Poetry Bazaar

Just a quick summertime reminder of my three self-published poetry titles on Kindle, as I like to make at least one poetry sale per year!

The revised Kindle version of my first collection: DISREPUTABLE (UK Amazon store and US Amazon Store): youthful poems of love, dreams, optimism, and loss.

Includes poems for which I won an Eric Gregory Award in 1996.

Then there's my controversial female narrator version of the Anglo-Saxon poem THE WANDERER (UK Amazon store and US Amazon store): 'Most days I wake/like a stone in the stillness ...'

Anglo-Saxon loner with depression ...

Finally, there's my long modernist poem ON WARWICK CASTLE, written during my tenure as Warwick Poet Laureate (UK Amazon store and US Amazon store) which is currently on sale at only 77p!

I'm only 77p!!

Oft him anhaga ...

I was deeply flattered a few weeks ago when an old acquaintance and fellow lover of Anglo-Saxon poetry, Chris Jones, who lectures in the School of English at the University of St. Andrews, contacted me about my versions from that antique tongue. Chris was in the final throes of an academic article on modern poets who use or are inspired by Old English in their poetry, and wanted to include references to my various translations and other bits and pieces on OE.

His request is the kind of thing which reminds me why I became a poet. The thought of people out there reading about your work, and maybe going on to buy a book or two of it, or at least look you up on the net, is a very satisfying thing. I certainly didn't become a poet so my work could go unread. So any article which might flag me up to people with similar tastes and interests is excellent, by my reckoning.

If all this has whet your appetite for some Anglo-Saxon poetry, there are some odd pieces by me scattered about in various places on OE topics, but by far the largest example is my version of The Wanderer, a very famous Old English poem about a warrior adrift without a fixed abode, which can be found in my Salt collection, Camper Van Blues.

My version caused controversy when first published because the original was written in the voice of a man - or possibly several men - but I changed the narrator's gender to female, to match my own. But what are new versions for if not to test the ability of a poem to endure and reflect society's changes?

It took me well over a month to write that translation of The Wanderer, managing just 4 lines a day on average. But it was a highly complex piece of writing, and I wanted to try and reproduce at least some of the rhythms and alliterative sounds of OE verse - not just write a translation or even a version, in other words, but a poem which would work in its own right.

Anyway, I was very flattered to be included in Chris' article and hope it will lead other writers in the future to write their own versions, keeping OE verse firmly alive in the twenty-first century.

Review of The Wanderer on the Happenstance site

I just found a groovy short review of my Heaventree-published pamphlet translation of the Anglo-Saxon classic, The Wanderer, on the Happenstance website.

Thanks to Matt Merritt for that. Not sure how long it's been there, but it's a great review and much appreciated. All those rather painful months of work on The Wanderer ... and now I can be sure at least one person enjoyed it!

P.S: Yet More Reviews, Summer 2009
There's also a charming review of Camper Van Blues (reviewed by Sarah Maskill) and a highly complimentary review of The Lament of the Wanderer (reviewed by David Morley) both in this quarter's issue of Poetry Review, which is entitled "Cosmopolis" and can be bought online or via most good bookshops.

At the Godiva Festival: Cov's answer to Glastonbury!

I performed on stage last night at the Godiva Festival in Coventry's Memorial Park, two tents down from Cov's favourite band, The Enemy. I also happened to be in the Artist Liaison tent, getting my free food voucher, at the same time as some of the young band members and their families were picking up their backstage passes. My teenage daughter, who's a big fan of The Enemy, now apparently 'hates' me for not arranging a backstage pass for her too!

It was an excellent reading to a massive and appreciative crowd - if a bit 'Glastonbury' at times, thanks to the heavy rain, mud slicks everywhere, and an electrical short in the generator part-way through the unfortunate performer's set immediately before mine. There was a ten minute pause, while people danced about in the noisy semi-darkness and slow-clapped, then the lights came back on and suddenly it was my turn at the mic.

I warmed up the crowd, now rather frisky, with two short poems from my next book, Camper Van Blues (Salt Publishing, 2008): 'Day Tripping', about drug abuse, and 'Neighbours' (just published in Mimesis 4) about the downside of being a lone female traveller.

I then read two pieces from my first collection of poetry, The Brief History of a Disreputable Woman (Bloodaxe, 1997): 'Baize Queens', about my days as a semi-pro snooker player, and 'Not a Love Poem'.

To finish the ten minute set, I read my party piece - an extract from The Lament of the Wanderer, my version of the Anglo-Saxon poem, just published as a chapbook by Coventry's Heaventree Press, who were hosting last night's event.

Other readers in the poetry tent included the great Linton Kwesi Johnson and such stalwarts of the British poetry circuit as Dreadlockalien (aka Richard Grant), Mario Petrucci, Kei Miller, Mike McKimm, Yusra Warsama, Coventry's own Scrubber Jack, plus two excellent Irish poets visiting from Cork, Paul Casey and Billy Ramsell.

Singing Vegetables

This is just a little apology to those of you who have ordered a copy of 'The Wanderer' and not yet received it. This has been a mad week so far, but today at last I have a chance to parcel those signed copies up and ship the various orders out to different parts of the world - one to far-flung Australia, no less!

I was out all day yesterday on a school trip to the Eco Park near Milton Keynes. Not very highly recommended for a family day out, I'm afraid, unless you enjoy viewing row upon row of singing plastic vegetables and farm animals.

Though the 'digging for dinosaur bones' activities were rather groovy, it has to be admitted.

