Review by David Keyworth of "Beyond the Page: Mary Shelley 175 Years On," with Andrew McInnes, Bradford Literature Festival, 6 July 2026

"There’s more to Mary Shelley than Frankenstein": this was how Dr Andrew McInnes concluded his talk at Bradford’s Festival Hub. He divided his slides into four main themes: Goth Queen; Mother of Science Fiction; Queer Ally; Contemporary.

He cited a range of evidence to suggest how Mary (1797-1851) was a Goth before Goths were invented. One rumour is that she and her poetic-genius partner, Percy Bysshe Shelley, made love on the grave of Mary’s equally famous mother, feminist pioneer Mary Wollstonecraft. McInnes argued that, though this may be true, the term "make love" in the eighteenth century did not necessarily mean to f***.

The Mother of Science Fiction section mainly drew on the novel The Last Man (1826). Mary imagined a fast-travelling world, where London to Edinburgh would take two hours in a hot air balloon. It is a small mercy that she never lived to see the reality of modern train travel.

McInnes backed up his description of his subject as a queer ally mainly with reference to her helping Isabella Robinson and the transgressive Walter Sholto Douglas, in 1827, acquire fake passports and live lives of superficial conformity, in Europe.

Mary’s attitude to the east and the Muslim world was, McInnes acknowledged, one that didn’t necessarily paint her in such a liberal light. He referred to the way that the non-Christian world was often the original source of strife in her fiction, for example the plague in The Last Man. Even the most forward-thinking individuals still absorb the attitudes of their era.

Audience questions covered topics including Mary’s world view, how the Shelleys financed their lifestyle, Lord Byron and Orientalism, and finally, a view of American sitcom, The Munsters, as an alternative 1960s existence for Frankenstein’s Monster.

McInnes is Reader in English Literature at Edge Hill University. He certainly did justice to his subject and her difficult but "creatively engaging life."

 

About the reviewer
David Keyworth was born in West Bromwich but grew up in North Lincolnshire. He was awarded a New Poets Bursary by the Northern Writers’ Awards, 2013. His debut pamphlet, The Twilight Shift, is published by Wild Pressed. He has completed a poem-sequence called Death and Taxis, which he’d like to include in another pamphlet. He also writes for the Weekend Notes.  

Review by Anupriya Sisodia of "The Life and Times of Agatha Christie" at Literary Leicester Festival 2026

I wasn’t entirely sure what I was walking into when I signed up for Literary Leicester 2026. It was my first ever literary festival, but I knew it would be something I’d remember.  

Wednesday 18th March began with "The Life and Times of Agatha Christie" in the Attenborough Arts Centre. I remember noticing how carefully I was taking everything in. Even before it started, the room already had its own atmosphere. It was full in that warm, expectant way: people gathering in clusters, coats coming off, festival pamphlets being flicked through, that quiet pre-event energy where everyone is just waiting for it to begin. And I even saw someone dressed as Hercule Poirot, moustache and all, which made me smile before I could even stop myself. Poirot, one of my earliest literary fascinations, was the kind of character I grew up thinking of as untouchable in his brilliance, so seeing him casually walking through a modern arts centre struck me as surreal in the best way.

I’ve always had a soft spot for Agatha Christie. I started reading her books when I was around twelve or thirteen. I didn’t realize then how long they would stay with me, quietly threading themselves into how I understand narrative, suspense, and character, or that I’d end up in a different country years later, listening to someone unpack her life in front of an audience. 

Dr Mark Aldridge led the talk. The way he spoke about Christie felt grounded and engaging rather than distant or overly academic. He walked us through her life as if her story still pulsed with warmth and movement. I realized I was listening more than writing; my notes turned into scattered fragments. When I listen, my attention naturally shifts to thought, and my imagination crafts its own scenes alongside what I’m hearing.

