Our permanent new website is now online, please go to www.cb1poetry.org.uk
This blog (poetrycb1) will no longer be updated.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Monday, September 24, 2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
CB1 Poetry at Michaelhouse
The new CB1 Poetry website will be online soon, but meanwhile here is a preview of the Michaelhouse programme for 2007-2008. Our poster to advertise the series is reproduced below (please click the image for a larger version).
Acclaimed novelist and award winning poet Tobias Hill has agreed to become a patron of CB1 Poetry, and is headlining the launch event on Tuesday 9th October. We've secured a fantastic line-up of readings with well-known guest poets, all at 8pm on the second Tuesday of the month:
Tue 9 Oct : Tobias Hill (CB1 Poetry Patron; PBS Next Generation poet, Times Young Writer of the Year shortlisted)
Tue 13 Nov : Michael Laskey (Aldeburgh Poetry Festival founder, Smiths Knoll founder/co-editor)
Tue 11 Dec : Esther Morgan, Joanne Limberg & Helen Ivory (Eric Gregory Award winners, Aldeburgh best first collection / Forward prize shortlist / Poetry Archive Editor)
Tue 8 Jan : Matthew Hollis (Wordsworth trust writer in residence, F&F editor, Whitbread Prize & Guardian First Book Award shortlisted)
Tue 12 Feb : Frances Leviston (Eric Gregory Award, PBS Bulletin pamphlet choice)
Tue 11 Mar : Matthew Caley (Forward Best First Collection nominee, Poetry Café writer in residence)
Tue 8 Apr : Pat Borthwick (Hawthornden Fellow, Blue Nose Poet of Year, 2007 Templar competition)
Tue 13 May : Susan Utting (Peterloo Poetry Prize 2007 winner, Poetry Business prize, Forward Best Single Poem commendation)
Each event will also offer a short open mike floor spot and support readings from rising stars of the Cambridge and UK poetry scene – the launch event features recent Cambridge graduate and Eric Gregory national award winner Helen Mort.
The Michaelhouse offers a beautiful, large and accessible city-centre venue (note free parking by The Backs). Books by the readers will be for sale at each event, and a licensed bar will be open till 11pm.
Our traditional venue at the book-lined CB1 Café is of course irreplaceable, and we will continue to hold Open Mike evenings there, some with guest poets, every fourth Tuesday of the month at 8pm. We hope to see you soon at both venues to hear some amazing poetry.
Michaelhouse Trinity Street Cambridge CB2 1SU
www.michaelhouse.org.uk
CB1 Café 32 Mill Road Cambridge CB1 2AD
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
CB1 Poetry - the future
Dear CB1 Poetry supporters
Since Michael & Christine have sadly had to pull out of the co-ordination of CB1 Poetry due to other commitments, a group of us have gathered to discuss the future format and have come up with what we feel is an exciting and workable proposal (financially and artistically).
We propose to keep to our current twice-monthly programme of events but as follows:
- to introduce a new, larger venue (the Michaelhouse Centre on Trinity St) for more well-known/guest poet evenings (which will include some Open Mike slots at each event) on the 2nd Tuesday of each month, starting on 9th October.
- with a separate/specific Open Mike evening continuing at CB1 on the 4th Tuesday of each month, starting on 23rd October.
Both the CB1 and Michaelhouse evenings will contain longer slots where one or two poets will ‘headline’ and be able to showcase more of their work. In this way, at both venues, we want to continue to give local poets regular opportunities to read and develop in front of responsive, supportive audiences – an important part of CB1 Poetry’s ethos since it began.
We are confident this format will offer both stimulation for each audience and the chance for many more local writers to read and progress.
The size of CB1 places a serious limitation on our ability to pay for more well-known poets (and their travel expenses) from the entry fee – and to give enough people access to hear these guest writers. This, in turn, limits what we can provide to you, the local writing community.
Another issue is that CB1 does not have full disability access throughout which again can deter a number of people who might otherwise like to come to these events. Disability access is also a prerequisite for any future grant application. So on several fronts, we don't believe that standing still is a viable option.
There are several reasons for choosing the Michaelhouse venue:
- its manager is keen to hold more literary events after some successful one-off readings, and is therefore very supportive of our plans
- the central venue: this gives more chance of students, tourists and the general public who frequent the cafe and central area to see our posters/publicity and come to sample our events, read out a poem, etc. (We also intend to include listings of CB1/Michaelhouse events in many more on-line & print ‘What’s On’ publications – eg Local Secrets, We’re All Neighbours, Explorer etc).
