Live Poetry and Mrs Mash

I met Andrew Philip for lunch and we went down to the Scottish Poetry Library, which hosts readings every day during the Edinburgh Festival. Anyone who turns up can read, a recipe for variety, you might say. I didn’t like much of what I heard, but the audience didn’t look as if they were enjoying my stuff either – not really surprising. Anyway, I tried out a couple of new poems along with one from The Clown of Natural Sorrow, and was pleased with how they seemed to work read aloud. A quick set list:

1. Accident
2. Happiness
3. Voices

I then wandered down to the Book Festival tents to take a quick look at what was on offer. Last year I went see quite a few events, but this year, little has appealed to me. I looked at the poetry section in the book tent and at the poetry pamphlet shelf, but didn’t buy anything.

I was about to go home when I heard a voice calling my name. I turned round to find a woman, Marie-Louise, who I hadn’t seen for years. She had been at university with me back in the 1980s. The best memory I have of her is at a faculty Christmas Party, where Marie-Louise, myself, and two other friends, Tom and Steve, sang Caravan of Love a-cappella style in four-part harmony. It had been rotten in rehearsal, but somehow it sounded great when we did it for real, and I still have a cassette tape recording of it somewhere.

Marie-Louise was studying Comparative Religion and you might be interested to know what someone with a degree in that goes on to do in life. Well, Marie-Louise has been around the world, is married with several children, and has done various jobs in her time, but she is now known as Mrs Mash. She takes bookings, so sign her up!