Slipping icily into the festive season...

'The cold never bothered me anyway' trills Frozen's Elsa bravely. Don't mistake me for Elsa. As frost grips leaves (prettily) and windscreens (annoyingly) I strive to muster the stoic resilience of Albert Camus who wrote In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. Good luck with that, then, my less stoic self mutters. But it's beautiful, I concede, that icy clarity of winter sunshine ~ this is how Stourhead looks when half the lake is solid and the grass is a field of tiny sabres.
And now it's December there's no avoiding the beast that lurches toward Bethlehem to be born again as a Retail Festival. Frome had a low-key lights-switch-on event this year: singing in the streets and tree sparkles which all lit up at the right moment ~ the mass 'Ooh!' gasp in response was more of an Oh!' of surprise from Fromies familiar with such events.
There was plenty of good music & other stuff around too: Dexters Extra Breakfast after the festive market at the Grain Bar were followed by the foot-stopping Buffalo Gals, and on Sunday Jazz Jam at the Cornerhouse gave us Simon Sax's lineup of superb performers. And Cafe La Strada is now featuring an exhibition of David Goodman's characteristically lucent eclectic photographs.

First Sunday of the month is Frome Independent market and minus- zero temperatures didn't stop the crowds pouring in. Cerulean skies and sunshine helped, and despite the whole town bordering on gridlock status (especially around hot-drink stalls) there was an upbeat atmosphere.
This month I was on the market myself, spasmodically declaiming poems from Crumbs from a Spinning World outside Hunting Raven Books, along with World Tree Story author Julian Hight who was also selling and signing. Great fun, and lovely feedback from buyers.

Earlier this week I'd met up with Burning Eye Books press officer ~ delightful Jenn Hart, here setting up for a podcast to give my progress report. My idea is a kind of scatter-gun approach to launching, with pop-up events in various locations (Frome Library next Saturday, December 10) and open-mic performances in Poetry Cafes and clubs. "If it isn't any fun, don't do it" D.H.Lawrence said, and he was right.
 So far, I've done spots at events in Bruton and Wells, acquiring after the latter a review in the Wells Journal I shall quote endlessly: Praise ... to Crysse Morrison, whose alphabetical 26 word review of Austen's Pride and Prejudice allied form and function in a way the Bauhaus would have applauded.  So it's a watch-this-space situation, or check my facebook page should you want to know upcoming.

Footnote of the week comes from a marvellous piece in Index: Wiltshire in which a Devises resident yearns fractiously for some of Frome's iconic charm. Oh, blast that funky freewheeling Frome... Here we go again, I swear every news story I hear about Frome is a happy-ending-tale of civic action... 

...not a constant free festival or a hippy commune, Frome is an organised community acting upon issues, often against conformity, to create a distinctiveness and liberal attitude which makes Brighton look like North Korea. Full of facts, and funny too ~ Darren Worrow, you may not be Bauhaus but I enjoyed that very much.

Flying in & out of Frome

So I got back home from San Francisco late on Monday realising there was no real point in emptying my case, more sensible simply to take remove the warmer layers and replace with books & course notes as I head off to lovely Skyros after four days enjoying Frome's warm sunshine.  It's autumn here, crab-apple & berry time, but apparently hot & stormy on the Aegean...

My  brief check-in included a terrific gig at Wednesday's Roots Grain Bar where Steve Loudoun and the Saboteurs covered an amazing range of styles with terrific vocals from Charlotte Egmore & Steve himself, and two very different art exhibitions.


Guy Watts is showing some of his fascinatingly complex 'detailed, dreamy' pen&ink works at La Strada until the end of October, and Paul Minott's exhibition of massive monoprints at Black Swan Arts had its launch on Friday.
In total technical contrast, Paul creates his designs on iPad and then each element is lasercut from thin plastic to be inked and etched and placed together to create a unique print. Well worth going to see, folks, and in the gallery till 8th October. Some lovely landscape photographs by Mahtola Eagle-Lippiatt in the cafe downstairs too.

I've been keen all summer to catch Frankenstein in Bath, the nightly 'theatrical walking tour' from the ever-innovative Show of Strength Theatre Company. The street performances of stories and histories I've seen in Bristol and Wells are always enjoyable, but this true tale from 1816 had extra appeal as it overlaps the Persuasion year featured in my play for Frome Festival Time Slides.  Creative Producer Sheila Hannon wrote this dramatic investigation and on Thursday led our intrigued group in the footsteps of Mary Shelley, revealing liaisons, tragedies & scandals along the way. Mary, as well as the poet Shelley's bride and the creator of Frankenstein the monster-maker, was the child of influential early-feminist Mary Wollstonecraft who died when she was 10 days old, so there's a particular  poignancy in her obsession with an unmothered creature whose life became a long frantic quest to find its creator. This saga of still-hidden secrets is totally gripping, evoking huge empathy & compassion as we hurried along the dark streets, pausing to eavesdrop fragments from letters of love & despair while the moon glowered above the plumes of our narrator's Regency headdress... It's on till the end of September, and it's a real treat. No booking, just turn up by the fountain outside the abbey at 7.30.

And finally this week: the exciting news from Burning Eye Books that my poetry collection Crumbs from a Spinning World will be published next month. I'm thrilled with the cover design by Mutartis Boswell, and more than chuffed to become, as Hannah Teasdale puts it, "another BE club member". With the tagline Never knowingly mainstream, Burning Eye scooped the Saboteur 2016 award for 'Most Innovative Publisher' - I'm thinking of making a lapel badge from that image... And in case you were wondering, my title was inspired by one of my favourite poets Brian Patten: it's the song of the slow, sad bird in The Translation:

"From my nest among moments 

Where I keep a spinning world 

I stole one crumb of joy 

But lost it coming here.”

So now I'm off again to join the team leaders in Atsitsa Bay for their penultimate week on the island. Smiley face!

Frome goes everywhere...

Frome's Queen of burlesque Muriel Lavender last week went to Leinfelden-Echterdingen to compete at the World Beard and Moustache Championship and came home with a runner-up trophy. Her Whiskerina triumph is featured by Frome Standard with the venue located obliquely in 'Germany' but with some comely shots of our Muriel, whose lippy talents are now turning to chocolate as she'll be judging succulent limericks at the Chocolate Festival  on Sunday 17th November at the Cheese & Grain. Only a quid, have a go!

Travelling metaphorically even further afield, the exquisite mandalas on exhibition at La Strada this week have all been inspired by Tibetan art, all meticulously hand-painted by Frome musician Pete Gage. Like Muriel's beard, they're more complex than a mere copy: Pete introduces Celtic themes, graphic design skills learned at St Martin's Art College in the sixties, and striking colour combinations to create enigmatic pieces with depths and even movement below the surface of their immaculate precision. You can buy, and commission, through Pete's website.

Moving my virtual sat-nav to Bristol for this post's footnote (sorry about these appalling segueways, I'm finally feeling better so probably all part of the detox process) Nevertheless Pub Theatre prepares for our next production: Festive Stockings, an evening of short seasonal plays which will be premiered in The Cornerhouse and then professionally performed onstage at the Alma Tavern Theatre in Clifton.  Frome Scriptwriters have been fine-tuning their dramas at our last few workshops and Rosie & I now have ten script submissions to send to our director for his verdict on the final choice... more details soon!