December 2017

What better way to spend the first weekend of the New Year, than, after a a leisurely day of lunching or swimming, coming along to our shared book launch at 4.00pm.

Ray Liversidge and I are launching our new books on Saturday at Blarney Books in Port Fairy. We’re hoping you’ll come along at 4.00 so there’s time to say hello and share a drink before the launches.   I’m also hoping to catch up with heaps of relations and friends. Don’t worry if poetry is not you thing, the wine, courtesy of Louise North Wine Merchant, will be excellent.

Ray’s book, stems from a travelling discovery some years ago at Oradour-sur-Glane, a French massacre site, and is sure to appeal to those of you with a respect and empathy for WW11 victims. Many of the  poems in my book, Small Acts of Purpose also begin from a moment of intrigue. The book begins with a section on Belfast, a city I love and ends with a blessing for my daughter-in-law.  In between are poems for those I admire and some who have died, a few funny ones and some celebrations of the beauty around us.

So come along and help us celebrate.

Saturday 6th January

4.00 for 4.30 Launch

Blarney Books, Port Fairy

There’s a lot to love about the communal aspects of doing Christmas in good company, which is how I feel about doing poetry in good company. The dearth of cricket bats did not prevent the family cricket match from being a main feature of the day.

I am a big fan of workshops that work and the honesty of critical friends. But this Christmas I discovered the value of a family workshopping a poem. The particular poem was Autumn in Tartu which I hope will eventually become part of my Estonian Collection. I was inspired by the photo essays of the Estonian photographer, Tonu Runnel. What a talent, but he captured in image what I had tried for with words but it was my adult children whose eyes and ears were working overtime on this poem. I know it’s better for their input. It interested me how each saw such different aspects in the poem. There wasn’t a lot of agreement in the editing process, in fact there was a lot more volume than agreement.

Next time I visit Estonia it will be springtime, hardly suitable for autumnal research. I guess I can write another poem…or I could take another trip.