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Winter 2006

Samples from a CD of poetry from Les Merton's new beat-inspired collection, "Inspired by Outlaws", set to music by the Moontones, is available for download from CD Baby. Alternatively, email Les Merton for further details...

Victoria Field's second collection, containing poems drawing on experiences during her Truro Cathedral residency, is now available from Fal Publications or Truro Cathedral...

Billy, Beetles & Byron
Ann Kelley's poem "Dear Billy Collins" was highly commended in Petra Kenney International Poetry Competition.

Ann's novel, The Burying Beetle, has been short-listed in the Banford Boase award for outstanding first novel for children and young adults. The results are expected in June 2007.

Ann has also been invited to read from the novel and run poetry workshops at Byron Bay Writers' Festival and at "Taking Heart", a medical humanities conference in Australia next summer.

Sul Lago d'Orta...
There was an FPG presence again this year at the "Poetry on the Lake" festival in Orta, Italy.

Congratulations to Andrew Robinson, taking third prize for his sonnet in the formal category, "I have not slept soundly" (described by the judges as "a love poem with a difference"), and to Caroline Carver, who received a commendation. Both their poems will now be translated into Italian and appear in this year's festival anthology, Stranger.

FPG members also enjoyed a reading by Gabriel Griffin, the festival organiser, in Falmouth earlier in the year.

TS Eliot Prize
The Poetry Book Society awards the annual TS Eliot Prize for Poetry. The Prize - described by Poet Laureate Andrew Motion as 'the Prize most poets want to win' - was launched in 1993 to celebrate the Poetry Book Society's 40th birthday and to honour its founding poet.

The prize is awarded in January/February to the best new collection of poetry published in the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland in the previous year. The winner in 2005 was Carol Ann Duffy, for her collection Rapture.

Excitingly, this year, Penelope Shuttle's collection, Redgrove's Wife is among the ten shortlisted, a list that also includes poets such as Simon Armitage and Paul Muldoon.

This year's judging will be done by the ubiquitous Sean O'Brien, Sophie Hannah and Gwenyth Lewis.

Although FPG members have their fingers crossed, achieving a position in the shortlist is an incredible achievement in itself.

Forward Poetry Prize
Penelope Shuttle has had a great success with her new collection Redgrove's Wife with it being shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Poetry 2006. The Forward Poetry prizes were created in 1991 to bring contemporary poetry to a wider audience. Known as the "bardic booker", they have become among the most significant annual poetry competitions in the UK. Prizes are awarded for Best Collection (for which Penelope Shuttle was shortlisted), Best Single Poem and Best First Collection, with shortlisted poems published in an extremely popular anthology each year. Other nominations for Best Collection included Seamus Heaney and the eventual winner, Robin Robertson.

New Poetry Reading Group
From January 2007, Penelope Shuttle is beginning a six month experimental run of a "Poetry Reading Group". Members will bring poems to read by poets they admire or feel have influenced them. The member will read their selectedpoem to the group, after which the poem will be discussed.

The group is limited to 12 members and will meet once a month on Mondays between 7:00 pm and 9:00 pm at Dorothy Coventon's house at Maenporth. Booking with Dorothy for each individual month is essential. A contribution of 50p per meeting will help provide tea/coffee/biscuits.

The proposed dates for the meetings are 15 January, 19 February, 19 March, 16 April, 21 May and 18 June.

Trebah Gardens
Caroline Carver, poet in residence at Trebah Gardens, has given many readings this year, from London to Italy, not to mention running summer workshops in the gardens. But the coming year looks like it's going to be just as busy - Caroline already has two workshops and an FPG Weekend Festival planned!

Ottakar's Truro Poetry Competition
It's been a good year for FPG's own Andrew Robinson, who won a prize in the Truro Ottakar's Poetry Competition. A commendation also went to Caroline Carver.

The Redgrove Library
Stride Publications (now based in Devoran) have published The Redgrove Library, comprising all seven of Peter Redgrove's novels. The novels have new introductions provided by such writers as Peter Ackroyd, Pascal Petit and Cliff Ashcroft. The Redgrove Library brings back works of highly imaginative prose which have long been unavailable.

In addition The Redgrove Library includes The Colour of Radio, a volume of Peter's essays and interviews, edited and introduced by Neil Roberts, Professor of English Literature at the University of Sheffield.

Peter Redgrove was not only a prolific poet but an indefatigable writer of prose, both imaginative and discursive. He was also an extremely responsive and articulate interviewee. In The Colour of Radio he reflects on his childhood, education and marriages; on his own poetry and the writings of others who were especially important to him; and on his passionate involvement with science and religion, and his attempt to forge a world-view that integrated the two.

Find out more and buy online at www.stridebooks.co.uk.

Think of Summer!
Falmouth Poetry Group are planning a "Weekend Festival" at Trebah Gardens, near Falmouth from Friday 29 June to Sunday 1 July, so keep your calendar free!

Double the Pleasure
A second issue of poetry magazine, Liminal Pleasures, is now available. The magazine is edited by FPG member, Andrew Nightingale.

The contents can be read for free on the website, www.liminalpleasures.net, though buying a printed copy helps to support the magazine.

The printed copy comes as a little bundle of CD sized pamphlets, and includes poets such as Rupert Loydell (editor of Stride Publications) and Peter Philpott (editor of Great Works poetry website).

