books

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Poetry in the Park anthology launched today

Many thanks to all of those who attended our launch today. Extra thanks to Nick from Hare Hill House for making us so welcome and set up to room for us, and I especially admire the upside down Christmas Tree.

With tea and coffee and a table of home made cakes, proving that some of our poets are also excellent bakers, the 40 strong audience settled down to listen to an introduction from Elizabeth White, Chair of Create and Connect who organised the project. Elizabeth spoke about the motivation and aims of our project, the reasons for producing a large print poetry book and thanked our sponsors “Crook Hill Community Benefit Fund”.

Photo of all participating poets and Janet Elmsley with their copies of the book
The poets and Cllr Janet Elmsley with copies of the anthology

Eileen Earnshaw, a superb local poet, and I shared a couple of poems each to give some idea of the range of styles and subjects that we write about and then each of the other poets who took part in the project read some of their work from the newly published book.

The participating poets are; Denise Greenall, Eileen Earnshaw, Elizabeth White, Graham Haynes, Julie Woodrup, Marilyn Allred, Nic Holliday, Ray Stearn, Sandra Buckley, Susan Benton and myself.

Cllr. Janet Emsley, Deputy Leader of Rochdale Council, always a staunch supporter of the arts and her local community in Littleborough, read a poem on behalf of Elizabeth White and also expressed thanks to the sponsors and her hopes that we will continue to see such community based creative projects in the future.

Photo of Janet Emsley, Seamus Kelly and Elizabeth White with copies of “Poetry in the Park”
Cllr Janet Emsley, Seamus Kelly (poet and facilitator), Elizabeth White (Create and Connect)

The book, and the readings, were very well received and copies will be distributed free of charge to people experiencing sight loss, Rotary will include them in Christmas parcels and they will be distributed to care homes etc. and through MeetUp at Hare Hill House.

Next week we will be releasing copies online, freely downloadable, including a version using colours and a specialist font to make it more readable for people with dyslexia.

Elizabeth White said “the launch was really successful, the poets read from their work to a very appreciative audience. Being able to offer a large print poetry book is amazing as there are very few published in this format.”

A photo of some of the audience members listening to the poets
Some of the audience listening to poems at today’s launch

A great event and project, I have been very impressed by all of the writers and thoroughly enjoyed running the workshops and editing the anthology.

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Poetry in The Park Book Launch 2nd Dec 2022


Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been editing submitted poems, selecting poems for publication, designing the layout and creating the cover for our large print anthology. After all that creative and technical work I now enter the easier, but tense, phase of waiting for copies to arrive through the post.

Image of the anthology cover with an image of a tree in Autumn and text against a mid green background.

The book, draft cover shown here, will be launched on Friday 2nd December at 11.00am where some of the twelve contributing poets will read selected poems. There will also be opportunity to meet and speak to the poets.

Refreshments will be provided and copies of Poetry in the Park will be available to take away.

All are welcome to attend at Hare Hill House, in Hare Hill Park, Littleborough.

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OnePoetsVision artwork on sale at Touchstones in Rochdale

My artwork displayed in Touchstones

I was very pleased to be approached, in December, by Touchstones, Rochdale’s Art Gallery and Museum, asking if I’d agree to be a featured artist in the Gallery shop. After a successful Christmas Market I took a portfolio of images along and agreed the range that would be on sale, and the pricing.

As of today, 13th January, some my work is for sale in the gallery shop for the first time. The Touchstones gallery and museum is well worth a visit and is open from Wednesday to Saturday from 10.00am to 5.00pm and on Sundays from 10.00am to 4.00pm and admission of free of change.

There are handmade linocut prints in two sizes, greeting cards, photographic prints, Rochdale postcards and copies of my poetry book, Thinking TooMuch.

Over the next few weeks I will be adding some recently completed greeting card designs and a number of giclee prints.

Wide shot of the Touchstones shop
Three linocut prints on display
10×8 Handmade Linocut Prints on Japanese Agwami paper with archival oil based ink and mounts
Photos and postcards of Rochdale
A selection of professionally printed 10×8 photographic prints and postcards of Rochdale landmarks
Mounted photos of Hollingworth lake and waterfowl
10×8 professionally printed photographs of Hollingworth Lake at sunrise, a duckling and a gull at sunrise
Three small linocut prints
Small 8×6 handmade linocut prints of a vintage Kodak Brownie camera, Whitby Pier and Whitby Abbey