13 January already. Before 2009 runs away with me, I'd better note these poetry moments in December … a busy poetry month with the Poetry Reading Group [PRG] reading all the TS Eliot Prize shortlisted poets [more on that later], for now:
1 December to The Troubadour for the 2nd Troubadour Poetry Prize-giving event. Three prize-winners and 20 commended poets read their work; a rich evening of poetry. Among the commended was our own Jane Kirwan from the PRG. Congratulations Jane.
Goldsmiths colleague Stephen Knight and Jo Shapcott were the judges. As well as giving fine readings of their work, they both spoke frankly about the judging process. The Annual Troubadour Poetry Prize is rare among competitions in that all entries are read by both judges – no sifters. Knight said that among the two-thousand or so poems entered “there were few inept poems.” He graded entries as “competent, more than competent and prize-winning.”
Jo Shapcott went further saying that from the entries she could have picked 100 poems to produce an anthology that would be “the equal of any anthology currently on the market.” That’s quite a claim.
All of this is testament to the poetry community that Anne-Marie Fyfe has built up around Coffee-House Poetry at the Troubadour for over a decade. She’s built a strong audience not just for the Monday readings but for regular workshops and seminars, and now the annual competition. Oh yes, and the recently launched website where you can read all the prize winning poems and see the Spring 2009 programme, here. So, Anne-Marie, is the Troubadour Anthology a possible future development?
12 December to the launch of Geraldine Paine’s first collection, The Go-Away Bird, at Chris Beetles gallery off Piccadilly, London. A packed evening with a brilliant reading by the poet. Here’s evidence that good poetry will out. Geraldine has bided her time in finding a publisher. She’s won prizes, published in many magazines and been a regular performer of her work in the South East with the 'Scatterlings.' The seventy or so poems in the this book are but a selection from a large body of work and include a sequence of her Zimbabwe poems. Sheenagh Pugh has written a thoughtful review, here.
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