ELIZABETH COOK and BLAKE MORRISON

Well, we had a chair crisis last night. Librarians Kim and David worked their magic and managed to find chairs and even transport two sofas to the main hall to accommodate a record-breaking audience. And thankfully a few people didn’t mind sitting on children’s chairs, squeezing on the two sofas and even standing up or perching on library furniture.

It was all worth it…

I hadn’t known Elizabeth’s work but as soon as I read her pamphlet Tumbling, which she was launching last night, I knew that pairing her voice with Blake’s would work beautifully. And it did. Both authors writing from, not about (a very important distinction) personal losses their poems resonated with each other despite their different styles – and they resonated with me and, I’m sure, with the audience, including some younger attendees. Both formerly working in academia, both writing prose as well as verse, both erudite and steeped in the poetry canon, yet extremely accessible, they engaged in a lively conversation after the break, which stimulated interesting questions and interventions from the audience.

Does ‘tumbling’ imply danger and pain only, or does it have an inherent sense of bouncing back? In prose, the characters lead the author; does it work the same way in poetry? Does form (for example, a sestina or a sonnet) lead the poet’s decision or vice versa? I wish the whole session were recorded because not only the reading of, and the introductions to, the poems were so engaging, but also the conversation, the questions and answers were stimulating illuminating.

Huge thanks, therefore, to Elizabeth and Blake, to the audience, to Kim and David and to Mari, Mandy and Jackie who were kept extremely busy at the refreshments table.

Here’s something about the poets:

Elizabeth Cook is a poet, novelist, and occasional librettist. Her fiction includes Achilles (Methuen), a novel with a performance life which won a Fringe First at Edinburgh, and Lux (Scribe), which moves from the Scriptural story of David and Bathsheba to the Tudor poet, Thomas Wyatt. She has published two full collections of poetry, Bowl, and When I Kiss the Sky (both with Worple Press) and two pamphlets, The Sound of the Rain (Garlic Press) and now, Tumbling (Mariscat). She has also written on seventeenth-century poetry and was the editor of the Oxford Authors John Keats. She was the librettist for Francis Grier’s The Passion of Jesus of Nazareth, commissioned by BBC radio 3. After turning away from an academic career, Elizabeth has taught in a variety of situations including prisons and a Franciscan friary where she regularly runs poetry study weekends.

Blake Morrison grew up in Yorkshire and studied at Nottingham University. He has published poetry, life writing, fiction, essays and plays, including the memoir And When Did You Last See Your Father? (made into a film with Jim Broadbent, Juliet Stevenson and Colin Firth) and the novel The Last Weekend (which was dramatised for television). For many years he worked as a literary editor before becoming Professor of Creative Writing at Goldsmiths University. His poetry collections include The Ballad of the Yorkshire Ripper and Shingle Street. This year he has published a new poetry collection, Afterburn (Chatto & Windus) and a book about life writing, On Memoir.

‘As it Must’ – with Gale Burns, Golnoosh Nourpanah and Jocelyn Page

It was the first time I slightly let go of my baby and trusted it to someone else, in this case into the very generous hands of Gale Burns. Actually – this isn’t true. Each time poets and authors have come and read at in-words events it became THEIR event, with me as the midwife, not the mother… Enough of this metaphor! I enjoyed collaborating with Gale and taking a backseat on the night – experiencing the evening as a member of the large audience. And what an experience! So engrossing that I completely forgot to take photos… BUT… librarian David did take some. See below.

It was an opportunity for Gale to launch his latest collection, As it Must, in SE London. It is a deeply personal collection (what poetry isn’t deeply personal?) – in the sense that he opens a door for us to step into his family of origin and his own past, but not only… Sometimes, when I read the full collection, I felt that that door got suddenly slammed shut, but with wit and empathy. I felt there was no nostalgia but curiosity in his poetic exploration. and all with word-perfect skill. A book that begs to be read more than once, and repays you with not only beauty but many aha moments. If you didn’t buy on the night, do it now!!

Golnoosh Nourpanah read from her collection Rocksong (with an intriguing, almost scary cover!), poems from an anthology and newer ones that haven’t yet been published (can’t wait to read them in print!). I am intrigued to know more about her writing process as a bilingual Persian/English poet – there was no time for this question, but also listening to her very visual verses made that question partly irrelevant. The politics of Iran were never completely absent from her poems, even in the one debating what a poem is and is not. Her interest in tarot as a key to deeper insight and connections started to open my eyes to something I had never considered before.

Jocelyn Page read from her collection smithereens and poems that have been published in reviews and magazines but not yet in book form. Again, I hope they will be soon! I so enjoy hearing voices that are a mixture of cultures and experiences, that open windows onto inner and outer landscapes that are surprising because of the originality of the words and verbal devices used but become quickly familiar. This is what poetry does – for me, at least. And sometimes it’s just the music of it. Jocelyn’s poems have it all. Her academic work made her the perfect ‘interviewer’: after the break she led a discussion and took questions from the floor for Gale, Golnoosh and herself to explore and answer.

As always the audience was totally engaged and interested.

As always, they also enjoyed my cakes and the drinks so gracefully served by Mari and Mandy. Librarians Helen and David went over and above as usual. I thank them all. And thank-you to everyone who came and help make it a vibrant, buzzing evening.

Here are the biographies of the poets. The information in them will also help you purchase any of their books.

Gale Burns has lived in Forest Hill for several decades.  He has won two international awards for poetry and his publications include three pamphlets and a collection called Mute House, published by Eyewear. Gale’s work has been translated into several European languages as well as Arabic, and he has been poet in residence at Lewisham Hospital, Sydenham Arts Festival, and Kingston University. He is one of the founders of the Shuffle Poetry reading series and a member of Poets for the Planet. He will be launching As it Must, his latest collection recently published with Kingston University Press.  www.galeburns.co.uk

Golnoosh Nourpanah is an Iranian-British writer, lecturer, and tarot reader. Golnoosh has a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing and teaches this topic at Birkbeck. She is the author of The Ministry of Guidance and Other Stories (2020) and Rocksong (2021). Golnoosh’s poetry pamphlet Impure Thoughts came out with Verve Poetry Press in 2022 and was shortlisted for the Live Canon Pamphlet Competition. She has performed her work at literature festivals and events across the UK and internationally. Her work has also been published by Granta, Vintage, and Columbia Journal. https://www.golnooshnour.com/

Jocelyn Page is a poet from Connecticut, USA, living in London. She has published in various journals including The Spectator, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Salzburg, South Carolina Reviewand Poetry Review. Her debut pamphlet, smithereens, was published in 2010 by tall lighthouse press and in 2016 her You’ve Got to Wait Till the Man You Trust Says Go was the winner of the Goldsmiths’ Writer Centre’s inaugural Poetry Pamphlet award. Jocelyn is the Resident Creative Consultant at Greenpeace International. She teaches English and Creative Writing at Goldsmiths College and the University of London Worldwide. http://www.jocelyn-page.com