Poetry Tent at the Godiva Festival

For those in the area, I'll be reading from my new chapbook, "The Lament of the Wanderer", at a Heaventree Press event on Saturday July 5th, from 7pm – 9pm, in The Poetry Tent, Godiva Festival, Memorial Park, Coventry.

Here's the official line-up for the night:

Acclaimed dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson will perform his work at the West Midlands' biggest free arts festival, alongside Dreadlock Alien, Jane Holland, Kei Miller, Michael McKimm, Mario Petrucci, Scrubberjack and Yusra Warsama.

This event is FREE
Email: info@heaventreepress.com

Lament of the Wanderer - available now!

The Lament of the Wanderer - my version of the Anglo-Saxon poem with facing text Old English, plus a brief introduction to both the poem and Old English in general - has now been published by Heaventree Press.

The Heaventree website has not yet been updated to include my pamphlet. However, you can still get a copy from them by writing to the address below or emailing/telephoning them direct.

Alternatively, for a signed copy, you can email me at j.holland442@btinternet.com and I'll give you an address so you can send a cheque for £4.00 (£3.50 for the pamphlet, plus 50p towards P&P).

It's only a small pamphlet, hence the excellent price!

I'll be reading from The Lament of the Wanderer on the evening of Saturday July 5th in Coventry, at the War Memorial Gardens, as part of the international Godiva Festival. If you're planning to come along, the poetry part of the event should kick off sometime after 8.30pm. Maybe a little later.

To contact the publisher direct:
The Heaventree Press
Koco Building, The Arches
Spon End, Coventry
CV1 3JQ

Phone No.+44 247 6713555
Email: admin@heaventreepress.com

Lament of the Wanderer

Newsflash: I have a new chapbook out this weekend, to be launched at the Positive Images Festival in Coventry city centre (in the covered area at the Godiva statue, for those in the vicinity).

It's a single poem pamphlet, published by Heaventree Press, containing my new version of The Wanderer with facing page Anglo-Saxon text, plus a short introduction to the poem aimed primarily at those not familiar with either Old English or medieval elegiac poems.

I'll be reading from The Wanderer (both my own version and a short extract from the Old English text) roughly from 1 - 1.30pm on Saturday 14th June. Anyone who can find their way to the Godiva statue, which is quite close to the Cathedral, can listen for free.

I'll also be reading from The Wanderer in a few weeks' time at the international Godiva Festival on July 5th, which takes place at the War Memorial Gardens in Coventry, alongside poets Mario Petrucci and Richard Grant (aka Dreadlockalien), amongst others. Coventry band The Enemy will also be performing at the Festival that weekend, which has impressed my teenage daughter no end ... though she desperately resents my coolness at appearing on the same bill as one of her favourite bands.

Once the chapbook is out, I'll post up the cover image here, plus details of how to buy it online (or from me, if you'd like a signed copy).

'Night Blue Fruit' on the Guardian Unlimited

Some years ago, I first came into contact with performance poetry at a Coventry 'open mic' night called Night Blue Fruit. It took place monthly at a venue called the Tin Angel on Medieval Spon Street, a tiny, smoky and disreputable bar on a street corner, where members of the public wandered in and out at intervals, gloriously inebriated but happy to listen to a poem or two. (Or not happy, in which case they would be cheerfully ushered out again.)

While we read our poems to a crowded room, in would stagger women on hen nights doing the conga, pub-crawlers, drunken revellers in various states of undress, bearded ancient mariners, lovelorn musicians, poet-environmentalists with bodhrans.

It was not unknown for such visitors to suddenly declare they loved me while I was in the middle of a poem; once, a very drunk woman offered to kiss me and take me home. She was removed shortly afterwards.












As a homage to this marvellous and carnivalesque place, this haven for poets and performers of all kinds, I rushed home one night in a daze of enthusiasm and wrote a long poem in bouncing Skeltonics entitled "Night Blue Fruit at the Tin Angel".

I loved writing it and I loved performing it even more, especially on home ground. The roar of applause the poem received at its virgin reading at the Tin Angel is indescribable. For some months it adorned the walls there, parts of it were used on posters advertising the event, and it was even published in the local lit-mag, Avocado, which was often distributed at the open mic.

And now it's Poem of the Week on the Guardian Unlimited book blogs, courtesy of poet Carol Rumens. This is what she had to say today about the poem, and also about my new version of 'The Wanderer':

- 'While less coarse and explicit than the tale of the malodorous ale-wife that inspired it, "Night Blue Fruit at the Tin Angel" still has plenty of verbal punch. Skelton probably owed his style to mediaeval Latin poetry, but his work also recalls the vitality of Anglo-Saxon alliterative meter. The latter is clearly a fruitful influence for Holland. Her forthcoming collection, Camper Van Blues (to be published by Salt in October) has as its centre-piece a strong, female-perspective version of the Old English poem, "The Wanderer." The versification is musical, the occasional alliteration delicately shaded in. It never sounds forced.' -

Carol Rumens on the Guardian book blogs' Poem of the Week (April 28th 2008)

Night Blue Fruit is sadly no longer at the Tin Angel, but at the Liquid Cafe Bar in the City Arcade, Coventry. It's on this Thursday evening from 8pm, in fact, for those interested in a superb and intimate night of live poetry, spoken word and occasionally music.

Here's the original 'Night Blue Fruit at the Tin Angel' post, where I discuss the actual writing of the poem, and its inspiration.