle, or actually, back up on stage.

Peter Phillips, who will be launching his collection Oscar and I, and Caroline Squire, winner of the 2011 Lumen/Camden Poetry Competition, who will read from her latest work. To be honest, I won’t actually be reading. Instead, I’ll present a staged reading of an excerpt from my recently relaunched verse play, Dreams of May. The wonderful actress, Clare Latham, will actually be doing the reading.  This should give more of a feel of the piece as a play rather than collected poems. It will also give me that wonderful experience of hearing someone else give life to my words. It’s been a while since that’s happened.

The performance will be followed by an open mic and poets from the floor will be very welcome.  And, as always, readers from the floor will also have their work considered for the next Cold Weather anthology which, this year, will be edited by Ruth O’Callaghan.