Category: Published Books

Inspired by Music

A new anthology from Cheltenham Poetry Society and Gloucestershire Stanza, was published November 2021 by Eithon Bridge Publications, edited by Sharon Larkin and Roger Turner, featuring 57 poems by 17 poets, with 25 carefully selected images to accompany the words.

Back in August, poets Michael Newman and Sharon had the idea for the new anthology, and Cheltenham Poetry Society’s Chairman Roger Turner welcomed the suggestion, agreeing to support the project and to co-edit the book with Sharon. They all recognised that it would be a splendid opportunity to bring poets together – virtually, at least – compensating, to some degree, for the disappointment of having to postpone the CPS Awayday writing retreat, for a third time, because of the pandemic. The call quickly went out to poets who had originally signed up for the retreat, as well as stalwarts of Poetry Cafe Refreshed, which had had to stop meeting in February 2020. Poets supporting the local ‘Stanza’ (affiliated to The Poetry Society in London) were also invited to contribute to the book. The opportunity to submit poems for the anthology had instant appeal, uniting poets around a shared venture while they were waiting for regular meetings to start up again.

Most poets are music-lovers, and the affinity between music and poetry is well recognised, reaching back to the oral tradition, with words memorised and recited down the generations,  developing into chants and songs. With such a heritage, and the contemporary blending of ‘spoken word’ and song, an anthology celebrating words and music seemed well overdue. The poems selected for inclusion span the genres, from opera, orchestral, sacred music, film music, folk, rock and pop. The poets share their experiences of concerts and gigs, listening to music on the move through headphones or in the car, or enjoying music at home – on radio, vinyl, CD or Spotify. Many of the poems relate to memories of people and places; others reveal emotions aroused by music, or moods and atmospheres created by specific songs or pieces. Further poems draw on memories from childhood, when learning to play, sing or dance. A surprising number of birds also feature in the poems.

The poets in the book are: Kathryn Alderman, David Ashbee, Catherine Baker, Annie Ellis, David Gale, Gill Garrett, Robin Gilbert, Chris Hemingway, Sharon Larkin, Iris Anne Lewis, Michael Newman, Stuart Nunn, Gillian Ridley-Wells, Belinda Rimmer, Sheila Spence, Roger Turner, Judith van Dijkhuizen

In December a group of the poets gathered, socially distanced, in front of Pittville Pump Room in Cheltenham, to mark the publication of their new anthology.

Left to right: Gilly Ridley-Wells, Judith van Dijkhuizen, Michael Newman, Iris Anne Lewis, Chris Hemingway, Sharon Larkin, Sheila Spence, Annie Ellis, Roger Turner, Kathryn Alderman.

Cover endorsements were kindly provided by Oz Hardwick, Poet and Professor of English at Leeds Trent University and Mark Connors, Poet and Managing Editor of Yaffle Press. Further endorsement was received from Mark Blayney, Poet and Royal Literary Fellow.

The following short presentation summarises their positive endorsement of the book:

Inspired by Music can be purchased from https://eithonbridge.com/anthologies along with previous CPS anthologies, including Cheltenham 300 (2016) and Poetry from Gloucestershire (2020).

Dualities

My poetry collection ‘Dualities’ is scheduled to be published by Hedgehog Press on 28 September 2020.

This is what I think it’s primarily about … but it might, instead or in addition, be about a whole lot of other things!

Partnership

Partnerships are demanding. Reconciling two sets of expectations, hopes, ambitions, desires and demands is an exacting business. The ideal is surely a mutually agreed balance between give and take, rights and compromises, constraints and freedoms. Any intrusion into a partnership is capable of challenging it, rocking it, even destroying it … but mutual recognition of a greater good can seal and cement a relationship. With mutual well-being as an agreed aim, supported by good humour, grace and forgiveness, individuals might grow the kind of partnership that becomes something more than both of them, something greater than they might have imagined.

More insightfully, here are what other poets are saying about ‘Dualities’:

“There’s a lot to be said for / being an outsider inside,” and Sharon Larkin’s perceptive collection perfectly explores the dualities of being a stranger in one’s social and personal spheres, as well as in one’s own body. The poems explore the paradoxical intensity of dissociation, with delicate touches of domestic surrealism and scorched-black wit chalking the outline of desire, deception, and a secular redemption of sorts. This is uneasy reading, full of the naked-edged truth that lies unseen beneath so many magnolia-painted lives.”
Oz Hardwick – Professor of English and Programme Leader for Postgraduate Creative Writing at Leeds Trinity University.

