Pigbaby poetry comes to town – don’t miss it – Red Roaster Coffee House

        PIGBABY COMES TO TOWN!  Their logo not my invention.

Heard about this festival just in time,  so popped along to the launch and open mic night with Neil Rollinson, Susie Campbell and Brendan Cleary

Had a great time,  Neil Rollinson – Arvon tutor,  poet,  keen horse racer with a  great set, quirky clever and funny, his poem about his relationship with his French teacher hysterical.  Susie Campbell’s  poetry/performance more theatrical  – using personal reflections in a diary format that many of us could identify with.  Brendan Cleary looking like the typical  ‘bad boy’ poet, great presenter with poems  both funny and ironic. I even began to understand  obsessions for horse racing – poems about the loss of his brother were very touching.

Great atmosphere and well attended.

Put my name down for the open mic – might not have done so if I had known that the open mic poets would open the proceedings! ‘ignorance is bliss’  Read ‘On the Fiddle’ from my book, encouraged by the fact it was featured in Writing Mag this month.

Next day went along to one of the 6 oclock freebies at Three and Ten with Rachel Woolf and Philip Pollecoff.   Rachel’s work took us to so many different landscapes,  loved her poem about festivities and saffron, her poem read in Scots and her poem written on Armistice Day. this one was about the Soldier who had carved a fish in the mouth of a bird in 1914 and was killed  in the war in 1915 –  she was so well researched and passionate – she showed me a photo of the carving after the reading really beautiful.

Phillip Pollecoff –  loved his  poems –  a lawyer with a creative heart.  particularly liked the poem about weddings in a divorce lawyer’s office, the London underground, but more particularly the poem about his son running – overall fantastic range of subjects.

This is pigbaby’s publicity – true so far -‘The Festival places some of the most compelling established and emerging talents from the Sussex area alongside national and international poets of seminal importance. We believe Pigbaby has something to move and to stimulate no matter what your literary background’

Will be back for more tomorrow. for Launch of Mark Whelan’s Brighton Suite, in the Pighog Munster Series

Note – Saturday –  20.00 – 20.30 Launch of Mimi Khalvati’s new collection from Carcanet Child: New and Selected Poems 1991-2011                                               20.50 – 21.40 Peter & Ann Sansom (with Q&A) from the Poetry Business and Smith/Doorstop      22.00 – 22.30 Catherine Smith.

So far warm and wonderful organisers with a great following. Regrettably I’ve never heard of them until now. Thank you to Collette for alerting us aspiring poets.