At one point, he mentioned The Mousetrap and its extraordinarily long-running history since 1952. Immediately, my mind connected it to home: I thought of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, a popular Bollywood film that has been showing for decades at Maratha Mandir in Mumbai, India. Two very different stories, two very different worlds, yet both enduring, because people keep returning to them, generation after generation. It seemed like one of those cultural overlaps your mind makes without asking permission, where distance doesn’t matter as much as shared longevity, shared affection. I didn’t say any of it out loud, obviously. I just let the thought sit there for a moment, like a small bridge between places I carry in me.

The Q&A session carried a particular sense of meaning. People were asking questions with such care, such curiosity, as if they weren’t just seeking answers but trying to understand the texture of Christie’s legacy from different angles: her narrative arc, structure, the psychology behind her characters. There was something very communal about it, not performative, but shared. Like everyone in the room was gently adding to the same unfolding conversation.

By the time the session ended, I felt something subtle settle in. Christie’s work lives on not just because people read it, but because it is constantly re-entered and re-imagined. Each reader brings something new to it, and in doing so, keeps it moving forward. I left carrying that thought: stories don’t belong only to the past or the page. They find new rooms, over and over, just like this one.

About the reviewer
Anupriya Sisodia is a published romance fiction author, pursuing an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester. She is an avid reader who loves writing stories with realistic, relatable characters who experience emotional and exciting journeys on their way to a happy ending.

Review by Tracey Foster of "Let's Ride Leicester Literary Tour," on Saturday 25 June 2022

Saturday was a good day to go on a bike ride. What a great way to see the backstreets and alleyways of our city! I must admit, I was a little nervous as I signed up to join the "Let’s Ride Leicester Literary Tour" to visit the key sites and places associated with our great writers, Joe Orton and Sue Townsend. The scale of the ride looked daunting, but the pace was slow enough to enjoy it. 

The University of Leicester’s Dr Emma Parker talked us through the relevant history and gave us a valuable insight into the life of Joe Orton from his humble beginnings, making plays in his garden with his sisters, to applying for a place at the Little Theatre. The subsequent demolition of his childhood home took away our sense of place as Emma read snippets from his teenage diary and his sister’s memoir (Leonie Orton, I Had It In Me). We also visited the University’s David Wilson Library that houses a ceramic pot made by Joe Orton’s niece, Rachel Barnett and a stencil artwork by street artist Stewy. We also stopped off at a local kebab shop that has been decorated by Leicester City Council with an image of Joe Orton to celebrate his success.

The highlight of the tour was the stop at the Pork Pie Library in the middle of the Saffron Lane estate where both writers grew up and visited in their youths. This magnificent old building has now acquired listed status and has retained some of the original interiors and fixtures. The head librarian Tracey Inchley was very keen to welcome us and gave us a fascinating talk about the library and its historical connections to the two writers. We saw the board game made by teenagers working on a 2017 exhibition about Joe Orton by Soft Touch Arts that reflected the struggles and pitfalls of growing up on the Saffron Lane Council Estate. Peter Simmonds talked enthusiastically about Sue Townsend as the reluctant writer, and creator of Adrian Mole, who never broadcasted her fame but remained faithful to her beloved Leicester all her life. He read snippets of Mole wisdom outside the buildings that were related to the text.

Combining gentle exercise with insight into two local literary heroes was a great idea and a tour that was well worth the effort. I recommend this event to the keen reader and the gentle cyclist alike. Many thanks to all those who were involved with organising and presenting on the day.

If you’d like to give it a go, this ride will run again during Leicester Comedy Festival / LGBT History Month in February. 

About the reviewer
Tracey Foster started off in a long career as an Art and Design teacher but wanted to refocus her creative energies into writing poetry and prose. After helping others find inspiration in the world around us, she has taken the MA course in Creative Writing at Leicester University and has not looked back. She finds inspiration in the past and the events that shape us. Previous work has been published by Comma Press, Ayaskala, Alternateroute, Fish Barrel Review, Mausoleum Press, Bus Poetry Magazine and The Arts Council.

