Poetry Readings and Setlists

Good reading last night at the Lit and Phil in Newcastle, despite the inclement weather and my sense of direction that turned a dead straight two-minute walk from the train station into a twenty minute circular tour of the city centre. The audience wasn’t huge but they had my admiration for turning up at all in the middle of a sleetstorm, which I’m sure would have kept some people from making it. The building itself is impressive and, although I didn’t have time to do more than glance at what must have been tens of thousands of books in its library, it looked like a splendid archive. There were four Red Squirrel poets (Tom Kelly, Eleanor Livingstone, Kevin Cadwallender and Alistair Robinson), and two of us from Salt (Andrew Philip and myself). Sheila Wakefield, editor at Red Squirrel and organiser of the event, for which grateful thanks, was MC. My set-list was:

1. Sky Blue

2. Everyone Will Go Crazy

3. Plastic Cork

4. Theology

5. Voice Mail

6. A to Z Route Map for the Soul

i) Ahem

ii) Baby

iii) Car-less

7. Nocturnes I and II

8. Fallen Villages of the North

9. How New York You Are

The first three and last two are from The Opposite of Cabbage and the middle section is new-ish.

And here’s my set-list from the Betsey Trotwood in London, from last week:

1. i. m. Norman MacCaig (working title)

2. The Look

3. Moving On

4. Fence

5. Soundings

6. Bladerunner

7. World Class

8. Untitled

9. A Creative Writing Tutor Addresses His Star Pupil

10. While the Moonies are Taking Over Uruguay