“Sharon Larkin is a keen photographer and her trained eye is evident in this collection; not only in the precise, sensory, detail but also in the care she takes with the angle of approach for each poem. The poems cover a range of themes but the Dualities of the title is evident throughout, always subtle and often in the form of a surprising twist which delighted me as a reader. Sometimes it is a line, other times a single word which re-focuses the whole poem such as in ‘Mismatch’, where the word ‘proprietorial’ in the last line turns tender care to something else entirely.” Angela France – Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing, University of Gloucestershire.

“This is both a romp and a skirmish, a disturbing dream and a garden of delights. Larkin forces us to encounter what we might call love, lust, longing, and examine these stormy forces through all the stages of life. Honest, sometimes cynical, the poems explore the sparks, flames and embers that burn us all. Perhaps the most stark warning concerns times in our lives we might compare with dusk, when our vision is not always clear, and we “must chance a snarl” in order to discern dog from wolf.” Pat Edwards – Welshpool Poetry Festival.

Dualities is available from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1913499278/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_btf_awdo_4BTAFbJ2F8T8Z



Or visit my Shop page to order a copy … signed, if you wish!
https://sharonlarkinjones.com/shop/

Interned at the Food Factory – still serving!

Now that my book’s been ‘out there’ for nine months, I thought it was a good time to review how it’s been getting on ‘in the world’.  So I updated my Facebook page for ‘Interned at the Food Factory’ (Indigo Dreams Publishing, January 2019) https://www.facebook.com/InternedatTheFoodFactory/
and thought it was time for another update here on my blog.

First, to recap, the poems in this book deal with eating disorders of various kinds, including anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, early years abuse, bullying and neglect, body dysmorphia and appetite confusion; food production and especially factory-processed food; gourmets and gourmands; predatoriness and predation in various guises  …  and the search for healing/possibility of recovery from food-related conditions. But there’s quite a lot of humour and fun in the book too!

Thank you to Ronnie Goodyer and Dawn Bauling of Indigo Dreams Publishing for being such positive and supportive editors and publishers of a book touching on what are ‘tender’ areas for so many people.

Reception – update

There are several mini-reviews in my previous blog post (see below), and quotes from longer reviews. Now I can add a few more: including a recent review from Rosemary Muncie in South Magazine (October 2019):

“There is no evasion in these well wrought poems.”

“Only a true poet would stand apart from themselves to observe this process and report back with such intriguing detail.”

“A cool and sensitive final poem”.

Jude Cowan Montague has described the pamphlet as ‘powerful’.

Supplementing their previous comments, included in my previous blogpost, Brett Evans Deborah Harvey and Dee Russel-Thomas have added:

“A cracking collection of poems” – Brett Evans, poetry editor, Prole magazine.

“A really thoughtful and thought-provoking collection” – Deborah Harvey.

‘Anyone who has any kind of love/hate relationship with food will relate to this gem of a book. It unravels a myriad of feelings and yet manages to find humour in the depths of despair. Privilege to have read it!’ –Dee Russell-Thomas

Thanks, again, to Rosemary, Jude, Deborah, Brett and Dee for this encouraging feedback.

Readings – update

I’ve had the pleasure of giving readings from the book in a number of places including:

• The Poetry Cafe in London with IDP stablemates Brett Evans, Holly Magilll and Marie Lightman, on 25 September.

• Silver St in Bristol thanks to Deborah Harvey;

• Fountain Poets in Wells thanks to Ama Bolton;

• Verbatim in Welshpool thanks to Pat Edwards;

* a joint launch event with Belinda Rimmer at Suffolk Anthology in Cheltenham thanks to Helen Hewett

• Gloucester Poetry Festival on Saturday 26 October with Sarah Leavesley, David Ashbee, Roger Turner and Derek Dohren thanks to Ziggy Dicks, and

* a reading leading up to Evesham Festival of Words, thanks to Sue Johnson and Sue Ablett …

… and on Corinium Radio, Cirencester thanks to Rona Laycock. Here’s a link to the programme which was recorded for The Writer’s Room, hosted by Rona: https://www.mixcloud.com/coriniumradio/the-writers-room-12-aug-2019/

Forthcoming readings (with other poets) include:

• Writers at The Goods Shed in Tetbury next spring with Belinda Rimmer thanks to Phil Kirby and

• Buzzwords, again with Belinda Rimmer, next summer, thanks to Angela France.

