I’m very happy to share the news that I was one of three winners in Live Canon’s 2022 Pamphlet/Chapbook Competition and a pamphlet of about 20 of my poems will be published in 2023.
These poems have been accumulating in my notebook since the 2018 publication of my full collection What Are You After? (Nine Arches Press). Quite a few have been individually published in poetry magazines or longlisted, shortlisted or commended in competitions. Some were written with the help of a Local Artist’s Bursary from Bloor Homes/Ginkgo Projects which I blogged about here.
The poems unfold against a Wiltshire backdrop of henges and standing stones and reflect a time when my life was interrupted by grown up children leaving the nest and returning home in a global pandemic, the natural world in crisis but still finding a way to cling to its wonder. I’m still thinking about a title for this short collection - ‘Last Chance, Strawberries’, a title of one of the poems, is a temporary name badge until I make a firm decision.
When I heard the news that I’d won pamphlet publication, my lovely family sent these beautiful congratulatory flowers but I should be the one sending flowers to them since they feature in some of these poems and I couldn’t be a writer at all without their patience, understanding and support.