Review by Beth Gaylard of "Creative Writing Student Showcase" at Literary Leicester Festival, 2022

 

I attended lots of events that ran as part of the recent Literary Leicester Festival, but one of the most memorable for me was the showcase for Creative Writing students. Usually, as students listening to each others’ work, we are in a forum where commentary and critique are required. It’s quite rare to get a chance to listen and absorb peers’ work, without that requirement. For recently enrolled MA, PhD and BA students, working on our research through the pandemic, there hasn’t been the opportunity for any networking offline for ages, so there was a bit of a ‘school’s out’ atmosphere.

Ten writers, poets, storytellers and novelists chose extracts or short works not necessarily connected with their current projects and read them aloud to an audience of peers and their guests. Some were published, some not. The main objective was to choose something you liked that you’d written yourself, and read it aloud to a roomful of near strangers. While some readers confessed to feeling nervous, the event wasn’t billed as a performance, and most if not all of us read off the page. There was a feeling that it was a positive opportunity. Hopefully the listeners enjoyed it as much as the readers; they seemed to, judging by the applause and the buzz of conversation afterwards.

There is a simple pleasure in sharing work with an attentive, mutually supportive audience, and this is enhanced in the experience of hearing your own words aloud. You get that ‘leap off the page,’ that is so empowering when you’ve spent a lot of working time in a quiet place, on your own, perhaps feeling quite unsure that what you’ve done has any potential, let alone any significance.  

So … Please can we do it again!

About the reviewer

Beth Gaylard is a writer and PhD Creative Writing student at Leicester University. Published works include Firebrands, an SF novel and various poems. Her work in progress is a piece of rural dystopia. Her home is in Leicestershire.

You can read more about the Creative Writing Student Showcase 2022 on Creative Writing at Leicester here. 

Review of Sheaf Poetry Festival (4) by Jon Wilkins

What a wonderful way to spend a weekend, indulging in the impressive poets featured in the Sheaf Poetry Festival held on YouTube and accessible to all via Zoom, Twitter @SheafPoetryFest, and on www.facebook.com/SheafPoetryFestival. The performances from all poets will be available on YouTube. Search Sheaf Poetry.

Having earlier attended their Ecopoetry and Found Poetry workshop, I ended my Sheaf Poetry Festival experience by listening to a performance of poetry about climate change with Carrie Etter and Caleb Parkin. I was not disappointed. Using many of the techniques described in their workshops they proceeded to eviscerate climate change deniers with their powerful words and performances. Words can deliver change. The right words that is. Poetry can make a difference in raising awareness of matters of vital importance and we see this here.

Caleb Parkin read from work looking at gendered aspects of ecology. He talked about writing as if in drag. Taking on another persona to get your message across. And what a message.

Caleb thinks that who we have in charge is important in climate change. He read from poems welcoming change. 

Caleb felt that using schlocky pop culture in your writing means you can have fun writing your own works with ecological themes.

Inspired by Dylan Thomas he was able to combine the memory of Thomas and his work for a petrochemical giant. ‘By the Writing shed at Laugharne’:

          unliving water
          Neither fresh nor salty nor brackish
          Water which once had fierce appetites
          Now shredding like cellophane
          Popped like a dot of bubble wrap …

... giving us the sense of pollution of the ocean as we allow it to be damaged beyond repair. Simple writing, full of the horror of pollution and climate damage.

Carrie Etter read from her collection The Weather in Normal about her hometown in Illinois. She divided the book into three arcs about the loss of where she comes from. This started with the death of her parents, then the sale of the family house, and then the effect of climate change in Illinois. Throughout the collection, she shows a widening arc of loss. Not just her family, but the environment she loved and the loss of the ecology she had known. She is angry. She is disappointed. She is not sure if we can overcome the problems, but in her writing, she highlights them and brings the issue to new audiences. 

She performed a ten-minute prose poem from the collection and the images are etched in my mind. She is well worth a read and her readings tonight ended on a hopeful note as she described happy memories of her hometown. Beautifully written:

          … A song in the body
          The body in Illinois.

