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Showing posts from 2022

Clare Shaw - Towards a General Theory of Love

I only discovered Clare Shaw this year, and while I wish I'd discovered their work earlier, I am freaking delighted that I get to discover a poet who is busy doing lots of events and has a sumptuous back catalogue. Clare has immediately joined the ranks of poets I'm obsessed with (like Jacqueline Saphra and Terrance Hayes). Clare has four poetry collections published with Bloodaxe, the latest of which is Towards a General Theory of Love which came out this year (2022). They have been nominated for and won various prizes and do lots of training around poetry and around mental health, and they stay in Yorkshire and have a lovely Burnley accent with a touch of Yorkshire to it. I highly recommend you look them up on YouTube to hear them reading their own poetry, or search for them on Spotify to find an interview. Towards a General Theory of Love is a good looking book with the cover using part of Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Early Delights. In it Clare explores love, with t

Bookshop Review: Seahorse

A card showing the outside of the shop, with a rather large and lovely octopus on top, reading a book.  A new bookshop opened near us a YEAR ago, and we finally managed a visit!  Seahorse Bookstore is in a great location in Ardrossan, on the way to the Arran ferry terminal, Asda and Cecchini's restaurant, just around the corner from the gorgeous new veggie cafe, Moka, and with plenty of parking nearby.  It's also close to the Ardrossan Town and Ardrossan Harbour train stations, and there are plenty of bus stands nearby. The book shop is clean, bright and friendly, set out over three rooms - non-fiction, fiction, and kids, with a fantastic selection of modern books and classics, and with hot drinks and biscuits, and places to sit and enjoy them. It was quite busy on the day I went so I didn't take pictures in the shop, but there are pictures online here . Things I loved included the white shelving, gorgeous little book display stands (which I think were bamboo, and which I&#

Finding words

I've been struggling to find words I feel are worth writing of late.  Of course the first conclusion I jumped to was that I was done - nothing more of use would come of my writing. But then I thought of other women around my age, in particular the amazing poet who I once met leaving early as I was arriving late for a writing event. Why was she leaving? She said it was because there was nothing she could say. I tried to convince her otherwise, but I failed, and I was horrified that we missed out on her voice because of what I could only think was a crisis of confidence. Lately that same thing has been happening to me. I've attended events, feeling like I ought to go, like I'll enjoy it when I'm there, and then I've not enjoyed it. I've found myself unable to write anything I'd want anyone else to hear, ashamed of my awfulness. I found myself looking at my writing and thinking, who would care anyway? A lot of this I'm putting down to perimenopause - I'