‘Across the Line’ – launch of Jane Clarke’s and Maura Dooley’s new poetry collections

June 17, 2023

Thank you to all who attended in person and virtually on June 15, and a very big and special thank you to poet Wendy French, who managed the Zoom session splendidly, poet Sarah Westcott who stood by to liaise between Wendy and us at the Library, and as always to Debra and the Library staff, Katherine and David in particular, who are helpful and generous way beyond the call of duty.

A few members of the audience , both in person and on Zoom, asked me about a brief quotation I read at the end of this engaging, moving, lively and thoroughly enjoyable event, so here it is. It comes, appropriately, from a book called This is Happiness, by, also appropriately, the Irish author Niall Williams:

It seems to me the quality that makes any book, music, painting worthwhile is life, just that. Books, music, painting are not life, can never be as full, rich, complex, surprising or beautiful, but the best of them can catch an echo of that, can turn you back to look out the window, go out the door aware that you’ve been enriched, that you have been in the company of something alive that has caused you to realise once again how astonishing life is […]

Rarely more true than our experience of listening to these two beautiful, different and complementary voices. Nostalgia, loss and love – for Nature, family, the changing world. Never sentimental, often witty, even sharp and always word-perfect. The moment of anticipation before something changes, or starts (or doesn’t) was a common theme in both collections, A Change in the Air (Jane’s) and Five Fifty-Five (Maura’s) – both with Bloodaxe Books, 2023.

Too many times I have felt that poets rush a little while reading in front of an audience. It did not happen with Maura and Jane. We, the 50 or so in the audience at the Library and the 17 on Zoom, knew and appreciated that moment of anticipation, that short intake of breath before the next poem, and were richly rewarded.

It is hard to ‘review’ an evening of such profound, musical and thought provoking works, with perfect sense of place and time and so beautifully read.

A member of the audience sent me these lovely comments:

Jane Clarke and Maura Dooley shared their unique poetry in beautifully lyrical and musical tones that captured images and characters so well in one’s mind and imagination. The opportunity for Q&As was much appreciated and the poets’ reply over the best conditions for writing poetry … ‘carry a notebook to write down ideas and be aware of those snagging moments that prick the mind and can germinate into seeds for later poetic inspiration…’

If anyone would like to add their thoughts on the poems and the poets, do send them to irena@in-words.co.uk. I would love to add your words to mine… Thank you.

If you want to buy a signed copy of A Change in the Air or of Jane’s earlier collections please contact Jane Clarke directly, details on www.janeclarkepoetry.ie

For Maura’s Five Fifty-Five and many other collections you can contact her via M.Dooley@gold.ac.uk .

Jane Clarke is the author of two poetry collections, The River and When the Tree Falls (Bloodaxe Books 2015 & 2019), as well as an illustrated chapbook, All the Way Home (Smith|Doorstop 2019), which she launched at West Greenwich Library in 2019, introduced by Blake Morrison. This book was her response to a collection of family letters and photographs held at the Mary Evans Picture Library in Blackheath. Her third collection, A Change in the Air is published by Bloodaxe Books in May 2023. Her Greenwich reading is the only in-person launch, and she is travelling from Ireland to be with us. Jane’s awards include the 2016 Hennessy Literary Award for Poetry and the 2022 Ireland Chair of Poetry Travel Award. The River was the first poetry book to be shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize in 2016 and When the Tree Falls was shortlisted for three Irish poetry prizes and longlisted for the Ondaatje Prize in 2020. She grew up on a farm in the west of Ireland and now lives with her wife in the uplands of Co. Wicklow.
www.janeclarkepoetry.ie

Maura Dooley is a Professor of Creative Writing at Goldsmiths College, University of London and has directed the MA in Creative and Life Writing there since its inception. Maura’s family background in Ireland and Wales has long been central to her work. Kissing a Bone and her later collection Life Under Water, a Poetry Book Society Recommendation in 2008, were both shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. Her poem ‘Cleaning Jim Dine’s Heart’ was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem in 2015, and was included in her collection, The Silvering (2016), also a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Maura’s most recent collection, published in April 2023, is Five Fifty-Five (Bloodaxe). Anthologies she has edited include The Honey Gatherers: Love Poems and How Novelists Work. Her translation (with Elhum Shakerifar) of the exiled Iranian poet Azita Ghahreman’s Negative of a Group Photograph (Farsi title: نگاتیو یک عکس دسته جمعی)  was published by Bloodaxe Books with the Poetry Translation Centre in 2018. It received an English PEN Award and was shortlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation 2019. Maura is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Jane reading from A Change in the Air
Maura reading from Five Fifty-Five
Answering questions…

Events

TUESDAY NOVEMBER 26th at West Greenwich Library, 7pm (doors open at 6.45)
BETWEEN LANGUAGES – an evening with poets who write in English while English is not their native language – with Natan Barreto, Isabel Bermudez, Farah Naz and Kostya Tsolakis.