- in order to attract – and to be able to accommodate – significantly larger audiences as awareness of these events spreads. In turn, larger audiences/total door receipts (along with the existing entry fees charged at the monthly CB1 Open Mike events) will help us to support Michaelhouse venue hire and visiting poet costs.
- parking: by mid-evening it’s usually possible to park for free on The Backs & surrounding roads rather than having to use the Lion Yard or other charging carparks. From there it is quite a short walk to Trinity St. There is a disabled drop-off and collection point directly outside the venue.
We hope you will support our plans and look forward to seeing you at the launch event on 9th October with guest poet Tobias Hill. As soon as details are finalised we will let you know the full programme of guest readers for the year ahead and about an updated CB1 website where all future information on forthcoming events and writers will be posted.
Many thanks,
CB1 Steering Group (Andre Mangeot, Ian Cartland, Emily Dening, Helen Mort, Anne Berkeley, Andrea Porter, Trish Harewood)
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
12 June: Simmonds, Jones, Williams
Tuesday 12th June, 8pm, CB1 Cafe, Mill Road
Entrance: £4 / £3 concessions
KATHRYN SIMMONDS was born in Hertfordshire in 1972 and now lives in north London where she works as an editor. She won the 2006 Poetry London competition, her pamphlet Snug came out recently from Smith Doorstop, and her first collection will be published next year.
On the Day that you were Born
The angels got together and decided to create
a dream come true.
Sorry, no, that wasn’t you.
On the day that you were born
it rained incessantly.
Three potholers were carried to their deaths
by flashfloods in north Wales.
In Manchester a man came home
and set about his wife
with woodwork tools.
Everywhere the sky was dark by four o’clock.
There might have been an air disaster too -
in fact there was,
two hundred people dropped into a field.
HUW JONES was born in Birmingham in 1973 to Welsh parents. He moved first to Manchester, then to Cambridge in 1997. His poetry has been published in Coffee House Poetry, Anon, and more recently in Poetry Wales. A selection of his work appeared in Seren Selections, published by Seren in 2006.
Beneath the apple tree
Reduce: we must guess nothing still,
as if there were a store diminished,
this, my final thing for her:
crouch and fill my hands with water,
push them to her slack white lips
beneath the high white arch of fever,
smudged, her face a mushroom pulse,
lost to sweat. The fields are powder,
standing at the wood's grey edge
standing with my back towards her;
what she hopes for does not answer,
now that she is gone and summer over
I must lay my long white back
into the longer grass
beneath the apple tree
and listen to the river;
learn to trust my hands
to welcome back my autumn thoughts,
an awkward cousin, waiting strict
against the weather,
thinking, is it now?
DEBBIE (KEARAN) WILLIAMS was born in Flintshire, North Wales in 1960. She now lives in Cottenham, and works in Cambridge as a librarian. Under the name Kearan Williams, her poems have appeared in Poetry Wales, The Rialto and Critical Quarterly, and she has been a Bridport prizewinner.
Tremor
‘I immediately took up my pencil to record for the Reverend Johnson the strange shiftings of the world this Friday last.’
Reverend, the weather has been perfectly calm,
though an hour ago, I thought I heard a door slam in the yard.
The moon was up, lighting the ships at Glan-y-Don —
(I have no recollection what shape was the moon);
there had been ice. It slipped from the roof,
the creak of thaw discerned across the quiet of the night.
I fancied I heard — a thunderbolt? a rupture of the air?
(Peg says a rough hand shook her awake.)
The walls of my room trembled with urgency,
the candle slid to the counterpane — I quickly snuffed it out.
I, who was in my bed, was frequently moved up and down,
my head was filled with hot breath, singing in my ears,
and the bed, having castors, removed a small space
while I gripped the mattress, Reverend. Some say these phenomena
are but surface instability — I shall not know till morning
what sights may yet greet us in this once neutral tract.
Will the bodies of our pit men be pitched again in the tree tops?
Lines 11 and 13 come from Thomas Pennant’s History of the Parishes of Whiteford and Holywell, 1796.
Entrance: £4 / £3 concessions
KATHRYN SIMMONDS was born in Hertfordshire in 1972 and now lives in north London where she works as an editor. She won the 2006 Poetry London competition, her pamphlet Snug came out recently from Smith Doorstop, and her first collection will be published next year.
On the Day that you were Born
The angels got together and decided to create
a dream come true.
Sorry, no, that wasn’t you.
On the day that you were born
it rained incessantly.
Three potholers were carried to their deaths
by flashfloods in north Wales.
In Manchester a man came home
and set about his wife
with woodwork tools.
