Reading and Signing Books with Hay Writers’ Circle at Hay Festival 2022

HAY FESTIVAL 2022

Very soon the gates open on the 35th spring Hay Festival and it’s definitely time to celebrate!

I’m so delighted to be reading with the wonderful Hay Writers’ Circle again and it’s all thanks to the wonderful support Hay Festival gives to this writing group I have been a member of for 11 years.

Discover the full Hay Festival programme and book tickets now.

Our Hay Festival event, number 212, takes place at 2.30pm on Wednesday 1st June in the Summerhouse. It’s a FREE but ticketed event, so please click on the following link to secure your place. .Click here –> TICKET FOR EVENT 212

You can also catch us after the event in the Hay Festival Book Shop
Book Signing details below

I’ll be book signing alongside talented fellow writers, Marianne Rosen and Mark Bayliss.

I’ll have copies of the anthology, Poems From the Borders, (Seren Books, 2019) but also the last couple of copies of my limited edition, Found Me : Blackout Poems, (Read Fox Books, 2016) which was shortlisted for the 2017 Saboteur Awards Best Poetry Pamphlet, and also Watch The Birdie, An Anthology of poems for the 67 birds on the R.S.P.B. Red List. (Beautiful Dragons Press, 2018); with all profits going to the RSPB.

Hope to see you there!

2020 Poetry Competition – Results Announced. — THE HAY WRITERS

The winners of the 2020 Hay Writers’ Circle Poetry Competition are: First prize – Emma van Woerkom – ‘Blackberry Seed’ Second prize – Angela Grunsell – ‘Autonomy’ Third prize – Katy Stones – ‘After him’ This year our judge was the wonderful Kate Noakes. She generously took the time to comment on individual poems […]

via 2020 Poetry Competition – Results Announced. — THE HAY WRITERS

***Blessed to have attained 1st place. Thank you to Kate Noakes for judging. ***

Liberation During The Lockdown and Helping Hay Festival — THE HAY WRITERS

Article by E. C. van Woerkom. 25/03/2020. While we all adjust our daily routines in the wake of the Coronavirus’ impact on our lives; talented and industrious creative minds are blooming with ideas to fill our days with reading and writing. Suddenly there is a plethora of online writing courses, daily prompts, recommended reading lists, […]

via Liberation During The Lockdown and Helping Hay Festival — THE HAY WRITERS

A Truth For National Poetry Day 2019

National Poetry Day – October 3^rd 2019 – Theme ‘TRUTH’

Last week I was at the HLC Library, North Somerset prepping for National Poetry Day 2019. I’ll actually be away on the 3rd, but that doesn’t stop me promoting poetry and poetry books in libraries, even if the area is listed as ‘deprived’, not in poetry and not on my watch.

For the majority of people, outside of going to a poetry performance, the next best place to discover poetry is at their local library, but the selection is always very limited. Shakespeare, the Poet Laureate and sometimes a prize winning publication or two, but that’s usually it. Some of the books in the photos are the only copy in the whole of the Libraries West region covering Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, Dorset, North Somerset, Poole, Somerset and South Gloucestershire – that’s a staggering 145 individual libraries!

Not to knock them, I think it’s great that they did have a copy, but if we want more people to discover, enjoy, respond and benefit from poetry, the TRUTH is we should have a better variety of publications on offer to the public for free.

With authority budgets strained I feel it’s actually up to us to make a difference. So, if you are a poet and have a spare copy of your latest book, or you’ve been gifted 2 copies of the same poetry title and the other is sat on a shelf collecting dust, why not donate a poetry book to your library?

I have to extend a huge thank you to Melanie Branton for gifting copies of both her publications to the HLC Library. I have also done in the same with my pamphlet, plus some recent anthologies in which I have work, gifting copies to Hay-on-Wye Library (Powys), and Portishead Library and the For All Healthy Living Centre Library, (North Somerset).

So, on National Poetry Day, the TRUTH is, get your poems out to the people who need them the most and put them in a library. 🙂

Poetry BookShop Readings – Seren Presents : Poems from the Borders

Excited to be a part of this!

Do come along to the Poetry Bookshop, Hay-on-Wye.

With the Hay Writers at Hay Festival 2019

Hay Festival 2019 

Hay Writers’ Circle, of which I have been a member for 8 glorious years, have been blessed with another fantastic Hay Festival. Official photo’s in the Green Room, a larger, high-spec venue, (beautifully managed by a wonderful festival team), and an absolutely terrific, attentive, sell-out crowd!

