Can't believe it's coming up this Sunday!! I've been practising my set all week, it's been a while since I've done a reading so I'm a little nervous but really looking forward to it! It's nice getting an opportunity to read in London though I won't get much of a chance to do any touristy stuff as I'm flying down on Sunday morning and flying back up on Monday morning.
I've been doing so much reading lately and trying hard to focus my writing and instead of the proliferation of image-making, which has always been my first love in poetry, trying to develop a stronger narrative voice in a way that is natural to me and my writing. A new discovery for me has been James Dickey. I'm really enjoying reading his poems, reading up about him and interviews with him and his entertainingly catty comments about his contemporaries (check out the Paris Review archives interview with him!).
Been reading Selima Hill's People Who Like Meatballs on and off over the last couple of months and it's really staying with me. I'm still obsessed by the Imagists and I'm back re-reading Imagist Poetry by Peter Jones and constantly go back to H.D.'s Sea Garden (which is free on the kindle!).
Also keep going back to W.S. Graham, trying to learn how to do 'voice' from him since his 'voice' is so familiar to me coming from Greenock which is just across the Clyde from me and where I spent many a weekend staying with my grandparents as a child and walking the hills and streets with them.