Everywhere the sky was dark by four o’clock.
There might have been an air disaster too -
in fact there was,
two hundred people dropped into a field.
HUW JONES was born in Birmingham in 1973 to Welsh parents. He moved first to Manchester, then to Cambridge in 1997. His poetry has been published in Coffee House Poetry, Anon, and more recently in Poetry Wales. A selection of his work appeared in Seren Selections, published by Seren in 2006.
Beneath the apple tree
Reduce: we must guess nothing still,
as if there were a store diminished,
this, my final thing for her:
crouch and fill my hands with water,
push them to her slack white lips
beneath the high white arch of fever,
smudged, her face a mushroom pulse,
lost to sweat. The fields are powder,
standing at the wood's grey edge
standing with my back towards her;
what she hopes for does not answer,
now that she is gone and summer over
I must lay my long white back
into the longer grass
beneath the apple tree
and listen to the river;
learn to trust my hands
to welcome back my autumn thoughts,
an awkward cousin, waiting strict
against the weather,
thinking, is it now?
DEBBIE (KEARAN) WILLIAMS was born in Flintshire, North Wales in 1960. She now lives in Cottenham, and works in Cambridge as a librarian. Under the name Kearan Williams, her poems have appeared in Poetry Wales, The Rialto and Critical Quarterly, and she has been a Bridport prizewinner.
Tremor
‘I immediately took up my pencil to record for the Reverend Johnson the strange shiftings of the world this Friday last.’
Reverend, the weather has been perfectly calm,
though an hour ago, I thought I heard a door slam in the yard.
The moon was up, lighting the ships at Glan-y-Don —
(I have no recollection what shape was the moon);
there had been ice. It slipped from the roof,
the creak of thaw discerned across the quiet of the night.
I fancied I heard — a thunderbolt? a rupture of the air?
(Peg says a rough hand shook her awake.)
The walls of my room trembled with urgency,
the candle slid to the counterpane — I quickly snuffed it out.
I, who was in my bed, was frequently moved up and down,
my head was filled with hot breath, singing in my ears,
and the bed, having castors, removed a small space
while I gripped the mattress, Reverend. Some say these phenomena
are but surface instability — I shall not know till morning
what sights may yet greet us in this once neutral tract.
Will the bodies of our pit men be pitched again in the tree tops?
Lines 11 and 13 come from Thomas Pennant’s History of the Parishes of Whiteford and Holywell, 1796.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Open Mic at CB1 - Tuesday 22 May, 8pm
Come along and sign up to read on arrival. Bring 2-3 poems (no epics please!) in case we have time for more than one each. There will be aprize for the poem/poet voted 'best on the night'!
Whether you are an experienced reader or have never read a poem in public before, please do support these Open Mic evenings. They are intriguing, unpredictable and an opportunity for anyone to read in front of a supportive and welcoming audience.
Over the last ten years CB1 Open Mics have provided the initial platform from which many talented writers and poets have progressed to 10-15 minute slots supporting our visiting/guest poets - and from there on to publication and wider recognition. Helen Mort is just one recent example. You never know -you may find yourself listening to other stars of the future!
£3/£2 concessions
Whether you are an experienced reader or have never read a poem in public before, please do support these Open Mic evenings. They are intriguing, unpredictable and an opportunity for anyone to read in front of a supportive and welcoming audience.
Over the last ten years CB1 Open Mics have provided the initial platform from which many talented writers and poets have progressed to 10-15 minute slots supporting our visiting/guest poets - and from there on to publication and wider recognition. Helen Mort is just one recent example. You never know -you may find yourself listening to other stars of the future!
£3/£2 concessions
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Tues 8 May - Holland, Doran, Jones
8pm, Tuesday 8th May
CB1 Cafe - Mill Road
Entrance: £4 / £3 concessions
Jane Holland is an English poet, novelist, editor and former professional snooker player, born in Essex in 1966. She won an Eric Gregory Award for her poetry in 1996. Her first collection, The Brief History of a Disreputable Woman, was published by Bloodaxe in 1997. A first novel, Kissing the Pink, followed from Sceptre in 1999.
Jane’s new collection, Boudicca & Co. (published by Salt in 2006) is a provocative and vibrant exploration of women and their roles in society. The perennial themes of motherhood, love and sex jostle for space here with elegies, poetry written for performance, and Celtic-inspired mythological pieces. Richly allusive, these poems create networks between each other, tell stories, make music and ask unexpected questions of the reader.
One of the best poetry performers around, Jane lives in Warwickshire with her husband and five children.