The audience were delighted by a wide variety of poetry, short stories and excerpts from novels.  Thoughtful, humorous and descriptive pieces easily gelled alongside fictional landscapes and characters, some pieces even celebrating our 40th year – there was literally something for everyone to enjoy.

Photo by Merv Newton 2019

I have to say,  these wondrous words by Peter instilled a huge amount of honour and pride in each writer, and acted like a rousing call-to-(literary)-arms. I don’t think we ever performed as well as a group on that day and on that amazing Hay Festival stage.We were also extremely privileged to have an introduction by Hay Festival Director, Peter Florence. Describing, in his address how Hay-on-Wye is known the world over as “the town of books, but increasingly over the last 35 to 40 years, a town of writers as well.”  How our community, rich in so many things is “richest in it’s story telling (which) is incredibly important and dear”; and that enhancing a love of “language and stories is important to who we are.”

If you’d like to hear the audio recording of the 2019 event or other Hay Festival events, why not subscribe to the Hay Player.

CLICK HERE  (My readings start at 15.40 mins)

The Hay Player contains thousands of audio and video recordings from Hay Festivals from 1995 to the present day. An annual subscription of £10.00 allows you to play as much audio and video as you like.

Photo by Merv Newton

Programmes & my rose

A huge thank you to Peter Florence and the whole team at Hay Festival for their unceasing support of the Hay Writers.

Finally, thank you to our audience who dodged the wind and rain for an hour and applauded in all the right places and to Merv Newton who snapped a photo of me performing. Well done!

And the winner is ….

Happy!!!! 🤩 Thank you to Paul Henry who placed my poem joint first – describing it as “self assured…Controlled, vivid, spare and perfectly paced”.

*QUOTE – Hay Writers’ article 20/05/2019*

Winners of the 2019 Hay Writers Poetry Competition

Congratulations to all the entrants to this years Poetry Competition. Our thanks also to our esteemed judge, Paul Henry  remarking that he enjoyed reading the poems which displayed both a keen eye and a keen ear.

(All the winning poems, along with a selection of short stories will be performed at our FREE event 233 at Hay Festival 2019 – Wednesday 29th May, 5.30pm in the Cube – for more information please go to our EVENTS page.

The results and judge’s comments are as follows:

Joint-first:  ‘Apple Moon’  by Emma van Woerkom  &  ‘Red Coat’ by Ange Grunsell

Second:      ‘Private Earthquake’ by Jean O’Donoghue

Third:         ‘Afternoon’ by Helen Wright

“Most works concerned themselves with natural landscapes and were tenderly observed. Some were reminiscent of the Imagist School which was at the forefront of Modernist poetry in the last century.

This Imagist influence was especially evident in ‘Apple Moon’, perhaps the most self-assured of all the poems here. Controlled, vivid, spare and perfectly paced, it reminds us of the enduring modernity of that movement. (Double-spacing of lines in a poem suggests a stanza-break, the convention being to single-space verse-lines. However, I read the poem’s form to be two, distinct stanzas).

The very different ‘Red Coat’ finds the universal in the personal. The detail of love and loss, especially in the prosaic first stanza, is striking and brought back to a lyrical base by the second verse’s refrain. The phrasing of the penultimate stanza is the poem’s only weakness and is forgiven by the startling closing line. ‘Red Coat’ wears its matter-of-fact stoicism lightly but the grief its first person conveys is heavy and resonant.

‘Private Earthquake’ was similarly striking, in the energy and pace of its anguish. It took risks, both in its metaphor and its diction. Stanzas two and three were particularly strong. I was less convinced by the broadcaster’s intrusion which felt forced, though it did inform the poem’s narrative. Really enjoyed this poem.

‘Afternoon’ was tonally even and sensual, its subject-matter closely observed. It was the purest poem of the thirteen, capturing a moment in time, in the tradition of lyric poetry. That “only he” (the third-person chaffinch in stanza 3) could see “the hawk hunting the hedgerows” I found less persuasive; but I could hear and smell and see the poem’s heady scene.

Other poems I recall liking were ‘How the land lies’, ‘Bridge’ and ‘Sunrise Vietnam Sea’. I may well have chosen differently, and from others not mentioned here, at a different time. Competitions come and go. Poems last. There is only the poem.”

                                                                                                 Paul Henry – April, 2019

Poems from the Borders – Seren Books

Poems from The Borders.

Delighted and thankful to have 2 poems in this beautiful new pamphlet from Seren Books edited by the luminous Amy Wack and dedicated to that special ‘place’ – the Welsh borders / Marches. This is one in a series of geographically zoned pamphlets from Seren celebrating the various individual localities which make up our unique Wales. It’s wonderful and very humbling to be alongside so many incredible poems and poets.