About the reviewer
Jon Wilkins is sixty-five. He has a gorgeous wife Annie and two beautiful sons, and loves to write. He is a retired teacher, lapsed Waterstones’ bookseller and former Basketball Coach. He taught PE and English for twenty years and coached women’s basketball for over thirty years.  He has always loved books and reading. You can read a review of Jon's recent novel, Poppy Flowers at the Front, here. His website is here. 

Review of Sheaf Poetry Festival (2) by Jon Wilkins

After yesterday’s wonderful introduction to the Sheaf Poetry Festival, I was lucky enough to take part in an "Ecopoetry and Found Poetry" workshop held by Carrie Etter and Caleb Parkin.

As I stated yesterday one thing about the pandemic is that it is opening up new windows onto the world of poetry, in this case through Zoom. The Sheaf Poetry Festival is led by Festival Director Suzannah Evans and her fantastically hardworking team of Angelina D’Roza, Brian Lewis, Katie McLean, Ellen McLeod, Amy Smith, and Elle Turner and held over the weekend of November 20-22, 2020.

Prior to the workshop, we were sent some downloadable documents about the threats of climate change and oil development to Alaska.

I will concentrate on Carrie Etter's workshop. Immediately she engaged with the audience and a conversation was started. She explained to me and 24 other participants what Eco Poetry and Found Poetry was.

Ecopoetry is any poetry with an ecological basis.

She spoke of Found Poetry and gave us a definition to work from by the Academy of American Poets (a great resource in itself). They thought Found Poetry was a refashioning of existing text, the literary equivalent of a collage, which is a beautiful thought.

Bringing these two concepts together, Carrie showed examples from the work of Wendy Mulford, Kathleen Jamie, and Peter Reading - all poets I will now engage with as their work seems to be innovative and extremely readable.

Carrie spoke of the four techniques to be used in Found Poetry: Erasure, Interspersal, Dramatic Monologue and Shape and described how they worked in the context of the poem.

Caleb brought up the question of plagiarism and told us we had to be careful but in most cases, we would be covered by free use. The exception was song lyrics as they could cost a fortune if used, but song titles were in the public domain.

Carrie spoke of changing the music of words which is a beautiful phrase and if you contemplate writing some Found Poetry, it is what you should keep in your head.

So we had the Alaskan documents in front of us and the writing began!

This was a pay what you feel festival and easily accessible to everyone and anyone. To access: follow them all on @SheafPoetryFest and visit www.facebook.com/SheafPoetryFestival where the performances will be available after the weekend has finished.

About the reviewer
Jon Wilkins is sixty-five. He has a gorgeous wife Annie and two beautiful sons, and loves to write. He is a retired teacher, lapsed Waterstones’ bookseller and former Basketball Coach. He taught PE and English for twenty years and coached women’s basketball for over thirty years.  He has always loved books and reading. You can read a review of Jon's recent novel, Poppy Flowers at the Front, here. His website is here. 

Review by Amber Culbert of SoundCafe Leicester

SoundCafe is a Leicester based non-profit organisation founded in 2014. They run weekly workshops on Wednesday afternoons and offer a safe creative space for people suffering in poverty who may be homeless, isolated and vulnerable.

Their main aims are to:

• Create a safe space for people to explore their creativity.
• Provide a sense of belonging.
• Help people to find and have their voices heard.
• To build and sustain good relationships.

I am a second year creative writing student at DMU and as part of a placement for one of my modules, I have been attending arts events around the city over the past few months. One of the most memorable events I attended was SoundCafe on 22nd January.

Upon arriving I naturally gravitated towards the poetry table (there were several different tables set up, each for different activities such as poetry, arts and crafts, music etc.). One thing that struck me immediately was the sense of community and friendship between the visitors, most of whom I had never met before. Every few minutes someone would approach me and introduce themselves and ask me about myself in a way that felt so genuine like they really cared about what I had to say. 

SoundCafe is set up for people who are vulnerable and in need but these people seemed in such high spirits and were so happy to be there, it was really lovely to see. Throughout the duration of the session, guests were invited to come up to the front and perform, whether it was a song on karaoke, a piece of music or a poem; they all had such enthusiasm it was infectious.

