On Wednesday, I took part in another of the Poets' Corner readings at Mecycle (recommended cafe) in Ainsdale, up the coast. They are organised by Mary Earnshaw and the photographs are by Ron Davies, who is famous for photographing the 'Iron Men' of Crosby (Antony Gormley's 'Another Place' tidal installation), and who has an exhibition of these images in Southport at the moment.
All these photographs are revelations to me because (as you can see) the readers are seated behind the readers! After we are lined up, most unlike Iron Men, and shot:
Here's the audience:
Here's me:
For the evening, I read from Holme Fell: a selection of landscapes, of which I said (more or less) as introduction: 'This sequence - I read about a third - is the result of a collaboration with the photographer Trev Eales, a set of responses to his images of the Lake District, Holme Fell in particular, and with a poem within the poem, called 'Hodge Close', which is the name of a dangerous old slate quarry. Natural landscapes and post-industrial sites. Physical places and photographic representations. Cognition and recognition. Lyric and found text - and there's narrative prose running through the sequence, which I shall not read tonight.' I added that I had heard that day that a plan to publish the collaboration had more or less been agreed that morning! (More on Pages later.)
I also met a couple of people who brightened the evening: one, a former student, now teaching Creative Writing, Jennie Owen (who read in the series earlier) and, two, a former student of UEA, who I may have known, but certainly knew her poet ex-husband.
Here's a post carrying an account of my previous appearance at Poets' Corner: Pages: Three March readings up the North West coast (set lists)
