I was also a bit taken aback by a blog thread resulting from reading at StAnza last Sunday. Not because the blogger doesn't like my poetry - let's face it, my own mother doesn't like my poetry - but because of the manner in which that dislike was expressed. And the subsequent venom unleashed.
In a way it's quite amusing. Years ago Gavin Wallace, Director of Literature at the Scottish Arts Council described me as an 'award-winning radical feminist poet'. A German University student also wrote a paper on some of my work as being representative of Third Wave Feminism. So to be compared with Pam Ayres - and unfavourably at that - is quite a divergence of opinions.
One of the posts, subsequently removed by the blogger due to its vicious nature, also surprised me. Apparently the poor soul had to sit through a reading I did last year and suffered so much he/she (who knows - this one chose anonymity) wanted to poke his/her eyes out with pencils.
Good God, did he/she not think of quietly leaving the room and putting it down to experience?
But I'm curious. I've done very few readings over the past year. Of course I did DiScOMbObUlAte the other night, but that was only ten minutes. And, incidentally a brilliant night. And last year I filled in at the last minute for Tom Leonard at Linda Jackson's Making Waves night in Glasgow. But the students were so lovely. Or maybe it was that fifteen minute spot I did at Robin Cairn's fun Last Monday at Rio gig last July?
Anyway, I'm off for a dose of Day Nurse. And later today I'm going to post some more poems on here.
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