Story Cafe regular Pauline gives us another fabulous round up of what we’ve been reading and talking about…
Thurs 29th Sept – nature writing
Unfortunately I was unable to go to this Story Cafe ( appointment for my covid/flu booster), but there were readings from Wanderland: a search for magic in the landscape by Jini Reddy, describing the winter landscape in Quebec when, aged 6, her family moved from London. After the break The Wild Remedy by Emma Mitchell was featured, describing the October environment around her rural cottage. The session finished with poetry by Mary Oliver, including When I am among the trees. I am sorry I missed it.
Thursday 6th October: Story Cafe Special: Grey Hen Press on-line event
For National Poetry Day we had a welcome return, all be it via Zoom, from Grey Hen Press which was set up in 2007 by Joy Howard to publish the poetry of older women. Today our theme was the environment and Joy introduced her team of poets reading their own poems and those of other contributors from three illustrated Grey Hen anthologies: Extraordinary Creatures, No Space but Their Own: new poems about birds and The Price of Gold: poems about the honey bee edited by Joy.
We were entertained and intrigued by a wide variety of poems about creatures great and small, weird and wonderful. As someone who has come late to attempting to write poetry I admired the versatility of the poets we heard, their imagery and the different poetic forms they used and wonder at the ability of so few words to say so much as in this haiku entitled Golden:
A Sunday in June
no bees in sight but listen
to the tree humming.
During the break there were questions about ideas and how a poem developed. One suggestion that particularly struck me was: “take your idea for a walk”. I tried it and it worked!
An inspirational Story Cafe full of beautiful words and illustrations celebrating life in all its forms.
Thursday 27th October: Bessie Smith and Jackie Kay
We welcomed Barrhill High School Advanced Higher English class on their first visit. Mrs Taylor, Georgia, Lauren, Ellie, Erin and Lily joined us for the session. They certainly reduced the average age of those present! To mark Black History Month Wendy based this event on the biography of the American Blues singer Bessie Smith by Jackie Kay.
This was re-issued last year and Wendy read Jackie’s account of her early introduction to the Empress of Blues by her adoptive father and her continued fascination with her troubled life. Jackie writes that as a child, apart from her brother, there were no other people of colour in her north Glasgow suburban community so “her image on the cover [of the record] captivated me.”
During the interval we enjoyed more discussion, with Bessie’s voice singing in the background and in the second part some of us, including our guests, read extracts featuring women of colour from Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls: 100 real-life stories of black girl magic edited by Ruby Workneh and poems from Other Lovers by Jackie Kay. This was a celebratory session featuring two extraordinarily gifted women which was enhanced by contributions from our lovely visitors.
All the titles mentioned are available for loan from GWL.
The last Story Cafes of 2022 will be on 24th November and 8th December so book your tickets and join us as we explore the world of women in all its diversity.
Planning is already underway for an exciting programme in 2023!
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