The Roman writer Pliny the Younger wrote an eye-witness account of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79AD and it is possibly the most well known and certainly the most important account of that time as he was there and recorded the events as seen from the other side of the Bay of Naples.

I am sure most of us would wish to forget the lockdowns of 2020.   However, any poems written at the time are now a valuable historic record of a unique event.

In March 2020 I suggested in a newsletter that we should record in poetry the unprecedented events we were witnessing during the Covid lockdowns and the first half of the meeting will be a chance to now read any poem written at that time or listen to poems written by others.

In the second half of the meeting read any poem that celebrates freedom and good cheer!

This is a daytime meeting of local poetry groups.   The aim is to encourage poetry writing on the day and will be a relaxed and largely informal event.

The meeting will be held in Langport, Somerset.   For more information please contact via our email    www.eastcokerpoetry.org.uk   or the contact page on this site

Writer and poet James Crowden explores the literary highways and byways of Somerset, including the watering holes of Bath and Bristol. He has produced an intellectual roadmap of Somerset from Roman times through Anglo-Saxon Wessex up to the present day including many writers. early chroniclers and opium addicted Romantic poets. Somerset has also produced philosophers, pirates and playwrights, eccentric clergymen, diarists and herbalists, novelists and historians, travellers chefs and scientists – From St Gildas and John Locke to John Cleese, Fay Weldon and Terry Pratchett.

An illustrated talk by author James Crowden, who is always informative and entertaining.   And of course East Coker’s strong literary links will no doubt feature.

The venue is The Village Cafe,  East Coker.   BA22 9HY         (almost opposite the School)

Local poets Steve Beer and Maya Pieris will give readings followed after the break by an open session where anyone can come and read a poem they have written or read.

There is no theme, just any poem that you feel will interest the group. Or just come and listen and have a drink or cake and enjoy the poetry.

An evening devoted to the life and work of poet Christina Rossetti who became an influential poet in the Victorian era.   A presentation by Trevor Pearce.

(This meeting was to have been a presentation by poet Rosie Jackson but she has had to cancel due to another commitment).

Liz Pike present an evening about the Yeovil Literary Prize poetry category.

Guest readers include Jenny Hunt, and Roger Iredale reading their own winning entries, with our own poets reading some of the other outstanding winning entries from the last few years.

Entries of all standards are welcome in this competition, but is winning the prize what drives the poet?

To start the evening we have short readings by local poets Anna Webb and Cath Kansara. This will be followed after the break by an open session where anyone can come and read a poem they have written or read.

There is no theme, just any poem that you feel will interest the group.

Nothing too serious happens at our Christmas meetings, unless a plate of mince pies is accidentally dropped.

Will there be competitions?   Will people bring limericks or other really serious poems to bring Christmas cheer……….. ?

Mark the date in your diary as it is not on our usual last Tuesday of the month.

Meeting update

Fiona Sampson     Tuesday 29th November 7.30pm at The village Cafe

Fiona Sampson gave the poetry reading on Tuesday 29th November instead of Annie Fisher who was unfortunately unable to come due to health problems.  We hope Annie and Anthony will be able to come on another occasion.

We were privileged to welcome Fiona Sampson to East Coker and fortunate that she stepped in at such short notice enabling the meeting to go ahead.

Professor Fiona Sampson MBE, FRSL has published twenty-nine books, including seven collections of poetry. Her latest collection, Come Down (2020), received the Wales Poetry Book of the Year; in the same year she was awarded the European Lyric Atlas Prize and the Balkan Naim Frasheri Laureateship for her body of work. She has been published in thirty-seven languages, and received numerous other national and international honours, including the Newdigate and Cholmondeley prizes, multiple awards from the Arts Councils of England and of Wales, the Society of Authors, the Poetry Books Society and Arts and Humanities Research Council, numerous Book of the Year selections and several short-listings for the T.S. Eliot and Forward Prizes – plus further international prizes in the US, Bosnia, Northern Macedonia and India.

Her studies of writing process include Beyond the Lyric and Lyric Cousins: Poetry and Musical Form. She edited Percy Bysshe Shelley (Faber) and her Limestone Country was a Guardian nature writing book of the year. A critic, librettist and literary translator, from 2005-12 she edited Poetry Review, and she’s served internationally on the boards of publishing houses and literary NGOs, on literary juries and on the Council of the Royal Society of Literature. She’s a Trustee of the Royal Literary Fund and Emeritus Professor of Poetry, University of Roehampton.

Her internationally acclaimed In Search of Mary Shelley is followed by Two-Way Mirror: The life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, a New York Times Editors’ Choice and Washington Post Book of the Year, a finalist for the international Plutarch Prize and for US PEN’s international biography award, and currently a Times/Sunday Times paperback of the year. She is at work on a biography of Jean-Jacques Rousseau for Princeton University Press.

All entries for the 2022 East Coker Poetry Competition were read and the winners announced.

Poet Graeme Ryan, helped by Annie fisher from Fire River Poets was our judge this year and also gave a short reading from his new collection.

Details of the competition are given on our competitions page.

A good evening