Cancelled

This evening features readings from Who’s in the Next Room? which was developed during a National Trust residency as part of the Poetry Society centenary celebrations. 

Thomas Hardy’s original lyrics are juxtaposed with contemporary responses to his poetry, fiction and the landscapes in which he lived and worked.

Paul Hyland, Kate Scott, Catherine Simmonds and Pam Zinnemann-Hope originally performed this work at Max Gate, the house Thomas Hardy designed for himself in Dorchester and they will now be performing it again at East Coker.  Also performed at the Thomas Hardy Conference and Poet in the City at Kings Place, London. 

This evening was to be an evening devoted to the poet Seamus Heaney, however due to the cancellation of the meeting on the 8th November this meeting will now be our Poetry Competition 2021 Meeting.

All the Competition entries will be read.   They are a varied and lively selection inspired by this year's subject -  'The Elements'.

Our Judge this year is Irish poet Gill Barr who will also be giving us a short reading of her own poetry.

Should be a good evening

*Please check this website before attending any meeting, as meetings may be cancelled at short notice due to the covid situation

Roger Iredale’s Collection ‘A Sudden Mirror’ was published last year by Peterhouse Press. Roger writes:-

“Much of my poetry has a political overtone, but most of it focusses on people, places and stories, many based on myths and legends. I write poetry for reading aloud, if only in the mind. Each poem has a dominant rhythm and I choose my words to build a sense of movement. Often, reading a broadcast poem, I find myself tapping my foot rhythmically to the beat of the lines. This is why I enjoy broadcasting: it brings me back to the carefully shaped resonances of the lines, the half rhymes, the deeper rhythms that are often less obvious from a silent reading of the text”.

Full details of this meeting appear in our May Newsletter.   If you do not receive the newsletter but would like to join this Zoom meeting please contact the group via the contact form on this website. 

East Coker Zoom Poetry Reading

Poets  Elaine Beckett, Gill Barr and Simon Middleton

Tuesday 30^th March 2021   7.30pm

Elaine Beckett has won several awards for her poetry including the Faber New Poets award and the Bridport International Poetry Prize (Dorset Award).

Her debut collection 'Sea Creature Regrows Entire Body' is published on 15th April by Verve Poetry Press.  Here is a link to the Verve Poetry Press page :-

   https://vervepoetrypress.com/product/elaine-beckett-sea-creature-regrows-entire-body-pre-order-free-uk-pp-due-apr-21/?v=79cba1185463

Gill Barr has recently had poems published in The New European and the Oxford based mindfulness magazine, Marmalade and Kindness and in The Honest Ulsterman.

Simon Middleton was shortlisted for the 2020 Winchester Poetry Prize. He has also won the Bridport International Poetry Prize (Dorset Award)

Elaine writes :-

“Gill and Simon will be reading their own poems, and I'll be reading poems from 'Sea Creature Regrows Entire Body'.  The poems we'll be reading relate in different ways to the theme I've chosen - The Road to Freedom.

We three all meet regularly in a poetry writing peer group, so we know each other's work well and Gill and I have done two previous readings together, one with Annie Freud for the Bridport Literary Festival (2018) and one with Greta Stoddart for Exeter Literary Festival (2019).  Gill and Simon both teach English; Gill at The Sir John Colfox Academy in Bridport, Simon at The Woodroffe School Lyme Regis.”

The meeting Zoom information is given in the March issue of the East Coker Poetry mini-newsletter.  However if you do not receive the newsletters and wish to attend, please contact the group via the contact form on this website.