Beeston Poets

Beeston Poets were visited by Neil Astley. Fresh from the Nottingham Open poetry competition adjudication, Neil (who founded Bloodaxe Books in 1978) read from Essential Poems from the Staying Alive Trilogy to an audience of nearly 60 people. The Five Leaves elf's favourite was Edip Cansever's "Table", which is available online, unlike most of the poems in Essential Poems and the trilogy (so go and buy them... or at the very least get hold of Essential Poems, it's a fantastic and accessible introduction to contemporary world poetry).

Neil also spoke about the philosophy behind Bloodaxe, and his own personal mission to bring a wider range of poetry to a UK audience. He suggested that much of the poetry published in the UK is written by white middle-class English men (or white working-class Irish men, or white middle-class Scotsmen... you get the idea). So Bloodaxe has made a point of publishing contemporary poetry from a wide range of men and women of all races and from all parts of the world, and Staying Alive, Being Alive and Being Human are exemplars of that philosophy. "Hoorah for Bloodaxe!" says the Five Leaves elf.

After the break, Neil treated us to a couple of poems from local success story Candlestick Press's pamphlet Ten Poems About Sheep, which he edited for them.

Andy Croft, December 8th

Andy will read from 1948, a comic novel written in Pushkin sonnets, set during the post-War London Olympics and illustrated by Martin Rowson. Starring Russian spies, London gangsters and useless poets, 1948 is part Cold War film noir and part Ealing comedy, and it was recently Nicholas Lezard’s Paperback of the Week in The Guardian. Andy will also read from his other poetry collections.

The Five Leaves elf has pulled out all the stops, and organised a slide show featuring Martin Rowson's cartoons which were drawn especially for 1948. Like Andy's reading, these will entertain and enlighten you, and are virtually guaranteed to make you laugh.

 

Andy Croft is a brilliant and hyperactive writer, who was Poet-in-Residence on the Great North Run, translates Siberian poets, works with prisoners, and has given readings all over the world including in the USA, France and Russia. He has written five novels and forty-two books for teenagers, mostly about football. He has edited several anthologies of poetry; and his own collections include two novels in Pushkin sonnets, Ghost Writer and 1948. He runs Smokestack Books, which publishes unconventional and radical poetry both from English-speaking poets and in translation.

For more information on Beeston Poets and their events please visit http://beestonpoets.wordpress.com/