I’d be thrilled to give more readings, especially at places within 90 minutes of Cheltenham, so please get in touch if you organise events within that radius. I’m very happy to do joint readings with another poet or poets. Please just ask!

I avoid including – in public readings – any of the more triggering poems, concentrating instead on the hopeful, humorous and healing aspects of the book. I’ll include more recent work in readings too … from a wide variety of other topics, which could include ecological-environmental themes, the natural world/countryside, Wales, relationships, dystopia, eschatology and more!

Thank you to everyone who has bought and read Interned at the Food Factory so far. Further copies are available from me (signed if you like, just comment below) for £6 plus p&p … or from my author’s page on the Indigo Dreams website: https://www.indigodreams.co.uk/sharon-larkin/4594486683

Photographs below are from the Indigo Dreams Showcase at The Poetry Cafe in London on 25 September with Brett Evans, Holly Magill and Marie Lightman:

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Reading at The Poetry Cafe, London

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Sharon Larkin, Marie Lightman, Holly Magill and Brett Evans at The Poetry Cafe, London

Finally, while in London, I found ‘Interned at the Food Factory’ at The Poetry Library on the South Bank … at the end of the copious shelf of Philip Larkin books (no relation!) …

 

Interned at the Food Factory

My pamphlet, Interned at the Food Factory, was published by Indigo Dreams on 7 January 2019. The poems are dedicated to anyone who might describe their relationship with food as ‘complicated’.

Reception of the poems, prior to and following publication, has been pleasing. Observations received have so far included the following:

From Brett Evans, poet and editor of Prole magazine:

“… gets better with each read, and the initial read knocked me for six. …”
“By turns vulnerable and sassy, heartbreaking and funny, consistently insightful and readable, the food in these poems is no spread for some twee picnic.  In an age of increasingly innocuous poetry, Sharon Larkin is to be applauded for the rawness included here and for an exceptional instinct for the emotional weight and balance of her poems”.
 
 
From poet Kate Noakes:
 
“In these poems Sharon Larkin weaponises the language of food; sometimes witty, always moving. Watch out. This is a place where you must check whether ‘the knife drawer [is] closed.’“

From Dawn Bauling, Indigo Dreams Publishing:

“Full of wit and cheeky humour but a nonetheless serious intent. This collection has a real glisten to it – that makes you want to read on and on…”

From Poet Deborah Harvey:

“So much that resonates … What I really like about it, though, is the exuberance that offsets the sadness; that was unexpected. I found it very funny and very earthy.”

From poet Belinda Rimmer:

“A sense of menace runs throughout the book. Food comes to fill in gaps of many shapes and sizes, to compensate for lack? There are lighter tones too – food is treated playfully and lovingly, as well as with disgust. This is a place where self-denial and overindulgence collide. Everyday language is used in surprising ways….Wonderful and painful poetry.”

From poet Dee Russell-Thomas:

“ I very much enjoyed reading this…food for plenty of thought and a most apt dedication. Well done on a perceptive collection of painful poetry.

From Anna Saunders, poet and founder-director of Cheltenham Poetry Festival:

“… an excellent collection … Vivid and sparky and original. Beautifully written”.

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Thank you to all the above poets for taking time to read the poems with perception and understanding. Your kind comments are much appreciated.

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Food Factory on Tour

The following readings from Interned at The Food Factory are coming up this year. (Open to further invitations; please contact me to arrange).

Evesham Library – 10 May 
(thanks to Sue Johnson and Susan Ablett) 

Cirencester – 20 June 
Corinium Radio Writers’ Room programme 
(thanks to Rona Laycock) 

Wells, The Fountain – 1 July
(Thanks to Ama Bolton)

Welshpool, Verbatim – 29 July
(thanks to Pat Edwards) 

Poetry Café London – 25 September, with Brett Evans, Holly Magill and Marie Lightman. (With thanks to The Poetry Society)

Gloucester Poetry Festival with Sarah Leavesley, David Ashbee, Roger Turner and David Dohren at The Folk Museum, Gloucester – 26 October, 
(thanks to Ziggy Dicks)