Sorry to Zest! supporters - the post for March 8th should have gone on my personal blog
red botinki. blogspot.com
and somehow I got my wires crossed and it has appeared here.The penalty of doing several things at once!
What should have appeared here was thanks to all of you for supporting us last Monday and coming to hear Roy McFarlane who gave a stirring and lively performance, getting everyone to their feet to join in a call-and-response poem.
I mentioned on the 3rd March that we are putting our price for admission to Zest! nights up to a simple £3 per person; we cannot afford to continue the concessionary fee anymore, I'm sorry to say, as numbers of attendance have been dropping lately and unless we can afford to make enough to pay for the hire of Alexander's we will be left with one of two options: to find another venue, or else to close Zest! down.
We run Zest! totally for your benefit, not to make profit. And we do our best to bring an interesting variety of poets from elsewhere to Chester to give the Zest!evenings that extra zing.
SO, it's up to you, our supporters, to do what you can to keep supporting us!! Please continue to do so: we have more exciting poets as guests for the rest of 2014, Chrys Salt in June, Brian Johnstone in October, and 3 local poets - Maureen Weldon, Dave Costello and Edwin Stockdale -who have all achieved their first publication in December. Congratulations to all three.
The next Zest! will be on Monday 2nd June. Please do your very best to come!
Saturday, March 8, 2014
REVIEW OF "RISE" IN ROUNDYHOUSE, ISSUE 40
In her recent review of "Rise" in Roundyhouse magazine Ellie Rees talks of the 'earthbound pleasures' of my work, commenting that the poems have a 'simplicity and stripped-down nakedness, haiku-like in their power to capture an experience, however fleeting'.
This is not the first time I've had such a comment on my work and I very much appreciate it as I do work carefully to pare the poems down to precisely the nucleus of a moment and no more. Of course it doesn't always work! And also I don't treat all my poems in such a way; it depends what the subject matter is. But where it is a matter of writing about harrowing issues like undergoing treatment for cance/ rape/ illness/ grief I do focus really hard on trying to achieve this spareness of language
.In "Rise" I have branched out into other fields than the cancer experience and observation of wildlife which is my other major focus; I have written a good deal about the habits of people whom I've observed, whether it's the child Nuala , or the inhabitants of the fictional Almond St, and I was pleased to read Ellie's closing comments on the collection, saying saying that 'McEvoy's keen eye delights in the variety and eccentricity of everyday life'. I do indeed!
Her review makes a total now of three reviews of "Rise" so far: James Naiden reviewed it on ink sweat and tears, and Matt Merritt gave it a very enthusiastic review on his blog polyolbion. I am very grateful to all three, and glad too that my publisher Jan Fortune is very active in sending out copies for review. I have heard from some poets that there are some poetry presses that don't do this. I have no idea if reviews help to sell copies of a book or not but at least they bring a book to people's attention and when they are generous, well-informed reviews, as these have been, it makes the writer feel appreciated and understood. Which is worth an enormous amount!
This is not the first time I've had such a comment on my work and I very much appreciate it as I do work carefully to pare the poems down to precisely the nucleus of a moment and no more. Of course it doesn't always work! And also I don't treat all my poems in such a way; it depends what the subject matter is. But where it is a matter of writing about harrowing issues like undergoing treatment for cance/ rape/ illness/ grief I do focus really hard on trying to achieve this spareness of language
.In "Rise" I have branched out into other fields than the cancer experience and observation of wildlife which is my other major focus; I have written a good deal about the habits of people whom I've observed, whether it's the child Nuala , or the inhabitants of the fictional Almond St, and I was pleased to read Ellie's closing comments on the collection, saying saying that 'McEvoy's keen eye delights in the variety and eccentricity of everyday life'. I do indeed!
Her review makes a total now of three reviews of "Rise" so far: James Naiden reviewed it on ink sweat and tears, and Matt Merritt gave it a very enthusiastic review on his blog polyolbion. I am very grateful to all three, and glad too that my publisher Jan Fortune is very active in sending out copies for review. I have heard from some poets that there are some poetry presses that don't do this. I have no idea if reviews help to sell copies of a book or not but at least they bring a book to people's attention and when they are generous, well-informed reviews, as these have been, it makes the writer feel appreciated and understood. Which is worth an enormous amount!
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Monday 3rd March
Apologies to Zest! followers -we forgot to send out our usual reminder last month.But Zest! will be happening on Monday 3rd March 2014 , 8pm, at Alexander's as usual. We have a very special guest in Roy McFarlane, former Poet Laureate of Birmingham. Roy says of himself he "walks the earth, delivering his words as and when he sees fit". And he has excellent delivery style!
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