Festive Foraging Pigs: December 2025

We had a warm and friendly crowd for December’s meeting of the Foraging Pigs upstairs at the Kings Arms in Billingshurst, and we were delighted to welcome some new faces!

Liz was away this month, so Juliet Starbuck stepped into the breach as my co-host for the evening.

It was a very eclectic mix of poetry across the evening. I kicked off proceedings with a new Christmas narrative poem that began as a bit of whinge about parking charges and borrows from magical realism; Juliet shared some of Liz’s new work in her absence, so Liz was very much with us in spirit.

Then, as usual, names went into a hat. There were new, original poems by Kathryn, Andre, Nick, Pauline and Simon Zec. Cosmo also read from his fantastic collection, Part of The Picture.

Sue performed All Along the South Coast by Jeremy Taylor. Barry did a brilliant John Cooper Clarke poem by heart. Dave read Sometimes a Wild God by Tom Hirons, a cracking poem describing a powerful, disruptive figure who arrives at the dinner table. We had everything from Pam Ayers to John Hegley via political satire, and plenty of offerings of more serious poetic reflection. It made for a great atmosphere!

As ever, there were three rounds. There were twelve readers in all, and our Top Trufflers on the night were Si Zec and Barry Syder, who both received the highly sought-after Foraging Pigs badges. Exclusive merchandise that can’t be bought. We like to think of them as the poetic equivalent of a Blue Peter badge…

Foraging Pigs: Barry and Simon

In the absence of Diana, I promoted the Slipstream Poetry competition. We’re hoping for a good few entries into the Chanctonbury Cup this year. The competition closes on January 31st, so there is still plenty of time to get poems in.

Slipstream Poets invite entries from West Sussex and East Sussex residents to their West Sussex Chanctonbury Cup Competition 2026

Entries close at midnight on 31st January 2026, with winners being notifed by 28th February 2026, all results will be published on our website.

1st Prize – The Chanctonbury Cup and £100
2nd Prize – £50
And a prize of £25 for the best unpublished poet.

Given the quality of writing by our foragers, there are no excuses!

Finally, a huge thank you to Juliet for undertaking co-hosting duties, and a reminder that the Foraging Pigs take a winter break now and will return in February 2026. See you then!