Autumn Leafe @ Broadway

Seats are waiting to be filled...

C J Allen reads from
'A Strange Arrangement: New and Selected Poems'.

Martin Stannard reads from
his Leafe Press pamphlet 'Coral' and other work.

Admission and refreshments free, all welcome

Gallery (Room 1)
Broadway Cinema
14 - 18 Broad Street
Nottingham
NG1 3AL

7.30,pm, Thurs 4 October

for NATIONAL POETRY DAY

Hosted by yours truly.

There's an obituary of Bill Griffiths by Nicholas Johnson in The Independent.

Last Saturday I met up with Clive Allen, Adrian Buckner and Martin Stannard (newly returned from a year in China). We sat in a cafe on Nottingham University's campus, by the lakeside and caught up with the news, then discussed some of our own and others' poetry. Very civilized. For a long time - years - I wrote and read poetry in more or less complete isolation. It doesn't help that I work in IT, and most of my buddies at work are more interested in cars and computers than poetry. Being part of a community (on-line and in the real world) is essential to me now, and in fact, provides the rationale for my writing and publishing.

Sad to note the passing of Bill Griffiths. Griffiths' work was among the first I came across when I first encountered the non-mainstream. His hand-cranked pamphlets in various shapes and bindings from his Amra Imprint were wonderful: 'Starfish Jail', written to raise funds for a prisoner in Wandsworth, or 'Mr Tapscott', a poem about race relations in Liverpool, written to support the campaign to free Ray Gilbert, one of the Toxteth Two whose conviction in 1981 was seriously flawed, but who remains in prison. For me, work like this opened up a whole new approach to poetry, and the use of poetry.

I.M. Bill Griffiths

1948-2007

Poet, scholar of Old English,
archivist, biker, activist and major presence on the
UK poetry scene

"We live in a time when productivity is everything - to produce a lot, to have a lot, to write a lot. But in poetry, it's not what you want, but what Poetry wants, what Poetry gives you. I can neither force it nor demand it to appear. Poetry has taught me to be patient."

Gloria Gervitz (tr. Mark Schafer)

The Monk Companions

Anyone in the vicinity of Sheffield should try to get to the event below. I'm trying to re-schedule some stuff so I can get there, as it should be a memorable evening. There are so many people on that list I'd like to get to see, not least the legendary Bill Griffiths. Geraldine herself of course, is a real performance poet, and her readings are not to be missed. Her poetry in fact, is meant to be performed (often with props and costumes) and is harder to appreciate with just the printed page to go on.

THE MONK COMPANIONS @ The Site Gallery, 1 Brown Street, Sheffield

22 September 6pm. Admission free.

www.sitegallery.org

An evening to celebrate the launch of THE SALT COMPANION TO GERALDINE MONK, the first collection of critical essays on this major Sheffield poet. Wine reception followed by poetry performances from Monk herself and the poet-contributors:

Bill Griffiths
David Kennedy
Christine Kennedy
Harriet Tarlo
Sean Bonney
David Annwn
Frances Presley
Elizabeth James
Chris Goode
Scott Thurston