Diary
At Gatwick South Terminal waiting for my Norwegian Airlines plane to Madrid. Last night's reading at the London Review Bookshop must rank as one of the more memorable ones. Tickets were sold out and the bookshop packed with about 80 people. Michael Schmidt spoke about the net of PN Review/Carcanet that welcomes all schools of fish. The first to read, I had a slight sore throat and so paused a couple of times, but carried on like the National Service-trained soldier that I am. The most enjoyable moment for me was to refer briefly to the banning of Lee Tzu Pheng's poem "My Country and My People" from the airwaves because it was deemed insufficiently enthusiastic about nation-building. It was a pleasure to hear the four contributors to New Poetries VI, Rebecca Watts, Joey Connolly-Wright, Vahni Capildeo, and John Clegg. Get the anthology to hear the most exciting poetic voices now in the UK. After the reading, I met Richard Price and enjoyed talking to him. Also spoke ...