What are the internal processes that allow poetic expression of beauty and meaning in a language different from the native one? Is there a ‘shadow language’? And does that language leave the shadows and becomes ‘light’? As bilingual (though not technically) myself, I find the concept both important and intriguing. I know that our journeys into the English language are bound to be very different and I am looking forward to a conversation about it after what promises to be great and diverse readings.

A FREE event as always, with books for sale and refreshments galore…

Here’s some information about the poets:

Natan Barreto was born in Salvador, Brazil. He has lived in Rio, Paris, Rome, and, since 1992, in London. He is the author of seven collections of poetry in Portuguese: Under the Roofs of the Night (1999); Hiding Places on Paper (2007); Still Movement (2016); Creatures: animal sketches (2017); A backyard and other corners (2018), which won the Sosígenes Costa Poetry Prize, awarded by the Academy of Letters of Ilhéus, in Bahia, Brazil; The Rhythm of the Circle: photographic poems (2019); and The Hollow Soul (2021). He is also a published novelist, biographer and translator. Natan’s poems in English have appeared in Poets Adrift: first anthology of Brazilian diaspora poetry (2013); and, in 2019, an anthology of his poetry was published in German, titled Ausgewählte Gedichte. He has given poetry readings at the Brazilian Embassy in London, the Museum of London, the Royal Court Theatre, the Barbican, and the universities of Queen Mary and Nottingham. www.natanbarreto.com

Isabel Bermudez is a poet and textile artist living in Orpington, Kent. Her collection Serenade (Paekakariki Press, 2020) features poems evoking Spain and the New World, with illustrations by Simon Turvey. Her most recent published collection is Bar de las Reminiscencias (Paekakariki Press, 2024), also with illustrations by Simon Turvey. She performs her poetry widely at readings and festivals and was recently hosted by the Colombian Embassy and the Instituto Cervantes, Manchester, in conversation with Welsh poet and translator, Richard Gwyn. In a previous life she lived and worked as a television producer/director in Sri Lanka and as a documentary film maker in Colombia. She has held many jobs, including grape picker in France, shop assistant and special correspondent; she now works in the Sen department of an Academy in South East London. More at www.isabel-bermudez.com.

Farah Naz is a British Bangladeshi poet, writer, story teller and translator. As well as teaching at a Lewisham primary school, she is a performing member of the acclaimed storytelling group ‘EAST’ and is Director of the British Bilingual Poetry Collective (BBPC). Maya Mirror of Soul, her collection of English poems was published in 2004 and her Bengali poem book Hemonter Chirkut in 2022. Farah’s poetic themes encompass nature, human emotions and metamorphosis of love and life. Farah received the ‘Youth Leadership Award’ from Unicef, Bangladesh in 1999 for her writing, and won the ‘Story of 1971’ short story competition by Tower Hamlets Council in 2021. Her poems and stories have been widely published in various books and magazines such as Swirl of Words, British Bangladeshi Poetry Anthology, London Folk Tales for Children and many more. Along with writing poetry, Farah enjoys cooking and nature photography. 

Kostya Tsolákis was born and raised in Athens, Greece, and now lives in London. He is founding editor of harana poetry, the online magazine for poets writing in English as a second or parallel language. In 2019 he won the Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition (ESL category). His poems have been widely published in magazines, including fourteen poems, Magma, Poetry London, The Poetry Review and Under the Radar, and anthologies, such as 100 Queer Poems (Vintage, 2022). His debut poetry pamphlet, Ephebos, was published by ignitionpress in November 2020. Greekling, his much-anticipated poetry collection celebrates and commemorates damaged and rejected Greek bodies, be they of flesh and blood or made of marble. The collection intertwines Greek culture, history and poetic influences with the contemporary queer experience in a perceptive, lyrical, and deeply evocative way.

And save these dates….

TUESDAY FEBRUARY 4 at West Greenwich Library- readings by Jacqueline Saphra and Sue Rose.

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

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 – Poetry with Robin Houghton and friends.