Guest poet

What a lovely moniker that is: Guest Poet. (Although I’m not sure what the alternative is; Intruder Poet? Gatecrasher Poet?)

I have enjoyed the privilege twice in the last few days.

On Saturday, I was one of the showcase poets at Slipstream, where I had also judged their annual Chanctonbury Cup competition and was there to share my judge’s report. It was a glorious afternoon in Meadows Hall in Pulborough, which spills out onto a balcony with views across the Downs. It provided a chance to catch up with old friends, eat home-made cake, and meet some new poets, including the winner in the unpublished category of the competition. What an honour to witness the start of the journey with a new young poet.

Last night I joined the The Writers Bureau monthly Poetry Club as their guest poet for the evening, invited to discuss my own poetry journey, the power of performance poetry and the route to publishing poetry — as well as sharing plenty of poems along the way — to an enthusiastic audience via Zoom. It was a pleasure to be part of the group for the night and I was asked lots of pertinent questions, especially in relation to publishing. It felt like a full circle moment, since my first ever published poem came about as a result of a Writers Bureau course almost twenty years ago.

It’s hard to know what to ‘showcase’ to provide a flavour of my work to new listeners. I went with The difference between boys and girls, The softness of sisters, Banishing the Branks, Space, and Little Bedtime Story, with some overlap between the two events. A mixture of old and new!

The week will end with BilliLit, where I will be interviewing invited guests of my own two different authors and chairing an industry panel of editors and sales directors, as well as running poetry workshops in a local primary school and for adults.

All I need now is to find some time to actually write some more poetry!