With Brendan Cleary in good form, always a delight reading both published poems and new ones. I had heard the poem about his brother before but it is read with such tenderness, the room falls still.
Tony Flynn was unable to make it but this means that Brendan and Rob Hamberger had longer sets.
Rob starts by reading a very gentle poem about lifting his sleeping young sons to go to the loo in the middle of the night, a vehicle for expressing his feelings and responsibilities as a father. He read several poems from his book Warpaint Angel, a poem about three guys pretending to be the Beverley sisters, (you need to be a ‘certain age’ to appreciate it and of course I am!) and several other poems from two new pamphlets. I had not heard him read before but was sufficiently moved to buy his book.
The evening’s proceedings included the prize-winning poets in the Pighog Moss Rich International Poetry Prize for Humourous and Satirical Poetry. There had been 600 entries from all over the world. It was a bit of surprise that all the prize winners were men!
Moss Rich’s daughter was on hand to give out the prizes, such a compassionate woman, acknowledging the effort that had been made by all those who had written and sent in their poems. She told us that sometimes Moss’s poems had not been acknowledged or read on tiny clubs and bars, but nothing could stop his passion for words.
New Pighog poetry pamplets launched tonight, Skate and Ice, ready for the Christmas seasons and worth checking out.
Open Mic sessions ended the evening that had had a lively audience, coffee, wine and Quality Street in abundance, Flap ed’s musical interludes as usual helped the evening along, a great last Piggy Night for 2012.
Ann Perrin 