HOT DAYS IN THE EIGHTIES
On hot days in the eighties, you stopped
for ices at Taunton Services. Little
did you know then, twenty-something
in the white Ford Escort Estate —
radio on full, heater too, blasting out
to keep the engine cool — the traffic jams
from Portishead to Liverpool.
That was the decade of the motorway.
You chopped your locks in the back
of the car one day, dyke-short.
Kept dental dams in the glove box,
grew the hair under your arms
to a mousey fuzz. Purchased
a map of the highways, went native.
You wore a suede jacket and a crucifix
in the ‘V’ of your chest, strode
like a man (and the rest). Drove
a Lancia Delta into the dirt.
Years later it was a Mercedes camper van,
seven berth, and beads, hippy skirts,
needing to get close to the earth.
These days you don’t get out much,
stuck in with a husband and kids.
But the road’s strong, it hauls on you
like a blackbird on the worm,
and you find excuses — friends ill,
time alone — for the grip
of the wheel, a licence to roam.
Phil Doran, Liverpool born, now living in Cambridge, is a veteran of stand-up comedy in the 1990s. Highlights include appearances at the Comedy Store, Jongleurs and Edinburgh Fringe. Phil has shared the bill with Mark Lamarr, Harry Hill, Peter Kay, Jo Caufield & Eddie Izzard and supported John Cooper Clarke at the Birminghan Literary Festival.
He now concentrates on teaching English and (humorous) poetry/spoken word and more reflective/serious (but still comedic) work focusing on social surrealism and political (meta)fiction. His poetry pamphlets include: Foul-Mouthed Diatribe, Sex & Drugs & Uncle Frank, and Magic Mushroom Chilli Con Carne. Spaghetti Fiction 2007 is a new collection of 60+ short stories.
SOCIAL CONTRACT KILLING
A series of micro-relationships, a fleet of abused cars, a garage full of Sierra
Leones, seventy-two deep-fried Mars Bars. The fat, horny, reckless Scottish
mercenary was writing out his wish list, when MI5 knocked.
When they said they wanted him to take someone out, they hadn't envisaged
six cans of Tennent's Super, a carry out from the chippy, 40 Regal and a
social housing scheme in the East End of Glasgow. The effect had been the
same: it'd just taken a bit longer that's all.
Nick Jones is currently a Physics teacher at a school near Kettering. Prior to this he served 24 years in the RAF as an airman on Nimrod aircraft during the first Gulf War and the conflicts across the former Yugoslavia.
“The topics I tend to write about are love, my children, women and war. Chiefly, I’ve come to discover, because I understand none of them. I like wit, cadence and rhyme in a poem. This one arose from my 6-year old daughter coming home from school and saying she’d been playing ‘kiss-chase.’ I was horrified - and this is how the story unfolded…”
The playtime bell rings aloud,
and boys, not yet like Englishmen,
rush out in an untidy crowd.Annie’s chasing after them!
Annie’s playing Kiss-chase,
a Porpoise in a flashing shoal,
darting boys with breathless pace
look out for Miss on Break Patrol.
But, Annie, here’s a lesson for you.
Every time you kiss a boy,
it would be wrong, not to warn you;
a fluffy kitten is destroyed!
So save your hugs for Mum and Dad,
Aunties, Uncles, friends in class
whose hearts are made forever glad,
and do not grow up quite so fast.
For there will be sufficient time
(it breaks my heart to tell you so)
to kiss all the men in Lichstenstein,
and rub noses with an Eskimo.
“And this short poem was written about an event that occurred after I had left the Royal Air Force, but one that significantly affected my former comrades”.
A small boy looks up in Fullajah,
sees red, white and blue on their armour
and waits for his beard.
A life commandeered,
the children don’t play in Fullajah.
Patrick Sheil has played bass and other instruments for Moth Conspiracy, in which he is currently the main writer. He is inspired by early Motown and British indie. Free mp3 downloads of Moth Conspiracy are available at http://www.wedontcarerecords.com/songs2.html and 'First Among the Small' is for sale at http://www.invisiblehands.co.uk/shop/tracks.asp?artistid=6 for just 79p (scroll down to the 'Fretwork 3' compilation album).
CB1 Cafe - Mill Road
Entrance: £4 / £3 concessions
Jane Holland is an English poet, novelist, editor and former professional snooker player, born in Essex in 1966. She won an Eric Gregory Award for her poetry in 1996. Her first collection, The Brief History of a Disreputable Woman, was published by Bloodaxe in 1997. A first novel, Kissing the Pink, followed from Sceptre in 1999.