A third issue is already in the pipeline and due for publication at the end of March 2007 with poetry by poets such as MTC Cronin and Estill Pollock.

Spring 2006

The Forward Prize and TS Eliot Prize nominated collection by Penelope Shuttle from publishers, Bloodaxe, is available from Amazon...

Winter 2005

Caroline's second collection with Peterloo Poets is now out, after what was described in Acumen as her "dazzling debut", "Jigharzi an Me". You can read a review by Zeeba Ansari here. You can get a copy direct from Peterloo Poets for £7.95 including postage by clicking here.

Victoria Field at Truro Cathedral
Victoria has been appointed Writer in Residence at Truro Cathedral where she will be working until September 2006. Victoria is one of more than 130 poets who applied for this position. Canon Roger Bush said, "We are very lucky to have her cast her quizzical and sensitive eye over us."

Victoria is planning to organise some writing workshops in the cathedral building and would welcome interaction on a website to be constructed next year. Meanwhile, if you would like to be kept informed, email her on victoriajfield@btconnect.com or register your interest at the Cathedral Office in Truro.

FPG Night at the Theatre!
Victoria’s play Glass Heart, commissioned by the Hall for Cornwall, is now on tour.

According to the Hall for Cornwall, "the play tells four contrasting but closely woven stories of dicing with destiny. It’s a story of luck and love with a touch of magic thrown in – energetic visual theatre at its best. Audiences will be delighted by the original musical score, the atmospheric stage set and the drama’s mix of humour and emotion."

Glass Heart will be at the Falmouth Arts Centre on 14 February. The Falmouth Poetry Group encourages all members to attend this performance to support Victoria.

PICCOLINA
Piccolina is the new Poetry in Cornwall Calendar, an initiative by Caroline Carver, Victoria Field and Helen Wood to co-ordinate poetry readings and events in Cornwall. The aim is to share information about visiting poets so readings can be arranged without conflict and perhaps at more than one location, as well as to publicise events.

PICCOLINA are interested in inviting 'middle-ranking' poets as well as the occasional big name, funds permitting. We hope that each poet might be set up with readings at least two locations. At FPG we'll run visitors alongside a couple of our own poets each time.

The calendar will be 'cascaded down' through a limited email network (to avoid Data Protection Act problems). Updates and a new calendar will be disseminated from time to time.

Caroline Carver has volunteered to oversee the project for 2006.

Autumn 2005

Written by Les Merton and illustrated by Trystan Mitchell, "Dark Corners: a return to Cornish Noir", is a collection of short stories recently published by Boho Press Each of these stories has "a series of twists and turns that might have come from the pen of either Paul Jennings or Roald Dahl". It can be bought direct from Les for £9.99 inc P&P. Send a cheque (payable to Les Merton) to Les Merton, 11A Penryn Street, Redruth, Kernow, TR15 2SP or send £9.99 via Paypal to les.merton@tesco.net or buy direct from Boho Press...

Liminal Pleasures is a new magazine (first issue due in spring 2006), co-edited by Andrew Nightingale, seeking submissions of poetry. If you would like to submit some work or buy a copy of the first issue, please take a look at the website where there is more information...

New Collection
Caroline Carver's new collection of poetry, "Bone-Fishing", has been launched by Peterloo, with a very successful reading in Calstock at the end of September.

Competition Success!
An extract from Jane Tozer’s version of Marie de France has come third in the “Open” section of the Stephen Spender Prize for Poetry Translation.

Jane believes the judges probably found it a relief to read something fun for a change, though she attributes the success in part to the great skill of Marie de France as a story-teller.

Jane’s version reworks the original text for the modern English reader/listener. The prize is £100 and publication in a winners’ booklet. A piece about the winners will also be appearing in The Times at the end of October.

Subtropicana!
It has just been announced that Caroline Carver is to be the poet in residence at Trebah Gardens.

101 Poets
Les Merton is glad to have received a huge response for the anthology, '101 Poets for a Cornish Assembly'. Contributions have come from all the Celtic nations, all corners of the UK, and from USA, New Zealand and Italy. FPG members will be notified of the anthology publication date in due course.

Summer 2005

This literary novel by FPG member, Ann Kelly, was published in May 2005 by Luath Press, Edinburgh. "I started reading it this morning before breakfast and ignored hunger pangs to finish it in great sadness. It's quite beautifully done."" Sue Baker, Publishing News. Find out more...

"An international conflagration" - Fandango Virtual's new quarterly print journal is based in the UK but its 120 perfect-bound A5 pages showcase a powerful collection of up-and-coming international writers whose fire is destined to brighten the literary world. Bonfire welcomes submissions of short stories, novel excerpts, poetry and poetry with commentary about its process. Where shorter works such as poetry and flash or micro-fiction are involved, Bonfire prefers to present mini-collections by a single author rather than solitary works. Click here for full submission guidelines...

Poly Magazine Revives!
Poly, an A4 print magazine, is being revived after six years of sleep, and would very much like submissions for publication. For six years the FPG used to supply a full centre page of poems and Poly would love to have us there again. Please send one poem per person to the editor and he will make the selection: Michael Carver, Farthings, Tregew Road, Flushing, Falmouth, Cornwall TR11 5TH.