This evening of the festival celebrated the writing of one of Leicester's outstanding poets. Carol Leeming read from her contributions to collections about Leicester, Welcome to Leicester and An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Leicester, and from her own publications, The Declamations of Cool Eye and the forthcoming, The Eclipse of Dread. The poetry moved from place to person to politics, giving the audience an integration of intensity and vision.
And it was an audience to honour our city - diverse in ethnicity, gender and age with a particular De Montfort University following from the Confucius Institute. Perhaps outstanding was the selection from Love the Life You Live, Live the Life You Love, the second of what will be a choreopoem trilogy. Here Leeming's rootedness in Leicester enables a monologue sustained in dialect and rude in reflection.
And the audience went away wanting more. The Eclipse of Dread promises to be an excoriation of Thatcher's Britain with scrutinies most apposite for our times.
About the reviewer
Bobba Cass is a grey poet and gay grandad who organises a monthly open-mic poetry event, Pinggg...K!, and writes children's fables for Creatures Creatives Collective.
Carol Leeming was at DMU on the 4th of Oct for the Opening Ceremony of Everybody's Reading Festival at The Gallery. She came to the university delivering her Author Event at Trinity Chapel on the 23rd of Oct! Last Friday (22nd of Nov) evening she came to DMU again for a jam session at Riverside Café singing and chanting one her poems. The pure beauty of rhythm & cadence! The sheer power of diction & imagery! So fascinating to hear Carol presenting her own poetic creations!
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