Jane’s new collection, Boudicca & Co. (published by Salt in 2006) is a provocative and vibrant exploration of women and their roles in society. The perennial themes of motherhood, love and sex jostle for space here with elegies, poetry written for performance, and Celtic-inspired mythological pieces. Richly allusive, these poems create networks between each other, tell stories, make music and ask unexpected questions of the reader.
One of the best poetry performers around, Jane lives in Warwickshire with her husband and five children.
HOT DAYS IN THE EIGHTIES
On hot days in the eighties, you stopped
for ices at Taunton Services. Little
did you know then, twenty-something
in the white Ford Escort Estate —
radio on full, heater too, blasting out
to keep the engine cool — the traffic jams
from Portishead to Liverpool.
That was the decade of the motorway.
You chopped your locks in the back
of the car one day, dyke-short.
Kept dental dams in the glove box,
grew the hair under your arms
to a mousey fuzz. Purchased
a map of the highways, went native.
You wore a suede jacket and a crucifix
in the ‘V’ of your chest, strode
like a man (and the rest). Drove
a Lancia Delta into the dirt.
Years later it was a Mercedes camper van,
seven berth, and beads, hippy skirts,
needing to get close to the earth.
These days you don’t get out much,
stuck in with a husband and kids.
But the road’s strong, it hauls on you
like a blackbird on the worm,
and you find excuses — friends ill,
time alone — for the grip
of the wheel, a licence to roam.
Phil Doran, Liverpool born, now living in Cambridge, is a veteran of stand-up comedy in the 1990s. Highlights include appearances at the Comedy Store, Jongleurs and Edinburgh Fringe. Phil has shared the bill with Mark Lamarr, Harry Hill, Peter Kay, Jo Caufield & Eddie Izzard and supported John Cooper Clarke at the Birminghan Literary Festival.
He now concentrates on teaching English and (humorous) poetry/spoken word and more reflective/serious (but still comedic) work focusing on social surrealism and political (meta)fiction. His poetry pamphlets include: Foul-Mouthed Diatribe, Sex & Drugs & Uncle Frank, and Magic Mushroom Chilli Con Carne. Spaghetti Fiction 2007 is a new collection of 60+ short stories.
SOCIAL CONTRACT KILLING
A series of micro-relationships, a fleet of abused cars, a garage full of Sierra
Leones, seventy-two deep-fried Mars Bars. The fat, horny, reckless Scottish
mercenary was writing out his wish list, when MI5 knocked.
When they said they wanted him to take someone out, they hadn't envisaged
six cans of Tennent's Super, a carry out from the chippy, 40 Regal and a
social housing scheme in the East End of Glasgow. The effect had been the
same: it'd just taken a bit longer that's all.
Nick Jones is currently a Physics teacher at a school near Kettering. Prior to this he served 24 years in the RAF as an airman on Nimrod aircraft during the first Gulf War and the conflicts across the former Yugoslavia.
“The topics I tend to write about are love, my children, women and war. Chiefly, I’ve come to discover, because I understand none of them. I like wit, cadence and rhyme in a poem. This one arose from my 6-year old daughter coming home from school and saying she’d been playing ‘kiss-chase.’ I was horrified - and this is how the story unfolded…”
The playtime bell rings aloud,
and boys, not yet like Englishmen,
rush out in an untidy crowd.Annie’s chasing after them!
Annie’s playing Kiss-chase,
a Porpoise in a flashing shoal,
darting boys with breathless pace
look out for Miss on Break Patrol.
But, Annie, here’s a lesson for you.
Every time you kiss a boy,
it would be wrong, not to warn you;
a fluffy kitten is destroyed!
So save your hugs for Mum and Dad,
Aunties, Uncles, friends in class
whose hearts are made forever glad,
and do not grow up quite so fast.
For there will be sufficient time
(it breaks my heart to tell you so)
to kiss all the men in Lichstenstein,
and rub noses with an Eskimo.
“And this short poem was written about an event that occurred after I had left the Royal Air Force, but one that significantly affected my former comrades”.
A small boy looks up in Fullajah,
sees red, white and blue on their armour
and waits for his beard.
A life commandeered,
the children don’t play in Fullajah.
Patrick Sheil has played bass and other instruments for Moth Conspiracy, in which he is currently the main writer. He is inspired by early Motown and British indie. Free mp3 downloads of Moth Conspiracy are available at http://www.wedontcarerecords.com/songs2.html and 'First Among the Small' is for sale at http://www.invisiblehands.co.uk/shop/tracks.asp?artistid=6 for just 79p (scroll down to the 'Fretwork 3' compilation album).
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