ZOOMING IN JULY WITH THE 1000 MONKEYS

If the quality had not been so high, I'd be criticising the quantity! 14 poets read on 2nd July. To them and to those who tuned in just to listen — thank you, all of you. The range of topics, from gardens and birds, through football to Gaza and the upcoming British general election day, kept the pace lively.

We were very pleased to see Tim Waller, now in Chicago, listening in (we met in London workshops before Covid) and a new reader, Aaron Barschak, whom Dónall has met at live gigs in London. Aaron has a poem in our Spring Anthology, Green Fuses. This evening he read an absolute show-stopper about Gaza, which made me sorry I hadn't videoed the proceedings this time. We hope he'll come back and give us more.  An actor as well as a poet, Aaron's preferred reading environment is probably the live stage, but his words are equally powerful on the screen. 

Christine Vial's big poem about big events and London's crowds conflated the recent England Football Team's matches in Germany with the London Gay Pride celebrations and memories evoked by the upcoming 9th anniversary of the 7/7 London Transport bombings by terrorists in central London. Derek Sellen's readings of three poems from the Collected Poems of Hubert Moore were also on a London theme: observations of smaller incidents on streets, including '|To the Man who Picked my Pocket on the 149'. Hubert Moore died recently and we're inspired to find out more about him. 

Clive Donovan followed with an appeal to 'Carol' to understand why he turned down her offer of a job spying 'for sex and doughnuts', and a lovely tongue-twister of a poem about ten-minutes' timed free-writing in a poetry workshop! 

Gill Learner returned to the theme of football for her spirited elegy for George Best, and also read her poem 'The Lucombe Oak' from Green Fuses.

Timothy Adès read his translation of 'Memories of the Circus' by López Velarde who wrote the Mexican National Poem. You can read the original and Timothy's translation here. Timothy's translation was published in Artes de México, No. 83, CIRCO ARTE Y POESÍA (April 2007).

Peter Taylor 's poem about a musical, dancing garden was read beautifully by Claire Taylor, as Peter's Parkinson's condition has advanced to a stage where he's no longer able to read his poetry aloud. The joint activity gives pleasure to them both, Peter has told us.

Tony Watts gave us poems on a baby's initiation into the poetry reading community, birds and the joys of a 'proper' fire. Liv Johannesson read a poem from her recent book,What Good Could Grow, which is available on Amazon, and two new poems.

Birds — the hunting and shooting of them — was the theme of a graphic poem by Greg Smith, who also explored the meaning and purpose of potatoes. and opened our eyes to their lyrical possibilities even beyond cookery books!

Ray Pool was in serious mode this month, with 'Horses Bolting', a poem looking back to his childhood trauma during WW2. Dennis Tomlinson, fresh back from a visit to Wexford in Ireland, read the short poem that the visit had inspired.

Jenna Plewes read from her latest book, Holding the Light, published by Hedgehog Press. The proceeds from it go to Medicins Sans Frontières.

And after Aaron's poem 'Jews Don't Count', Ruth Butler read another topical poem, 'Denial' — with the British General Election on July 4th, she took a suitably cynical approach to the situation.

Our next get-together will be on Tuesday 6th August. Keep a look-out in our weekly newsletter for the 'Call-out for Readers' at the end of July.