Congratulations to Carol Ann Duffy!

... the UK's first female poet laureate since the laureateship was created 341 years ago ... Here's a short interview with the Guardian, and the Wikipedia entry.

Mixed with the happy news is the sad news that the much-loved poet UA Fanthorpe died last week at the age of 79. She was the first real poet I met, when she came to give a reading at my school many moons ago. Premonitions is Carol Ann's recent poem dedicated to her memory.

holmewood is a happy place

I'm at Holmewood Community Centre today and my guest editor is Tina, over to her...

i go to holmewood every day and i like going swimming and playing on the nintendo wii.

i like coming to holmewood day centre and i like going out with friends.

today we have doing a poem about holmewood and we talked about what people like to do and we have been for a walk along the five pits trail and we have been writing a song about holmewood.

bye for now see you later.

Barnsley and Beyond

Recent blog silence is down to a busy few weeks. I've been buzzing between Swadlincote (Pingle School Young Writers, aka The Alliterative Allsorts), Lea Primary School, Chesterfield, Holmewood and Matlock. I've even been over the border - with the dynamic Barnsley Writers (some of their 20-strong group are in the pic).

Couple of weeks ago I was on the Jerwood Aldeburgh 'To & From a First Collection' course. Brilliant bunch of poets including Helen Mort whose one-woman show A Pint for the Ghost will be touring haunted locations later this year, accompanied by the ghosts of Derbyshire and South Yorkshire...

Other news: If you like poems in your Inbox, the Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre will send you one a week, from presses in UK & Ireland.

If you're at the stage of putting together a poetry pamphlet check out the Templar Pamphlet & Book Competition, closing date 30th April 2009. Based in Bakewell, Templar also run the Derwent Poetry Festival.

Some Girls' Mothers: The Birth

Thanks to everyone who packed out Chesterfield Library's Lecture Theatre last Thursday for the grand launch, and sorry to those who couldn't get in. 190 tickets sold - who knew! There's video clips and more at Route Online. Route = Ian Daley and Isabel Galan, the nicest, most writer-friendly publishers one could wish for.

This week I've been in the fair city of Derby, running poetry workshops in the Adult Learners' Centre and the Library as part of Creative Thought - a project inspired by the Silk Mill museum and its collections.

Upcoming: On Sat 4th April I'll be at the Readers' Day at County Hall, Matlock, stirring up a poetry frenzy, with luck. For tickets call Priscilla Baily on 01773 831359.

Navigation

A thousand cheers for Jo Bell (Derbyshire born & bred). Her brilliant collection Navigation, contains poems she wrote as Cheshire Poet Laureate 2007 and many others, including one of my favourites - Blessing for a Child.

I also commend to you Jo's blog (a sight more jolly than mine) and any workshops that she might run in your vicinity (I've just been on one and it was full-tilt, top-to-toe poetry).

Other news: if you or anyone you know is in Year 9 at The Pingle School, Swadlincote, there's a brand new writers' group starting up. I'll be running the first session in the school library on 3rd March.

And - on Thursday 5th March to celebrate International Women's Day and World Book Day, I'm launching Some Girls' Mothers alongside my five fellow authors. SGM is a collection of stories about mothers and daughters. Chesterfield Library, S40 1QN (lecture theatre by the basement cafe) at 7.30pm. See you there!

Pic: Jo on her canal boat. Credit: Andy Pratt

Poets with Derbyshire connections: an occasional series

Born in Birmingham, Roy Fisher has lived in Derbyshire for many years. A jazz pianist as well as a writer, his poetry is most often associated with the post-industrial landscape of the Midlands but has universal appeal. Here's an interview from 1989, and here's Roy reading his poems on the Poetry Archive. Published by Bloodaxe, some of Roy's books are out-of-print but you can find them if you look. He'll be eighty next year and a celebratory volume is being planned.

'.. anything I have seen, I've only seen by virtue of having been very inattentive or rebellious at school, and looking at what was out of the corner of the picture, what was outside the frame.' - Roy Fisher

(photo by Caroline Forbes)

Happy New Writing Year

Great start to the year in the company of fine folk from Longford (nr Ashbourne) and environs (Longford Lane, Hollington, Ednaston, Smalley, Derby, and even Staffordshire!) who gathered yesterday in Cubley Village Hall to 'Write from Scratch' and leap into poetry. Many thanks to Angela Churchill from Longford Book Group for superlative organising. I'll be in that neck of the woods again on April 21st, reading at Ashbourne Library.

Closer at hand, I'm reading at Spoken Word Antics, upstairs at the Red Deer, Pitt St, Sheffield next Tues 13th January, 8pm for 8.30pm, and selling copies of 'The Purpose of Your Visit' and 'Some Girls' Mothers' with all proceeds to medical aid for Gaza.