Back to London, Back to Poetry

by | Apr 2, 2013 | Uncategorized | 1 comment

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.

This Friday evening I’ll be one of the poets presenting work at The Camden Cold Weather Shelter poetry reading series. It’s a Ward Wood night and I’ll be reading beside two favourites, 

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.


And if all this isn’t enough to entice you, read how the series was featured in a new Huffington Post article about where to find the UK poetry scene in London. 

Do come along if you’re in town. Here are the details:

Camden Poetry, Friday April 5, Trinity United Reform Church, 1 Buck Street, Camden, London NW1

Nearest tube station: Camden Town (Turn left out of the station and you’ll soon find us on the corner of Buck Street on your left)

Entrance £5/£4

Wine and Soft Drinks Table

All proceeds go to support the homeless in the Cold Weather Shelters



Hope to see some of you there!

1 Comment

  1. Carol
    Carol on 2nd April 2013 at 3:32 pm

    Great to have you back!

    The advice you were given was very good…on both counts cause that is exactly what you have to do…pause…take everything in and re-adjust but you also have to get back into it all again. It’s a difficult line to walk!

    Hope the reading goes well.

    C x