Poetry and pavlova, anyone?

Sunday 8th March 2026 was International Women’s Day and I celebrated it at the Women’s Hall in Billinghurst. I was surrounded by some inspirational women at the Shelley Memorial Project’s Poetry & Pavlova event, headlined by the rather marvellous Booming Lovelies.

The Booming Lovelies at Poetry & Pavlova

The first question one might ask is what exactly Shelley has to do with International Women’s Day. Percy Bysshe Shelley is a man who, aside from his poetical output, has been criticised for his complex relationships with women — not to mention questionable attitudes at times.

Ted Gooda hosting at Poetry & Pavlova

As one of the directors at the project, I’m amazed that Horsham doesn’t acknowledge its most famous son. Shelley was, after all, one of the most important poets of the Romantic poets. One of the SMP’s aims, therefore is to establish a lasting public memorial to the poet in his hometown. But I also think that Shelley’s legacy should be much more than a statue.

Shelley famously said that poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. If only the poets did have power to legislate, the world might not be in quite such a mess as it seems to be right now.

But poetry does have the power to incite change, to hold a mirror up to the world and reflect its beauty, but also its imperfections and injustices. So, the second remit of the SMP is to bring poetry into the community; to put living, breathing poetry onto a platform. So that’s what the IWD even was about - giving a platform and a voice to women poets.

The next question might reasonably be, why poetry and pavlova? What does the Australian meringue-based dessert, honouring ballerina Anna Pavlova, have to do with poetry? My answer is, why not? I suppose there’s the small matter of pavlova’s alliterative quality with ‘poetry’.

But this is aside from the fact that pavlova is delicate and delicious, as well as creamy and fruity. Pavlova goes with anything. Poetry and pavlova sounds quite good, because it is. Plus, it helps that my partner in rhyme, Liz Barnes, is the daughter-in-law of the esteemed Madame Pavlova, who makes some of the best desserts this side of the South Downs. 

Consequently, Liz wrote a special pavlova poem for the occasion, and I made sure that the word ‘ballerina’ was in my poem Space, which took two of the inspirational women in my life: Helen Sharman and my mum, as its subject matter.

Our venue was the Women’s Hall in Billingshurst: a hall built more than 100 years ago by two extraordinary women, the Misses Beck, who conceived of it as a space for women to meet at a time when those spaces were extremely limited. They were suffragettes who stood up for what they believed in and harboured hunger strikers on release from prison. Indeed, Edith Beck herself was arrested on Black Friday when women marched on parliament. The Beck sisters were radical thinkers who weren’t afraid to act; qualities which Shelley would, no doubt, have endorsed. I can’t think of a better place to celebrate International Women’s Day. I think Edith and Ellen would approve.

Because the reality is, we still have a long way to go in terms of equality. Women have made giant strides over the last century, on paper at least. But walking through the world as women sometimes reveals a different story. So the Poetry & Pavlova event was about sharing those stories and celebrating the inspirational women who have touched our lives - though the powerful medium of poetry.

I read ‘Imposter Syndrome’ from my pamphlet Silence & Selvedge to kick off proceedings. Then it was time for our headline act.

The Booming Lovelies are a trio of fantastic performance poets from Surrey — Sharron Green, Trisha Broomfield and Heather Moulson. They describe themselves as ‘ladies of a certain age’ who are ‘unafraid to share their wealth of life experience with anyone brave enough to listen and curious to hear.’ Their set gave us a nostalgic look at some of the lost things from the last century as well as holding a mirror up to some of the complexities of modern life (with quite a few references to gin and menopause along the way).

Sharron Green, Ted Gooda, Trisha Broomfield & Heather Moulson

After as much pavlova as we could eat, it was time for the open mic. There were ten fabulous readers, including some Foraging Pigs regulars like Kathryn Attwood, Caroline Berry and Pauline Howley. It was also great to hear fantastic poets from further afield like Katie Griffiths. As well as original poems, there were also some well-chosen ‘covers’ of old favourites, including Carol Ann Duffy and Maya Angelou. It was moving, inspiring, emotive and celebratory: exactly what we knew it would be.

Open mic readers plus hosts Liz Barnes and Ted Gooda, and the Booming Lovelies

I’m extremely grateful to everyone who helped out on the day, who came along to support, who performed, who pavlova-ed, and who promoted the event.

(In advance of the afternoon itself, we were able to share the event on BBC Radio Sussex, so I was up early last Tuesday for a quick radio interview with Danny Pike.)

So, while I’m still digesting pavlova and poetry, happy International Women’s Day to all the women I know.