Attending the session was quite a moving experience and I was able to see just how much these workshops meant to people. You could feel the hurt and pain in some of the guests and it was clear that art, particularly writing, drawing and singing, can be a much-needed emotional outlet for people who are struggling. SoundCafe is doing some very important work in our community and I want to thank them for making me feel so welcome!


About the reviewer
Amber Culbert is a second year creative writing student at De Montfort University. She enjoys writing poetry and short fiction and has always loved reading, especially work by Stephen King and Kate Tempest. She is passionate about helping others and encouraging other emerging writers to share their work.

Review by Paul Taylor-McCartney of National Poetry Day Event at Five Leaves Bookshop in Nottingham

Time is of the Essence: Three poets launch their latest collections at Five Leaves Bookshop, Nottingham and help celebrate National Poetry Day, 4th October, 2018.

It could be argued all poems reveal an obsession with time. The form itself demands something else of the writer: a sort of shorthand or sketching ability over the usual compulsion to provide readers with a full, intimate study of a particular setting, character or situation. Poems have to be compact, immediately engaging - the voice, everything. It is not that good verse does not require a great deal of time to craft, but even the heavily revised and redrafted can be read aloud in a few minutes, which makes them of the moment: of the present.

Five Leaves Bookshop (Nottingham) is hidden away down a side alley in the city centre, and has recently been named Independent Bookshop of the Year (British Book Awards, 2018). This event was held to celebrate National Poetry Day and mark the launch of three new collections by local writers.  Rebecca Cullen’s Majid Sits in a Tree and Sings (Smith/Doorstop Books) is centred on the power of memory to shape and re-shape subjective experience. Sue Dymoke’s What They Left Behind (Shoestring Press) celebrates the immediacy of the present and the poet’s role in capturing the small and powerful details of life going on around us. Whilst Jonathan Taylor’s Cassandra Complex (Shoestring Press) serves as a meditation on the long-standing power of prophecy in shaping our perceptions of personal and political biography. 

Standout moments from Cullen’s choice of readings this evening included ‘Majid Sits in a Tree and Sings,’ which explores the impotency of a mother unable to shield her child from the horrors of a conflict going on around them, where ‘the guns shine in the sun' and even a blackbird ‘likes the meat hanging on the goalposts’ of a local football stadium. In ‘Swimming in a Lake,’ sensory experience is personified, becoming ‘the shock of cold water, swallowing your thighs’ or the ‘metal taste of ache.’ Many pieces gain additional weight when performed, not least of all ‘When I found my father in my thirties’ where Cullen issues a warning to a man who suddenly appears and expects to assume a critical role in the lives of those he has ignored for decades. ‘You can’t give up your daughter, then collect her children.’ For this poet, errors of the past cannot always be so easily undone and she reminds us that time is not the greatest of healers.   

Dymoke treated her audience to a number of humorous and poignant poems from her collection, including ‘Their Pinnies,’ whereby generations of women from the same family are adorned with this ‘household armour’, the poet using this single motif to remark on the confines of female identity and servitude - an item of clothing ‘Never ever worn by men.’  In the equally-amusing ‘I Know this City’ she brings to life a local Wetherspoon’s pub, of people who ‘like to drink and plan their stages of inebriation,’ warning the ‘wrong kind of Sambuca selfie shot can be a horror.’ Her collection contains some visually challenging poems for readers to enjoy, but one she shared with us that evening, ‘What They Left Behind,’ is presented as a list of objects that were discovered in Hiroshima following the atomic explosion of 1945.  People and objects are organised as a mere inventory: ‘Her uniform / His tricycle / Her daughter’s hair.’ Here, the poet re-visits a defining moment from history and shows how personal artefacts – including poems – are there for future generations to use as a way to collectively remember the horrors of the past. 

