troubadours of happenstance
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Sleepers. A fine idea if you can book a berth but a complete misnomer if cash and demand force you into a recliner (read “seat that hardly moves back”) for the eight-hour journey. And my seat on the way down to London was the worst possible option: right next to the door to the toilet
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Back from London and, after two less than restful nights on the sleeper (the one on the way down was by far the worse) completely puggelt. Proper reports of Sunday’s Shore Poets and last night’s reading in due course, but suffice to say it was a cracker of a night.
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Andrew Philip: A Sampler came through the post today, 12 author copies of a slim, simple and elegant pamphlet–slightly to my surprise, as I wasn’t expecting to see it before the Troubadour reading. And a lovely surprise, too: Helena Nelson has, naturally, done a fantastic job on it and it feels beautiful in the hand.
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The final poem in the pre-Troubadour series is by Helena Nelson, founder and editor of HappenStance press. It is very much in the spirit of her wonderfully quirky and deliciously, irreverantly playful pamphlet Unsuitable Poems. LikeI was like Read this poemHe was like You must be jokingI was like PleeeeaseHe was like Fancy a drink?
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Originally, I wasn’t going to post one of my own poems in this series, but I’ve changed my mind and am posting a piece from Tonguefire that hasn’t appeared anywhere else. Pedestrian Someone was standing in the middle of the road.She stood astride it, just beyondthe blind spot on a sharp, countryside bend,so hidden that
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Martin Cook’s life has included soldiering, tea planting, advertising, marketing and social work–the kind of CV that once was almost de rigeur for a poet. His pamphlet, Mackerel Wrappers, was published in 2007. FallingAfter Chagall’s Los Novios del la Torre Eiffel We should never have climbed that phallus.We were, after all, Brits and when you
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Eleanor Livingstone is artistic director of the StAnza poetry festival. Her chapbook, The Last King of Fife, from which “The Monimail Spider” is taken, was published by HappenStance in 2005. More recently, she edited Migraasje, migration o words, a pamphlet of Scots and Shetlandic versions of Frisian poems, published to accompany the reading by Frisian
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Just a quickie to say the HappenStance Troubadour gig is now listed on the Troubadour site‘s programme pages. Can’t quite believe I’ll be heading down to London for it in a fortnight’s time! Last time I was in the city was in 2003 for a Keith Jarrett Trio gig. So much has happened since then,
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Gregory Leadbetter has been an environmental lawyer, worked in TV production and written TV drama; he is currently researching Samuel Taylor Coleridge. His pamphlet, The Body in the Well, was published by HappenStance in 2007. The ScientistAll this talk travels years ahead of him,a laughing gas in the air-conditioningat the Royal Society and the British
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I’ve often thought that I would have arrived a little more as a writer if my publications were to pop up in a second-hand bookshop or a charity shop. Not that it wouldn’t be a double-edged feeling, but I always assumed I’d take pleasure in it, knowing how many books I’ve found in such outlets.
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DA Prince was born in Leicestershire of Welsh parents in 1947. Her book, Nearly the Happy Hour, published this month, is the first full-length collection from HappenStance. What time is it, Mr Wolf? Mr Wolf has eyes creased tight, his fistsballed into dumplings, concentratingon the rules. Today he’s learned thistles,a difficult door-handle, excuse me,crackle of
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Tom Duddy teaches philosophy at the National University of Ireland, Galway. He is the author of of A History of Irish Thought (2002). His first collection of poems, a chapbook entitled The Small Hours, was published by HappenStance in 2006. Side Street I don’t often pass through this part of the city,though it’s on my
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Rob A Mackenzie is well known in the literary blogosphere as the man behind the popular poetry blog Surroundings. His pamphlet, The Clown of Natural Sorrow, was published by HappenStance in 2005. Light Storms from a Dark Country You bend sleetward down grey alleyways,xxin search of finesse to straighten outthe tangle of the last spat.
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I’m delighted to begin this series of poems with the following nocturne from Michael Mackmin, who is best known as the editor of that beautifully produced magazine, The Rialto. HappenStance published his modestly titled pamphlet Twenty-Three Poems in 2006. Midnight Garden As the light moves from deepest blue to blackamong the last outlines of vines
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Over the weeks runing up to the HappenStance reading at the Troubadour, I’ll be posting a poem by each of the poets appearing. The full line-up is listed alphabetically by surname below. Poems will appear in a different order and the list will link to the poems as they are posted. Martin CookTom DuddyEleanor LivingstoneGreg
Amy Jo Philip 