Lead Poets, July 2012

An excellent night this week at Sarah L. Dixon’s Lead Poets in Chorlton, and so nice to meet fellow NaPoWriMers Rebecca Audra Smith, Janet Rogerson, Charlotte Henson and Andy N. at last (also, I now know it’s Lead as in metal and not dog…!)

The small and intimate Copper Room upstairs at The Lead Station bistro is a perfect setting for poetry. The website describes the room as ‘perfect for a decadent private party,’ although with its wonderful Sherlock Holmes armchairs I’d have said more gentlemen’s club than decadence (tip: if you manage to claim one of those wonderful chairs at the start of the evening, hang on to it!).

We heard a rich variety of poetry during the course of the evening from a rich variety of poets, listened to intently by a friendly and appreciative audience, especially as readers in the second-half battled to be heard above the torrential rain outside; I shall make no comment about typical Manchester weather, other than to point out it was perfectly dry as soon as I crossed the Yorkshire border…

Thanks to Sarah for organising Lead Poets – and for inviting me! It was a wonderful evening full of poetic energy, and I hope to be back at some point in the future.

First steps…

This feels to me a bit like one of those cute videos you sometimes see of baby animals taking their first steps in the world… extremely wobbly, but with a general sense of what they need to do and the determination to persist until they get it right. Before you know it they’re romping around their field, exploring their new world joyfully – but occasionally returning to check with their mother that they’re doing OK, aren’t they… aren’t they?

So please bear with me as I get my head around this thing called blogging, and in the same way that in those videos the mother animal gently corrects her offspring if they get it horribly wrong, please feel free to give me the internet equivalent of a virtual cuff round the ear with a friendly paw if I do the same.