Caroline Gill: Poetry and Other Writing: Poetry Evening at poetrywivenhoe with Martin Malone

Friday, 27 March 2015

Poetry Evening at poetrywivenhoe with Martin Malone

Wivenhoe, late afternoon yesterday

Sincere thanks are due to Peter Kennedy, Pam Job and other organisers of poetrywivenhoe for a wonderful evening with you last night, headed up by Martin Malone, poet and editor of The Interpreter's House. Martin was the outright winner of the Wivenhoe Poetry Competition 2011, with his poem 'Digitalis' about his father's 'summer of love'.

Martin Malone at the microphone

Martin shared with us a mix of old and new work. He gave us a flavour of some of his latest poems, new takes on Great War themes, that will make up the practice element of his PhD. He also read from The Waiting Hillside, his first collection, published by Templar Poetry (2011).

I had attended a poetrywivenhoe event once before, for the 2014 launch of the so too have the doves gone anthology, and it was good to return. It was a privilege to be invited as the (relatively) local reader and a joy to be there among a host of poets, many of whom read to us during the 'out of the hat' Open Mic slot in the middle of the evening.

My set comprised poems largely but not exclusively from my chapbook, The Holy Place, co-authored with John Dotson, and published by The Seventh Quarry in Swansea in conjunction with Cross-Cultural Communications in New York.

Martin signing copies of The Waiting Hillside and The Interpreter's House (with Stuart Mugridge's cover illustration)

It was good to meet up with Rebecca Goss again. I had attended her stimulating workshop at Writers' Centre Norwich on the 'coast' last autumn. It was also a pleasure to meet MW Bewick (last month's poetrywivenhoe reader), one of the two editor-publishers of Dunlin Press, who have just launched the volume of 'Collected Reports from East Anglia', Est.