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Two days of workshops and readings, and the 2009 Second Light Poetry Competition adjudication event.
Workshops with Katherine Gallagher, Pascale Petit & Myra Schneider.
Friday Reading: All Comers: readings of 1 or 2 poems from as many Second Light members as would like to come along and take part – up until the programme is full, that is! Use the Booking Form to indicate whether you would like to come and read.
Saturday: The competition judge, Pauline Stainer, will give the adjudication report and a reading from her own work. There will be readings by the three winning poets and a selection of readings from the Commended and Shortlisted poems.
Main Reading on Saturday evening: Launch of Carnival’s Edge: New &
Selected Poems, Katherine Gallagher, plus readings from Second Light members with recent collections out: Maria Jastrzebska, Lyn Moir & Caroline Natzler, and more…
The events will take place at The Art Workers Guild, 6 Queen Square, London, WC1 (nearest tube Russell Square).
A 3 day residential workshop with Myra Schneider and Penelope Shuttle at Holland House near Evesham, Worcestershire. Participants: women poets aged around 40 and above, with some experience of writing. The course is now fully booked but please do contact us (details on booking form) if you would like to be held on a waiting list in case of cancellation.
Poetry courses start on Tuesday evening (evening meal provided) and go on to Friday lunchtime (lunch provided) and include writing excercises to stimulate your own writing, readings by facilitators and participants, discussions, free time for writing, workshops for feedback on your poems.
The charge is £265 for a single room and £220 in a shared room.
More about Holland House on the booking form and on their web-site.
When we ran an event to celebrate the work of Mary MacRae on 11th December 09, we had a full house and a very memorable evening. Mimi Khalvati, Myra Schneider, Lucy Hamilton, Nadine Brummer & Dilys Wood, plus many of Mary’s friends and colleagues, gave very moving readings from Mary’s work, and shared their own poems about her and their remembrances. It’s good to know that her work will continue to be read.
A festival of readings and workshops celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of the founding of Second Light Network, took place at The Art Workers in London. Thanks to an Arts Council grant, a small number of Bursaries was made available and it was a real pleasure to be able to accommodate some participants who otherwise may not have been able to attend.
The ‘Fifty’ element in the title is ‘fifty years of the rise and rise of women’s poetry’. So what was beginning to take off in 1959? It’s difficult to pin-point a base year when women began to find the inspiration, not simply to pursue the lone woman artist road, but to feel themselves part of a highly charged large-scale movement.
In 1959, Sylvia Plath wrote some remarkable, now well-known poems, including "The Bee-Keeper’s Daughter", "The Colossus" and "Mushrooms". The imaginative power and raw assertion in these poems energised many women writers. It was the beginning of a certain kind of female-artist self-awareness which had to be renewed many times but in the end there was exponential progress.
One of our ways of celebrating was to include in the rich festival line-up a reading by the very distinguished poet, Anne Stevenson, one of the poets whose development has spanned over fifty years, and what an inspirational reading it was! We are delighted she agreed to participate in the festival, along with R V Bailey, Alison Brackenbury, Katherine Gallagher, Caroline Price, Mimi Khalvati, Myra Schneider, Lynne Wycherley and many others…
A great time was had by all, sell out readings and workshops. Romanian participant, Elena Nistor, had her camera to hand…
 Maggie shows Joan how the coat fits … |
 "and in this one here, look…" |
 Something funny this way comes? |
 Discussing the finer points… |
 Cornwall meets Normandie; Penelope and Kay talk shop |
 Katherine takes the throne… Elena (on her right) directs the shot |
The Judge is Pauline Stainer, whose latest collection, Crossing the Snowline (Bloodaxe 2008), has been received with acclaim by reviewers. We included a review in ARTEMISpoetry Issue 1 and Pauline kindly read for Second Light at the Autumn Festival 2008, following up with a workshop at the May 2009 event.
The winning poems, along with poems which were commended or shortlisted, will appear in ARTEMISpoetry, Issue 4, due out in May 2010 and the three winning poems will be posted on site at around the same time.
