#52 to 52 week 5 -I know, I know ...
Yes, I know. I said I would write a blog every week for 52 weeks and I was full of promises of book reviews and photos and blah, blah. I'm disappointed in myself, you don't have to say a word!
Anyway, here I am with a catch up blog.
It's a very exciting time for me, I am finally going to have my collection in my hand. It's called 'Tadaima' and it's being published by brand new publisher Yaffle. I am so excited about this, I feel I have come a long way since my pamphlet 'Uninvited Guests' was published a couple of years ago and I feel even further away from the poems which make it up. 'Tadaima is Japanese for 'I am home' and it certainly feels like a homecoming for me. The last few years have been instrumental in shaping the person I am today and I think the poems in my collection reflect that. Home can mean so many different things to so many: location, buildings, emotions, memories, but I think what I have learned over the last year especially is that it really doesn't matter what or where your home is but the people you share it with. We are very lucky to live in a gorgeous place in a cosy house with a garden that will soon be filled with spring (and as it's the second year we've been here, I know what to look out for this time) but one day we will have to leave here and wherever it is we move to, it will become home because we are there. And these two will be, too ...
I have made a great many new friends over the last couple of years, some in real life and some in virtual reality. It never ceases to amaze me how close you can become to someone you have never met and I do have some people that I think of as friends who I am still to meet in real-life. But I have met a great many people this year who I had only previously known online. The communities I find myself in, both in my professional and recreational life (although the two very often merge) are places I never dreamed I'd be and they are beginning to feel like home. The classroom, the workshop, the stage and the page are all fairly new locations to me and I do still feel like I am going to be found out any day now, doing something I have no right doing. I am getting better at losing that self-imposed imposter syndrome but I do sometimes feel a bit like I should still be behind a bar.
The trouble with making friends is that sometimes you have to say goodbye. Because of our roles in compering and organising poetry events (and nothing to do with our ages) Mark and I often take on a kind of 'parent' role, especially among the younger members of our community and sadly, one of our 'daughters' , Alicia Fernandez is going back to Spain in May. Alicia has been a massive part of our lives for the last couple of years and was there at the start of our relationship. The hole she'll leave in our lives will be a huge one but one that will let sunshine in from time to time. More about her in future blogs.
We have opened our home to lots of poets over the last months, those who read for us at Word Club and Sheep Town and friends who have been to see us socially. This weekend we are really excited to be having Paul Waring and his partner Scotty to stay with us. They have become really friends over the last year or so and we're really looking forward to the weekend. They are coming to spend time with us at Chapel fm's Writing on Air Festival in Seacroft. Details are here: https://www.facebook.com/events/248091612737636/
Have a great week, I'll be back next week ...promise!
