Turquoise Monster

I am going to be reading my poem Piaf tonight as part of the Poetry and Piaf event at Cafe Rouge Cheltenham as part of the Poetry Festival – event starts at 7 pm and tickets are £10. The singer is fantastic and even if you think you don’t know the songs you will as alot of them where hits during the second world war and so appear in lots of films etc… The singer Eve Loiseau is brilliant and tells the story of Piaf’s tragic life – it’s well worth watching even if I wasn’t going to be there 😉

There are also some other cracking events – I’m hoping to catch [A. F. Harrold]\9http://www.afharrold.com/wordpress/?page_id=32) and Peter Wyton at 6 pm (also at Cafe Rouge!) – tickets for that are £5 each.

And of course there is the opening night party at Slak (also in Cheltenham!) run by Calmer* which is £6. I really want to go to this but need to check my energy levels etc… and also see how Mary is with drinking out of a bottle whilst mummy is socialising!

Cheltenham Poetry Festival is on 31st March to 3rd of April and there are lots of fantastic events that I’m hoping to go to but I am also going to be reading and acting at several events!

I am reading my Edith Piaf poem at the Poetry and Piaf events on the Thursday and the Sunday (I believe there is wine involved!) – tickets cost £10/£7 concession – and then on Saturday I am performing in an interactive play by Sara-Jane Arbury called Murder in the Chapel 🙂

I am really looking forward.

A I’ve mentioned on here before the guy who really got me thinking about Visual Poetry and the cross over between art and poetry sadly died. It was tragic and upsetting and he was only just older than me 🙁 But his family and friends including those like me who only ever met him electronically have kept his fantastic visionary website Escape Into Life running. They have also started putting some of his writing upon the the site here.

One of the things I found so upsetting was the thought that his creations, his art would now fail to get out there – there is nothing that can really be done about the writing he would have done but the stuff that already existed now gets a chance to be read.

I completed the WoPoWriMo challenge and came out of February with a more like 40 poems 🙂

I am thinking that I do now have so many poems that I may well start submitting more – the last few things I’ve submitted have been published which is encouraging. Still not sure if I really want to start doing competitions again but I might – of course I need to get the spellings and things sorted for that!

I am still working on the Poetry Collection too – I sort of want to have some sort of drawing on each page so am hoping to get some down time on that soon!

The next writing challenge is Aprils NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month) which I already have plans for 🙂

From the 31st of March until the 3rd of April you will find me hanging around the Cheltenham Poetry Festival 🙂 There is Poetry with Piaf, a children’s slam, poetry and punk – and that’s just for starters!

I recommend you check it out.

You can get tickets for events at the Cheltenham Town Hall.

Thankyou to everyone who voted for my picture and poem for the ESA Create Your Space Competition. I am a runner up and am awaiting my goody bag 🙂

Purple prose
bruised and dowdy
Awaiting its glory
By bleeding out the joy

White fluffy prose
Of sugar spun lace
Melting on the tongue
Insubstantial and unsatisfying
Making you fat and hungry for more

Green prose
Innocently jealous
Wanting what will smother
The voice
Young and tender sap
Rising to the stars

I love poem a day challenges so am once again taking part in WoPoWriMo this year – that stands for World Poetry Writing Month and last year this resulted in me coming up with the Monster Writing Game (which I am still trying to finish mk 3 of so I can start selling it!).

Due to just having had a baby I am not going to be making it to any poetry meetings this month which is a shame but I am looking forward to steaming on ahead with this challenge – the main issue is that with having done MoP (Month of Poetry) last month and now having a small baby I am sort of stuck in children’s rhyme mode which I’m hoping to shake off for a while.

I am note going to put the poems straight up on here this year as it was a lot of work last year – I’m already three days into the challenge and though I have like five things written in a note book I do not have the time currently to type them all up and edit them on the fly.

I have spent this month working on The Little Book of New Baby Poetry – this is a series of poems and songs – some of them are from when Jeany was little and some I’ve made up specifically for this. It is for Jean it covers everything from Mummy’s morning sickness to nappy changing, to boring babies who none the less grow into good friends for older sisters.

I wrote most of the poems at the beginning of the month and have been working on the illustrations for the rest of the month – today Al helped me put it all together – and turn it into a PDF. He then went and got it printed in colour for me at a place called Paper Box in Cheltenham 🙂

I have a bag full of stickers and one of the pages is for Jean’s thoughts and poems. Jean loves the Little Books of poetry that I have made her in the past – this is the most ‘complete’ one and has cost the most! Both in time and money 🙂 I may put the rest of the illustrations up but I need to wash hair and make sure all is packed for tomorrow! I have pre-meds to take at 6 in the morning but hopefully by tomorrow lunch time we will be a family of four 🙂 I plan to give Jean the book and stickers when she comes to see me and the baby tomorrow afternoon!

Here are some photos of the ‘book’.

The burning mist
Cut by an icy sun
Marks the landscape
Old and opalescent
Milky translucence
Hiding the scars
Making me forget
It is tarmac
Upon which I tread
A black river
Leading to concrete caves
Angular and harsh
All is blanketed
Softened
And kind once more