NAWE retreat 2012
Over Easter I was at Ty Newydd with a great group of NAWE members on our annual retreat for writers who also teach.
The quality of work produced was fantastic - a good range of genres from poetry, short fiction, flash fiction and prose poems.
Our guest this year was Sarah Hymas who read from her book, ‘Host’ (Waterloo Press) and kick started the retreat with a range of
ways into writing, including one she christened ‘The carpet roll’. Here is a link to Sarah’s blog:
http://sarahhymas.blogspot.co.uk/
Windows for Burns Night Project
I have just been sent some photos by poet Kim Moore of this fantastic project up in Dumfries. Poems are on display at The Globe Tavern, Robert Burns House Musuem, The Coach and Horses and The Stove in the town in the windows on sheets of acetate. One of my poems is on display for two weeks in January around the Burns Big Supper event, alongside lots of other writers. I hope the good people of Dumfries enjoy all this poetry! The project was organised by Hugh Bryden and Dave Borthwick. They were inspired by Burns himself who inscribed poems himself on the windows of his room using a diamond ring or stylus.
Here is a copy of my poem plus the image:
Spring Garden, Heptonstall
The underside of everything’s turned over:
fresh earth, worm casts, spiders’ nests.
Water shimmies in the trough
and pirouettes all over your yard.
The bench is too wet to sit on yet.
The broom is bright with yellow buds.
Rosemary’s spiked with dried up heads
but it’s re-sprouting. Above
four terracotta pots stand up like coronets.
Snowdrops are sucked mints.
Narcissi shoots are greening the borders.
We’re quick as a voles.
Giddy with daylight
as we clip the yew hedge into spheres.
Beyond the lawn, the lane is winding
up the hill- ribboning the unfenced moors.
Anne Caldwell
the underwater house sequence
I had a posting today that included a short video on U tube from the manchester book market literature tent - where many North West writers performed outside this summer to the great Manchester public and guests.
I hope you like it!
I always think my voice sounds very strange when I hear it recorded - do other writers feel the same?
I could cringe in embarrassment!
Blackpool Readers’ Day
I am hosting a Readers’ Day at Blackpool Central Library tomorrow with writers Robin Bayley, Fran Sandham and Alistair Sutcliffe. The overall theme of the day is travel. The writers involved have all undertaken amazing journeys: conquering mountains, the African Continent, and following an ancestor back to South America. I feel quite tame in comparison!
The day runs from 2-4pm and I think there are places left.
I will also be reading some poetry.
The next event coming up is the NAWE conference in Northhampton from the 11th - 13th November. Myself and Paul Munden are both reading from our latest poetry collections and we are presenting a seminar on a NAWE project called ‘Writing On Location’ on Saturday morning. I just hope the delegates can make it in time to hear it! Look forward to seeing writers there as it is always a cracking conference with lively debate.
Events and starting a new term
This autumn has been very fruitful and lively so far. I have started teaching creative writing at Bolton University to undergraduates and I am really enjoying it - my students are great - really lively and asking questions that are making me think about issues such as metre, rhythm and line endings in poetry as well has how to give really good feedback to those writers beginning in this genre.
I have also done a workshop and performance as part of Exeter Poetry Festival alongside two brilliant poets - Rachel Boast, who has just won the Forward Prize for her first collection - ‘Sidereal’ and Frances Leviston who originates from Sheffield. The workshop was on the theme of voice - and my fellow writers used nursery rhymes and childhood stories as starting points to explore the theme of voice.
This echoes (excuse the pun!) A workshop I ran for a conference on Voice last year at Chichester, organised by the university and in particular, Stephanie Norgate. I am increasingly interested in exploring voices other than my own in my work at the moment.
Review of ‘Talking with the Dead’ in Stand
I was very pleased to discover this week that Jon Glover has written a great review of my first collection alongside reviews of a fine clutch of poets - I hope you enjoy reading it, and discover the work of these other poets.
Review – Stand Magazine Volume 10 (2) 2011
Alongside collections by Rebecca Goss, Simon Smith, Tony Roberts and Susanna Roxman.
Jon Glover
Anne Caldwell’s first book, ‘Talking with the Dead’ has a poem derived from the poet’s visit to ‘do’ creative writing: National Poetry Day, Edge Hill School.’ It is a different way of ‘doing’ associations. But strangely, there are similar processes going on – when the class is falling apart (‘I can’t stand f’ing poetry’.) Caldwell reaches for a copy of Yeats to read from. The over-used text book falls apart, ‘its spine spitting the pages out. What’s anarchy is that like Punk?’ And there is another telling culture clash in ‘Ghandi Visits Cafe Nero, Boar Lane Leeds’:
He takes a sip of water and leans his staff
against the Panini cabinet, sits cross legged
in the queue and doesn’t speak.
