‘A Better Future’

February 5, 2025

Remembering and honouring victims and survivors of the Holocaust and of wars, hatred and racism all over the world.

Poetry lovers and poets filled the beautiful West Greenwich Library last night to listen to Jacqueline Saphra and Sue Rose read from their collections, and to Lucia Foti’s accomplished harp playing.

Jacqueline Saphra read a sequence of poems from her outstanding collection Velvel’s Violin (Nine Arches Press, 2023). Published not long before the atrocities of that October in Israel and the terrible war that followed, it is essential reading at a time of rising antisemitism, racism and denial of history. In the words of poet and editor Amy Acre, the book […] speaks to a homeland that exists not in sand and soil but in soup and song, in strange edges and broken tongue, in atheists’ prayers, in journey, in love. It was absolutely right to hear Jacqueline read uninterrupted, and it was clear that everyone in the audience was completely captivated. The breadth and courage of Jacqueline’s poems within the themes of loss, of the legacy of centuries of persecution, of History so totally impacting on histories, are astounding. And there is wit and humour, of course, as well as moments of stillness, like the last line of ‘Peace Sonnet’: a quiet sky with nothing falling but the leaves.

‘Broken tongue’ is very much a theme of some of Rose’s poems from Scion (Cinnamon Press, 2020), where the family yiddish idioms interspersed with English are such a natural part of the conversation, and therefore of the thinking. Assimilation, dilution and ambivalence about faith are not enough to break the slippery helix/that proves we belong. As a translator as well as a poet, Sue’s interest in languages – and more personal reasons – led her to start learning Hebrew quite recently. Sue also read from her forthcoming book, Aleph-Bet (Cinnamon Press, September 2025). In it she meditates on each of the letters in the Hebrew alphabet, linking their shapes to their meanings and creating images and metaphors that take you places and bring you right back. Pre-sales are not available yet, but if you email info@cinnamonpress.com expressing your interest in the book, you will receive notification of the pre-sales date.

What can I say about Lucia Foti’s performance? She played so beautifully, and the chosen melodies were so relevant to the themes of the poetry, that the combination worked extremely well. Her playing gave us three separate moments (six melodies plus an ‘encore’) of calm and soft breathing, with the domed space of the Library providing the perfect acoustics. A break from the intensity and emotional charge of the poetry, yet connected to it. Harps are notoriously hard to play, and also hard to transport – Lucia did it all with immense grace and skill.

A big thank-you to Jacqueline, Sue and Lucia, and as always to the Library staff, Kim and Monica, for their help setting up, rigging up all the necessary things to project the texts onto screen, and for going as ever well beyond the call of duty (and closing time…sorry!). Thank you also to my friend Marilyn, who managed the refreshments table and, of course, to everyone who attended. I hope to see you all again soon.

Jacqueline Saphra is a poet, playwright and activist. She is the author of nine plays, five chapbooks and five poetry collections. The Kitchen of Lovely Contraptions (flipped eye 2011) was nominated for the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. If I Lay on my Back I Saw Nothing but Naked Women (The Emma Press 2014), illustrated by Mark Andrew Webber and set to music by Benjamin Tassie won the Saboteur Award for Best Collaborative Work. Jacqueline’s T.S. Eliot Prize-shortlisted collection All My Mad Mothers (2017) and her subsequent one, Dad, Remember You are Dead (2019) were both published by Nine Arches Press. Her newest play, The Noises was shortlisted for a Standing Ovation Award. Jacqueline’s collection, One Hundred Lockdown Sonnets (2021) was followed by Velvel’s Violin in July 2023 (Nine Arches Press), a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and BBC Radio 4 Extra Poetry Book of the Month. Her latest project is the libretto for ‘A Kind of Haunting’, an opera by British Jewish composer Michael Zev Gordon, which will be staged at The Barbican in March 2025. Jacqueline is a founder member of Poets for the Planet and has taught in many different settings including The Arvon Foundation, The Poetry School, Oxford University Summer School and the MsT at Cambridge University. 

Sue Rose is a poet and literary translator working in Kent. As a translator, her work spans many genres, including libretti, novels and a series of books about the adventures of France’s answer to Harry Potter, Oksa Pollock. In 2004, she completed an MPhil in Writing with a thesis on the theory and practice of the translation of poetry. As a poet, her work has appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies. In 2008, she won the Canterbury Festival Poet of the Year Competition and in 2009, the International Troubadour Poetry Prize. Sue is the author of three collections from Cinnamon Press – From the Dark Room, The Cost of Keys and Scion. Heart Archives, a chapbook of sonnets paired with her own photos, was published by Hercules Editions in 2014 and Tonewood, poems in response to black and white photos of trees by photographer Lawrence Impey, was published by Eaglesfield Editions in 2019. Her fourth collection, Aleph Bet, a sequence of poems exploring the Hebrew language, accompanied by some of her own photos, will be published later this year by Cinnamon Press.

Lucia Foti is a London-based Italian harpist. After graduating with first class honours from the Conservatorio di Como, she completed her Master’s, graduating with distinction from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. Lucia has won several national and international prizes, including first prize the 2012 Concours Français de la Harpe and the 2015 Soroptimist Italia Competition for Young Talents, and more recently, third prize at the 2024 Manchester Harp Competition. She performs solo with professional orchestras, has performed at Kings Place and can be heard regularly at Cadogan Hall and St John’s Smith Square with the Young Musicians’ Symphony Orchestra. Lucia and guitarist Stefano Fiacco have partnered to form the Nazca Duo, and have been awarded the Colin Blythe Bursary Fund in 2023 in recognition of their achievement in chamber music.