Taylor’s poems also gained a great deal in performance. The author provided some context about Cassandra of Greek mythology - a princess of Troy and daughter to Priam and Hecuba - who was blessed with the gift of seeing the future, but cursed in that no-one ever believed her. Taylor uses this conceptual framework to revisit a tapestry of long-forgotten myths, not least to comment on the cyclical nature of civilisations: the rise and fall of human endeavour. He often casts himself as the poet-clairvoyant, with ‘refugees from an Apocalypse yet to happen … flooding through the time-gate in bloodied rags,’ predicting it will be the ‘godless, hairdressers, authors … ’ who will be ‘shoved back / whingeing they can’t win on either side of history’ (Teleology II). Other highlights include ‘Determinism’ in which he ponders how chaos theory may or may not have played a pivotal role in bringing he and his wife together, the highly comical poems ‘Pitch for a Horror Movie’ and ‘Person Specification,’ as well as the emotionally-charged ‘Liar,’ in which a father’s assurances to his son following an accident that ‘everything – head, world, etcetera – would be okay,’ are considered a lie by the adult left alone in the world. Taylor’s collection proves time sets out to make fools of us of all, holding us to account for the words we once said – either in jest or all-seriousness - whilst holding a mirror up to the mistakes yet to be made by our future selves. 


About the reviewer
Paul Taylor-McCartney is currently Head of Secondary Teacher Education at the University of Warwick. He has enjoyed a long and varied teaching career in the discipline of English/Theatre Studies and is following a part-time PhD in Creative Writing with Leicester University. His research interests include dystopian studies, narratology and 20th century literary criticism. His poetry, short fiction and academic articles have appeared in a range of publications including Aesthetica, Birmingham Journal of Language and Literature and Education in Practice (National Association for Writers in Education).

Review by Rosalind Adam of Poetry Reading by Douglas Dunn and Rory Waterman at Literary Leicester

Poetry Reading by Douglas Dunn and Rory Waterman, hosted by Nick Everett, at Literary Leicester Festival, 2017

We descended metal and glass into the heart of Fielding Johnson’s South Wing. This, we knew, was going to be good. In the midst of yet another frenetically successful Literary Leicester week, we were about to be treated to an hour of poetry, an hour of pure pleasure, and we weren’t disappointed.

Rory Waterman is no stranger to Leicester University having studied for his BA and PhD here. His warm, self-deprecating humour had us all smiling along as he regaled the horrors of life in the staff room, the agonies of teenage years and travels through cities remembered, reading from his latest collection, Sarajevo Roses, and his earlier collection, Tonight the Summer’s Over.

Douglas Dunn, we were told, had travelled down on the 5.30 am train from Scotland to introduce us to The Noise of a Fly, his first poetry collection in sixteen years. The book blurb promises a collection ‘brimming with warmth, mischief and humour’ which is absolutely correct. Dunn has not been labelled ‘the most respected Scottish poet of his generation’ for nothing. He treated us to his own style of self-deprecating humour which the first line of his poem 'Thursday' well illustrates: ‘Gave yet another lecture. God, I’m boring.’

His gentle delivery belied some gritty content. 'The Nothing-But' contains lines that speak of emotions few people have ever committed to words: 'To have kissed the lips of one who is dying / Is to have tasted silence, salt and wilderness.’

Of all the funny, fascinating and moving lines we heard that evening, if I had to choose a favourite, it would be Douglas Dunn’s line about a poem trapped in an empty fountain pen, because we all have poems like that … or is it just me? 

About the reviewer
Rosalind Adam is a writer and student on the MA in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester. Her blog is: http://rosalindadam.blogspot.co.uk/

Review by Alexandros Plasatis of an evening with Robert Richardson

I’m bored of lit events, open mics, spoken word, or whatever they call them. I don’t go any more, or at least I try to avoid them. But for two years or so, back when I was doing my PhD in Creative Writing, I used to go – at the time I thought I should make an effort and get involved. The one event I had almost never missed was called Shindig (with an annoying exclamation mark at the end, omitted here), which took – and still takes place – in a pub in Leicester, off Narborough Road. 