Jonathon Edwards, Owen Sheers, Fiona Sampson, Christopher Meredith, Paul Deaton, Gareth Writer-Davies, Philip Gross, Paul Henry, Rhiannon Hooson plus so many others, all whose work I have so long admired. 

The pamphlet comes with a large envelope and 2 postcards of my home town of Hay-on-Wye so it can be posted to a friend as a gift (if you can be parted from it!)
Poems from The Borders is available at £5.00 each from www.serenbooks.com or order your copy today from any good bookshop or Poetry Bookshop!

Poems from the Borders pictured here at the incredible Poetry Bookshop, Hay-on-Wye.

 

Weston-super-Mare Literary Festival 2019

A huge thank you for everyone who came to my events at Weston-super-Mare Literary Festival this year. It’s been a thrilling and exciting experience.

My week began with a short radio interview on BBC Radio Bristol with Steve Yabsley. Being as it was my first radio foray, I was quite nervous, but I was extremely fortunate that Steve had plenty of questions to keep me busily chatting and the time simply flew by.

My first event, the Past Presence creative writing workshop at the Weston Museum proved very popular with some travelling from Bristol. Through extensive writing exercises we explored, imagined and gave voices to a wide variety of historical items. Sherry and Matt from the museum were very helpful in welcoming attendees to the event and assisting me with the prior selection of artefacts from nearly every era imaginable.

At the end of the session it was heartening to read the anonymous feedback as it was clear that everyone had enjoyed the workshop and best of all, had written reams.

Weston museum has undergone an extensive refurbishment program in recent years and it was wonderful to use it’s glorious new facilities for both my Festival events.

In the evening I was absolutely delighted to read along side the incredible poetical talent that is Rhiannon Hooson. It seemed the audience leaned forward and hung on every word. There bloomed an intimate, fine rapport, which spilled over into the question time and book signing at the end of the performance. Rhiannon read some incredible new pieces which I cannot wait to read again when they are published in her next collection.

To end, I’d like to thank the tireless Zoe Scott who organised the festival and liaised with everyone to make the week such a success. Thank you to Weston-super-Mare Town Council and the Museum for hosting such a brilliant week of literary events. Although the festival is only in it’s second year, it already seems to be gathering pace and the breadth of writer’s on their books is steadily growing. Thank you for including me.

 

Merry Christmas from me

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!

Here’s a bit of seasonal fun to welcome in the festivities.

 

Deck the Halls
by Emma van Woerkom

Just one day until Christmas
And the hours are whizzing by
While all about perfection
Glistens smugly on the eye.

Real trees dusted with frosting.
Crystal baubles, golden-round.
Posh shops hire Santa’s reindeer
To leave footprints on the ground.

The epic main attraction?
‘St. Nick’s grotto’, Lapland style.
A pricey Finnish import –
(Flat-packed dens – so versatile!)

Bright strings of things, flakes flashing,
Sets defying gravity –
I’m not so sure my home décor
Competes on an Argos tree.

My ‘Norway Spruce’ is nine years worn,
Tripod based, resting on two –
Shedding strange fake plastic needles,
Standing up-right, if askew.

I fight great nests of knotted lights
Which momentarily amuse –
Until that failing flicker
And I’m off to score a fuse.

Or it’s just a single  light bulb
That’s given up the Yuletide ghost.
Systematically I test them
Turning my retinas to toast.

Threadbare is also my tinsel –
The prey of a senseless crime,
For some reason, last season, I hacked it,
Something to do with mulled wine …

Broke ornaments, I’ve got hundreds.
Bought, stolen, re-gifted and begged
Even a nose-flashing Rudolph –
Like the tree he’s missing a leg.

I don’t skimp on handmade extras
Weird glittery bells, stars and balls –
Glued in grim, sweatshop-like classrooms
When Ofsted make unannounced calls.

Then sat as proud as a peacock
From her lofty station on top
My hand-me-down one eyed old fairy
With a wand that resembles a mop.

Holly, mistletoe are like gold dust
They’re sourced through an underground hub
A-friend-of-a-friend who’s a farmer,
Check your boot, 8pm, at the pub.

By Midnight mass, most presents wrapped –

Gift tape drives us all round the bend
Bet Good King Wenslas ground his teeth
When he lost the cellotape end!

But carols sung, cheered trek for home
Tree lights wave at me through the glass,
My winking one-eyed fairy beams
That Christmas has come at last.

So I’ll sit with a sigh for a moment
And forget all the rush that it’s been
My list’s all done, it’s been quite fun
Plus for weeks I won’t have to clean!