Lucia Foti, me, Jacqueline Saphra and Sue Rose

Events

TUESDAY MARCH 25 at West Greenwich Library, 7.30 – ‘Mica Press launch: new poetry from Rosie Johnston, Michael Vince and Antony Johae.’ With Nayma Chamchoun, Michael Foley and Leslie Bell.

An evening of poetry from six very different voices. Here’s something about them:

Leslie Bell was born in Scotland and spent his boyhood on Tyneside, in Finland, and in Scotland. While studying in Washington D.C.,  he came across Dante’s La Vita Nuova and promptly decided to ‘read’ English Literature instead of History at King’s College, Cambridge. His working career has been varied to say the least: he made an educational filmstrip on Elizabethan theatres, sold ice cream, worked as a hospital porter, auxiliary nurse, carpenter and plasterer, potato salesman, English teacher, drama student, printer, bookshop assistant, systems programmer in university web support and e-learning, and support worker with autistic adults. In 2012 Les founded Mica Press & Campanula Books in Wivenhoe, Essex, where he has lived since 1978. At Mica he edits and publishes poetry and non-fiction. His own poems have appeared in many magazines and in the anthology Days begin… (ed. Peter Kennedy, Wivenbooks, 2016). Archipelagos, poems by Leslie Bell, (Mica Press, 2012) is available in paperback from https://micapress.uk/ .

Nayma Chamchoun is a British Moroccan writer, poet and performance poet. Her writing is influenced by her cultural duality. She is interested in female voices in the diaspora communities, the challenges they face within them, especially around the taboos surrounding mental health. Nayma is an active member of London’s vibrant Poetry and Spoken Word community, the international Poetry community online and has performed her work at several Poetry Open Mic events including the one marking Grenfell 5 year Anniversary, Women Writing Lockdown Exhibition at the House of Commons. Her work was featured on West Wiltshire Radio & BBC Radio London several times. Nayma’s first poetry collection COVID: THE WORDY WILDS OF A MIND UNDER LOCKDOWN was published to critical acclaim in 2022. Her second collection, Saging Not Ageing, was published on June 1st 2024.

Michael Foley is a Northern Irish writer who lives in London, where he worked as a Lecturer in Information Technology at the University of Westminster before taking early retirement to concentrate on writing. He has published four novels, four philosophy books and six poetry books, including New and Selected Poems (Blackstaff Press 2011) and, most recently, a long poem, The Whole Thing (Mica Press 2023). Plenty to read about him and details of all his books on his website michael-foley.net. 

Antony Johae gained a Ph.D from the University of Essex with a comparative study of Dostoevsky and Kafka. His book Franz Kafka, Maker of Dreams will be published this year by Cambridge Scholars. Antony has taught literature in Ghana, Tunisia and Kuwait. He retired in 2009 and now divides his time between Colchester and Lebanon (his wife’s country of origin). Since retiring, he has published four poetry collections: Poems of the East (Gipping Press, 2015); After-Images: Homage to Eric Rohmer (Poetry Salzburg, 2019); Ex-Changes (The High Window, 2020); Home Poems (Orphean Press, 2022), and most recently the pamphlet Foreign Forays: Poems of Travel in Europe and the Med, from which he will be reading at the event. Palewell Press, which specialises in works on refugees, human rights and ecology, will bring out Antony’s prose collection Lines on Lebanon later this year.

Rosie Johnston’s writing spans journalism, drama, fiction and poetry, with novels published in Dublin and London and four books of poetry by Lapwing Publications in her native Belfast. Six-Count Jive (Lapwing, 2019), describes the inner landscape of her complex post-traumatic stress disorder and led to readings at Glasgow and Vigo universities and inclusion in Her Other Language (Arlen House, 2020). Rosie’s poetry also appears in the Northern Irish section of Places of Poetry (OneWorld, 2020), the Mary Evans Poems and Pictures blog and various magazines. Her first venture back into fiction in ten years, Laughing and Grief, was published in American Writers Review. Rosie will be reading from her fifth book of poetry, Safe Ground, just published by Mica Press. Rosie reviews poetry for London Grip and is a generous and inspirational teacher and mentor. rosiejohnstonwrites.com

Michael Vince taught in Italy and the UK before emigrating to Greece in 1977 where he worked in language teaching, teacher education, and materials writing.  His son Alex grew up in Athens, and lives there still with his Greek family, so Greece is a large part of his life still, and some of his poems are set there. Michael has published a lot of ELT textbooks of various kinds with Heinemann and Macmillan, and has been a freelance author since 1988. Since returning to the UK in 1994 he has lived mainly in different parts of London, and tends to write himself into anywhere new. He now lives in Greenwich, which features a lot in the poems of Back to Life. Since the 1960s his poetry has appeared in numerous magazines, and his collections include: The Orchard Well, Carcanet 1978; Mountain, Epic and Dream, Hunting Raven 1981; In The New District, Carcanet 1982; Gaining Definition, R L Barth 1986;  Plain Text, Mica Press 2015, Long Distance, Mica Press 2020,  A Conversation with George Seferis, Rack Press 2022, Back to Life, Mica Press 2023, and Legwork Mica Press 2024. At present (2025) he is writing poems mainly about Water.

Doors will open at 7 for a 7.30 start. Refreshments and books available. Free event, all welcome.

TUESDAY MAY 13 at West Greenwich Library – ‘Maggie and Maggie’. Same name, different voices: poetry from Maggie Butt and Maggie Harris.

TUESDAY JUNE 24 at West Greenwich Library – ‘Telltale Poets: Sarah Barnsley, Robin Houghton and Peter Kenny’