Warm in the sense of friendly I mean – although we did also need to open windows. I’m of course talking about last Friday and our latest Telltale Poets & Friends readings at the Lewes Arms. It’s a delightfully intimate pub, no longer with an actual stage upstairs but still a great venue for poetry readings. Plus it’s sort of become our mothership.
Sorry, no pics this time – except the ‘before’ photo of the room, so that I could see how the tables needed to go back before we moved them all – so you just have to imagine how our readers looked, especially Katrina in her beautiful vintage frock.
Telltale’s Siegfried Baber and Sarah Barnsley gave us storming sets with many new poems, and it was a pleasure to welcome Marion Tracy and Katrina Naomi as our guest poets. It’s just occurred to me that they have something in common, in that they have surnames that could be first names – spooky! I’m glad I didn’t think of that before the intros, or I would have certainly said “Please welcome Tracy Marion!” or something equally daft. Katrina, who had journeyed up from Penzance, mesmerised us with her witty and moving poetry. She had to contend with noisy blokes outside AND the sudden dramatic collapse of our roller banner, but she carried on like a true pro. Marion’s reading was excellent as always – surreal and joyously unpredictable poems.
It felt like all our friends and supporters were there, as well as a good number of people we didn’t know but many of whom came up afterwards to say how much they enjoyed it, and that really made for a super evening. Thank you everyone who came, bought books and donated generously the Telltale funds (there’s a new banner to buy after all!)
Our cosy room, before we moved the tables and everyone arrived – !
