To Book a Headliner Poet

On 12th December we of Poetry Breakfast will host Christine Collins as headliner poet. A contact made far from here, two months ago, in the heat of August.

We of the West Midlands do not normally go to Dorset. That is because the motorway, the M5, takes us naturally to Exeter, and then to the coasts of Devon and Cornwall. Until eighteen months ago I knew nothing of seaward Southern England. A 70th birthday treat, organised by my younger family, caused me to fall in love with Swanage.

So when they asked me to join them this year, camping on that coast, I readily accepted. Three days that made few demands on me, other than I should accompany the kids to the beach, go in the sea, and buy ice creams. Plenty of time, to enjoy the rain when it fell, and gain a thorough knowledge of Kate Innes’ first book, ‘Flocks of Words’, poems rooted in the part-post-industrial, part-deep-rural lands to the west of our conurbation, poems suited for comparison with those of RM Francis and perhaps, Chris Collins.

Three days on this wooded campsite and the others would return to London. Haverfordwest could have been my next destination – I had a full weekend to fill before my allotted time at my brother’s west Wales caravan. But all the campsites looked horrible; I could not imagine opening a conversation with anyone there. Further, the photos showed enormous bare fields, with tents huddled against the hedges. And not even walking distance from rightly-beloved Haverfordwest.

So I bought a four-night ticket for the Purbeck Valley Folk Festival, knowing that, while it might be expensive as camping, my fellow-campers would be lovely. And so they were, the two young guys whose guitar-playing serenaded the early morning, and who leapt to help when my meths stove overturned. More than that, you were amongst friends universally, all in a summer-holiday party mood, joyful without excess.

Two vast barns, the rest marquee. You made use of the programme, but wandered at will. Wherever you went, the music – much of it bluegrass arrangements by bands from America, north Europe and the British Isles – never failed to absorb you. Duos of guitar and fiddle, interweaving song, caught your mood and took it to new places.

But the Spoken Word marquee. I came in just as the Slam presenter was calling for judges. No hands went up so she made a desperate appeal: if there were no judges the slam could not take place. In the face of such an awful threat three hands were raised, one of them mine. Oh, we’ll get together at the end and chew over our notes. That’s what I thought. The reality was alarming. At the end of each performance we were to call out our scores – to an audience of thirty-plus people.

A bad beginning. My score of nine for a young northern-Irish poet whose deft arrangement of Oasis lyrics otherwise met with two reality-check sixes. We did though harmonise as the contest went on. Until a red-bearded Dorset man with flowing hair came to the microphone. He received initial applause; he was known. however his humorous rhymed-couplet take on the impact of tourism did not strike me as imaginative, for all its forceful delivery. There was a collective gasp when I it gave it six, against the others’ eight and nine. I felt like making a run for it.

But the thing was good-natured. People will accept that it’s no use using the middle marks; that way the aggregation results in no winners. Afterwards I approached the three whom I’d top-marked, presented the Saturday Books card and proposed that, if ever they were in the West Midlands they should headline the Poetry Breakfast. I had presumed this unlikely, anticipating them based in Southern England. This proved correct in the first two instances. Then, ‘But I live in the West Midlands!’

She had amazed me. Presenting a poetic idea quite new to me, the body as a verb. This performed with all the assurance of knowing you’re onto something good. I hope that when Chris comes in December, she has print copies available.