On Saturday 18th May, The Wordsworth Trust was delighted to invite to the stage four poets who won the 2012 Poetry Business Book and Pamphlet Competition; judged by Simon Armitage. These poets, unknown when we announced the event were revealed to be Emma Danes with her work Dress of Shadows, David Attwooll with Servicing, David Grubb with Ways of Looking and Kim Lasky with Petrol Cyan Electric.
The event began with Emma Danes, who lives in Ely, Cambridgeshire. Introducing each reader, Literature Officer, Andrew Forster quoted from Simon Armitage’s judge’s report. Simon said that each of the poems in Emma’s pamphlet is a “worked, crafted and above measured unit, conscious of the space it occupies on the blank page”. Dress of Shadows features a series of short poems, centred on past memories and personal or family experiences. “Violins 1940” explored her mother’s wartime evacuation, and features violins left in bank vaults; a poignant image enhanced by the musicality of the melancholy violin. “17” catalogues the memories of a Victorian house in London which “bristled with splinters” during renovation. Her poem read especially for her daughter’s 13th birthday, “In the Shadows”, was a place where “monsters resume their regime”. Her poems provide a personal narrative that makes for pleasurable reading and listening.
Following on from Emma was David Attwooll, who hails from Oxford and works in publishing, David is described by Simon as a “knowing, playful and occasionally experimental” poet. He started with “Wiggie in Cornwall”, a poem that explores his childhood where he watched the seals “convulsing back up the slope”. The diverseness of tone in his work took on a more serious note with “Freedom from Torture”; David himself referred to this as a “bleakly political poem”, coming from a radio programme, and the words in the poem were all taken from brutal regimes, the lines forming short snappy stanzas; for example, “displaced and numb can speak”.
Unfortunately David Grubb was not able to attend due to family illness, but The Wordsworth Trust Literature Officer, Andrew Forster, read a selection of his poems. Simon Armitage commented that his work was a “reminder that poetry might be extracted from anywhere and anything”. His pamphlet is composed primarily of small sequences, in quatrains, and Andrew read “Ways of Looking at a Lost Farm”, a poem that explored the demise of the farm, and the difficulties in moving on. Using the farm as an overall metaphor, David also draws on changing times and technologies, highlighting an almost nostalgic like quality in his work. With powerful lines such as “mother coughing in her grave again”, and “God had slammed a hundred gates” it made for compelling listening.
Kim Lasky, who has a Creative Writing doctorate from Sussex University, was the last to read from her pamphlet entitled Petrol Cyan Electric. Her first poem “Pylons 1929” took inspiration from a walk in the South Downs in Sussex where she formed an interest in the pylons that span the landscape, and, upon doing further research, also the history of electricity.This energetic collection of poems were inspired by her surroundings and family. The title poem “Petrol Cyan Electric” outlines the struggle with her mother’s early stages of dementia, with phrases such as ‘nourished by whole minutes without fear’. Lines such as “ledger of outstretched arms” and “sweat of gas on the window”, make her poetry come alive from the page, and also provided us with a tangible link to the historical background of the piece. “The poems asked me to accompany them and I went willingly” commented Simon Armitage, as did we all.
Next week we are pleased to welcome poets Clare Shaw and Jacob Sam-La Rose for an exciting performance on the evening of the 4th June.
By Jo Marychurch, May 2013
Grasmere Poetry 