The processes in both poems manipulate and fall under the spell of the language of unexpected intersection – where observed and observer cross in description and understanding. Partly what is operating is the meeting places of everyday speech and partly it is with the sudden foregrounding of Ghandi and Yeats with all their linguistic and political baggage. Caldwell’s poems are seductively original, and, at their best, link everyday language and bizarre events so as to surprise and shock:
Slug Language
Kitchen, 3am.
Pure tongue,
their bodies write out
the glow of a pearly button
burst from a pale shift
the sheen of a vulva.
They have criss-crossed my lino
all night, wound together like a nest of snakes
to smear the soles of my feet
with their silver calligraphy.
I print the whole house with desire.
Several of these poets have an important relationship with perceived history and especially with their bodies’ rediscovery through their imaginative recreation of their own flesh in history………
Final part of the review:
There are some nice parallels with Anne Caldwell’s group of poems, ‘The Underwater House’ and with her interest in the anatomy of birds and life in coffee bars. In various ways, both poets feel, or dance their way into their subjects and they both accept, as does Rebecca Goss, ways in which language as subject matter feels its way into them.
Stand Magazine
http://www.people.vcu.edu/~dlatane/stand-mag
Summer is over and success!
Cinnamon Press have been in touch with me this week to tell me my poetry book is nearly sold out! They are considering a reprint which is fantastic news. Thanks to everyone who has bought a copy and do get yours quickly if you would like one.
The last couple of weeks have been very chilled - I have fallen in love with a camper van called Sage which I know is very Hebden Bridge. I could not afford to buy one, so this was just rented but fantastic all the same:
Events coming up this autumn:
10th Sept - Spinning Gold - life writing workshop, Brighouse Library, Yorkshire.
Further information - contact Anna.Turner@calderdale.gov.uk
18th Sept - Bronte Parsonage, Womens’ Writing Festival jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk / 01535 640188
Saturday 8th October - workshop and reading
Exeter Poetry Festival
http://www.exeterpoetryfestival.com
Thursday 13th October (eve)
Bolton Octogon Theatre reading - further details to follow.
Hope to catch up with you at some of these events!
Ledbury Poetry Festival 2011
I was reading for the first time at the Ledbury Poetry Festival this year, and although nervous, I think I enjoyed the experience!
Here are some pictures from the festival 2011. The whole town seemed to be humming with poets and poetry throughout the weekend I was there. Obviously a highlight for me was reading with Jo Shapcott to a great audience - warm, enthusiastic and book buying - what more could you ask for!?
Jo Shapcott and Judith Palmer at Ledbury - I wonder what is in the bags?
I am admiring a poetry biscuit here - just one of the more quirky elements of the festival. 
Here are a group of poets doing what they do best.
Latest news
I have been listening to Michael Symmons Robert’s Play, ‘Crimes of Mancunia’ this week and could highly recommend it:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011zzhn
Great to hear a verse play on the radio for a change!
If anyone is in Sowerby Bridge on the 4th July, I am reading at The Puzzle Hall poets and looking forward to it. It is my first time there, although I have been to the pub for fantastic music.
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The Puzzle Hall Poets present:
Anne Caldwell4th July 2011.
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. She lives near Hebden Bridge.Touring events this summer and autumn
I have been having some great feedback about my book, with many readers saying how much they enjoyed the storytelling of the first sequence of poems in particular. I am touring this summer, so please get in touch if you are able to come to any of these events:
List of Summer and Autumn Events – to date:
Talking With the Dead – Cinnamon Press
Saturday 18th June 4pm Manchester Book Market
St Anne’s Square, Manchester (tbc)
http://www.manchester.gov.uk/events/event/2152/
Monday 4th July 8pm – Guest Reader - The Puzzle Poets, Puzzle Hall Inn, Sowerby Bridge,
21 Hollins Mill Lane, HX6 2RF
Saturday 9th July – 7.45pm with Jo Shapcott –
Ledbury Poetry Festival, Burgage Hall, Church Lane, Ledbury HR8 1DH
http://www.poetry-festival.com/calendar.html
Saturday 10th September – Life Writing workshop
Brighouse Library, Halifax Road, Brighouse, Calderdale HD6 2AF
Contact Anna Turner for more details Anna.Turner@calderdale.gov.uk
Saturday 8th October – Exeter Poetry Festival – tbc with Rachel Boast
http://www.exeterpoetryfestival.com/
Saturday 12th November – with Paul Munden
NAWE conference book launch, Northampton
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About
Anne Caldwell is a poet and literature consultant. She works for NAWE and the Open University, Bolton University and runs workshops in schools and community settings.
Contact Tel. 07818 052108
email a.caldwell@nawe.co.uk
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Read This
Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