The adjudication event will take place at the Spring Festival, 2010 on 15th May, at 2pm.
Results:
1st prize: Lynne Wycherley, The Lightning-Horse
2nd prize: Margaret Wilmot, Hermetic
3rd prize: Kay Syrad, "Registering their flora,/their fauna"
Read the Poems
Commended:
Suzanne Burrows, The Horses and Crossing the Bridge
Anne Cluysenaar, The Pear-tree
Kate Foley, Heart Surgery
Clare Holtham, The Jerwood Library
Pippa Little, Acrobat
M R Peacocke, The greeting
Marion Tracy, Nest and Bipolar
Jenny Vuglar, This Morning
Shortlisted:
Ann Alexander, Cabbage Cutters Wanted. Basic English. Night or Day
Dorothy Baird, 29 April
Ann Boileau, Within its Time and Frame
H Coffey, On Ivory
Margaret Eddershaw, Queen of the Tightrope
Jacqueline Gabbitas, Grass discovers metempsychosis
Mavis Howard, Nature
Gill Learner, Resurrection
Helen Loselock-Burke, Clouds on the Blackthorn
Sue MacIntyre, Interior, 1893 and A Wine Glass Half Full of Milk
Jane McLaughlin, Crossings
Rosemary McLeish, Handless Bride
Nancy Mattson, Learning the Letter Щ and Compasses: a Triptych
Caroline Natzler, Paper place
Elizabeth Rowe, Blue
K V Skene, Why I Wasn’t Listening
Dorothy Yamomoto, The button box Tiger hunt
Judge, Gillian Clarke, announced her selections just in time for a sneak preview of the winners’ list at the Autumn Festival. The winning and other poems were published in ARTEMISpoetry, Issue 2, in May 09.
Results:
1st prize: Eleanor Livingstone, Snow Hare;
2nd prize: Anne Wigley, Learning to Swim
3rd prize: Sheila Wild, Shiant Wife
Runners up:
Alison Brackenbury, Great-Great
Wendy Klein, Kid Gloves
Gill Learner, Counted Out
Pat Marum, The Insect Parlour
Lyn Moir, Ice Dream
Gillian Moyes, Norah
Isobel Thrilling, Last Day
Nicola Warwick, The Iceman’s Wife
Shortlisted:
Hilaire, The Colonel’s Daughter’s House
Claudia Jessop, Hope
Carlotta Johnston, Wild Grass Mull
Thelma Laycock, The Sash
Gill Learner, Through and Through
Gill Learner, A Descent from Mount Olympus
Eleanor Livingstone, The Soul
Lyn Moir, Juanjo, The Guggenheim, Me
Jennie Osborne, Quantum
Diana Pritchard, Barefoot in the Snow
Kate Rhodes, Details
Gillian Clarke is President of Ty Newydd, the writers’ centre in North Wales which she co-founded in 1990, tutor on the M.Phil in Creative Writing at the University of Glamorgan, and the current National Poet for Wales. Her poetry is studied for GCSE and A Level throughout Britain. Recent books include Making the Beds for the Dead, 2004, a prose collection, and At The Source, 2008. A new collection, A Recipe for Water, is due in 2009.
Elizabeth Burns: Hannah Frank Art Poetry Competition – write a poem (up to 40 lines) based on one of Hannah Frank’s drawings – see www.hannahfrank.org.uk. Judge: David Kinloch. Closing date: 31st March 2010. Entry: £3 per poem for adults, free for under-18s. First prize: £200 (adult), £100 (18 and under). Prizewinners will also receive a framed Hannah Frank print. See website for rules and application form.
Deadline: 10 MAY 2010. Judges: James Harpur, Carole Baldock, Kevin Bailey. Three categories: Silver Wyvern, Formal & Short poem. Entry: £8, then 2 poems at £6, then £5. Top Prize: 500 euros, publication in Orbis and 1 year subscription. More on prizes, rules and entry at Poetry on the Lake website.
