May/June Newsletter

Online and In-Person Readings, West of England Festival of Textiles, Kickstart Your Poems Workshop

2024 Poetry Society Annual Lecture by Don Mee Choi, Thursday 9 May 7-9pm

The Poetry Society is delighted to announce Don Mee Choi will be visiting the UK to give the 2024 Poetry Society Annual Lecture. The event will be broadcast live from Liverpool and will be accompanied by a a short performance of their poems. The lecture can be joined in-person in Liverpool or online.

Born in Seoul, South Korea, Don Mee Choi is a highly innovative writer. Her work slips between forms, mixing poetry, lyric essay, memoir, and visual image. Incorporating archives, photographs and fragments of memory, Choi’s poetry explores historical events and the human impact of war. Her books include DMZ Colony, which won the 2020 National Book Award for Poetry, The Morning News Is Exciting, and Mirror Nation, which is forthcoming from Wave Books in 2024. Her translations into English of Kim Hyesoon include Autobiography of Death which received the 2018 International Griffin Poetry Prize.

The West of England Festival of Textiles

There is some beautiful art and craft on display at Trowbridge Museum for WEFT, the West of England Festival of Textiles. I especially love work by Alison Ballance and Nikki Ritson who, in different ways, incorporate text from Trowbridge Museum’s oral history archive into their creative pieces. Both have worked with recorded histories from textile factory workers and mill workers in Trowbridge. Nikki has stitched snippets from recorded memories of daily life into fabric -

“You might see a dozen broken threads… the machines go back. WHAM! You ‘ad to rush and mend the threads! ‘Tis an awful noise which makes you suffer for years to come…”

Alison has made drawings in response to recorded anecdotes and memories, such as a farmer’s memories of horse and cattle fairs.

I was also very taken with a small display of work by Mayumi Kaneko who has included a coat made from her grandmother’s kimono in the exhibition, as well as ‘Noren’ short curtains made with Japanese paper thread and an old book. Mayumi writes in the exhibition guide

“In the old days, people in lower classes made thread from waste paper… I received a very old textbook from my friend… and made thread from the book and wove it in. The outcome, Noren, carries the message Lead your good life.”

I’m also taking part in WEFT

I’m looking forward to reading poems from my pamphlet One Deliberate Red Dress Time I Shone on Friday, 17 May, 5.30 - 6.45pm at Trowbridge Museum. All of the poems in my mini-collection are to do with fabric, clothes, and making, and include seen-while-walking poems, odes, poems after art, and self-portraits. Tickets are £7 and include a glass of Pimm’s or alcohol-free punch.

Kickstart Your Poems!

Meanwhile, on Saturday 18 May, 2-4.30pm in Bradford on Avon, I’m teaching a Kickstart Your Poems workshop at The Make Space, Tithebarn Workshops. This workshop is for anyone who’s always wanted to write poetry but hasn’t known where to start; anyone who used to write poetry but didn’t keep going for whatever reason, or who’s coming back to poetry after a break; anyone who’s trying to write poetry regularly and would like more support and guidance. Join me for an afternoon of exercises and prompts to fill your notebook with the beginnings of new poems. Everyone welcome. The cost of the workshop is £30. Please get in touch if you’d like to book a place.

Abeer Ameer Poetry Reading and Q&A - Saturday, 1 June, 2-4pm at Drawing Projects UK, Trowbridge

You are invited to a reading, book signing and audience Q&A with Cardiff-based poet Abeer Ameer. Tickets £5 bookable here. Everyone (16+) welcome.

Abeer Ameer is a poet of Iraqi heritage who lives in Cardiff, Wales. She trained as a dentist in London developing an interest in the treatment of anxious patients and mindfulness.  Her poems are often inspired by stories of Iraq and include a range of personal and political themes and have appeared widely online and in-print publications including: Acumen, Poetry Wales, Magma, Under the Radar, Planet, New Welsh Reader, The Rialto and The Poetry Review. Her debut poetry collection, Inhale/ Exile, was published by Seren in 2021 and shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year in 2022.

I think that’s all the news I have, at the moment. Do, please, let me know if you’d like me to add anything to this newsletter. There’s also a Facebook group for Trowbridge Stanza which you are welcome to join (Nina Parmenter is the administrator).

I was pleased to hear about the Bradford on Avon Photography Group (to which two members of Trowbridge Stanza belong - Peter O’Grady and Pey Oh) and I’m glad that I managed a visit to see their work over the weekend. I’m very happy with my purchases of a small print of one of Peter’s photos (actually it was my husband who especially loved this photo!) and some greetings cards made by Pey.