WRITE ANGLE TO HAVE TWO PRIZE WINNING POETS
Write Angle is pleased and proud to have Poets Anna-May Laugher and Susan Utting (her Tutor) as our 'Poetical Guests' for Tuesday 21 May. Anna-May's headlined twice before – both times her warmth, clever wit and quality of poetry led to very highly successful evenings! We have no doubt this will be another 'great one'!
Anna-May's just completed a two-year project writing 54 poems about Crivelli's Garden' – (painting by Paula Rego) and her poem 'Stone Map in ravelin Park' was chosen to feature in a film including Joanna Lumley, for BBC's Big Screen Project for Portsmouth and Hampshire as part of their Poetry season. She was also commissioned to write a poem about the River Ingle.
She's authored poems in literary magazines ('Domestic Cherry 2, Carrillon, Roundyhouse, The Journal, Manifold, Chiltern Writers, Plum Literary, 'Ink Sweat and Tears' and more) - as well as having short stories, recipes published – (probably inspired by her hypothetical pet sloth named Otto)!
She won the Kick Start Poets open competition - but stopped writing, to work in mental health and care for her grandchild when the tragedy of her daughter's death occurred. ('06) Afterwards, she was determined to continue her poetry f/t. She won the open poetry competition at the Havant Literary Festival, was headlined at Nineveh, and has been Writer-in-Residence at the Bucklebury Farm Park.
She's read at Cheltenham Literary Festival, the Troubadour amongst others, and was twice commended in the Ware Poetry Competition and the Southport Writers Competition . She was awarded first prize in Bishop's Castle Literary Festival. The bottom line, though, was having a poem on the buttock of a papier maché covered 'blow-up doll' created by Hilda Sheehan, in an exhibition in Swindon!
Susan Utting's poetry collections started with 'Striptease' – went on to 'Fair's Fair' , described as 'joyous, heartbreaking, rammed with life' - 'the poems ...reveal Susan utting's capacity to move us at its most powerful yet – a new collection of great skill and lucid tenderness. Her book 'Houses without Walls' was featured in Sunday's The Independent, and was widely and warmly reviewed with a poem included in the 'Forward Book of Poetry'..
She's won awards such as 'Poetry Business Prize' for 'Something Small is Missing', and the Peterloo Poetry Prize for 'Under the Blue Ball'. The Times selected her for the best love poem prize. She won in the Academi Cardiff International and has twice been short-listed by Arvon Poetry Prize.
She Founded 'Poet's Cafe' (Reading) and has performed at arts venues, festivals including Edinburgh, St Anza at St Andrews, Henley, Marlborough, Ledbury and the Poetry Trust at Aldeburgh. Susan has run workshops for many years at Reading University. She was appointed Community Laureate for Southern Arts' Year of the Artist and received a Creative Writing Fellowship.(Reading University).
Reviews:
...ordinary things gain an almost hallucinatory vividness in her richly textured poems....animates life's brittle edges ...carry unforced emotional weight. (Moniza Alvi). 'Her poems accomplish a strikingly steady focus,...compassionate, uncompromising in its observation of the human experience....the silence after the poem's last line....remains to haunt the 'listener'. (Elizabeth Garrett). 'These poems shimmy the mind long after closing the cover. (Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch) 'Her poems are musical, magical and have a clarity which goes straight to the heart. (Adrian Mitchell)
We'll have our Open Mic for all of you who want to get up and perform as well as the raffle for a freebie meal for two. And, for those of you who don't know it – we video all performers and make youtubes (free) of the Open Mikers as well as our Guests!
There's an exhibition of 'classical art' (and we mean 'classical' – Picasso, Matisse, Vermeer) done by Bill Don, Write Angle's poet and comedian, running from now – 31 May at the Waterloo Library, 2nd floor. We urge you all to see it! It really is quite something!
Also, having asked our Write Angle people if they're interested in putting together a book of poetry - (Petersfield Poets etc) or running a poetry slam night, we got very little response. If you're interested in either – or wish to make any suggestions, please let us know! We are always open to new ideas;
Also, Petersfield Writers Workshop is now open to newcomers on Thursday evenings, weekly, starting at 7.30. Only £1 donation (biscuits, teas and coffees). For more info, please call 0783.431.6040
If you're performing elsewhere and would like us to put it in our newsletters, do let us know!
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