Tag: The Old Curiosity Shop Broadstairs

How do we write joy?

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It’s not often reviews come in poetry form. Yesterday Anthony Toner and I did a little event together, a ‘lazy Sunday afternoon’ in Chapters coffee and book shop in Sturry (near Canterbury), combining Anthony’s beautiful, laid back songs and my poetry. This morning the event organiser Maurice Kinkead has sent me a marvellous review written by a poet in the audience. Andy Robert’s review in poetry is below, straight off the WhatsApp. Very many thanks, Andy!

A Chapters’ One

How do I write joy?*

May I relay my

May Bank Holiday matinee marvel?

Under dappled sunlight spotlights,

Booked in and brilliant,

We are introduced to

The Emerald Isle

entertainment Rosie and Anthony,

Bard meets balladeer

In rhythmic rhapsody,

Refreshing our souls

Through music and poetry

Marinaded in memories.

Cedar and mahogany

Stretch in the heat

And Toner tunes

Because he cares,

Then feeds us finger pickings

wrapped in riddle and rhyme,

A smorgasbord of

Chords and clef hangers

As time past sweeps into time present;

We are both rapt and

unwrapped.

Then Rosie rises to the cause;

She’s arrived in the right place

Via all the wrong roads

To share her life’s work

Of putting the right words

in the right order,

Urging us to ‘be bolder for

tomorrow we’re older.’

Her words weave their spell

As they percolate deep

Into our sunny day

subconscious.

We pause for digestion…

Beer, wine, coffee, teas, pees anyone?

Then, hungry for more,

Once more we turn to the

finely tuned Toner

As he wonders whether we are

Too far east for Louise,

While the breeze

Wafts his melodic rhetoric

Further east.

Rosie desserts us with

sumptuous 17-syllable truffles;

Words melt delicately in our minds;

(By now we are full as Babette’s feasters.)

Then,

Suddenly:

Feck me! It’s finished!

But, like Belfast’s shipyard’s finest,

We were alright when we left there,

Sated and eager for new chapters

To be written (and crooned)

In Chapters

Soonest please.

Wonderful! If you’d like to find out more about Maurice’s events in Chapters Coffee and Books, you can follow Chapters Unplugged on Facebook or ask at Chapters.

*You’ve probably guessed that Andy (poet-reviewer) has knitted phrases and thoughts from our event through the poem. For example, his first line cleverly comes from this of mine from Safe Ground (Mica Press) published just over a year ago. I read it in answer to Anthony’s song The Road to Fivemiletown…

In the Cool of This Hottest Day
Another day closes its
sunset eye.
At least it watched me writing.


How do I write joy? Peg
phrases
on pages, spun laundry in the sun.


Tonight, I will wear party black,
celebrate
the death of past ordeals.


Turn over any heart. Count
nicks, scars.
Admire the flinty shine. The weight.


We hew more truth with our pieces than
wreckers
ever wreak in breaking.


Blackbird threads notes through this frayed
evening’s quilt,
stitches the day together.


In the cool of the close of this
hottest day,
I sense my life begin

Anthony and me outside The Old Curiosity Shop in Broadstairs where we did a similar event last Saturday evening. My thanks to Anthony, Maurice, both wonderful audiences and the staff and owners of the Old Curiosity Shop and Chapters who made it all such fun.

WRITING BUDDIES & QUIET WRITING

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Pencils and what-not, ipads, laptops, phones, we can write with anything these days. Yet there are still times when the words flow like cold porridge. The solution is two interlocking things. One is that if you’re a writer, you need writing time, lots of it, securely ring-fenced, guilt-free. The second is being among other writers, especially warm, supportive darlings who are fun to be with. The combination is sometimes known as Writing Buddies. So, I am starting local ‘buddies’ groups, for writers to get together in person for special time like this:

On the SECOND SUNDAY AFTERNOON of each month between 2 and 4pm, we’ll be in The Old Curiosity Shop, Harbour Street, Broadstairs, Kent. That’s 8 February, 8 March and so on, and

On the SECOND WEDNESDAY EVENING of each month, you’re invited to Chapters Coffee & Books in Sturry High Street, near Canterbury. We’ll gather from 6.30pm, for two hours writing and socialising between 7 and 9pm. If you’d like to write through the whole two and a half hours, feel free.

Thank you to Maurice of Chapters who has asked us writers to join the Silent Readers there too on the FOURTH WEDNESDAY EVENING of each month – from 6.30pm for a 7-9pm session – to sit among those quietly reading to themselves, write to our hearts’ content and share Chapters’ atmosphere of happy creativity among books and words.

I hope you’ll find a time to suit you. These are just informal gatherings, not a course. You’re welcome to join me to concentrate quietly on your own writing as you like and to chat and meet other writers. Please bring your writing materials and enough £ to buy your refreshments.

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