I got to meet the poets and the prose writers there. Unless their fingers were trembling during their reading or the voice quivering or something similar that showed internal terror, I grew to mistrust them. How can you stand up there, opening up your soul for everyone to see, without feeling like you’re dying? Most of the poets that I’ve met at Shindig were good people, but I had a few dealings with some of the so-called established poets of Leicestershire and I can confirm that they are little dictators who go about pretending that they love art and fairness – bullshit: they are crackpots, full of injustice, whose only need is to try and dominate you with their arty-farty words. The prose writers were more human, although, naturally, they had their issues, and I’ve only met one real bastard. 

Anyway, enough of them. My poet isn’t like them, he’s a loner, he belongs to the margins, he’s a man who hasn’t given up. He had appeared as a guest writer at one of those depressing Shindig evenings, years ago. And so, when his name was announced, Robert Richardson dragged over a chair to the mic, left his rucksack on it, and took his time sorting out his stuff. He made his intro with a tiny smirk, which remained on his face throughout his reading. I liked him for that smirk, I hadn’t seen it from any other poet. Maybe he had that smirk because he didn’t do what your usual poet did, he didn’t take himself seriously, he could see the funny side of the whole thing, and that’s why his fingers weren’t trembling. 

When he read out his stuff, he had a sharp way of letting the words go, and his pauses between lines were longer than I was used to hear, heavier, calculated but not fake, and that made them powerful. I didn’t have to listen, curiosity led me. Notepads, sheets of papers, magazines came out of his bag as he read one poem after the other, somehow turning the experience, for a change, into pleasure. He seemed to be a man in perpetual motion, he moved a lot during his reading, even his pauses were moving, even when he stood still and silent I could feel a sparkle in the air and the waves of reaction that came from that haunting smirk. At some point he took out a tiny book and read from it:

 

THE ENGLISH PHILOSOPHER

 

It’s easy to think

you’re right–

you just think

you’re right;

 

this could be

either right or wrong,

so I think

I’ll have a cup of tea.

 

And again, from that same little book:

 

THE YEAR 2000

 

I switch on

my 3D

octaphonic

wall-to-wall

television–

 

to watch

Mick Jagger

on ‘The Good Old Days’.

 

As years passed by I became friends with Bob (who thankfully identifies himself mostly as a photographer). My friend can talk, and so he talks in our rare meetings, he talks lively as I sit back listening and smoking, he’s a man with bright and funny stories, he hasn’t got this boring proper-manners thing where one will do the talking for a while, then it should be the turn of the other person, no, not with Bob, he’s authentic. Although I noticed that he’s like that – that is, being himself – only when he feels comfortable with the other person, and I’m glad to be one of them. And as he talks, he lives the stories he tells me, his hands move here and there, he jumps from his seat as he narrates how this and that happened, he throws his head back and pushes his tongue out and laughs, shoulders shaking. One day, I think it was two years ago, he stopped talking for a few seconds, and I grasped the opportunity to mention that Shindig evening and his English Philosopher. He said it came from a book that is out of print, nowhere to be bought, but he might have a spare copy in his loft, then he went back to telling stories. But he didn’t forget about it, and another day he brought me the book:

 

A Set of Darts: Epigrams for the Nineties

by Peter Dale, W. S. Milne and Robert Richardson

 

It was published in 1990, in Grimsby. In the poem-into, Peter Dale gives his definition of the epigram:

 

The epigram’s a blade of light

                         a shaft through storm-cloud, flash

of a secluded pool, this bright

                           flick-knife, the headlights’ clash,

 

the teeth of laughter, a smile’s sleight,

                          lightning, shimmer of dream

across the old familiar night,

                         a knot-hole’s moted beam,

 

the shiny elbow of commonsense,

                             gloss of the ominous rook.

It comes and goes like truth – and hence

                               the darting of this book.

 

Smashed jars refract along a wall;

the gold nib glitters with the scrawl.    

 

Right, I’m getting bored of writing now, so here are three last epigrams, one by each author, and I wish you all a good evening.

 

DYING

 

Dying’s like going to the lavatory;

it’s best to do it on your own.

