A couple of reviews came in for B & ST, and I’m immensely grateful to the reviewers and online journals (Everybody’s Reviewing and The High Window) for showcasing my work. Both of them were favourable, which helps! Like many poets out there with non-arts dayjobs, I can’t often get to readings and open mics unless they are very local or coinciding with time off. Therefore, every review is a valuable aid in the right direction. I have to admit that self promotion doesn’t suit me, although I’m paradoxically fine on stage and I love the interactions which come up.
The launch at Five Leaves Bookshop co-incided with storm Joscelyn, meaning I set off towards Nottingham in torrential rain and came back home in a howling wind. Other acoustic challenges included the Exchange clock – one of the loudest and deepest bonnggs in England – which boomed out the hours while I and co-reader Jenny Swann were being serious up there at the front. It was hard to keep a straight face, particularly when Mr. Clock bonngged during an apposite line, but on the whole it is better to have a good old traditional clock in a city centre rather than a silent one. Where would London be without Big Ben? I’m sure I wasn’t the only relieved listener when the Pugin-designed behemoth was back in its rightful place doing the 6 o’clock news after its years of restoration. It’s a bit like ravens leaving the Tower. (for anyone not in the UK: it’s thought the country will fall if the ravens leave their home in London).
I thought I’d get back in the game by leading part of a workshop at a local writers’ evening; the series is run by a very capable spoken word poet, so I contacted him about whether I could help with one of the sessions. I was all set to do this on the February half term, but with a few days still to go, something had happened with the dates and/or the booking/possibly the venue, and the whole thing was called off. Will I ever do a workshop again? I wailed (at first). But I reckon I can wait a while longer, particularly if I’m volunteering now. So much of the regional/non-mainstream arts life consists of fits and starts, ending up back at the beginning as soon as I take my foot off the gas. We’re now impacted by the public services cuts of course: across the midlands, libraries are falling like trees, projects are axed and major galleries are having their funding swept away. When I began working for community arts, bookings could be got from all kinds of local authority departments: in 2024, not one of these outlets exists.
Other artistic efforts included sending work in for the Apocalyptic Landscapes project run by Huddersfield Uni – this allowed me to finish a poem which had lain in my notebooks for a long time as a half-realised selection of images and ideas. At last I was able to get it done, although the remaining two probably won’t be finished in time for the closing date. The completed one arrived too late to make it into the Stripey Trousers, so I’ll use it as a sourdough starter for the next collection. I’m thinking it will be a while before a group of poems materialises to form the next book – this is because I’m having to put the dayjob first for another year. But I look forward to getting some artistic stimulus by reading others’ work and by keeping a notebook as usual.
Rennie Parker's Bookstop 