I joined a Poetry Stanza group back in January, which is a new departure for me. Ages ago I was a member of anything I could
belong to, as I negotiated the early stages of being a poet and getting into bookings as a community arts worker. But it was much easier then, because adult education networks were still in each region and every county was peppered with touring-venue arts centres. Even though I ended up in largely rural Lincolnshire, I was still engaged on a merry round of places to go and people to see. The ‘best’ venue always felt like The Pearoom at Heckington – full of character and with a lovely wholefood cafe.
As arts funding became eroded and contracts were pulled, it was harder to find events within an easy distance of home – moreover, when my jobs changed and I no longer worked alongside arts colleagues, I had to get a move on and change direction too. I was no longer belonging to the groups which meant such a lot when I was starting out, and I was often travelling to gig economy employments which left no time for getting back out to the venues after I came home. I wondered why I wasn’t deriving any benefits like the social aspects of creativity – all I seemed to be doing was writing things and sending them out, but my circle of association and friendship hadn’t increased by one millimetre despite all the effort I was putting in.
One day I read a tweet from a poetry co-ordinator in Leicestershire, and I realised I could have attended their monthly workshops
on Zoom right the way through 2022. So I signed up to their Newsletter and attended the very next one – pleased that some of the people in the group were ones I’d met when ‘going to things’ was regular and essential. So, hello world! I hope to be a little more back than I have been since 2019. Then – out of the blue in February – an offer came from the Shrewsbury Poetry organisers who booked me a couple of years ago. A fifteen minute readings slot as part of their zoom ‘Connected’ series. Thankyou, Jean Atkin and Liz Lefroy. It’s sudden opportunities like this which makes the long slog worthwhile. However, the reading itself didn’t go according to plan, as my internet failed spectacularly and it turned into an episode of Ms Bean Does Poetry/clunky vintage stop-frame animated cartoon. Fun for the onlookers, I hope, as I held up handwritten signs and walked backwards round my room carrying the laptop, trying to find the ‘four bars’.
It happened with a kind of inevitability to it. In a college filled with medically vulnerable and socially vulnerable teens, very few people are wearing a mask. Then one person comes into the office with a steaming ‘cold’, refusing to go home because they have ‘so much work to do’. That work included infecting other people in the office with the bugs they had, which turned out to be Covid 19. I spent a few days feeling truly awful – the Pfizer did its heavy lifting so I was soon back on my feet, but I don’t want a dose of this again. Be the friend in the office and the decent boss. Make that sneezing jobsworth go home; let your team do their admin from their own front rooms until there’s no double red lines on the antigen test. We would all love to believe that the pandemic is over, but please consider your local evidence and check the statistics.
Rennie Parker's Bookstop 