More so of it’s at all cathetery

or you want to grunt and groan.

[Peter Dale]

 

 

OUT OF COURT

 

The House has banned another word.

Along with ‘guttersnipe’, ‘murderer’,

goes ‘fascist’ now. It’s pretty clear

‘truth’ itself will disappear.

[W. S. Milne]

 

 

A LESSON IN PATRIOTISM

 

Only

Salute

Flags

Which

Wave

Back

[Robert Richardson]

About the reviewer

Alexandros Plasatis is an ethnographer and writes fiction in English, his second language. Some of his stories have been published in Overheard: Stories to Read Aloud, Unthology, Crystal Voices, blÆkk, and Total Cant (forthcoming). He lives in Leicester.

Review by Alexandros Plasatis of the “Traditional Tales” event with Lindsey Warnes Carroll at De Montfort Hall

Saturday 8th October, 10am-11.15am: with storyteller and performer Lindsey Warnes Carroll; an event most suited to children aged from 3 to 8 years old and their grown-ups, £5 entrance.

Around fifteen kids sat on the floor in front of the storyteller. Some of them were doing acrobatics for some reason. The storyteller switched off the music and whispered her name.

“And now, nice and quiet, let’s all say ‘Good morning,’” she said.

“GOOD MORNING!” the kids screamed.

“And now, let’s say ‘Good morning’ to the person next to you.”

I turned to the lady on my right. “Morning.”

Then the storyteller went on to say what she had for breakfast. I hadn’t eaten anything. On my way to De Montfort Hall I had bought a bunch of bananas from Sainsbury’s but I was too shy to eat them in the waiting area. I kept them in my rucksack.

Expect for the acrobatics, the kids were well-behaved. So the storyteller told us a tale called The Magic Porridge Pot. I’m not from around here and had never heard that story before. It was about a poor poor girl and her mummy who were hungry and had no breakfast, like me, and their tummy was making rumbling sounds, like this: brrrlpbrrlpbrobrabrrrlp. At some point, the poor little girl met an old woman somewhere (I didn’t catch where), and this old woman told the little girl that she had something very special in her bag for her… I thought that the old woman must be a nasty one and wanted to take the little girl home and roast her or something, but, no, inside her bag, the old woman had a beautiful pot.

“And what colour was the pot?” the storyteller asked the kids.

“It was grey, yellow and blue,” said a girl who was doing a handstand.

 “And was it heavy or light?”

“Light,” said a boy with his leg around his neck.

“Ah…yes, it was light as a feather,” said the storyteller, and went on with the tale.

It was a pleasant tale. At the end of the story something went wrong with the magic pot and the village had acquired a new river made from porridge. 

“And what did the villagers do?” asked the storyteller.

“They went scuba diving,” said a boy from under a chair.

Yes they did, but then the little girl remembered to say the magic words, “Stop, please!” and everything was sorted.

The second tale was that of The Gingerbread Man, which was more of an action/adventure story involving lots of animals, and that was followed by a half an hour of craft activities. I didn’t participate in the activities. I just sat on my chair, looking around. The kids were busy cutting and pasting, mums and dads were helping out. Some kids were playing with toys that I had never seen before, like a Black & Decker and a till (the latter should be introduced to the Greek kids). And there, amongst all those toys on the floor, I saw the most amazing thing: a single high-heeled shoe, a real-size stiletto, adorned with diamonds. What was that doing there? I start looking at the mums’ feet, hoping to find the barefooted one. I noticed that most of them were wearing tight jeans, but unfortunately all had shoes on.

The time had come for the last tale. Kids and grown-ups began tidying up, the storyteller started Jack and the Beanstalk and the stiletto with the diamonds was thrown into the bag of toys.


About the reviewer
Alexandros Plasatis is an ethnographer and writes fiction in English, his second language. Some of his stories have been published in Overheard: Stories to Read Aloud, Unthology, Crystal Voices, blÆkk, and Total Cant (forthcoming). He lives in Leicester.