Boscombe Revolution

We were crawling and clambering over one another at the launch of Hesterglock Press’s third publication of Boscombe Revolution – Revolution and Gender (edited by Paul Hawkins pictured above, with Markie Burnhope and guest editor, star poet and all-round brilliant event organiser Sarer Scotthorne). Late comers eavesdropped from the corridor outside the upstairs room of the fantabulous Duke of York in St Werburghs. I was on second – after Gary Budden held up the flag for men and fiction with his eerie and understated short stories – so I could relax and enjoy the delicious range and depth of the other women poets performing. The taste of Lucy Furlong’s sub-pavement Gaia spirit has got me longing to read her fold-out map poems, and her Patti Smith finale was a triumph. I was also completely wowed by Myriam San Marco’s impeccably crafted who-dun-it mirror poem.

You forget what you’re getting from a poetry reading. It’s never just the pleasure of new and unusual thoughts and voices, it’s also the geeky technical chats on the stairs, and the irreverent bursts of laughter that clear the air after emotional intensity. That night there was a sense of partaking in the grown-up version of those living-room theatricalities my 7-year-old daughter is now adept at: anything might happen – it frequently does – and whatever it is will never be repeated with quite the muddled, instinctive lucidity of that warm moment.