‘RIVER’ – a journey along the Thames from source to sea. With poet ROBERT SEATTER and Lucia Foti on harp

This year marks 30 years of the Thames Path, creating unique access to England’s most important and much loved river. RIVER took us on a new and visceral journey, from source to sea, unpacking encounters en route and revealing the extraordinary emotional pull of the Thames in our lives.

Full house again at West Greenwich Library on June 9th for this unique event of words and music to celebrate the Thames and what goes on alongside it. And it wasn’t an ordinary journey. Robert has taken a sideways look, making the familiar surprising, both in his poems and introductions to them, and in the fabulous images on screen.

As writer in residence on this fascinating project, Robert was commissioned to write 30 short poems for key locations along the river’s 200 mile route, including Greenwich. But, as he said, he got ‘carried away’ and ended up writing 50 poems. The collection is published by Paekakariki Press, a small independent house that produces beautiful books by using letterpress printing methods. The original 30 poems will be accessed also in audio via QR codes on the footpath’s finger posts at the relevant locations.

I shall write a bit more about the poetry and the music once I caught my breath. In the meantime, here are Robert’s and Lucia’s condensed biographies.

A huge thanks to them, to all who came and as always to the Library staff (Emma and David this time) and to Mari and Mandy for manning the refreshments table.

Robert Seatter has published eight poetry collections, and has won many awards and nominations for his poetry, including National Poetry Competition, London Poetry and Forward Poetry Prize. He is also a skilled poetry curator, with a specific interest in poetry and place making, as well as an arts professional with experience of chairing both The Poetry Trust and The Poetry Archive. He lives in London, where he works for the BBC, his most recent role being Head of BBC History. www.robertseatter.co.uk

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 at 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 in 2023 they have been awarded the Colin Blythe Bursary Fund in recognition of their achievement in chamber music.

LIVE CANON POETS

Capacity audience on Tuesday evening to hear Barbara Barnes, Helen Eastman, Tessa Foley and Andrew George. In the case of Andrew, this was a kind of local launch, since his latest collection is hot off the Live Canon Press. I’d heard him and Tessa before but, although Helen and I collaborated on a number of events in the rather distant past, I had never heard her read her own poetry. And Barbara was completely unknown to me. What a treat the whole evening was!

An extra treat for me, because Helen was ‘mistress of ceremony’ throughout in her inimitable, generous, lively way. All I had to do was to ensure I hit the right key at the right moment for the texts to appear correctly on screen. Building a power point had allowed me to get to know the poems a little, but there’s nothing like hearing them introduced and read – beautifully, clearly – that gives them meaning in a way that reading them oneself doesn’t normally do (I speak for myself…).

Under the tireless creative stewardship of Helen Eastman, for 18 years or so Live Canon has been a driving force in publishing, performing, promoting and sharing poetry in all sorts of settings and forms. Countless projects, performances, interventions. So Helen was in a unique position to introduce the poets not by reciting a string of achievements and publications, but in a truly personal way.

All the poems are still swirling in my head and it’s really hard to write about them, so here are a few sentences for each poet. If you weren’t there or now you’re kicking yourself for not buying THAT book that you wish you had, go to www.livecanon.co.uk and you can order it and many more from their store.

Helen Eastman’s poetry is revolutionary, totally contemporary and timeless at the same time – drawing on the classics yet touching on climate change, the plight of bees, a rereading of Ovid, the fate of women and, oh dear, underfunded public libraries. Passionate, word-perfect and deeply engaging.

Andrew George’s poems are compelling in a very different way, eliciting so many ‘aha moments’ and gasps of recognition, as well as giggles as most of us remember cringeworthy and hilarious moments at school sports days, tragicomic management of a pet’s demise, seaside holidays… Andrew’s new collection, Portrait of the Artist with Daughter and Dead Hamster is just out.

Tessa Foley’s poems always make words dance, whatever the subject matter: tap dance, belly dance, ballet… This time part of the tune was quite different – an important chapter of her family history that goes back to a sad abandonment, with a real life, unexpected recent development. And much more!

Barbara Barnes, an actor as well as a brilliant poet, read so beautifully that we all felt engaged from the very first word. She took us on a journey from being young and struggling at the start of an acting career, to a proper journey through her native Canada, bears and all – all infused with tangible love.

My thanks as always to Chris and David at the Library and to Mari and Mandy at the refreshments table.

Barbara Barnes is a Canadian/British actor and poet based in London. Her poems have appeared in Poetry London, Under the Radar, Butcher’s Dog, Brixton Review of Books, Ambit, The Interpreter’s House, Perverse, London Grip, Arc Poetry, Black Irisand The Alchemy Spoon. Her first collection Hound Mouth won the Live Canon collection competition and was published in 2022.

Helen Eastman is a poet, playwright and Novello-nominated librettist. She is associate artist of the APGRD at Oxford University and Visiting Lecturer at Westminster University. She is poet-in-residence for the Poetic Science programme at the University of Southampton. Recent commissions include librettos for Montpellier Opera House and Wandsworth Council – and her climate cabaret has just been performed at the UN and on the floor of the Toronto stock exchange. She founded Live Canon, and for 18 years has directed their poetry shows from Abbey Road to Broadway; she has had the honour of editing nearly 100 poetry books for the Live Canon press.

Tessa Foley’s debut poetry collection Chalet Between Thick Ears, and follow-up collections What Sort of Bird are You? and Try to Find Me are published by Live Canon. Her poems explore dark & bright spaces within childhood, relationships, nature and politics, threaded together with a wild, playful love of language. She has performed her poetry across the UK, has taught performance poetry and has led therapeutic poetry-writing groups.

Andrew George lives in Blackheath and works as a barrister. His two poetry collections, Milk Round (2015) and Portrait of the Artist with Daughter and Dead Hamster (2026) are both published by Live Canon. He won first prize at the 2025 Wolverhampton Poetry Festival and has been published in, amongst other magazines, Magma and The Rialto. He is Chair of Trustees at Modern Poetry in Translation, the charity founded by Ted Hughes in 1965 to bring the world’s poetry to a domestic English audience.