National Poetry Day

Everyone who knows me knows that I celebrate NPD every year. At the Women's Workshop we invite women to bring in poems on the theme-this year the theme was home. We had flowers, cake and chocolates, and tea from a teapot with a jug of milk.

We had a huge variety of well-loved poems about places which were home.Then the exciting part to create your own poem.Many didn't need a prompt ,but I took Thomas Hood's poem I remember, I remember, /the house where I was born. It was a good takng off point for poems and memoir.

So for NPD tomorrow find a poem you like about home-it can be about an animal or about a place,then have a go and write your own home poem.

HONNO

Twenty-four years ago,back in 1986,when my daughter was just a few weeks old,I was invited to buy a share in a new women's co-operative publishing venture,Honno.
Honno is the Welsh word for that,it is a feminine pronoun.

I am fortunate to have been published in two Honno anthologies-Exchanges,Poems by Women in Wales,and in On My Life,a memoir collection.These were a long time ago,back in the early days. Later in the 1990s I had my poetry collection Foxglove Land accepted for publication,but although the Honno editorial board wanted it, the Arts Council of Wales readers wouldn't fund it.I wasn't angry with Honno ,but with the Arts Council for their funding policy.

Honno is now 24 years old.It no longer has to re-submit manuscripts to the Arts Council for approval .Its books are found in bookshops and libraries,but they also have a catalogue and website. And it is still a co-operative of women working together to celebrate women That 1970s and 1980s idealism is still alive in Wales. Honno is a press with a purpose,it hasn't been eaten up by any big company. It you have a share, you have a vote. Check out their website,www.honno.co.uk,and buy a book.

Ty Newydd Anthology

Up to North Wales on Saturday for the launch of The Listening Shell,an anthology of poems to celebrate 21 years of Ty Newydd. A marquee on the lawn and music ,and of course poetry. An interesting anthology edited by Gladys Mary Coles and available from Headland Publications, a small poetry press based in Ruthin. All profit from the sale of the book is being donated to Ty Newydd's bursary fund ,which enables those who can't afford the full fee to go on course. The book contains 60 poems and includes Gllian Clarke and Carol Ann Duffy.

Poetry Doesn't Make Money

Of course, I know poetry doesn't make money. The buzz with a poem is, as either Coleridge or Wordsworth said , "getting the right words in the right order".
However, looking up my new book on Amazon, I noticed that my collection The Copyright of Land ,which sold at £5 when it was published ten years ago ,is now out of print and is changing hands on Amazon for £20 a copy. A shame I only have my reading copy left.

Of course, poetry is ephemera to a book seller and that's where the money is, not in the poetry but the rarity. Poetry has small print runs ,usually no more than 200),so a first edition can have value. Seeing my book listed at four times its original price was a good boost, especially as I now have a box of The Earth Singing to sell.

THE EARTH SINGING

It is always exciting and a little frightening to see your new book. Will there be errors,is everything as it shold be,am I happy with it? So much time and effort goes into putting a collection together and getting the title right.Then eventually, after all the proofs,the long wait to publication ,the books arrive in a box. An anti-climax really. They are in your front room and you have to get them into the bookshops and into the hands of the reader.

Back from four and a half days at Ty Newydd with my batteies re-charged having met some interesting people, heard some stunning poems, been on some fantastic walks, eaten delicious food and had a Cadwalladers' ice cream. And now I'm back to reality-the dirty oven,kitchen surfaces needing a clean, a fridge to defrost, washing tumbling out of the linen basket. And in the garden a jungle of growth-how can things go to seed in only four and a half days? Those days that went so quickly when I was away seem to have gone slowly here to create this amount of chaos.

Book Launch

In Cardigan on Thursday night in the rain for the launch of Sixty Poems for Haiti ,edited by Eli Niland and Maggie Harris. I was asked to contribute and so am at the Welsh launch of the book. A shame more people didn't turn up,especially as the venue had a stage,microphone and bar. The audience were appreciative even if the weather wasn't. A long drive home,the roads alive with leaping frogs and toads.