Is the new issue out!? I haven't see it yet. Doh!
But thank you for that. Amusingly, the first part is the 'original' poem I wrote about buying books at auction; slightly different in tone and about ten lines shorter. I sent it off this year to the Wigtown Po Comp where it was clearly passed over with disdain and didn't scoop me any prizes. So I looked at it again and thought, hmmm, there could be more meat on this particular bone ... maybe what I need is to get MORE ambitious, not less.
So I rewrote and lengthened the original poem and added parts 2 & 3. Then sent it off to Fiona Sampson at Poetry Review and the rest, as they say, is history.
Talking of prizes, I've just won second prize in the
WARWICK WORDS poetry competition! A lady called Helen Yendall came first with a long poem about a kettle, and a bloke whose surname escapes me came third, but his first name was Stephen. His poem was about a shopping trolley. My winning poem - doesn't that sound good?! - is called The Sound of Guitars. It's about when I was eighteen and went to live on my own in Florence for a few months, hanging out with buskers instead of studying. You know the sort of thing, quite romantic and atmospheric. But short!
There was a ceremony tonight in the Great Hall at Warwick Castle, very grand indeed, with wine & nibbles. I even wore a dress and high heels! Afterwards, one of the chief organisers of the festival came up and asked if I'd perform the poem again at a local guitar concert he's organising in November. Isn't that nice?
It was an amusing evening ...