As well as attending the 10^th Festival of Suffolk Poetry and doing a reading in Cornwall (see May Musings), I also attended a reading by Robert Seatter on Zoom (Oxford Stanza 2) which was very good; he is an engaging reader. I read in the open mic. At the end of the month, I ran my occasional poetry evening at the Green Room café in Ipswich with poets Sally Gardner, Mary Allen and Ian Griffiths reading. I gave an outing to some of the motherhood poems that I have been working on with Rebecca Goss. It is always good to see how poems land in a first reading and to get feedback.

I decided to travel up to Norwich mid-month to Dragon Hall (a beautiful medieval complex by the river, close to Norwich station) for a seminar on online presence.  Dragon Hall is home to the National Centre for Writing. We had presentations from author Sally-Anne Lomas, publisher and poet Chris Hamilton-Emery and social media and marketing expert Simon K Jones. A great deal of useful information was shared, particularly the idea of using Substack for emailing newsletters to subscribers. A lot to consider. What was clear is that technology keeps advancing, so tools writers use to promote their work can soon go out of date.

It was good to attend the regular workshop groups to which I belong. I also put together my final ten poems for my mentor Rebecca Goss to review. It was particularly difficult to decide which poems to send in as I was very aware that this was the last chance to present new poems; my choices could affect the shape of the full body of work. I have been writing poems about the progress of my daughter’s pregnancy, reflecting on my own experiences and considering what it means to be a grandmother. I did not know how everything would pan out until the birth happened, so some writing was on hold until that time.

It was a joy to read with Alex Josephy for Bernadette Reed’s Talking Rhythm! evening at the Prince of Greenwich pub in London, such a great venue and brilliant mix of poetry and music. I read from all three of my pamphlets (the third due to be published at the end of September) – they make a good set in my opinion, drawing on Sudan experience as well as wider conflict and displacement issues. There was a lovely surprise as my son, who was there, unexpectedly decided to read a poem he had written about me writing poetry!

I also went down to London to attend a one-day symposium Other Worlds: Contemporary Ekphrastic Poetry run by the Open University’s Contemporary Culture of Writing Research Group – the talks were excellent. Poets speaking included Alycia Pirmohamed, Emily Berry and Antony V Capildeo. It was great to be there with some fellow Poetry School MA alumni as well as a PhD student from the University of Suffolk who had attended one of my workshops in Ipswich.

A busy month all round, with much to inspire further reading and writing!

If you would like to contact me to comment or follow up, please send me an email via the contact box on my website . You can also contact me to buy a signed copy of my books

Sleeping Under Clouds (Clayhanger Press) and A City Waking Up (Dempsey and Windle). My third pamphlet, Once There Was Colour, will be published by Palewell Press 27 September 2024.